Glowing in Everglow

by Darkmoon9

Chapter 17: Invasion

Diary of Cozy Glow

After the destruction of the Heart, the temple began to collapse all around us, we were barely able to escape alive together with our prisoner. Valentine looked upon the crumbled ruins of his legacy with bitterness. Yet he knew he was defeated. The Inevitable helped us escort Valentine to the capital, only parting ways when they personally saw Valentine behind bars, when they knew for certain justice had been served. Its parting words would forever echo in my mind, as it came from an authority higher than mortal.

“While I still see deceit in your heart Cozy Glow, you have dealt a great blow against the forces of chaos today, for that your name will be spoken of favorably among the denizens of Axis. An individual who holds great favor with our leaders speaks of another with your name with disdain. But as far as I’m concerned, you have proven them wrong.”

I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride over having spread my legacy to the plane of Order itself. Yet, another with my name? Did they mean there were other people named Cozy Glow? And who was that individual who held great sway with their leaders?

We reported our findings to the king, Shining Horn seemed quite worried about the implications, it was clear that Swift Blade was intending to attack Taralos from somewhere within Arcys. But as the kingdom of Arcys and King Blueblood were close allies of Taralos, there was little we could do except send word to King Blueblood and wait and see if their investigation was able to locate the exiled prince.

After I threw myself in front of the Protean in order to save Night’s Blessing, our relationship had grown even stronger, she spent the next few nights in my quarters, incredible passionate nights, refusing to go back to her clan and her husband, insisting that her place was by my side. I didn’t know what to say about this, I obviously appreciated her company, yet if our affair was ever discovered it might mean war between the Black Hooves clan and the Red Rock clan. When I raised these concerns with her, Night’s Blessing told me something interesting:

“Don’t worry, I’m sure if we work together, we could convince my husband, Dawn Rising to take you as his second wife. I have never seen a pony as charismatic as you Cozy, your words could convince anyone of anything. I’m sure you could seduce my husband just as easily as you seduced me.”

I remember things a bit differently, as if I remember correctly Night’s Blessing was the one who had seduced me back at the Lettuce Head inn, not the other way around. And I wasn’t sure I had any real interest in Dawn Rising as a person, yet if marrying a pony I didn’t love was the price I needed to pay to be able to be with Night’s Blessing, then so be it. We made plans to visit the Turves clans and clear up this whole situation, one way or another.

But this plan would not come to fruition yet, as just the night after we had our discussion, we awoke to the sounds of bells ringing all over the city, followed by hammering on the door, Night’s Blessing didn’t even get time to hide before the door was opened from the other side. On the other side I saw one of the palace servants, telling me that King shining Horn and Princess Scarlet Lance wanted to see me and the other members of the Defenders of Taralos in the palace War Room immediately. I was sure that the servant must’ve seen Night’s Blessing in my bed, but given the circumstances, it didn’t seem to be their top priority. Even so, if there were witnesses, news was bound to make it back to the Turves clans eventually. We needed to deal with this problem before it came back to bite us, as soon as we dealt with whatever emergency just came up. I had a strong suspicion of what might’ve happened, and I was proven right.

When we finally got to the War Room, we found both King Shining Horn and Princess Scarlet Lance pouring over maps and scouting reports. Sunset, Twilight and Silverwing appeared soon afterwards. The Princess gestured towards us to join them in conversation and then explained what was going on:

“It’s an invasion, several of the Arcys barons has gathered their forces along our borders together with an army of strange ponies that are more machine than flesh. We are talking an army consisting of over two and a half thousand earthponies and over a thousand of the strange machines, more than a match for the forces of Taralos.”

Scarlet Lance gestured towards her agent, Duskflank to give her further reports from Arcys. Duskflank reported that there had been no orders coming from the capital, so he suspects that some of the Barons are acting of their own accord. He explained to me that though Arcys is a kingdom, the king has very little real power, its territories being completely dependent on the barons who have complete control over their baronies, who even often go to war with each other. His reports seemed to suggest that the invading army wore the iconography of three different baronies. As for the strange clockwork creatures, no one knew where they came from.

I suggested asking the Turves clans for help, but Night’s Blessing interrupted me:

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, the clans respect strength, and if Taralos is weakened, some of the clans will take the opportunity to attack, especially the Bloodied Ear clan, we cannot risk being at war on two fronts. But I promise, I will remain here and defend Taralos for as long as this war lasts, such is my duty as an honorary knight.”

Eventually it was decided that King Blueblood must get his barons under control, as from what he knew he wouldn’t want this war any more than we do. An ambassador would be sent to the king for negotiation, someone who had previously proven they had the ability to unite disparate factions under one banner during the Gem Gnoll war, that is to say…me. We were to unite with an agent of Princess Scarlet Lance in the Arcys capital. And then gain an audience with the King in order to try to gain allies to oppose the invading army. There was only one problem, in order to reach the capital of Arcys, we needed to get past the gathering army at the border.

Diary of Twilight Sparkle

During the fight with the protean, I saw something and never thought I would see, in fact even now I wasn’t sure if it had been a dream. For I had fallen asleep soon afterwards due to a sleep spell cast by Valentine. Cozy Glow putting herself in harm’s way to protect another, that was not something the Cozy I used to know was capable of, she must be really attached to Night’s Blessing to even consider doing something like this. But the fact that the two of them had been close for a while now was obvious, especially since their mission together to the village of Green Square. I remembered what Sunset had said, maybe I was wrong about her, maybe Cozy had the potential to change after all. Yet there was something about Cozy and Night’s Blessing that made me suspect they were more than friends. So, I used a scrying spell to observe Night’s Blessing’s movements, turns out I was right, she spent quite a bit of her nights at Cozy’s personal quarters and they seemed to be getting intimate. My face turned red when I realized what they were doing. A part of me felt bad spying on them like this, another part of me felt happy that Cozy was able to find love, yet there was also a part of me but wondered about the implications of this affair on the alliance between the Black Hooves and Red Rocks clans. If I wanted to, I could bring this to the attention of Night’s Blessing’s husband, he did deserve to know, but if a part of me suspect in the if Cozy were to lose Night’s Blessing, that could potentially cause Cozy to regress into villainy, perhaps it was better that I kept my mouth shut.

After that night, I stopped spying on them, they deserved their privacy, and this kind of thing was not for my eyes to see. Honestly, I shouldn’t have been spying on them in the first place, I guess part of me still didn’t fully trust Cozy.

And I had other things to worry about. I remember something said by the Inevitable to Cozy, about someone who had connections among the leaders of Axis that hated some other version of Cozy, I had a strong suspicion of who that might be. If Midnight had allies among the planes of order, she must be powerful indeed. I needed to get back to Equestria as soon as possible, yet my research still hadn’t shown any results, I had yet to conceive any spell that have the power to penetrate the barriers between worlds, this task was made even harder when I was being constantly distracted by threats to Taralos. Yet I couldn’t in good conscience leave this world to its fate either, if I could help, it was my duty to do so.

When the war between Taralos and Arcys truly broke out, when Cozy Glow was chosen as the Taralos ambassador, I volunteered to go with her on this mission, together with the other Defenders of Taralos. We would initially go south towards the Forest of Dreams and then to the west towards the border of Arcys, careful not to step into the forest. In this unpopulated area we encountered very few ponies during our journey along narrow trails and scrubby trees. After several days we were approaching the borders of Arcys and yet we have seen no sign of the invading army, which according to the Scout reports were farther north. Cozy had suggested going this far south so we could slip by them undetected.

But we would eventually run into a patrol, I noticed this as I heard hooves approaching, we decided to hide in the bushes to ambush this patrol. Turns out to be a pair of these strange clockwork ponies. Cozy was determined to capture them alive for questioning, and I agreed with her reasoning. There was still a lot we didn’t know about these strange clockwork creatures. I had encountered them before together with Sunset when we were trying to help the Tribe of Bones, the strange leader of the Desecrators had been one of them, and they were powerful indeed.

Night’s Blessing jumped out of the bushes and knocked out one of the clockwork ponies with these, the other started to run, but I teleported after it and fired a stun bolt at it, knocking it out as well. We now had two of these strange clockwork ponies as prisoners. They were reluctant to talk at first, but Cozy had a way with words, and they would soon tell us an incredible story. They told us they used to be ordinary ponies living in a great city ruled by powerful magicians, until one day a calamity struck, destroying their home and transforming them into machines. The reason for this curse no one knew, perhaps it was a magical accident brought on by their mage leaders doing some kind of experiment, perhaps their leaders had challenged the gods themselves and the city had been cursed as punishment for their hubris. Whatever the case the calamity had destroyed most of the city and rendered the area uninhabitable, the survivors banding together under the leadership of Prince Swift Blade, who had also been struck with the machine curse, who claimed he had a valid claim to the throne of Taralos, promising them a land where they could live in peace. Swift Blade had made a deal with a couple of barons in Arcys to divide Taralos between themselves and the clockwork ponies.

I couldn’t help but to have some sympathy for their plight, yet I was sure that the exiled prince was using them to gain the throne for himself. Either that or maybe Prince Swift Blade had a good reason to do what he was doing. Whatever the case, Cozy told us that we were sworn to support King Shining Horn and whatever reason Swift Blade might have, she considered the king a friend and her support would always lie with him. I agreed with Cozy, whatever reason the exiled prince might’ve had for his attack, we had to assume the worst and defend those we had already protected for so many years. Sunset on the other hoof did mention she had to talk with Prince Swift Blade, for she thought she could maybe come up with a compromise that would satisfy all parties.

While we were busy discussing the clockwork ponies and the exiled prince, I suddenly heard a voice in my head, I recognized that voice, Fazban, the zebra we met many years ago. He was obviously using some kind of sending spell.

“Clockworks and cultists of chaos are digging for a Foundation Stone; it is vital that you protect the stone. I will explain why later, move it, then bury it again. Go northwest, to Greystone Hill, hurry.”

I decided to trust Fazban, he had been a help to us in the past. I explained to the others what was going on. Cozy seemed suspicious, telling us we didn’t know what the deal with the Foundation Stones were and they have nothing to do with our mission. Sunset told her that it sounded important and that he couldn’t afford to ignore it. Night’s Blessing, however, had heard of the Foundation Stones before, a legend among her people that told of the origin of Taralos.

“It is said that the original king of Taralos had made a pact with an unknown being of great power in order to become a monarch and was in return given five Foundation Stones, one Emerald, one Ruby, one Opal, one Amber and one Diamond. Four were buried among the borders and one underneath what was to become the capital of Vil, causing an entire city to spring into existence overnight. The magic of the stones were said to protect the kingdom and subtly encourage loyalty towards the royal family of everyone within the kingdom. It is said that as long as the Foundation Stones stands, so will Taralos, but if they are ever destroyed the kingdom will collapse. Of course, I always just thought it a legend with no bearing on the truth until now. But this Fazban seem to know otherwise.“

That was enough to convince Cozy to make a detour to protect the Foundation Stone. But a thought entered my mind, if the stones had the power to encourage loyalty towards the monarch, was Cozy’s newfound loyalty to King Shining Horn perhaps influenced by magical compulsion from the stones? Granted, that still wouldn’t explain her attachment to Night’s Blessing.

Following Fazban’s instructions we eventually came to a pit dug into the side of a hill, looking into the pit we saw more clockwork ponies and chaos cultists along with a huge gem troll wearing thick manacles and chains to a post, a large block of solid Jade had been exposed and the clockwork were forcing the troll to try to dig into it with its claws, the troll snarled at the clockwork ponies standing over it, but the shock of lightning quickly drove it back to its task. In order to save the Foundation Stone, we needed to act quickly. I focused my magic into a blast targeting the manacles binding the troll, the troll quickly turned upon its captors, slaughtering the clockwork pony that had been giving it electric shocks before escaping into the wilderness. The chaos cultists and the remaining clockwork ponies were quickly destroyed by Night’s Blessing’s obsidian blade, Silverwings greatsword, and a combination of mine and Sunset’s magic.

Yet it seemed like we were a bit late, for when we went to inspect the Foundation Stone, we found it to be a solid block of jade 2 feet long and 1 foot wide and about half a foot high. It glowed with a soothing green light, but the light wasn’t even and flickered slightly while the surface was marred by deep scratches and a long crack where the troll’s claws had started to do their work. We reburied the stone a bit further to the south, where hopefully our enemies wouldn’t find it again. But I was wondering if the damage it already sustained was enough for it to destabilize Taralos, assuming Night’s Blessing story was true.