//------------------------------//
// 581 - Restrictions and Constraints 
// Story: Lateral Movement 
// by Alzrius 
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The status quo had reached a point that Lex could no longer tolerate.

The possibility that someone was spying on him had been difficult to bear, but it had still been just that: a possibility. Although someone had attempted to scry on him in the immediate aftermath of his scrying on Adagio Dazzle – an attempt that his specially-prepared countermeasure had defeated – the chance that further scrying attempts would follow had been high, but not absolute. As thin as that distinction had been, it had been one which Lex had remained keenly aware of, prioritizing the things that had to be done rather than dropping everything to focus on a problem that might not manifest.

Although Lex had presumed the unknown entity conversing with Adagio – the most likely suspect for who was scrying on him now – had used some sort of specialized spell to gather information on him via his attempt to magically spy on the missing Siren sister, enough to then scry on him in turn, that had been the worst-case scenario. Despite that unknown personage’s apparent specialization in magical surveillance, as evidenced by their ability to seamlessly screen their visual and audible presence from his own scrying sensor, Lex hadn’t been able to rule out less-disastrous hypotheses, giving him a sliver of hope that there would be no further attempts to observe him. If that hidden person had, for instance, some sort of spell that was theoretically designed to respond to a scrying with a targeted counter-scrying, following a detected sensor back to its source as an automatic process rather than somehow diving information about him – a countermeasure theoretically similar to his own, but more insidious than explosive – then there was nothing to worry about; his anti-scrying spell had overloaded his opponent’s magic as soon as it had manifested, destroying it before it could relay even the briefest glimpse of him, leaving them with no knowledge of his identity in order to make a subsequent attempt.

But that theory, which had been thin to begin with, was now conclusively disproven. The detection of a scrying sensor during the second day of their trip to Las Pegasus confirmed that the threat – and an unknown entity monitoring his activities remotely was a threat, regardless of any other salient factors – was real, which meant that it needed to be dealt with. Not after the equinox, when he’d regained his thaumaturgical spells, but now, before they reached Las Pegasus.

But that was easier said than done, however.

While Lex knew he wasn’t without options for how to ward off future scrying attempts, the problem was that none of them were good options.

The first possibility that he’d come up with was using his dark magic to curse a particular area to be occluded to scrying. Whether or not that was even possible was purely conjectural, but in theory it was similar to what he’d done during his duel with Twilight, essentially miring a given region of space in dark magic that was tailored to impede a particular type of movement, in this case the movement of sensory information via magical sensor. It was an ideal solution…and one that he had very little expectation would actually work, even if it could be done.

After all, Twilight herself had demonstrated the weakness of that particular application of dark magic, since she’d broken through the anti-teleportation curse he’d laid down, and using Equestrian magic – which was comparatively weaker than thought-based spellcasting – no less. True, she’d almost certainly augmented it with that same unknown power that Celestia and Luna had used to empower their own magic, and she’d put herself at grave risk in the process, but in the end her magic had overcome his. Someone with expertise in thaumaturgical scrying would likely have far less trouble overcoming a similar barrier.

And even if he went ahead and tried to put up curses to prevent remote observation via magic, there were still practical limitations to consider. His anti-teleportation curse had required him to physically overcharge his dark magic, a process that put his body under great strain, and it was likely that any similar measure against scrying would require just as much effort. Even then, he’d only been able to cover an area roughly forty feet in diameter. Covering the entire yacht would have taken days and left him exhausted…and would have been utterly pointless anyway, since whatever area he cursed would have been fixed in space, rather than following the movements of the airship. Cursing whatever hotel room they were staying in once they reached Las Pegasus would potentially be a more fruitful exercise, but only slightly, since they were supposed to be on a whirlwind tour of the city’s various entertainments that would leave little downtime anyway. 

Taken individually, those limitations were comparatively moderate. Taken together, they made it clear that this was a problem that was beyond his dark magic to solve.

With that determination made, Lex had weighed another, much more extreme, option: replenishing his full complement of thaumaturgical spells immediately, rather than waiting for the equinox. His anti-scrying spell could be cast again then, as could the warding spell – which also prevented scrying – that he’d used to guard the warehouse during his initial foray into Vanhoover. While both were powerful enough that retaining them after casting would be exceedingly difficult, it wouldn’t be impossible. He just needed to prepare them again now.

That, however, would require him to be in proximity to the Tree of Harmony.

With Severance gone, that was the only object in Equestria that Lex knew of that emanated sufficient magical power for him to renew his strongest magic. While that didn’t require interacting with the Tree itself – something Lex had no desire to do, since the last time he had (attempting to force open the mysterious locked box it had manifested), it had retaliated with such force that it had blasted him off the face of Equestria completely, sending him on what had been his first trip to Everglow – since he could simply make use of the massive energies that radiated out from the Tree the same way heat radiated from a fire, there were still numerous problems with putting such a plan into effect.

The largest one being the matter of distance. The Tree of Harmony was located on the other side of the Everfree Forest from Ponyville, which was over a thousand miles distant from his current position. Nor was he in any position to undertake such a voyage.

He could have, of course. The yacht was his, and the ponies crewing it worked for him; if he told them to change course and make for the outskirts of Ponyville – though he knew it was unlikely that they were provisioned for such a voyage – they’d have no choice but to obey him. While their airship was nowhere near as fast as a train, they’d still be there in a matter of days.

But the costs of such a detour were simply too high for Lex to countenance. Even if he ignored the massive upset it would cause to everyone on board, there would be questions about what he was doing, questions that he wasn’t prepared to answer. Until he found a way to overcome his inability to easily renew his thaumaturgical spells, that limitation had to remain secret; dragging a ship full of ponies along with him as he made a desperate attempt to do exactly that wouldn’t help.

Slipping away and taking a train to Ponyville once they reached Las Pegasus would be only marginally less disastrous. Lex had no illusions about how conspicuous he was; even if most ponies hadn’t heard of his new royal status, his appearance was too outlandish to allow for any clandestine travel. A bright red horn that didn’t match his coat, eyes that glowed brightly whenever he used so much as simple telekinesis or lost control of his temper, and a shadow that never failed to make itself notable for how it fell the wrong way would make it easy to trace his movements if he suddenly disappeared for several days…which would, in turn, lead to questions that he didn't want to be asked. 

And of course, taking the train to Ponyville ran the risk of alerting the princesses. Twilight Sparkle lived in that same village, which was located near the base of the mountain that Canterlot – Celestia and Luna’s home – resided on top of. As lax in their duties as Lex found them to be, he couldn’t imagine that they’d ignore news of someone who looked like him appearing right on their doorstep. Given that Twilight was already on the verge of discovering his greatest weakness, leaving her so many clues about what he was doing would be courting disaster, more so than he could justify.

Having concluded that neither train nor airship would serve, Lex had briefly considered a third mode of travel: teleportation.

Although he had little more than a half-dozen thaumaturgical spells left in his mental reservoir, one of them was his short-range teleportation spell. It could only transport him (and a few passengers, if he chose) around one thousand feet, but if he overcharged it via his body’s magical channels, in theory the spell could take him much further. Potentially to within a stone’s throw of the Tree of Harmony, where he could replenish his magic – including another short-range teleportation spell – and then return via the same method.

But that was an optimistic take on what could happen. Since he’d never fed additional power into that spell before, it could just as easily prove to be insufficient for transporting him the required distance, leaving him at some point between Las Pegasus and Ponyville. Or he could potentially overshoot his destination. Either way, the potential for winding up off-target was too large to overlook, leaving him with no easy way back and nothing to show for his efforts. It was simply too risky.

Having ruled that final method of transportation out, Lex had been forced to acknowledge that a surreptitious detour to the Tree of Harmony was beyond his capabilities. 

Which narrowed his options for dealing with his unwanted watcher to exactly one.

A ritual.

By directly shaping ambient magical energy without internalizing it first, the results were potentially far more efficacious than a curse. Nor would he have to travel anywhere, putting his weakness at risk of discovery. On those virtues alone, it was the best choice available to him.

Of course, the risks with such an undertaking were familiar to him. Ritual castings took hours of exacting vocalizations and somatic gestures, and even the slightest of interruptions would cause the gathered energy to collapse, producing magical disasters of an unpredictable nature as it dissipated back into the surrounding environment. If that happened, Lex knew he’d suffer the brunt of the backlash, but everyone around him would also be at risk.

Not to mention that the actual method by which the ritual was enacted needed to be designed. While not as exact as his thaumaturgical spellcasting, rituals were still highly specific in attempting to produce an effect. That meant that he needed to define exactly how he wanted to deal with the scrying spells being directed at him and then come up with parameters to enact that exact sequence, along with other salient factors such as the duration of the effect, the range at which it would operate, etc. Such a thing was no small task; Lex had invented the ritual to summon Harrow Ordeal in a matter of hours and entirely in his head, but that was because it was simply a modification of the ritual he’d made to summon the Night Mare into his presence, something that had taken him weeks of painstaking testing and development back on Everglow.

Of course, that had been when he’d been heavily distracted by numerous other concerns, both practical (such as securing his safety in that harsh, alien world) and cerebral (studying the plethora of magic to be found there, as well as looking for a way back to Equestria). Given that he had far fewer distractions now, as well as a rough baseline to work from via the thaumaturgical spells he knew that dealt with scrying, comfortable surroundings with servants who would obey his every word, and a plethora of ponies who were eager to give him whatever he asked for – including materials for practical experimentation – things would proceed far more quickly.

More quickly than they had gone over the last few days, at any rate. Between the servile ponies that he needed to deal with, and Sonata and Aria growing progressively more dissatisfied with how tepid his indulgence for their recreational pastimes was – to say nothing of his continuing refusal to engage in licentiousness with them – opportunities for research had been far more limited than he’d liked. Interruptions seemed to lurk around every-

“My prince?” called Feather Duster from the doorway to his quarters. “Forgive me for disturbing you, but I was just told that Las Pegasus is coming into view.”

“And?” he snapped, resenting the disturbance.

Wincing a little, Feather continued. “I’ve heard that the city is very beautiful when seen from a distance at night.” She paused then, as though waiting for him to intuit whatever she was implying. When he simply stared at her, waiting for her to get to the point, she seemed to wilt a little. “I think that Lady Dusk and Lady Blaze would enjoy seeing it.”

“Then you should be informing them of its proximity rather than me,” rebuked Lex.

“…I think they’d enjoy seeing it together with you.”

“They'll need to live with their disappointment.” Lex pointedly turned away from her then, making it clear that the conversation was over.

Out of his periphery, he saw Feather fold her ears back. “Yes, Your Highness.”

She slunk away then, but Lex had already put her out of his thoughts before the door clicked shut. Dealing with whoever was spying on him was too important, especially with all of the other distractions that he couldn't afford to ignore. He'd explain to Sonata and Aria what was happening after he had dealt with it; he couldn't take the chance that a scrying sensor would manifest while he was telling them prior to then. The possibility that the person viewing him didn't know that he'd discovered what they were doing was a potential advantage that Lex wasn't willing to give up. If they realized that he was taking action to stymie them, there was a risk that they'd be goaded into taking action to prevent that from happening, and that wasn't something he wanted to encourage. Until then…

Just a little more time, he reassured himself as he went back to work, mentally outlining the ritual that would put an end to this latest complication in his life.

Then this won't be a problem anymore.