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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Pittauro said:
meh, it doesn't really seem more cruel than shattering a genuine bond to me.
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Intent. Sacrificing someone you just happened to care about for plenty of other reasons is sad, terrible, and cruel, but that's a sacrifice. Manipulating someone into caring about you purely for the sake of destroying that care is just simple malice.
 
Ericwinter said:
Intent. Sacrificing someone you just happened to care about for plenty of other reasons is sad, terrible, and cruel, but that's a sacrifice. Manipulating someone into caring about you purely for the sake of destroying that care is just simple malice.
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We'd probably be raising someone to Confidant solely to use as Sacrament fodder. That's not really any less malicious, just a more mundane kind of malice.
 
Tomsawyer18 said:
Honestly rather than use an action to half-ass our job for the cult we're going to betray, its pretty clearly better to use that action to full-ass our betrayal.
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The idea is that it would give us even more action to prepare for our betrayal.

Greymere said:
the Bureau job we didn't tell them about,
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Which means us taking advantage of the chaos is very successful from their eyes.

Archmage Zoltan said:
you want to tell the cult about the luna bureau? what the fuck?
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Their going to find out anyways at least this way we can further prepare for our betrayal.

BirdBodhisattva said:
As such, you will try to continue acting as normally and unsuspiciously as possible, to maintain the façade that you are loyal to the cult for as long as you can.
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BirdBodhisattva said:
It is also important to note that a trigger event may be caused by external factors.
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Shaper47 said:
Aside from the Influence, getting the Luna Bureau job and possibly dealing with Twilight.

We have excuses! We have multiple excuses!
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the influence is not an excuse, the job came the second month and that's if we're even willing to share that bit of intel, and dealing with Twilight is not our job AND how would we be "dealing" with that anyway? And it's ALSO, again, a second month problem, IF she's revealed to the public AND if we're shown interacting with her, while we STILL completely ignored our job the first one.

I don't buy it.

Ericwinter said:
Intent. Sacrificing someone you just happened to care about for plenty of other reasons is sad, terrible, and cruel, but that's a sacrifice. Manipulating someone into caring about you purely for the sake of destroying that care is just simple malice.
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I disagree. I see them as equally malicious.

Shaper47 said:
Their going to find out anyways at least this way we can further prepare for our betrayal.
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How? they have a small presence in Ponyville and Manehattan, and that's it. The Master, for all their sneakiness, is only one being that can only be in one place at a time (in the wake), and is likely to avoid Canterlot, the seat of power of the Alicorns. Or at least to avoid the castle.

How would they find out about the secret police, without being told about it by a member of the secret police?
 
Shaper47 said:
Their going to find out anyways at least this way we can further prepare for our betrayal.
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aside from what pittauro and greymere brought up, it would completely give up the element of surprise. they don't need to find out the secret police exist until they're actively under attack by them. and even then how the hell would they know that we are the one running it?
 
Ericwinter said:
Intent. Sacrificing someone you just happened to care about for plenty of other reasons is sad, terrible, and cruel, but that's a sacrifice. Manipulating someone into caring about you purely for the sake of destroying that care is just simple malice.
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Greymere said:
We'd probably be raising someone to Confidant solely to use as Sacrament fodder. That's not really any less malicious, just a more mundane kind of malice.
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With this discussion I am starting to like the idea of Moth-ing Rarity.

Hiding her value to us by making it seems she was just a pawn we threw away when she wasn't useful (and that way protecting her from being used by the cult to attack us) seems moth-y.

Depending how this pans out (Rarity/Velvet coupling) it could fit the self hate in the description of the moth sacrament.

And it would be a real sacrifice.
 
Greymere said:
We'd probably be raising someone to Confidant solely to use as Sacrament fodder. That's not really any less malicious, just a more mundane kind of malice.
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…That's what I was saying, yes. Raising someone to Confidante status just to use them for the Sacrament is malicious. Sacrificing someone who was already at Confidante status for entirely different reasons is still fucked up, but at least the process of making them your friend in the first place wasn't malicious, and it will actually hurt you to do, unlike the former where you simply profit.
 
Pittauro said:
The Master, for all their sneakiness, is only one being that can only be in one place at a time (in the wake), and is likely to avoid Canterlot, the seat of power of the Alicorns. Or at least to avoid the castle.
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Where are you getting that idea from?

We have basically no idea what the Master has been doing in the Wake but they have told us before that they've spent some time finding out how things are.

Archmage Zoltan said:
they don't need to find out the secret police exist until they're actively under attack by them. and even then how the hell would they know that we are the one running it?
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You want to send secret police after the cult, hahaha oh wait your serious let me laugh even harder hahahahaha.

Aside from the fact we'd need to find evidence with normal ponies vs Grail and Moth users to support such an action. They'd get slaughtered, remember what the cult can summon and is actively working to keep around as muscle.

As for why the cult would know about the Luna Bureau. Maybe they'd keep and eye on what we have been doing after we betray them or maybe the Master finds out about their secret existence while wondering around lost.
 
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Ericwinter said:
…That's what I was saying, yes. Raising someone to Confidante status just to use them for the Sacrament is malicious. Sacrificing someone who was already at Confidante status for entirely different reasons is still fucked up, but at least the process of making them your friend in the first place wasn't malicious, and it will actually hurt you to do, unlike the former where you simply profit.
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I can't really see us getting rid of a Confidant that we actually wanted for its own sake.

Shaper47 said:
Asides from the fact we'd need to find evidence with normal ponies vs Grail and Moth users to support such an action. They'd get slaughtered, remember what the cult can summon and is actively working to keep around as muscle.

As for why the cult would know about the Luna Bureau. Maybe they'd keep and eye on what we have been doing after we betray them or maybe the Master finds out about their secret existence while wondering around lost.
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*gestures at Daughter-of-Axes*
*gestures at Baldomare*
*gestures at Mares-in-the-Light*
*gestures at Velvet*
*gestures at Confidants*
*gestures at soon-to-be-restored-Luna*
*gestures at artifacts*
*gestures at Reflection of the Tapestry*

You say that as if we don't have our own ways of supplementing the Bureau with Lore without it being obvious. Also, like, do you really think we're going to be sending the Bureau after the cult on Turn 16?? We still have to actually set the damn thing up. But, eventually, the Bureau is going to be set against the cult. It's just a matter of when.

Yeah, the Master will probably find out about it eventually. But I'd rather them find out about it later rather than sooner, because that's less time they'll actually be trying to do anything about it.
 
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I'd also like to note that if the cult obliterates the secret police we sent after them with eldritch powers thats actually good for us.

As we can bring that up to the angry sun goddess who would be our boss in that scenario.
 
[X] "The real Hours don't meet the Gods-from-Nowhere, but the Ring-Yew meets the Mare-in-the-Tree in where the Wood grows lush. Their couplings are forbidden, and forbidden things have power, and this is the story of their coupling."

I'm perfectly okay if the other path wins and I expect it to, but this path just seems very Interesting.
 
Greymere said:
Yeah, the Master will probably find out about it eventually. But I'd rather them find out about it sooner rather than later, because that's less time they'll actually be trying to do anything about it.
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I think you meant "later rather than sooner" XD



Also, while the advisors and the Master might be beyond a starting bureau, the lower ranks certainly aren't. The chaotic mess that is the Cult's hierarchy and web of information in there will play to their favour in that it will be hard for a bureau to get definitive knowledge about the important things, but it also means they'd likely react in a mostly disorganized matter.
 
50 to 27 in favour of only the "temporary" minion option.

Shame. I hope it still leaves the option to talk Stormchaser into the throuple a thing next turn.

Sure, Rarity might decide to not act upon her desire... but what if we set up the perfect scenario where she wouldn't need to feel guilty about it? After all the implication of the option is that she'd still love us, she'd just not act upon it.
 
Archmage Zoltan said:
did you forget what the entire point of the bureau is? did you think we would just let the cult be after we split from it? seriously this reaction is both extremely rude and leads me to believe you're a complete moron.
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Throwing around personal insults now are you. I see your revealing your true character. Why don't you try to be civilised and not resort to insulting others.

The point of the Bureau is that it does Luna's job when Luna's not around and helps her when she is. Not our own personal army. The cult, well more accurately the cults leader the Master can absolutely break us in a fight. That you think throwing ponies at Windigo's is a good idea says a lot about you but it's not going to go down well.
 
Shaper47 said:
Throwing around personal insults now are you. I see your revealing your true character. Why don't you try to be civilised and not resort to insulting others.

The point of the Bureau is that it does Luna's job when Luna's not around and helps her when she is. Not our own personal army. The cult, well more accurately the cults leader the Master can absolutely break us in a fight. That you think throwing ponies at Windigo's is a good idea says a lot about you but it's not going to go down well.
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...you know what I'm done, I've already snapped at you once and I'm not continuing this.
 
Pittauro said:
but lots of people get angry because of stories about colored horses! For example, People became very angry when a horned colored horse suddenly became an horned AND WINGED colored horse!
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I love it how they made a point of having the theme-song of that whole episode be "Everything is going to be fine!"



And in other news, the next update should be Fluttershy's action. But I have something else, more snake-themed, that I was thinking about working on, so...

Velvet Axe interlude or plot advancement?

I mean, I'll write both eventually. I just want to know if you would rather languish while wondering what became of Rarity and Velvet, while we go take a look at something else, or if you'd rather the immediate release of knowing the result of your vote.
 
Shaper47 said:
Throwing around personal insults now are you. I see your revealing your true character. Why don't you try to be civilised and not resort to insulting others.

The point of the Bureau is that it does Luna's job when Luna's not around and helps her when she is. Not our own personal army. The cult, well more accurately the cults leader the Master can absolutely break us in a fight. That you think throwing ponies at Windigo's is a good idea says a lot about you but it's not going to go down well.
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Yeah, the cult has Windigos.

So fucking what?

Do you really, honestly think that the only action that the Bureau can take against the cult is direct combat? Do you honestly think that the cult is going to unleash the Windigos in a populated area at the slightest provocation, drawing even more attention to themselves? Do you really think that a secret police isn't going to understand the value of being sneaky?

And yeah, it's not our own personal army! That doesn't matter! As soon as Celestia finds out about the cult with spooky magic that is responsible for Luna disappearing for over a year, guess what? That spooky cult is now a priority for Divine Judgement.

Also, take your own advice.

BirdBodhisattva said:
I mean, I'll write both eventually. I just want to know if you would rather languish while wondering what became of Rarity and Velvet, while we go take a look at something else, or if you'd rather the immediate release of knowing the result of your vote.
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Fluttershy action. Let the thread get all the salt and tears out beforehand :V

Also I want to see how high our Grail bonus got.

...I will be very sad if the Comet Feet/Fluttershy action turned out to not use Grail at all.
 
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