It was a chilly morning when Heart Speaker strode towards the nearby village on the edge of the bamboo forest he lived in. His big hooves made slow but steady work of the distance to the market square, and what had once been a strong physique still managed to hold two big saddlebags filled with medicinal herbs, despite him being an old pony, now in retirement.

Heart Speaker’s retirement was surprisingly nice, all things considered; over thirty years of proud service to the 7th Legion of Lookshy as an army medic. Now he spent his twilight years walking through meadows and forest trails, using his survival skills to forage for herbs and plants he could sell to the villagers. They enjoyed his wisdom, he enjoyed their cooking.

Exiting the shady forest, the sun’s warm rays fell upon Heart Speaker’s hazel-colored coat and his old, but well-maintained uniform. After thirty years, it just felt wrong to not wear it (except when changing into surgery gowns of course). Half-covered by his uniform, one could just barely see the red heart encircled by a metal gear that made up his cutie-mark. His black mane was nothing but a short 7th legion standard issue buzz-cut, even if it had been an uphill battle to convince the village barber to keep it.

The village itself was like countless others in the hundred kingdoms of the east: Huts and houses made with sturdy timber frames, with walls of woven bamboo or wicker, (some were covered in a mix of ground rice and mud and then painted, if the occupant had the money to splurge on such things). The roofs of the huts were all baked clay tiles. The shrine to the local rice gods at the edge of the village was well kept as usual: No sense in upsetting the spirits that oversee the growth of your food.

Looking around for his usual buyers for the herbs, Heart Speaker spotted one thing that caught his attention, although after inspecting it, his old bones ached with great annoyance as his wrinkly face sighed. First were the two large wagons pulled by oxen, filled with colorful goods; a merchant was in town! Finally! Something Heart Speaker could spend his retirement stipend on, as there was little use of silver coinage in a backwater village like this. However, next to the wagons were the colors of the local Daimyo, specifically the local lord’s spoiled brat of a son, engaged in a loud argument with the merchant. Apparently sonny-boy didn’t think that he had to pay for the merchant's wares. So much for honor in nobility. Approaching the scene, Speaker could easily hear the two shouting.

“Do you know who my father is? How dare you defy me?!” screeched the Daimyo’s son. As the son of a noble, the colt fancied himself a prince, but he was no son of a shogun – and despite being dragon-blooded, he was clearly a very thin-blooded one. Heart Speaker couldn’t see the merchant for the fifteen samurai that made up the princeling’s retinue, or the ten or so armed mercenaries that the merchant was using to protect his wares.

“My lord Bien River Parter, might I ask what is going on?” Heart Speaker confidently called out. The argument stopped as River Parter, the son of the local Daimyo Bien Plumtree Root of House Bien, turned to face his old nemesis.

Nemesis might be a stretch, but River Parter had never liked Heart Speaker – unlike everyone in the village and the surrounding lands. Heart Speaker had seen thousands of ponies blessed with unicorn horns and powers by the elemental dragons when he lived and served in Lookshy. Because of this, Heart Speaker knew quite well that dragon-blooded deserved little reverence for their supernatural powers: Sure, their exaltation gave them the unicorn horn and elemental powers (powers over water in River Parter’s case, as marked by his dark blue coat, black mane and his black horn). However, as a Lookshyan, Heart Speaker believed that reverence and respect came from honorable action, not just a magic bloodline.

River Parter saw things differently; the immaculate faith clearly told that dragon-blooded were spiritually superior to all common mortal ponies, and their powers were signs from the gods that they should rule all of creation. Heart Speaker, being a stallion from Lookshy, did not believe in the immaculate faith, and so was a heretic in River Parter’s eyes. If he could have his way, Heart Speaker would have been put to death a long time ago.

This of course wasn’t happening. It was all politics: In his last years of service to the 7ths legion, Heart Speaker had, amongst many others things, at one point performed surgery on a wounded dragon-blooded officer. She was River Parter’s aunt, for her sister had ventured off and married this local Daimyo here, as part of a business deal to secure the rights to the rich mineral resources the Daimyo had in his lands. As thanks for saving her life, the officer pulled a few strings with her sister and gave Heart Speaker her old hunting lodge as a retirement gift, where he lived now. It was also this deal which ensured that Heart Speaker could not be touched by River Parter.

“This is none of your business” River Parter barked, his shrill voice breaking as he tried ever so hard to sound deep and threatening. It didn’t help that Heart Speaker was almost two heads taller than the colt, who was barely thirteen years old. The not-quite-foal, but equally by no means stallion, was smart enough to recognize the power he had (especially after he exalted by the grace of the elemental dragon Daana'd two years ago), but he was far too immature and foolhardy to handle such power as anything but a weapon.

Heart Speaker once again rolled his eyes and hoped that the Equestrian Realm would swoop by some day and spirit the little pain off to the blessed isle, never to seen or heard from again. Alas, that was not happening.

Heart Speaker gave River Parter a condescending look, and then glanced at his samurai retinue. The samurai, all strong stallions and mares trained in the art of war and martial arts, wore nice white hakamas with wide open sleeves, showing their wealth by using three times the fabric needed to clothe them. Also they were all armed with glaives, long polearms with heavy blades at the end, currently tied to their backs. They looked understandably annoyed and apologetic: They knew Heart Speaker, indeed Heart Speaker had at one point been summoned by the Daimyo to teach River Parter in Lookshyan etiquette and lore, but River Parter much preferred to run around and fight with the servants’ foals, none of which dared to raise a hoof to defend themselves.

“I don’t think his Lordship and your mother would like that you scare off traders” Heart Speaker calmly stated.

Emerging from behind his mercenaries, the merchant chimed in: “That is exactly what I’ve been trying to say”

Heart Speaker had to admit the merchant was a snappy dresser. Nice embroidered blue silken robes, with a big fat purse bulging with coin hanging from an ornamental saddle with – was that golden filigree? This pony certainly seemed to enjoy flaunting his wealth. The robe was embroidered in such a way that it showed what the merchant pony’s cutie mark was (Well probably, as the robes covered his flanks as well): Three golden coins.

Completely ignoring the angry River Parter, Heart Speaker turned to face the merchant: “Is that so? Well I’m afraid his Lordship's son isn’t one to listen to what others say. My name is Heart Speaker by the way, what’s your name?”

The merchant gave Heart Speaker a raised eyebrow, gave a quick glance at River Parter, then looked back at Speaker. He smirked, said “The name is Cash Charmer, vendor of many things” and bowed politely.

Heart Speaker smiled, and realized that he hadn’t done so in quite a while, as his old face ached a little from the strain, but it was none the less nice to meet a well-cultured pony after having left Lookshy, as such were a rare thing this far from the main trading routes in the hundred kingdoms.

It was then that a high-pressure blast of water erupted in front of Heart Speaker, from the tip of River Parter’s horn. It gouged a wide trench three yards long where it struck the ground, nearly hitting a couple of innocent villager ponies who were just passing by.

River Parter was fuming – literally. Elemental water vapors were gathering around the young colt into a whirling sphere, as thin as an egg-shell, but moving at such a speed that it was cutting into the ground up like ice razors.

Everypony knew that an enraged unicorn was dangerous: they would manifest their element as elemental flux, in this case a sphere of cutting water, and that would kill a mortal pony in seconds…

Heart Speaker and Cash Charmer leapt back – so did River Parter’s retinue. Cash’s mercenaries were far enough away that they weren’t in any danger, as flux didn’t affect things more than a yard away from the dragon-blooded it came from.
“Calm yourself sire, please” one of the samurai ponies pleaded.

Heart Speaker saw Cash Charmer back away behind his mercenaries – a wise decision, but likely not a privilege they would share with Speaker, as he wasn’t the one paying them.

River Parter advanced towards Speaker: “You will show me the respect I am due, as your spiritual and lawful superior!”

Having always had a stubborn streak Heart Speaker did not back down. Sure, he was little intimidated, but he didn’t want to give the twerp the satisfaction of lording over him. His stubbornness as well as his bright mind had gotten Speaker through his medical training; his stubbornness had kept him calm in countless battles while doing field surgery on mortally wounded ponies. All in all; compared to what Heart Speaker had lived through, then this was by no means scary. Dangerous, yes, but not scary.

“Why are you doing this anyway? You want new silk clothes? Did your mother cut off your allowance again?” Heart Speaker inquired. He knew that even with decades of combat training making him a proficient martial artist, then against a dragon-blooded he would be shredded by the watery flux in mere moments – but if he could defuse the situation, and find the root cause of the problem, then he could probably be able to live a few more years before dying of old age.

The angry dragon-blooded threw an angry look at Cash Charmer’s wagons. Of the most obviously displayed goods were brightly colored red and green bolts of silk cloth… and River Parter’s flux was tearing up dirt and stones which was ruining his current silk garbs. In Lookshy, the dragon-blooded there always wore sturdy clothing; even their silks were made to be strong enough to stand up to what environmental hazards that might come from anima flux – the flux wouldn’t hurt the clothes directly, but as with River Parter’s flux, the water flung around stones and dirt at high speeds. To Heart Speaker, it felt a bit like standing in front of a wet sand-storm, with tiny flecks of stone and dirt being flung at him. The samurai that were reluctantly standing next to River Parter probably felt the same.

“Okay, well why don’t you invite the merchant to come to the Daimyo’s castle where he can pay for the goods? You’ll need the Daimyo’s tailors to make use of the stuff anyway – no sense in taking it here unless you want to make a toga” Heart Speaker pointed out.

At first Heart Speaker honestly thought he’d gotten through to the colt, but that turned out to be a false assumption: “You stupid old stallion, he can just deliver MY silks at father’s castle – and he’ll do so if he doesn't want a watery grave!” the young colt said, looking towards the mercenaries and Cash Charmer.

Giving the mercenaries a good look-over, Speaker found them well armed. The leader of the mercenaries was clad in a suit of plain lamellar barding and a strong steel helmet, nothing fancy like the outfits one might see samurai wearing at festivals, but it would protect the mare quite well. The rest of the mercenaries were clad in thick leather barding and similar helmets, reinforced here and there with piecemeal lamellar plating of painted metal. All of the metal lamellar components on the mercenaries were lacquered mate black, making for a fearsome appearance. They were all armed with mouth-handled swords and heavy fighting horse-shoes, the sort that could knock out a pony with a single good buck.

It was clear to Heart Speaker that if River Parter was to attack the mercenaries for the merchant's goods, forcing his samurai to join in, then the samurai would be at a serious disadvantage due to none of them being armored at all, even if the samurai might be better skilled than the mercenaries – but River Parter didn’t seem to care about that: His dragon-blooded powers probably included charms that would prevent him from getting hurt too much, plus as a dragon-blooded pony he could levitate his sword around, giving him a great tactical advantage over his lesser mortal ponies who had to hold their weapons with their hooves.

Speaker backed away. It was clear that he couldn’t talk sense into the colt who was dead set on applying that age old saying of ‘Might makes right'. He sighed, wishing that the ponies of creation weren’t so petty. Rulers shouldn’t have to rob the people that they lorded over, and yet the Daimyo’s tax collectors operated more like armed raiders than the lord’s officials – and now this? A stupid foal wanting somepony else’s nice things simply because he has the power to take them?

It might be wishful thinking – but in a better world, everypony would have nice things, so no pony would have to fight over them.

At the same moment, Cash Charmer was equally wishing that things were a little more civil. Although from his point of view the problem was more that backwaters, like this place, did not have the right economic dependencies and ties: Business partners shouldn't kill each other or steal from each other; that would be bad for business. Working together and setting up mutually beneficial trade routes was good business, and good business would make Cash rich – and being rich and living the good life was all he wanted, especially if it also meant that he didn’t have to trouble himself with bandits or idiot nobles since such a system should ideally run perfectly on its own.

It was then that two things happened at the same time, two things that would ultimately spark a long series of events that would change the course of all of creation – for it was then that Heart Speaker and Cash Charmer both exploded in golden light, for they had exalted as Solars of the god of virtue and perfection: Celestia, the Unconquered Sun.

Of course, to an adherent of the immaculate faith, the sudden light show was anything but awe-inspiring. In fact, to River Parter, it was a terrible thing to behold, for the immaculate faith told of ponies who would consort with demons to gain great and terrible powers, and that you could always tell by the bright light they wreathe themselves in to lure lesser ponies to their doom. The old word for such beasts was anathema.

To River Parter it all became clear: “Anathema! Oh this makes so much sense! For years you’ve made my subjects refuse to bow before me – and now it’s clear how!”

This was followed by a raging blast of water from River Parter’s horn, as his samurai drew their blades and leapt at Speaker.

Of course, right behind them Cash Charmer was having a similar situation with his mercenaries. Glowing like a golden candle, Cash quickly found himself surrounded and held up at sword-point.

The captain of the mercenaries was quite clear: “We didn't sign up to guard demons – what is this treachery!?”

Cash quickly realized that while the mercenaries were quite upset over their turn of events – most of which he really didn’t understand – then he did sense a sudden surge in confidence, plus a keen awareness of the fact that he could talk anypony into anything, even more so than before: “Calm down, the deal hasn’t changed – if you want more silver because of this, that can be arranged”

“Buck that! We didn’t agree to guard no anathema! Kill him!” one of the mercenaries yelled. So much for diplomacy.

With a single jab from his right forehoof Cash stood in awe of his own might as the mercenary captain tumbled several yards back into the samurai that were advancing on Speaker. This had the benefit of freeing Cash from the grasp of the mercenaries, but it also made the samurai and River Parter aware of Cash’s glowing – which only made things worse.

The mercenaries quickly backed away from Cash. No pony should be able to just punch somepony with a light jab of the hoof then have that pony fly off several yards. You might topple over if you’re bucked hard, but that? That wasn’t normal fighting, that was magic fighting.

A few of the mercs ran to help up their captain as the loud sound of thunder boomed – from a cloudless sky. A light up above appeared, and from it emerged a strange spirit covered in rune-encrusted sheets of metal... no, the spirit was made up of rune encrusted sheets of metal.

Everypony stopped what they were doing and looked in a mix of confusion, fear and awe, for it was well known that gods and spirits never revealed themselves to mortal ponies without good reason.

The spirit quickly descended to the ground and came to a halt, hovering over the ground in front of Speaker. Its eyes were rotating gears that just floated in front of an otherwise flat ‘faceplate’, and its body seemed to undulate like pistons, most of which was shrouded in a thick oily smoke that lit up intermittently by internal flashes of crackling lightning. The runic metal plates extended towards Speaker like strange flat hooves, opening up to reveal a golden disk with a hoof-shaped imprint in the middle.

The disc was about a foot in diameter, made from a golden metal. As if driven by an ancient dream, Speaker reached a hoof up to place in the hoof-shaped mark on the center of the disc. The entire thing was decorated with gear-like etchings that circled around the disc.

Then River Parter blasted the spirit with powerful gouts of water - enough to kill most other ponies. The spirit was knocked a few feet to the side, but didn’t seem to acknowledge the event otherwise. The jostle did have the effect of knocking the disc onto Heart Speaker’s hoof, upon which Speaker felt a strangely eerie – but at the same time endlessly comforting – sense of familiarity.

The spirit’s eye-gears then suddenly stopped spinning as the thing ‘spoke’, its words imprinting in the minds of every pony present – and since nopony present spoke spirit, none of them understood a word of it. The spirit then launched itself high into the heavens, where it disappeared into the light from which it had appeared moments ago.

Everyone stood for a tense moment. Speaker still with his right front hoof out stretched, touching the golden disc that now seemed attached to his hoof. Cash was admiring his right hoof for being able to suddenly punch like the hoof of an angry god. The mercenaries were getting up to run away.

Things then started happening very quickly. Most of the samurai and River Parter leapt at Heart Speaker, glaives in hoof, trying to strike down the anathema. Six of the samurai had turned to engage Cash.

Still entranced by the beautiful golden disc, Speaker hardly noticed as his body girded itself to take the strikes, how the edge of the disc opened up to release a ring of three inch golden blades, like pointed teeth on a gear that began to spin around at blinding speeds. Speaker did notice the urge to not be chopped to pieces, so he moved the disc to intercept the glaives and River Parter’s blade, using a strange martial technique that resulted in Speaker catching all of his assailants’ blades in the teeth of his disc – and with a twist the blades shattered as the golden teeth of the disc chewed through the steel.

The samurai that had attacked Speaker were left wielding sticks of wood, causing them to fall back – but River Parter did not stop his assault, even as his blade was shattered. The colt leapt at Speaker, with a fluid grace that only the blessed of the elemental dragon of water could muster, striking at Speaker with hooves that moved with killing precision empowered by watery essence. River Parter might have been young, but with his exaltation his essence had been enlightened, granting him supernatural potential with the ability to channel said essence into guiding his hooves with the murderous intent and rage that only a spoiled son of a noble could muster.

River Parter struck Speaker with a force and precision that would not just have knocked an ordinary pony out, but probably also shattered the shoulder where Parter hit. However, having just exalted as a solar, Speaker was no longer an ordinary pony. As if by instinct, Speaker had the essence in his flesh harden momentarily, so that Parter’s strike might as well have directed at the thickest trunk of an ancient oak.

River Parter leapt back, confident that when he turned Speaker would be on the ground writing in pain… but the sound of pony collapsing on the ground never came. Instead, the hellish noise of the disc with spinning blades came closer, and closer – and River Parter barely had time to think as the disc zoomed past his head, striking half of the samurai attacking Cash Charmer’s glaives so that their blades too were cut from the wooden poles. River Parter couldn’t believe his eyes, but that didn’t matter much anyway, for as he looked on in disbelief at the shattered parts of his samurai’s glaives fell to the ground, a hoof impacted on his head so hard that it made the watery essence in his body at the point of impact erupt away in a gout of steam, leaving River Parter to fall to the ground unconscious and bleeding from the back of his head.

The golden disc zoomed back to Speaker’s right hoof, forcing the three samurai that still had weapons left to quickly reevaluate the situation – resulting in all of the samurai quickly rushing to pick up their lord and then run off out of the village, on the road to the Daimyo’s castle. The mercenaries were heading out on the road leading east that they had arrived via earlier that morning, but as a last fare-thee-well, two of the mercenaries , armed with bows shot burning arrows into Cash Charmer’s wagons. That the wagons burst into flames made it clear that during all the fighting with the samurai the mercenaries had tipped over clay jugs with lamp oil in the wagons…

Watching with childlike awe as the golden disc spun down, the loud sound of the essence mechanism inside slowly fading, the bladed teeth of the disc ultimately coming to a stop and retracting, Heart Speaker finally snapped out of his trance-like state. He looked around in horror.

His right hoof was stained in the blood of the son of the local Daimyo. The fire from the two merchant wagons was spreading to the house it was parked next to – and the villagers were slowly emerging, but seemed horribly conflicted as to whether they should run to put out the fire that would probably engulf the whole village if not stopped – or stay at a safe distance from the anathema that stood next to the fire.

A quick tactical and strategic evaluation told Speaker that the samurai would soon be back in force. All of the Daimyo’s ponies at arms would be after him because of this, no matter how much the Daimyo’s sister in law liked Speaker. And then there was this Cash Charmer, who was glowing just like himself. Under other circumstances, Speaker might have found this very odd and even worthy of panicking over, yet despite being strangely aware of the fact that he had not known this before he had… exalted… then he understood what had happened. With that knowledge, he knew that he and Cash Charmer were meant for something far greater than running from some random hundred kingdom Daimyo’s forces.

“Come on, we have to get out of here!” Speaker said to Cash, as he picked up his saddlebags and emptied their content of herbs on the ground. No need to carry that extra weight around anymore.

Cash didn’t answer, standing stupefied at the sight of his life savings going up in smoke. He had invested everything he had in those wagons and the expensive goods they carried.

“Come on!” Speaker said with painfully apparent urgency. Shaking Cash seemed to snap the merchant out of his fugue of horror, but it didn’t improve his mood: “My wares!” he sobbed.

Forcibly turning Cash around so he couldn't see the burning wagons finally helped, making the merchant liven up a little bit: “What’ll I do? They’ll come after us again won’t they?”

Cash reminded Speaker of so many junior officers in the 7th legion on the eve of their first battle – terrified of what might happen next. Then again, considering what had just transpired, his reaction was understandable – but it wasn’t needed either.

“We need to get out of here – the Daimyo’s men will be back in a couple of hours. I have a house in the forest. We’ll go there, pick up a few things, then flee these lands. We can’t stay here” Speaker said again, looking around at the pleading eyes of the villagers, most of which seemed to beg the two to leave so the fires could be put out.

The smell of perfumes and scented oils burning away mixed into the noon air as the two freshly-minted Solars ran into the forest.

Out of the village, the two found it slightly easier to speak to each other about topics other than ‘There will be armed ponies out for our blood soon’. Cash said that he was still confused about what had happened to him as they kept up the pace over well-trotted forest paths.

“We have exalted, that’s what happened” Speaker quickly retorted.

Cash neighed: “That wasn’t – well, I think I… I know that already, but what does that mean? I mean, one moment I just started glowing, and I could punch Captain Ironmane five yards over!”

Speaker drew a heavy breath. It was strange being able to keep up a gallop like this with his old bones – but they didn’t feel old anymore! His joints didn’t ache and he felt as nimble as when he’d just finished his medical training. Gathering his thoughts on Cash’s question, strange memories that didn’t seem to be his flooded his mind when he thought of what to say: “I… I can explain this when we get out of here. I need to think right now. We need to live through this, and then I’ll explain everything”

The hunting lodge that Speaker had lived at wasn’t much to speak of. Lookshyan aesthetics were focused with practicality in mind rather than luxury, so it really wasn’t much more than a wooden hut in the forest, with bamboo racks where you could hang what you caught to dry and drain out of blood, as well as a smoker-oven to smoke meat.

Inside the lodge, the floors were covered in soft pelts, mostly bear and boar. These also lined the walls to insulate the place, although most of the heat came from the central fireplace. Speaker wasted no time finding two big sacks and dumping survival gear, tents, blankets, a few extra sets of clothes, his fancy-pants formal uniform and his private surgical equipment into said sacks – then he plopped down and stared at them intensely.

Cash Speaker had no idea what was going on – still shocked from what had happened in the village – but when the two sacks disappeared into thin air, then the questions started flooding out.

“What was that? Where did the sacks go? What’s going on? Where will we go from here? Can’t we hide here? What’ll we do? I don’t want to die!” Cash blabbered, his words tripping over each other as they spilled forth.

With his things ‘packed’, Speaker finally breathed something akin to a sigh of relief. Getting up, he willed forth the golden disc the spirit had given him. It suddenly occurred to Cash that he hadn’t seen that thing since they fled the village – and it hadn’t been in Speaker’s saddle bags, even though he’d emptied them on the ground.

“Where did that come from?” Cash tentatively asked.

Speaker drew in breath: “It came from elsewhere. Celestial exalted like us can store things in elsewhere, usually only a handful of objects unless you know special charms that let you store more. It’s a magic place outside of normal space in creation”

Cash was about to ask how that worked, when Speaker continued, instead explaining something entirely different: “We’re Solars. Exalted by the power of Celestia, the Unconquered Goddess of the Sun”

Speaker then continued to explain that he was remembering things, things that he couldn’t possibly have done in this lifetime – and yet he knew that part of him had done these things: “My exaltation, the new divine extra component to my soul, just like the one you now have, can carry over memories. I… I’m pretty sure I’m remembering everything, and it’s a lot of take in… but I think I know what’s going on, do you want the short version or the long version?”

“I thought only dragon-blooded could exalt when the immaculate dragons blessed them?” Cash wondered out loud.

Speaker neighed and shook his head: “No, that’s simply because people don’t know any better – we’re different. Solars don’t exalt just because they have a special bloodline and strong breeding: We exalt when the heavens choose us, exalt us, and give us power and…” he trailed off, with a blank look on his face.

“Okay, but power and what? I like power, but I’d like to know the full deal here, any strings attached to this?” Cash said, waving a hoof in front of Speaker’s face.

With a start, Speaker snapped back into reality, having momentarily lost himself to memories of ancient times, as well as thoughts on how things could have gone from then to now. The implications were grim: “A mandate of heaven. Celestia and the other Celestial Incarnae, the most powerful of the gods, gave creation to the Solars to rule. One of the last things I remember from my last incarnation’s life is fleeing from dragon-blooded usurpers…”

Cash blinked for a moment. You didn’t have to be a genius figured out the implication here: “So the dragon-blooded ousted our exaltations’ past incarnations… ouch, that’d be fun to say three times fast”

Nodding, Speaker concurred with Cash’s conclusion and added: “Come to think of it, the immaculate faith sounds really dodgy now. I mean, think about it: A religion that glorifies dragon-blooded unicorns as the most spiritually enlightened ponies and most favored by the gods, while saying that anything that looks like a shiny golden solar is a demon? Sounds like the dragon-blooded had fun justifying their actions after the usurpation. The realm of Equestria is probably all that’s left of what they once took over, with people over here east in the hundred kingdoms and river provinces seceding at some point”

With some clarity of what the situation was, the question became what to do next. It wouldn’t be many hours before the Daimyo’s ponies would arrive, and they would, without a doubt, head straight for Speaker’s house.

“I say we go to Great Forks, the City of Temples. I’ve heard that there’s no place in creation where the immaculate are less welcome” Cash suggested, recalling an encounter with some hashish merchants from the city state of Great Forks.

Just as he was about to nod, Speaker remembered something, something from his exaltation’s past life: “We can go there, but we have to make one stop first along the way. I think I have maps in a chest somewhere here, hold on”

A little rummaging back and forth and the two were going over maps of creation, focusing on the parts that showed the east and the river provinces that dominated that particular terrestrial direction of creation.