Since they hadn’t been on the march all day, hustling for four hours to get to Crossroads before midnight was well within the party’s capabilities. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy ended up pulling the empty (but still lead-lined) cart, since both of them were as tireless as Rarity, for different reasons.
The gates were closed and locked, and the walls heavily guarded by orcish guards, but the adventurers were let inside immediately, since the people of the town recognized them. The guards on the walls suggested that they go talk with the priests as soon as possible.
The temple was, of course, visible from anywhere in town, so it was a short trot down the main street to get to the temple’s front door, which opened as they approached. One of the high priests was there, and ushered them inside.
Most of them passed through the doorway without incident, but Surprise stopped on the threshold, jumping back after lifting a hoof to cross, her eyes wide and the hoof still held off the ground, as if it had been injured. “I’ll just wait out here,” she said.
“No, my dear, come inside. I insist,” the priest said, grinning maliciously.
“What’s wrong?” Pinkie Pie asked.
“It burned!” Surprise whimpered.
“Oh!” She turned to the priest. “I think you need to let her wait until tomorrow morning. She’s infected and I haven’t tried remove disease.”
The priest smiled. “That isn’t necessary. If she steps over the threshold, she will be purged.”
Surprise shook her head, and turned to run. “You’ll never take me alive!“
“HOLD,” said the priest, and she froze in place, dropping to the ground like a statue. He walked over to her, picked her up and cradled her in his arms, then walked her into the temple.
The party stared at him, confused, but none of them saw fit to intervene.
Surprise screamed, as her skin roiled and bubbled, and a putrid steam started to flow from her flesh – but she was still paralyzed, and soon the party realized that it wasn’t a scream so much as the sound of hot gas escaping from her body, like a teakettle boiling over.
Fluttershy flew over and poured healing magic into the tortured pegasus, but it was hard to say if it had any effect. At any rate, the painful process soon ran its course, and Surpise lay still, still paralyzed that is, but conscious and breathing peacefully.
“Fascinating,” said the priest. “I’ve never seen anypony survive such a dramatic reaction.”
Twilight stared at him. “What was that? Forbiddance?”
The priest smiled ruefully. “Protection from Evil. Since the rise in undead, we had this place Hallowed. Yesterday, a group of pilgrims from a cult of ‘Harmony’ attempted to proselytize in town, and we invited them into the temple to register their religion properly. This is a temple of all gods, after all.” He frowned. “The first to cross the threshold screamed and boiled like this one, but did not survive. The others understandably refused to come inside. The townsfolk insisted. One of the others screamed and died as well, but the rest were simply confused, and complained that their link to ‘Harmony’ had been broken. We have them in the dungeon.
“It was odd. Usually, when a charmed person is freed from their compulsion, they don’t seek to escape back to where they can once again be controlled, but these ones did. And we have never seen such a simple, harmless spell kill.”
“But she’s free now, right? Right?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Surprise… do you remember anything now?”
Surprise shook her head. “Nothing! I don’t feel any different.”
“Stop lying to us,” Fluttershy said. “We’re not going to hurt you, you know that.”
“Nnng,” Surprise said. “I don’t know anything! Stop acting like you can read my mind!”
“I’m not reading your mind,” Fluttershy said. “I’m reading your facial expressions, and your other mannerisms. You’re still charmed, and you’re still lying to us.”
Pinkie Pie threw a bomb at Surprise’s face, and she sputtered and squirmed out from under Fluttershy. “What was that?” she asked, spreading her wings and looking at Pinkie incredulously.
“Nothing harmful,” Pinkie Pie said. “Here, let me try again!”
Surprise tried to dodge out of the way, but still got showered in the thin liquid from Pinkie’s bomb. “Stop! You can stop! It worked!” she said, taking a defensive posture.
“So you’ll tell the truth now?” Fluttershy asked.
“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Surprise said. “Squirrel told me to pretend I didn’t remember anything, but she can go jump in a volcano for all I care.” She paused. “For all I care now that you broke her charm. I hope you actually broke Harmony’s hold over me, though, or things are going to get messy when I leave this place.”
“I hope so too,” Pinkie Pie said. “But tell us everything! What happened to my mom?”
“Perhaps we should take this discussion to someplace more appropriate,” the high priest suggested. “Some secrets do not need to be shouted in the doorway for the entire town to hear.”
The high priest led them all to a comfortable meeting room, and had acolytes bring refreshments while Surprise told her tale.
The night after she and Wildfire had bought their new armor – which didn’t count as being made out of metal, since the ‘blue metal’ was actually a type of ceramic, and could therefore be worn by druids – the two of them had been thoroughly taken by Harmony. The influence was subtle – they knew what they needed to do, but it felt like they were deciding to do it of their own free will. In this case, they knew that Igneous Pie and his wife Cloudy were causing trouble for Harmony and refusing to join, so since they were old friends they went to approach her and lead her into a trap.
The trap went badly, and she was killed. The two of them wanted to raise her from the dead – Wildfire could have cast a Reincarnation spell himself, if needed – but Harmony had another use for her, and she was sent off to ‘serve the cult’ in some unknown fashion. They knew she was shipped off to the Industrial District, but that was all.
They’d been preparing for a mission to take care of Igneous, when they got word that the demons from the Entertainment District had him under control.
“No one trusts the demons, but if the districts start fighting each other it’ll be chaos, and we’re not strong enough. I mean, they’re not strong enough. I’m not one of them anymore.” She paused. “I hope I’m not, anyway.”
“Demons?” Rarity asked. “Succubi?”
“Probably,” Surprise said. “Squirrel had me mess around with her for a bit after she charmed me.”
“What else did she tell you to do?” Twilight asked.
“She told me to act as if I’d been freed from Harmony’s control,” Surprise said. “But not to give away any secrets – I was supposed to pretend I had amnesia. She also told me to go along with whatever you lot wanted, even if you were trying to free me from Harmony. She told me to come back in ten days to get the charm spell refreshed. And she told me to fight on her side if you guys tried to attack her.”
“Do you know anything else about the cult?” Twilight asked.
“Just little bits and pieces,” Surprise said. “I’ll tell you if anything comes to mind.”
“It’s clear that this cult is an expansionist threat,” the high priest said. “I’d like to say that the full backing of our temple is behind you in opposing it, but unfortunately we have a far more pressing problem. The undead in the north have gathered into a massive army of wights and shadows, far too many for our necromancer ally to control. Every night, their leucrotta scouts attempt to lure guards from the wall and add them to their numbers. It’s only a matter of time until they assault the town.”
“That’s great and all,” Applejack said, “but I think it’s long past time that we did a number on ol’ bucket-head here.” She set a paw on the metal bucket they’d trapped the district leader in. “I know Rarity had her heart or something set on visiting Kazakh Thul, but it seems to me that a church like this would be able to do a circle against evil to trap a critter from another plane.”
“After the undead are dealt with –“ the priest began.
“We’re not going to be dealing with anything until we’ve rested for the night,” Twilight interrupted. “We might as well interrogate this creature now.”
The priest paused. “If all you need is a magic circle,” he said. “I suppose I could show you to the summoning chamber.”
The summoning chamber was located in a poorly-lit sub-basement two levels below the temple’s main floor, but was well maintained and spotlessly clean. Green and blue torches lit as they entered, casting the room in a shadowy pall. The summoning circle in the center was twenty feet across, large enough to contain almost any angel or devil that one might want to deal with.
The priest showed them inside, cast the spell to activate the circle, and then hurried out of the room. “When you need to leave, calmly knock on the door and ask to be let out in an even, unhurried tone,” he told them. “If you need to be let out urgently, then I’m afraid you’re on your own.”
With that, the door closed behind them, sealing shut as if it had never existed.
“This isn’t ideal,” Twilight said, looking at the circle. “I wanted to put the circle in a pit for a reason. If it doesn’t hold him, he’ll have free run of the room.”
“So what?” Rainbow Dash said. “We beat him up before, no problem. He’s not any sort of warrior, just a civil servant. Like, a nerd-ooze.”
“True. But everyone be ready – even a nerd ooze could cause some damage, and none of us are fighting at our best.” With that, she held the bucket over the edge of the circle in her magic and unfastened the lid, then tossed it into the center.
The bucket landed with a clang, and rolled around, spilling out a gout of blue mud, that pooled on the floor with no sign of life.
“So… next time, air holes?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“He might be faking,” Rarity said. “Or the Hallow above might have killed him, like it almost killed Surprise.”
“The bucket was thick enough to shield him from common magic,” Twilight said. “Pinkie, try tossing some alchemist’s fire at him, and see if that wakes him up.”
Pinkie ducked her nose into her bandolier, but before she could throw, the mud gathered into a pony-like form, with an oozing head and tail, but no legs on its vague blob of a body. “Wait,” it said, in a quiet, burbling voice. “Whatever you hope to get from me, you will not get it by killing me.”
“Maybe I just want you dead, for killing my mommy,” Pinkie Pie said, around the neck of the fire vial clenched in her teeth.
“We want information,” Twilight said. “Everything you know on the cult of Harmony.”
The elemental laughed. “That would take a very long time, and I doubt it would serve my cause. How about this – there is information I am willing to give to you, freely, and afterwards you will allow me to return to my post before the other Leaders divide up my territory like a meat pie.”
“No,” Twilight said. “We will ask questions, and you will respond.”
“Feel free to stop me from talking,” the creature said. “But this is the only information you’ll get from me. I would prefer to continue my work, but death means only that I return to Lord Smooze. That is the primary benefit of Harmony – we still have a link to the plane where our god resides. Undeath will not take us.”
“There are worse fates,” Rarity scoffed.
“No, there are not,” the creature replied. “Undeath is a slow oblivion, the destruction of the soul. It may take centuries, but in the end you will be nothing. Even those damned to the Abyss have a brighter future.”
Rarity sighed. “Can we kill him yet, Twilight? All he’s trying to accomplish is to unsettle us.”
“That’s two votes,” Twilight said. “Maybe you should start saying something useful. Some of us aren’t known for our patience.”
“Then I’ll make my plea quickly. I am a good man. I am the only good man among those who fought their way to a leadership position. Everyone else has their own agenda, but only I care for the well-being of the ponies who join us. To the others they are expendable tools, where they should be brothers and sisters. In the end, all will be one in Lord Smooze, but under my leadership those who still live in this world will be happy. Free me, or Harmony will only get worse, from your point of view.”
“Yer a no-good twist-talkin’ rattlesnake,” Applejack said. “No good pony would keep a hit list and check off the people he’d ruined or killed one by one like he was out collectin’ groceries.”
“You had Wildfire kill two dozen innocents just to flush me out of hiding,” Twilight said.
“You killed my mommy,” Pinkie Pie added.
“You’re a smug little piece of filth and you annoy me,” Rainbow Dash said. “Can we just kill him already?”
“Wait,” Twilight said, holding up a hoof to wave the others back, as she kept her gaze on the elemental. “You say that the other leaders are worse. Tell us who they are, and how to destroy them. Start with whoever you hate the most.”
The elemental laughed. “You expect me to fall for that? I won’t be tricked into betraying Harmony that easily.”
Fluttershy fluttered forwards to the edge of the circle. “You’re not really betraying Harmony. You’re letting us help you make it stronger, by eliminating the weak-minded traitors who just want to use it for their own agenda. Please, let us help you!”
“Join me. Join Harmony. All of you join me in Harmony, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
“No deal,” Twilight said. “Pinkie?”
With hardly a sound, the creature slid from the center of the circle and threw itself at Twilight, knocking her back and attempting to engulf her – but she broke free and brought her hammer to bear, splattering the creature into little blue gobbets of mud.
They weren’t moving, but Pinkie Pie set them on fire, just in case.