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So it seems about time to jump in in defense of Honourshine's decision there. The price he was asking was too bloody high.
...Wait, are we a mortal? Celestia lived for at least a thousand years, but it's not clear if that's an alicorn thing or a "is the sun" thing.
Following that revelation, you can't help but stand by Honourshine's decision: saving time would not have been worth the cost. And besides, the "forgetful" Dwarf did not exactly make a reliable impression of himself — even had he told you the truth, you wonder, would you have believed him?
Lexicon Anathema: "You have no reason to trust me, yet here you are."
You argue that you were given no reason to distrust her, either.
Honourshine: "Although, we were warned about your time having a price. Was making you laugh truly enough?"
Lexicon Anathema: "Oh, don't you worry about that. It's clear to me now that you haven't come here seeking forbidden knowledge."
Admittedly, you are unsure as to what counts as forbidden knowledge or not. You ask whether information about the Elves would be considered as such.
Lexicon Anathema: "How insightful of you. Yes, the Elves were erased from history for a reason..."
Suddenly, you hear a strange echo, as though the hermit's soft voice lingers in the air. The sound of the rain is gone. You glance outside, and find water droplets suspended in midair. Back at the table, your friends are frozen in time. Lexicon Anathema gives you an... amused look?
Lexicon Anathema: "Hmm... I do find the Dwarf's dilemma entertaining. Now, what if the roles were reversed? It does get lonely out here, after all. So if you'd like to know the truth about the Elves, ask for more tea, and I'll let you... convince me."
You stare at the brazen filly in disbelief. Did she just—? Then, a thunderclap jolts you back to reality. Rain falls noisily beyond paper-thin walls. Did you just daydream that...?
Lexicon Anathema: "... But you have other questions, don't you?"
You hesitantly nod. Pushing those thoughts back to the far reaches of your mind, you point out something Lexicon Anathema said earlier that piqued your interest: she called you mortals. You ask if that includes you.
Lexicon Anathema: "It does. You may be an alicorn, but your soul is balanced, which keeps your body in its temporal form. This binds you to the physical realm, and makes you a mortal, just like your friends here — or most other alicorns before you.
You must be thinking of your royal princesses. They're different: bound to astral objects which fuel their souls with light. Excess light transforms the body into its harmonious form, which is what makes them stand out so much.
There is also an opposite chaotic form born from darkness — the likes of Nightmare Moon, for example."
Moonflower: "Ohhh...!"
Lexicon Anathema: "This is not something unique to alicorns, either; any creature can reach its own harmonious or chaotic form and become immortal. But only alicorns can freely change between those forms, or ever become mortal again."
Honourshine: "This sounds familiar. Did we not read about something like this before?"
You nod, and recall the book A-Ni-Ma mentioning that an excess of darkness or light caused a state of undeath — and now, you've just learned that alicorns are immune to its adverse effects. You thank the hermit for patiently explaining this to you.
Lexicon Anathema: "Of course. Honestly, it's concerning how much basic knowledge has been lost over the years."
Enter a comment
- At least Lexicon seems to be willing to talk about things that aren't "forbidden knowledge" freely, but we can't be sure she's not making that category up as we go along so that we give her what she wants. I suppose we could ask her what knowledge is really forbidden, why, and why it has to cost something, and see if she has a convincing answer.
- We need to make sure to scope out what other information is "forbidden knowledge" before accepting any offers. Not that there are any commands to do this, but we really don't want to accept this offer and find out something else we want more also requires payment.
- We need the soul communication spell to make progress in "A Strange Dream" or else abandon it. Contrast that with "Voyage: Elven Research" which has one more way to progress (asking a primordial being). It's hard to say but I honestly don't know if this information about Elves is that much of a must-have, but maybe the QM thinks it is because they know what it is.
- With the ability to freeze time and speak to each of us individually, we have no idea if any of our other party members have gotten a similar "offer". We wouldn't want both us an Honourshine to "pay" two times over for the same information about the Elves. We could consider conferring with the party first, although that may cause Lexicon to change the terms.
- We don't want to express too much "interest" in the offer because this weakens our "negotiating" position. Trailblazer's natural reaction so far (shock and changing the subject) kind of suits the situation, in that we're expressing reluctance. It would probably be fine, but immediately asking about the offer shows that we're considering it and could backfire.
Maybe the deal also includes all future question about forbidden knowledge. Maybe we have to make a new deal each time. That's why we should first talk about the other topics of importance aka a spell to communicate with souls and our mysterious past. If part of that also involves forbidden knowledge it would be good to know in advance.
I assume Lexicon isn't the only way to learn such a spell. So we wouldn't fail, just not making any progress. Of course it's a golden opportunity to be able to talk to a person who can help us with two (three?) of our objectives at the same time.
Lexicon strikes me as somewhat honest creature. And she may only be interested in stallions (or Alicorns). But there has to be a reason why she offered the deal in the way she did. Perhaps she just felt that such an offer shouldn't be made in front of the group? Or perhaps she did indeed gave others the same offer? In that case, she would've given everyone a different code phrase. Really not sure what to do here. Maybe we can somehow make an offhand command about feeling frozen in time that feels somewhat natural. I thrust Shine to be smart enough to understand the hidden message and subtly tells us that she also got such an offer. And if she doesn't react in such a way, we know we're the only one who got it.
Yes, I think the simplest theory is that she was aware this would be embarrassing for us, and didn't want us to be discouraged by what our party members would think. Although we don't have a way to prove she didn't offer the deal to our party members without bringing it up. Other theories are that she didn't read it from our memories and assumed we're in a committed relationship with one of our party members (although those barely seem to exist in Equestrian culture, they do in Kirin culture), and didn't want that to dissuade us. Or she doesn't want our sprite guide to advise us against taking a deal with a demon.
Also, how do we plan to raise the question? Remember that our party members didn't hear the offer. I suppose we could ask delicately (so we can't explicitly bring up "consent"), or "ask for tea" so time gets frozen again.
Filly doesn't necessarily means kid because both D20pony and the show has refereed to ponies in the young adult bracket as colts/fillies. Lexicon also lives all by herself and is considered a well-known scholar. She also seems to be taller than Leaf Chaser – an actually kid.
However, she has no Cutie Mark and was describes as half the age of Blazer (whatever his age is).
Of course, demons live much longer than ponies and may even be immortal. That makes it even harder to guess her true age.
This from Lexicon……makes me think it's not immediately dangerous or going to explode, although it would be reasonable to treat it with appropriate care since it's a
chemicalmagical reagent. Maybe we should customize our house (an underused mechanic, heh) with a secure vault.- The Dwarf was in a "dilemma" of wanting sex but being too rude and unfamiliar with Equestrian culture to get it? Or was it being bound not to reveal forbidden knowledge but wanting sex really bad?
- The roles being reversed suggests that we are the Dwarf in the situation, and Lexicon is the pony? In that we want sex but are unfamiliar with demon customs? I don't see a good "reversal" if it's the latter dilemma; it would be a parallel.
- "Convince" is a euphemism for trading sex for the forbidden knowledge of who the Elves were before being erased from history. Asking for more tea is the code phrase to accept the offer. And since Lexicon froze time to exclude the others, this offer is only for us.
The warning that Quin gave us about flirting with demons (2025-04-14) might be relevant. I believe Traiblazer's personality would be to give a "helping hoof" free of charge to anypony that professed genuine loneliness or, ahem, thirst, but using it for favor-trading may rub him the wrong way. That and Quin's warning would give him pause. But I don't really see what could go wrong if we accept besides our feelings being hurt or losing a status game we don't care about, unless there is some kind of soul or spiritual consequence to being with a demon. And getting some dark magic in us would still be reversible, especially since we're an alicorn, and I would hope one "incident" wouldn't be enough to turn us into Nightmare Trailblazer.
Then there's the question about her motives and how trustworthy she is. Is it really just as straight forward as she claims? ? Or is there more to this? Is she testing us? Is she planing to manipulate us in one way or another? Maybe she can steal your life force during sex and that's how she maintains her immortality.... okay now we're entering paranoia territory.
First impressions can be wrong but so far she hasn't given us a reason to be wary of her and I don't think Quin would've recommend her to us, if he knew she was dangerous. So my guts tell me that we can accept the deal. Still let's chat a bit more first and keep any eye out for potential red flags.