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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Greymere said:
I'm pretty sure Artifacts only replace the Knowledge bonus, so they shouldn't apply to Application hurdles.
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that's why I'm asking which kind of lore bonus the hurdles use.

Greymere said:
Rarity's promotion can wait until we're actually using her action, imo.
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I imagine there would be a narrative bonus to her job from the extra grail and forge, but I get what you mean.


...I'm low-key regretting telling Cadence about Twilight. Would we have had a chance to heal her next turn if they didn't notice she'd gone missing, I wonder...

...then again, we might not have gone on to save her if we didn't commit like that, so who knows.
 
Pittauro said:
...then again, we might not have gone on to save her if we didn't commit like that, so who knows.
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Not this soon, at least:
BirdBodhisattva said:
-It will be, effectively, impossible to rescue Twilight Sparkle on turn 15, and the "Crepuscule Jailbreak" expedition will be permanently unavailable. (Twilight's rescue might be done through some other mechanic, or another expedition entirely).
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We would still be in a rush to leave the Cult though, so I'm not sure how much extra time we could spend on preparing to heal her anyways.
 
[X] Plan Risky Everything Else

Sure I am willing to bite on this one; since, it is similar enough to my other plan.
 
There the slight issue with Twilight not getting healed in that it is a treatment very different than the one the other changeling captives got. Unless we want to keep Twilight prisoner ourselves and hidden from her brother, it would look fishy and she would have very little reason to keep quiet (unless we hold the healing over her head to keep her quiet since we would be the only way for her to use magic ever again)

Edit: It is one thing if she is unhurt and claims that we worked with ponies that broke her horn and it is another if she appears crippled (which didn't happen to any other prisoner) and says that it was done by ponies.
 
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Pittauro said:
if we can find ways to have her delay her job with little to no consequences, we should take it because we're THAT desperate, ffs.
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Do note that it is only a chance that Rarity's work suffers. Which now makes sense, since her job centers around inspiration, which can spring from pretty much anything.

Ericwinter said:
Fluttershy Confidante status get! :V
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And Fluttershy subverts Comet Feet, so it still protects us from the cult!

Pittauro said:
That's why I'm saying Velvet is "weak but skilled". she has 2 hp, she's very good at what she does (including all the lore specialties like finding things, understanding objects, being stealthy and so on), but in general all it would take to kill her is a few thugs surrounding her right now.
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That depends entirely on if they get over her Edge bonus, and also whatever Dancing with Death does.

Bakkasama said:
There the slight issue with Twilight not getting healed in that it is a treatment very different than the one the other changeling captives got. Unless we want to keep Twilight prisoner ourselves and hidden from her brother, it would look fishy and she would have very little reason to keep quiet (unless we hold the healing over her head to keep her quiet since we would be the only way for her to use magic ever again)
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I mean, it is now known that Luna was the Changeling Queen, and Twilight was known to have just barged in on her twice. Via magic. Logically speaking, that may have warranted more harsh treatment from the Changelings. At least, that's the logic chain those not in the know would probably use.
 
Talon TigerDino said:
I mean, it is now known that Luna was the Changeling Queen, and Twilight was known to have just barged in on her twice. Via magic. Logically speaking, that may have warranted more harsh treatment from the Changelings. At least, that's the logic chain those not in the know would probably use.
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Also she is just generally a very powerful mage, when most unicorns can only really do telekinesis. You don't let a prisoner like that have access to their magic if you can help it.
 
It doesn't change the fact that, the moment she is seen with her horn broken, it becomes too risky to heal her. What is the plan to deal with that? We know that Velvet does not want to be known as capable of doing "spooky magic" so that they don't connect the dots with her once the cult becomes more blatant so it is not like we would be able to heal her without having a lot of uncomfortable questions regarding how thrown our way. Twilight would also be a bit more pissed if our attempt to rescue her ends with her crippled for life (as far as she knows).

Like, honest questions, what reason does Twilight have to not consider us her enemy after this if we don't heal her? Are we going to point out to her that without a horn the only way she can potentially do magic is the same way we did and thus she needs us free? Are we going to let slip that we can heal her but that, again, we need to be free to gather resources for that and that if she incriminates us she will remain crippled? The last one is not really viable because if we do heal her after they see her crippled then she has evidence that we can actually do weird stuff and we lose our leverage on her.

As I see it, we can either
a) Heal her before Shining armor sees her and thus erase evidence of her disappearance being different than the others in case we can't convince her, then either try to turn her to our side (somehow) or gaslight her
b) Keep the fact that we can heal her quiet from her and convince her that the only way she will ever be able to do magic again is with the lores.
c) Do b) but heal her once we think she is loyal to us.
d) Make sure the increibly pissed unicorn with a grudge is in no position to buck us over and let her remain crippled.

Incidentally, if she is pissed at us and she sees us during the rescue, the only thing she has to do to buck us over is being seen in Ponyville and say we were the one who rescued her. We would be relying on the fact that most of the cult population does not know that the cult fillynapped her in the first place to delay people realizing that that means we betrayed it.

Edit: Actually, yeah, not healing her might be for the best if seen that way? We would have a Grail influence and she would probably desire to be able to use magic again at some point and the Lores are close enough. If she can't use unicorn magic, learning them is more valuable. We just have to convince her we are not a danger to Equestria since we would be getting a very high position close to Celestia and activating Twilight's hero complex might get her to refuse us to make justice be served.

We can play the card that without magic she might not be able to be Celestia´s student anymore and the play the angle that we are both researching ways for unicorns to do magic without their horn? Make it seem like Twilight is the one discovering how to use the Lores.
 
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Bakkasama said:
As I see it, we can either
a) Heal her before Shining armor sees her and thus erase evidence of her disappearance being different than the others in case we can't convince her, then either try to turn her to our side (somehow) or gaslight her
b) Keep the fact that we can heal her quiet from her and convince her that the only way she will ever be able to do magic again is with the lores.
c) Do b) but heal her once we think she is loyal to us.
d) Make sure the increibly pissed unicorn with a grudge is in no position to buck us over and let her remain crippled.
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I think there might be an hope of healing her after Luna is back, but even that is debatable
 
Our plan is also to straight up gaslight Twilight afterwards about her seeing us previously, so I don't think we are going to be in her good books in any universe.
 
I'm… honestly not sure how you missed it, but there is no plan, and never was. Not healing Twilight now is simply accepting that she won't be healed until the situation changes such that we can reveal our knowledge of the Lores and make reasonable excuses for why we didn't do it earlier. Or, if we're really lucky, she'll either be Leashable or not need a Leash to accept hiding from the public for a turn or two until we can heal her.

As for Twilight possibly being angry, I'm honestly not sure why she would be at all unless we act about as stupid as possible and tell her exactly what we're withholding, but even if she is that's where plan gaslight comes into play.
reborn214 said:
Our plan is also to straight up gaslight Twilight afterwards about her seeing us previously, so I don't think we are going to be in her good books in any universe.
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Well, only if we have to. Gaslighting her is the absolute last fallback position of worst outcomes where she is both unwilling to give the benefit of the doubt, can't be Leashed into doing so regardless, and insists that She saw Velvet open the urn, it was definitely real, and there's nothing we can do to convince her otherwise.
 
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We could use the Tapestry to find a healing artifact or item strong enough, getting it however... and our limited time...
 
zxzx24 said:
We could use the Tapestry to find a healing artifact or item strong enough, getting it however... and our limited time...
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Honestly? That might be something we can do later. If we can make reasonable excuses for how we found it, at least, but going looking for a powerful healing item to heal Twilight wouldn't be a bad public story.
 
>Memory erasing artifact
>Ray that turns alicorns into children
>Healing artifact

It's on the list
 
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Although, speaking of future plans. Assuming all goes well, we shouldn't get a Trigger Event until the end of turn 16. At that point, notably, we'll have raised Selene almost, almost to the point needed for reawakening. Just one more month, and she'll be ready. I really, really hope we can buy that month of extra time somehow. Keys, summons, being in another town… we don't need much time. Just one turn, and then however much of the next needed to prepare for the ritual.

I think we can survive a turn. With luck, the Master won't even strike in that time. The end is in sight. We just have to hold on tight.
 
We also need to check with Jade on the proper ritual which will eat 2 of her next turn actions if we want a better ritual, then incision of the Heart or one that has a higher chance of preserving Selene. We don't have the best chance on that one since our Heart 4 is incredibly far away, and we don't have the resources in the wings to compensate it. With a level 3 regent, it is just like 60 ish %.
 
Ericwinter said:
Although, speaking of future plans. Assuming all goes well, we shouldn't get a Trigger Event until the end of turn 16. At that point, notably, we'll have raised Selene almost, almost to the point needed for reawakening. Just one more month, and she'll be ready. I really, really hope we can buy that month of extra time somehow. Keys, summons, being in another town… we don't need much time. Just one turn, and then however much of the next needed to prepare for the ritual.
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If we're lucky, we'll either be turning Comet to our side or otherwise getting him away from the cult this turn (and he's probably getting PTN/EiB if he doesn't, because he's too dangerous to leave w/ the cult). Copper is going to be busy with the Manehattan branch. Starry is unlikely to show back up in Ponyville again for obvious reasons.

Which means that, most likely, the only Inner Circle cultist we'll have to deal with is Windy, who is already making his way onto the stabbing list for separate reasons.

So, as things currently stand, I think our biggest threats in the immediate aftermath are going to be EiB (from either Windy or Neighnia), Windigos, or a full blown Wolfed-out Windy. Half of which can be solved with copious amounts of Edge (MitL, DoA, us after healing rituals, maybe Comet), the other half solved by Wrong Keys.

Of course, I could be completely and utterly wrong about everything. But I think we have decent chances of getting through T17 alive.

And if we're really, really lucky, Windy will stay out of Ponyville for several months/turns seeking Paranoia's whispers. But probably not.

reborn214 said:
We also need to check with Jade on the proper ritual which will eat 2 of her next turn actions. If we want a better ritual, then incision of the Heart or one that has a higher chance of preserving Selene. We don't have the best chance on that one since our Heart 4 is incredibly far away, and we don't have the resources in the wings to compensate it.
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Scry a Heart 5 artifact and send Axe after it? She's very good at expeditions! :V
 
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Greymere said:
So, as things currently stand, I think our biggest threats in the immediate aftermath are going to be EiB (from either Windy or Neighnia), Windigos, or a full blown Wolfed-out Windy. Half of which can be solved with copious amounts of Edge (MitL, DoA, us after healing rituals, maybe Comet), the other half solved by Wrong Keys.
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The problem, really, is the Master. They might just decide to solve the problem themselves, and unless we've got, like, several Mares with their 5 Lantern around, can probably just murder us in our sleep.
 
We now know what was once suspected.

The master physically is the wood surrounding the mansus.

I don't think any amount of mares in light will let us survive their displeasure.

Fortunately it should be incredibly difficult to earn that displeasure to that degree.
 
Greymere said:
So, as things currently stand, I think our biggest threats in the immediate aftermath are going to be EiB (from either Windy or Neighnia), Windigos, or a full blown Wolfed-out Windy. Half of which can be solved with copious amounts of Edge (MitL, DoA, us after healing rituals), the other half solved by Wrong Keys.
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If we weren't so busy, we could take advantage of the inner circle being all in different cities to pick them off one by one. Murder Starry and Copper this turn with the DoA, then scry for Windy and either send DoA or a Mare in the Light to kill him the next.

That would be wrong though. And expensive and AP intensive.
 
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