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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[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
Pittauro said:
Really? I'm actually suspecting that, if we do everything perfectly, we might get the Alicornae nat100 Luna!
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Oh, I'm not doubting that. What I mean is that while her potential will be great she will likely be weakened from her ordeal, at least while her power settles. Or at least I feel this is a possible result, if not the most likely one.

Still, I may just be being silly because I got caught up in the protagonist "have to do everything ourselves" mindset
 
[x] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.

This, for me. As long as things don't end with multiple nat 1's we will probably have Luna back before our first or second meeting with Celestia, and I suspect that is going to result in a new sanity roll for her.

Thus we can afford to be slow and safe with the buildup. So that the bureau remains uncompromised.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.

Let's start as we mean to go on. Carefully.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[x] Go for an intermediate approach. You will personally go over all the files and dossiers, but you follow Shining Armor's advice and allow for some flexibility here and there.

We rather have more fully developed squads, then just another hero we have to manage.
 
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Either Luna places us under her direct protection (and thus we're about as safe as we can be) or the Luna/Selene connection being known is a loss condition because we'll have kept Celestia away from her sister for about a year and let all those guards die for no good reason (in Celestia's mind).

As such the Luna/Lores connection being revealed isn't really a loss condition: the scenario in which it would kill us, we're already dead.

[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.

With the way Celestia is right now, any imperfections she might view in the Lunar bureau, she might see as a slight against Luna. Any pony less than perfect and we risk the chance of severe sunburns as she chews us out. Gonna want to assemble the Avengers of bureaucrats for our first mission.

Though more ponies would be more helpful to go over paperwork like tax records further down the line. The ol' classic.

Though, would changelings be more or less corrupt than the nobles? :V
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.

I wonder if Celestia would let us have a changeling or two? We could make it seem like we learned grail by ... Interrogating them.
 
w34v3r said:
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.

I wonder if Celestia would let us have a changeling or two? We could make it seem like we learned grail by ... Interrogating them.
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I think the thing to do may be to ask if she has anything... like... the mirror that doesn't work on the changelings. That way it can be studied without disrupting the vital (to her) use of the mirror.

Problem is we can't really ask for her anything at the moment.
 
Byzantine said:
I think the thing to do may be to ask if she has anything... like... the mirror that doesn't work on the changelings. That way it can be studied without disrupting the vital (to her) use of the mirror.

Problem is we can't really ask for her anything at the moment.
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I'd definitely like to know the limits and abilities of normal magic in the hands of our agents, but I'm going to assume that will be described in our squads' abilities.

As a matter of fact, normal squads probably have the expected abilities, so nothing major. Pegasi are fast and can manipulate clouds, Earth Ponies are stronger, Unicorns have tk and a few utility and/or combat spells maybe (barriers, beams).

I imagine anything more out there, like, say, a Unicorn's ability to gain wings like Twilight once did, or shapeshifting spells, or a spell that can find hidden things/doors (Rarity has a "find gems" spell as part of her talent, so it's not that strange) will likely be something like a special Hero trait.


In regards to More secret Artifacts Celestia might have, I fear we don't have a justification to ask, currently. If she knew of artifacts with useful effects that she was fine giving us, she would have given them to us.

If she doesn't know what they do because she doesn't know about the lores, we have no way to justify our request or our being able to understand what they do.

same for books and secret magics. We can't exactly ask for access to Dark Magic, we're not even a known high level wizard, at best we could try to recruit something like an archmage as one of our agents and then have THEM learn such things.

In short: requests that can't justified without Lore Knowledge are not an option for now.
 
... @BirdBodhisattva we were just officially hired. I'm going to assume we went through the paperwork already, and probably signed something for our current position.

can you know tell us what's our starting salary? :whistle:
 
[X] Apply the greatest scrutiny. You will interview all candidates personally, and veto ponies that display even the slightest stain in their records.
 
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