Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Dear reader! Whether you are new here, archive-reading and whatnot, or you are already someone who has been with us for quite a while, I would like to say a few words that I believe are best kept close to mind.

-This is an MLP quest. And more importantly, none of us are gratuitously cruel. So good things will happen on this quest, and I hope that enough good things have already happened to prove that.
-This is also a horror quest, so bad things will happen. Bad things might happen to good characters if you are not able to protect them, and you most certainly will not be able to intervene if you lack the tools to do so.
-And finally, this is a quest in which you jostle with powers greater than yourself, with all that it entails.

Please, do keep those things in mind as you go forward. But ultimately, this is also a quest in which it is hoped we all have fun! So if any of the above points is not exactly your cup of tea, or somehow make the experience as a whole "not worth it", then this quest might not be for you. Which is fine! Individual tastes are a thing, so don't think any more about it if you don't want to read anymore. And regardless, I hope you have a lovely day!

Kaelor said:
PSA for whoever needs to hear it:

Readers should take their own mental health into consideration when voting and not subject themselves to triggering narrative elements like rape or constant mental torture of a friend just for the Greatest Good of a world that doesn't exist.

If those are fine for you or Regrettable is even more triggering, then GREAT! More power to you. But you aren't a bad or selfish person for picking the option that keeps the characters you've emotionally connected with safe. [REDACTED for spoiler warning]

This is a high intensity quest that doesn't hold back when it comes to horror and negative consequences. Take care of yourself.
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(Quote slightly edited to avoid spoilers)
 
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While I was reading the update and the state of the house, I was thinking "Well, shit, next Jade social we have to make a write in about cleaning her house because it is not healthy for anypony to live like this" and then the voting choices pretty much adress that.

Two questions:
Why do we earn Winter Lore for bringing her home?
I thought we were doing moratoriums?
 
[X] Tell her that you are sorry, and that you have no idea of what you can do to make this any better. But you promise that you will always be there for her, as her friend, and that you will do everything you can. (There is no quick way out of a rut, but she has opened herself to you. And now that you are in, you can at least keep her company.)
-[X] And you will take care of her for the day. Make sure she eats, stay with her until she sleeps. She is in no condition to be left alone in this house, after all. (Gain one scrap of HEART Lore.)
 
Hey guys, before voting for Heart please consider that there is this argument for Winter being mechanically better: we have Heart 3 and Heart 2 books, and while we are Heart 1 1/2 like we are right now, Heart 3 book will give us 2 scraps of lore for Heart 2 1/3 and then Heart 2 will get us to Heart 2 2/3; whereas from Heart 2, which we will have with Heart option, we will get 1 scrap from both books for the same Heart 2 2/3.

[X] Tell her that you are sorry, and that you have no idea of what you can do to make this any better. But you promise that you will always be there for her, as her friend, and that you will do everything you can. (There is no quick way out of a rut, but she has opened herself to you. And now that you are in, you can at least keep her company.)
-[X] And you will take her back home with you. Your husband is out of town, you have plenty of guest rooms, and she will not stay for more than a few days. (Gain one scrap of WINTER Lore.)

Edit: approval voting

[X] Become her new reason to live. She needs something to focus her energy on, somepony who will give her a purpose, and the Master lacked the necessary empathy to do that. You will not commit the same mistake. (Jade Whistle will immediately become your Minion. A Minion is a Confidant who will never betray you, and will always obey your every command. This will not be healthy.)
 
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Just one question @BirdBodhisattva but making Jade a minion is stated as unhealthy. Is it at all possible that option could be worked on to become something healthy later, or no? I don't expect it, but want to be sure.
 
Bakkasama said:
Two questions:
Why do we earn Winter Lore for bringing her home?
I thought we were doing moratoriums?
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The crux of her issue is that she's exhausted in every sense of the word and desires an end.

Keeping her company helps give her the strength to remain in that house and keep going on her own but bringing her to our home is putting an end to her isolation by forcing her away from that house and putting her around other people (our servants and family) for a bit.
 
[X] Become her new reason to live. She needs something to focus her energy on, somepony who will give her a purpose, and the Master lacked the necessary empathy to do that. You will not commit the same mistake. (Jade Whistle will immediately become your Minion. A Minion is a Confidant who will never betray you, and will always obey your every command. This will not be healthy.)

I doubt this will win but the action economy of this would be great. Besides what's a cultist without devoted followers
 
I wish there was an option to have her move into our house permanently. Living in her house is actively making her mental state worse, and having her close by will allow us to take care of her better.

[X] Tell her that you are sorry, and that you have no idea of what you can do to make this any better. But you promise that you will always be there for her, as her friend, and that you will do everything you can. (There is no quick way out of a rut, but she has opened herself to you. And now that you are in, you can at least keep her company.)
-[X] And you will take her back home with you. Your husband is out of town, you have plenty of guest rooms, and she will not stay for more than a few days. (Gain one scrap of WINTER Lore.)
 
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Also, the Winter keeping company option synergises well with our Winter lesson on family for Selene. Just saying.
 
Daecl said:
Wow.

I mean, it's been stated before that the cult attracts broken people and outcasts. But damn, you'd think that there'd be a little more effort spent by the Master to maintain the fucking inner circle.

Jeez.
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Jade said it herself, the Master is not a pony and thus lacks empathy. They could tell that something was wrong with Jade when they first met because she reached the Woods by attempted suicide but once he gave her purpose in life he didn't have the skills to tell that she had regressed. She told her she wanted to die because she felt useless and unwanted so he gave her a job to feel useful and thus live. It worked, so as she kept doing her job the Master thought that it was still working since they don't have the empathy to tell by normal means that it didn't.

I say by normal means because they could tell we were troubled by how we navigated the woods.

There is also the fact that they are high on Winter Lore, so they accept that everything ends eventually and that sometimes death can be a mercy. From a manipulative point of view, a few kind words to keep her alive is better than train someone new but from a Lore perspective? If she wanted to die, then it is not necessarily a bad thing if she does.

Edit: By the way, we discussed before that introducing Jade to our husband might not be the best way to introduce him to cult inner circle but it might be best for Jade to invite her over for dinner every once in a while.
 
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Jesus fucking Christ.

You do those terrible scenes well, Bird. You have a good grip of depressive, outright terminal states of human psyche.
Guess all this talk of Wolf being your favorite isn't just a piece of personal trivia.
 
[X] Accompany her to the Blank Door. It will be a grim business, walking Jade Whistle back to her room, but at least she will not be alone when she does it. (This will be a mercy, and Jade Whistle will never have to feel anything ever again. Gain two scraps of WINTER Lore. This will be considered a death committed by your own hoofs, but there is no need to worry about investigations or law enforcement.)

[X] Become her new reason to live. She needs something to focus her energy on, somepony who will give her a purpose, and the Master lacked the necessary empathy to do that. You will not commit the same mistake. (Jade Whistle will immediately become your Minion. A Minion is a Confidant who will never betray you, and will always obey your every command. This will not be healthy.)
 
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Ok, so option wise:

[] Accompany her to the Blank Door. It will be a grim business, walking Jade Whistle back to her room, but at least she will not be alone when she does it. (This will be a mercy, and Jade Whistle will never have to feel anything ever again. Gain two scraps of WINTER Lore. This will be considered a death committed by your own hoofs, but there is no need to worry about investigations or law enforcement.)

This is an unpopular choice and with good reason, but it kind of needs to be said: there are probably not much better ways to put a stop to the ritual.

Aside from that... I am not a proponent for suicide but if she suffers as much as she says she does... now that we are aware of how bad it is we ought to try and since somepony else cares for her and there might be a chance of things changing she does as well. But if long enough time passes and there is no change, then it might actually be for the best and man, does it suck to say that.

Still. Very last resort.

[] Become her new reason to live. She needs something to focus her energy on, somepony who will give her a purpose, and the Master lacked the necessary empathy to do that. You will not commit the same mistake. (Jade Whistle will immediately become your Minion. A Minion is a Confidant who will never betray you, and will always obey your every command. This will not be healthy.)

It does sound unhealthy and manipulative but it does offer benefits. For one, it means we could know for sure we can trust her with the identity of Selene and would make altering the ritual trivial. For the other, it would help our action economy to have another confidant and might make doing rituals easier.

It is also the first step to subverting the cult.

[] Tell her that you are sorry, and that you have no idea of what you can do to make this any better. But you promise that you will always be there for her, as her friend, and that you will do everything you can. (There is no quick way out of a rut, but she has opened herself to you. And now that you are in, you can at least keep her company.)
-[] And you will take care of her for the day. Make sure she eats, stay with her until she sleeps. She is in no condition to be left alone in this house, after all. (Gain one scrap of HEART Lore.)
-[] And you will take her back home with you. Your husband is out of town, you have plenty of guest rooms, and she will not stay for more than a few days. (Gain one scrap of WINTER Lore.)

Of these, I am leaning towards Winter. Books on those are hard to find, and we can potentially get to the same heart level by reading books at the current one than at level 2. THAT SAID, we should probably do the calculations on how hard the DC will be if we read the Heart 3 book as we are now.

Edit: Nevermind, it shouldn't really affect us.
 
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We are not leaving our friend to just sit alone in her house like this, no matter what.

Not to mention she won't out Selene this way, but that doesn't matter nearly as much; we'd probably have convinced her either way.

Sure, people might gossip, but they honestly don't matter. And if Stormchaser decides to object to us being the mare he thought we were and helping the people we care about to no risk to our family... then so be it.


[X] Tell her that you are sorry, and that you have no idea of what you can do to make this any better. But you promise that you will always be there for her, as her friend, and that you will do everything you can. (There is no quick way out of a rut, but she has opened herself to you. And now that you are in, you can at least keep her company.)
-[X] And you will take her back home with you. Your husband is out of town, you have plenty of guest rooms, and she will not stay for more than a few days. (Gain one scrap of WINTER Lore.)

And for more mercenary voters, didn't we just decide we were going to go looking for WINTER Lore? Might as well get a head start!


Approval voting Minion since it's probably better for Jade than the HEART option (she already knows how to endure; we need to teach her how to escape) and has the lowest chance of her giving up due to a surprise luck/outcome roll turning out low, but narratively WINTER is much better overall:

[X] Become her new reason to live. She needs something to focus her energy on, somepony who will give her a purpose, and the Master lacked the necessary empathy to do that. You will not commit the same mistake. (Jade Whistle will immediately become your Minion. A Minion is a Confidant who will never betray you, and will always obey your every command. This will not be healthy.)
 
BirdBodhisattva said:
-[] And you will take care of her for the day. Make sure she eats, stay with her until she sleeps. She is in no condition to be left alone in this house, after all. (Gain one scrap of HEART Lore.)
-[] And you will take her back home with you. Your husband is out of town, you have plenty of guest rooms, and she will not stay for more than a few days. (Gain one scrap of WINTER Lore.)
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@BirdBodhisattva can I inquire as to why/how these give their respective lore scraps.

Not sure why taking care of her longer is worth a winter scrap for example.

So... Yikes. Wrong I was, though right about her being in the breakdown stages.

So...

Do we tell anyone? We... something with our husband? I dont know.

Do we get someone in the cult to help us? Mister "I wont fail again"? The Master?

Hm.

Maybe someone who actually has training to deal with this?
 
[X] Tell her that you are sorry, and that you have no idea of what you can do to make this any better. But you promise that you will always be there for her, as her friend, and that you will do everything you can. (There is no quick way out of a rut, but she has opened herself to you. And now that you are in, you can at least keep her company.)
-[X] And you will take her back home with you. Your husband is out of town, you have plenty of guest rooms, and she will not stay for more than a few days. (Gain one scrap of WINTER Lore.)

Might be worth it to recommend to the non-Windy Flakes members of the Inner Circle that we take turns just being there for Jade.

Heh, maybe even do some sort of "girl's night out" with the female Inner Circle members.

Just give Jade more things to reattach her to the world and more places to go when she needs to escape that house and her memories.
 
Mercy through ending. That is one of things that Winter is about.

To let her die is to immerse her in peaceful silence behind the Blank Door.
To let her stay in our house is to allow a different kind of silence- one of meaningless noise, bloating out Wolf's mournful cries.

Compare it to Heart. To push her forward, to fight with all her strength!
To nourish her body, to renew a primal fire in her heart!
Not to ignore the wolf, but to fight it! Fight it with every spark of inner fire you can muster!

[X] Tell her that you are sorry, and that you have no idea of what you can do to make this any better. But you promise that you will always be there for her, as her friend, and that you will do everything you can. (There is no quick way out of a rut, but she has opened herself to you. And now that you are in, you can at least keep her company.)
-[X] And you will take her back home with you. Your husband is out of town, you have plenty of guest rooms, and she will not stay for more than a few days. (Gain one scrap of WINTER Lore.)

I think this awful month deserves a bit of peace for both of them.
I feel that it's just more fitting, to let Winter bring comfort. Especially considering this turn's lesson for Selene. Family is there for you. So are your friends.
Also... Winter protects one's mind. And the Wolf's favorite hunting ground is one's own thoughts.
Let's make it less hospitable to him. Jade's house if far too cozy for that.
 
[X] Tell her that you are sorry, and that you have no idea of what you can do to make this any better. But you promise that you will always be there for her, as her friend, and that you will do everything you can. (There is no quick way out of a rut, but she has opened herself to you. And now that you are in, you can at least keep her company.)
-[X] And you will take her back home with you. Your husband is out of town, you have plenty of guest rooms, and she will not stay for more than a few days. (Gain one scrap of WINTER Lore.)


[X] Become her new reason to live. She needs something to focus her energy on, somepony who will give her a purpose, and the Master lacked the necessary empathy to do that. You will not commit the same mistake. (Jade Whistle will immediately become your Minion. A Minion is a Confidant who will never betray you, and will always obey your every command. This will not be healthy.)

We do need more Winter, so I'd support that option before I'd drop everything and go for the assisted suicide option. Otherwise, Minionizing her is useful short term, and I don't see a reason why we couldn't help her long term when things are a little less on fire. Either way, fuck the Wolf-Divided.
 
[X] Accompany her to the Blank Door. It will be a grim business, walking Jade Whistle back to her room, but at least she will not be alone when she does it. (This will be a mercy, and Jade Whistle will never have to feel anything ever again. Gain two scraps of WINTER Lore. This will be considered a death committed by your own hoofs, but there is no need to worry about investigations or law enforcement.)


[X] Become her new reason to live. She needs something to focus her energy on, somepony who will give her a purpose, and the Master lacked the necessary empathy to do that. You will not commit the same mistake. (Jade Whistle will immediately become your Minion. A Minion is a Confidant who will never betray you, and will always obey your every command. This will not be healthy.)

Beyond the gleeful gibberish in my head (subarashii~ utsukushii~ sasuga Bird-sensei~ and so on) I have zero idea what to do.

Uh, did she do the ritual? Did we interrupt that? Would she do that, still?

Do we try to add yet another life to our frantic juggling of responsibilities?

...I don't want to.
 
The WINTER option does necessitate that we come again, however. We're not making her live through her pain, we're trying to end it, and if we don't make sure it stays truly ended The Wolf will return, injured but strong enough to carry out its tasks.

EDIT:
Kamico said:
Do we try to add yet another life to our frantic juggling of responsibilities?

...I don't want to.
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What's the alternative? This is a problem of Winter: there is only one, necessary option. All else must simply be dealt with, though hopefully our further study of Lore and the reduced effort needed to hide Luna will reduce the juggling we have to deal with. Plus once we have Rarity up to speed we should be able to get her help, or perhaps ask Jade for assistance once she feels better.

I think our intuitions have just gotten used to a constant crisis situation, with the whole Luna thing. We don't know how to make proper predictions of an actual 'rest period'.
 
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Bakkasama said:
I thought we were doing moratoriums?
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I can understand Moratoriums for planned votes, or when many complex variables are present. They impede the vote's "host" to have to return and edit it as new ideas and changes appear, and it also avoids the case in which a vote is cast, but a later edit to it makes the vote unappealing to the voter.
This vote, however, is simple and personal. So no moratorium feels like its needed. If a voter decides to vote and not think of it any longer, even if later on someone says something that might have convinced him to change it, then that too is a decision.

Ericwinter said:
Just one question @BirdBodhisattva but making Jade a minion is stated as unhealthy. Is it at all possible that option could be worked on to become something healthy later, or no? I don't expect it, but want to be sure.
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No. It is the "manipulative cult leader" option. It will not be healthy, and she will be a thrall.

Undead-Spaceman said:
Keeping her company helps give her the strength to remain in that house and keep going on her own but bringing her to our home is putting an end to her isolation by forcing her away from that house and putting her around other people (our servants and family) for a bit.
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Aye. Also kindness for your action, and the calmness you will give her, even if only for a while.

jason1stlegion said:
Sure, people might gossip, but they honestly don't matter. And if Stormchaser decides to object to us being the mare he thought we were and helping the people we care about to no risk to our family... then so be it.
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Kamico said:
Do we try to add yet another life to our frantic juggling of responsibilities?
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QM's word. There will be no negative consequences on any of the options. For you, at least.
 
Daecl said:
Wow.

I mean, it's been stated before that the cult attracts broken people and outcasts. But damn, you'd think that there'd be a little more effort spent by the Master to maintain the fucking inner circle.

Jeez.
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Especially after saying they would be taking more of an interest in the cults lives...

:anger:

Ericwinter said:
Just one question @BirdBodhisattva but making Jade a minion is stated as unhealthy. Is it at all possible that option could be worked on to become something healthy later, or no? I don't expect it, but want to be sure.
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This is not Healthy.

As someone much wiser than me put it.

Power is Selfish. There is no other way to describe the aquiring of it, even for noble purposes than the addition of resources, and abilities to one's self. To ONLY one's self.
 
[X] Tell her that you are sorry, and that you have no idea of what you can do to make this any better. But you promise that you will always be there for her, as her friend, and that you will do everything you can. (There is no quick way out of a rut, but she has opened herself to you. And now that you are in, you can at least keep her company.)
-[X] And you will take her back home with you. Your husband is out of town, you have plenty of guest rooms, and she will not stay for more than a few days. (Gain one scrap of WINTER Lore.)

Seem's good to me
 
[X] Tell her that you are sorry, and that you have no idea of what you can do to make this any better. But you promise that you will always be there for her, as her friend, and that you will do everything you can. (There is no quick way out of a rut, but she has opened herself to you. And now that you are in, you can at least keep her company.)
-[X] And you will take her back home with you. Your husband is out of town, you have plenty of guest rooms, and she will not stay for more than a few days. (Gain one scrap of WINTER Lore.)
 
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