Akasha/Journal - Wiki of Yore

Akasha's Journal, do not refer to without looking at actual notebook in-game at least once per session

123

(((ooc note: Have present necklace for Elly, need to make alchemical bath bombs of everwood and of strawberry)))

122

Gene is pretty nice. Real driven to make his cousin goddess-queen of the world, though, though taboo magics. At least Emerald got him more focused on the elements as the way to save the world, and working with us to make sure they succeed. Though he REALLY wants Emerald to be in his three-lord band.
The next morning we met up with Elly and Sparky. Hopefully we can get Elly to give appealing to Gene one more try.

121

Some secret police spooks showed up at the bookstore. I tailed them and they jumped me. Luckily Qotho appeared out of thin air (was he following me?) and helped take them down, even if he did get all tied up and knocked out cold by the end. But it's the thought that counts!
We tried to interrogate them and, gosh, was that ever a bad idea. They couldn't even say WHY they attacked me, and one guard burned up as a result of my trying to force it. I've gotten rid of the truth smoke stuff, now. It's just not worth it.
We talked to Numinous Spirit and arranged for the other guard to be assigned somewhere far away... fort junechase, to be specific. Then we said a last goodbye to Opal Shine as she flew off.
Last we met with Numinous again and talked to Baleful Gaze with her to have Baleful leave us alone. She was a real jerk, too. Then we crashed in Numinous' room while watching Elly's arrival at the city, followed by Baleful having to fly out to geas their entire group.
Why does she need to geas Elly's entire delegation now? I don't know, she didn't geas us, but I'm not really going to question it at this point...

120

RISEN BONES IS DEAD
And I mean actually dead. Gone. Not existing on this plane of existence. Biting the dust of the bucket he's kicked.
Specs told us after we told her we knew she's Elly's mom. She had us promise not to tell Elly... or anyone, really. At least, not to unless we found a way to figure it out ourselves, so as not to implicate her. But particularly to keep it from Risen Bones' organization, who all think they are still under Risen's control. 'Cause, you know, that'd be bad.
We gave her the portraits of her daughter Qotho and I had, and I gave her the boring shiny book Qotho stole that had White Eyes' testimony in it about his alicorn daughter.
We also learned Elly will be showing up tomorrow.
...and I'm pretty sure that's it. Probably gonna just hang at the book shop now, maybe get some new clothes for the summit, and sleep until more important people show up to talk to.

119

Set out to meet with Numinous Spirit, Genius Loci, and then Baleful Gaze in turn. The first and last were at the tower, but the middle won't be in until tomorrow. Talked with Numinous, got good info, filled out more of the table below. We told the shy city planner basically everything, including that we are element bearers. It's nice to have Honesty on my head again. Then everyone joined her delegation (so we can get into the summit). Baleful, apparently, is who geases everyone for the summit.
Before we left, we got authorization for "Opal Shine" to skip town down to New Canterlot on a glider. Hope she enjoys her new life there.

(((OOC, Flint Spark is arriving tomorrow, but Akasha doesn't know that yet)))

(((Currently we have left the tower of the three mages, will be stopping by the hotel to give Opal her get-out-of-Nevershyd-free pass, and then heading to see the gate guards and ask them what wizards are present in the city)))

118

Met "Wired Spectacles", marefriend of Gray Union, who runs a bookstore. Looks to be "Specs", IE Elly's mom. Might need to talk to her about that. Also read that diary of White Eyes' again. Gonna go talk to Genius Loci now. Try and get Numinous Spirit in the same room and convince him he will not suffer consequences for his studies as well as find a way to convince him to stop said studies.
Need to fill in my plans for each warlord below...

117

Got some fresh reagents, Qotho got a new cloak, got more info on the warlords from a bartender, then traveled to Nevershyre to meet with Mewcloven, a goat that worked with Scion, at his inn. Need to talk to him about his old boss.
Met with a bandit on the way. Carnation C-something, now Opal Shine. Directed her to head for New Canterlot. If we succeed in saving her and her family from this life in the north, it'll be a good start

(Stuffed in the journal is the following poster): "WANTED. "RUBY RUSE" Baleful Gaze offers a bounty of 1000 liters of virgin pudding, or the value of the same of gold, for the person or corpse of the aforesaid unicorn illusionist, and half as much again for her distinctive multi-armed monkey familiar."

116

We talked with Nova (after talking to Glassy Fracture, her secretary... I think)! I added to my notes below about each warlord. We're going to go meet Nova and Flint Spark in Nevershyed. Flint will stay with us and Nova will hand dossiers about each warlord over. In the meantime, we convinced her to put off the execution to the end of the summit.
Then we kinda badgered Nova for a while about how she was too willing to resort to trickery and murder. I feel like we got through to her in the end that it's important to always try to do better, to expect to do better. Never to resign yourself to evil.
Gabrio also got Elly to give us a passcode for when we meet so that we know it's each other. Then she got called away for something that deeply disturbed her but that she was confident we couldn't help with. Sigh... she has a long way to go before become the bearer of magic.
Elly's passcode: "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit, shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it."
I think it means, uh... fingers... that move... write stuff, then don't erase it, even when they cry. What?

115

We were on the glider and in the air, headed for Free Town, before I even knew Emerald had changed our flight plan to there instead of Nevershyed. It was a good decision, but she didn't really ask anyone, so... yeah. It was a nice flight, though. The pilot had his kid fly the glider partway. Otherwise we went between exposition and sleeping. Which is often one and the same.
Things picked up a lot more when we finally landed. We were immediately greeted and taken for bad guys. The guards took our titles (Dr. Dame Akasha the Sexy and Marvelous, and there could hardly be a better or more appropriate title to be found) and lead us to Sootstreaks, who almost immediately revealed himself to be Nova's "inside warlord" via blatantly and obviously lying that he didn't know her. Still, he gave us some great food (which tested non-poisonous) and accommodations. Talking with him gave me a bit of a greater understanding of the people we're up against, though there's obviously still blanks:

Nevershyed

Warlord	Nickname	Faction	Type	Specialty	Location	Feature	Nova's Opinion	Akasha's Plan of Attack!
Risen Bones	Mr. Boddy	Risen Bones	Lich Unicorn	Compulsion Being a puppet	Teardrop Island	Is actually dead. Dead dead.	Doesn't actually exist.	N/A
Geldbit	Nobits	independent	male	alchemist	baron of Saltpillars	There's a second "baron of Saltpillars" living in Nevershyed. Each thinks the other a pretender.	"had some hope for him but he's intransigent.	Figure out why he is intransigent. By all accounts this seems to be one of the best of the warlords. Might know of my parents. There are very few major alchemy labs in the world, and they or their past apprentices have started nearly all of them.
Malign Gaze Jr.	Junior	independent	female unicorn	skrying, rape/perversion	overlord of Witch Point	has a rape dungeon, siblings with Baleful Gaze, one-eyed, OGLED MY STALLION'S BUTT!	-	I'm drawing a blank.
Saltwithers	Salty	independent	male earthpony	"Conjure rapid and abnormal growth of plants, perform superequine feats of strength and demolition... that sort of thing."	-	Used to be Scarflank's seneshal (majordomo) before rebelling. "he's a self-taught wizard with little academic study, poor social skills, great confidence in his questionable intuitions over reason ... and that he is loathe to ever admit a mistake."	"Equally as suspicious and uncooperative, but he's one of the better ones and I must say I'm disappointed," although it is still true that "he is a harsh ruler and his word is law, as with the others."	Just... win him over. Suspicious of what, exactly? It might be of something reasonable, like that the new government might not stand up to the remaining warlords. Might help with Scarflanks, too. Maybe we can even mend the rift between them.
Scarflanks the Callow	"The Bandit Queen"	independent	female pegasus	pegasus magic	-	featherless, scarred by Scion, Geldbit hates her as she thieves from him.	"Too suspicious and hardened."	Scion sounds like a lost cause, so maybe helping her get revenge on him would be enough. Healing her scars could help, though. The super potion is very potent.
Scion the Fleshgrafter	Godkin	independent	male abomination of an alicorn	the first name in biomagic, creates chimeras and aberrations made from animals and people	-	one of the oldest warlords (as in has gone the longest without getting murdered), mortal enemy of Risen Bones, a goat in Nevershyed named Mewcloven used to work for him. Seriously, he hates Risen Bones SO MUCH, after a lot of weird experiments on his own body he's riddled with flaws, like weak hooves and non-working wings	"A hopeless case."	Just avoid him catching on we have ties to Risen. I'm not sure he could ever agree to this democracy if he ever learns Risen's a part of it. He can be very reasonable, but his disregard for the lives of others and devotion to his horrific craft (let alone delusions of being a god) make the only solution to depose him.
Numinous Spirit	Nummy	Lords of Nevershyed, Risen Bones	female pegasus	pegasus magic, but not on the level of most other warlords	-	related to Genius Loci, a shut-in	Turned	-
Baleful Gaze	Birdful Glaze	Lords of Nevershyed	female unicorn	Curses (confirmed by Numinous) and geases. Is who geases everyone for the summit.	-	siblings with Malign Gaze Jr., abducts and tortures ponies, is reigned in by the other two lords, cares about dissent in Nevershyed, sounds dictator-y. Is a big jerk with a really, really stupid-looking crown that "protects her horn", seemingly by keeping birds from landing on her head.	"Baleful Gaze is a chip off the old block, I'm afraid. A frank sociopath. The other two restrain her, but only just."	Approach after Numinous Spirit and Genius Loci are both allied with us, and approach with the Ruby Ruse bounty. Try to figure out if we've earned enough goodwill to provide a path to democracy. Possibly by helping her with her sister. If nothing works, restrain her. Also, figure out what she has on the other two lords (a curse?) and remove that leverage. No leverage, she's just the muscle, preventing the other wizard-lords from taking over by being crazy scary and scary crazy.
Genius Loci	Gene	Lords of Nevershyed	unicorn	Studied teleportation magic, now studies future fate-creation skrying called "retrodivination"	-	Nevershyed alumnus of Crooked Tower (with Emerald Hues), relative of Numerous Spirit, refuses to join Risen Bone alliance over fear of execution or imprisonment for study of retrodivination	Devotion to retrodivination study makes this a lost cause TURNED!	Approach with his cousin, Numinous Spirit, and promise he will not be persecuted. Then determine if there's anything else he needs to agree to a democracy.
Sootstreaks	Soots	Risen Bones	male unicorn zony	Free Town	-	elective dictator of Freetown	Turned, "but it's debatable if you consider him a wizard-lord."	-

In any case, after we got back to our rooms, plans were laid out.

Nova's plan: We distract and diffuse the armies while Nova kills the warlords and solidifies Sootstreaks' rule over them under her and Risen Bones.
Farrisia's plan: We kill Malign Gaze Jr., work out an alliance with the lords of Nevershyed, and resolve all other conflicts through diplomacy.
Gabrio's plan: We tell the warlords about Nova's plan and leave to them to sort everything out.

...I am not in favor of any of these plans. Luckily, we don't have to decide yet. Emerald's going to skry Nova later and we'll talk to her. I hope to get more info on these warlords, why they "deserve" to die, and what she expects of us (like, when do we need to be where). If possible, I'd really like to convince her to take some alternate route than all this backstabbing and murder... but I really need to better understand WHY she's doing this, first, to really argue with her about it. So hopefully we can figure this all out soon.

So, in summary, I need to ask:

Where do we need to be when while you do what, exactly, where?
Why do we have to kill them all? Can none of them be spared? What are their crimes?
When you said you needed us to prevent the armies from turning on each other after you kill all the leaders... just how long will we have to be doing that? How long are we really committing to this? How will you be stabilizing and consolidating power up here?
And, last but not least, where is Flint Spark and can he join with us? It'd help a lot given we still sport an incomplete set of elements.

Oh, and one last thing: DON'T BOW TO ANY WIZARD! Sootstreak made it pretty clear that was a big no-no.