//------------------------------//
// 739 - Fetch Quest 
// Story: Lateral Movement 
// by Alzrius 
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“How much further?”

After several seconds, it became obvious that neither of Lex’s traveling companions were going to answer his question. In fact, he wasn’t even sure that they’d heard him at all, offering no outward reaction to the sound of his voice. Though if they had, he would have been hard pressed to see it; although his darkvision was still active – clearly showing the rough and unhewn cavern walls that made up the catacombs beneath the Shrine of the Starless Sky – it couldn’t show him much at all of the two acolytes that the Keeper had assigned to lead him to the monster that the talking skull wanted him to subjugate.

But that was no real surprise, since at the moment his guides were burrowing beneath the tunnel he was traversing rather than walking through it. 

The only reason he knew where they were at all was because of the dorsal fins jutting up from the ground, cutting lines through the stonework as their owners dug their way forward.

Refusing to be ignored, Lex instead came to an abrupt halt. He had no fear of his so-called guides leaving him behind; they’d previously demonstrated that they were sensitive to his presence. The vibrations caused by his hooves striking the ground were readily apparent to them, despite the unyielding surface of the stone and the low rumble caused by their own tunneling. And they proved their perceptiveness again a moment later as the two dorsal fins curved around, heading back toward him.

Preparing to use divine authority in case the Keeper’s acolytes were feeling treacherous – they were no longer within the Shrine, after all – Lex watched as the two dug their way upward and clamored into the tunnel proper.

The sight of their emergence would have sent most ponies fleeing in terror. Each of the creatures looked like someone had combined a shark with a giant armadillo, keeping all of the worst features of each. Both creatures had long, thick bodies whose exteriors were covered in overlapping plates of what looked like keratin rather of skin. Neither had any sort of neck that Lex could see, instead having heads that emerged directly from their midsections, with jaws as wide as their entire bodies and lined with multiple rows of jagged teeth. 

Four muscled legs likewise ended with long, sturdy claws that allowed them to dig through solid rock as a prodigious rate, displacing the fragments of pulverized earth behind them as they tunneled forward. Beady eyes were set deep in their skulls, making them look as if they were staring at him from inside of helmets that had been grafted onto their bodies. Behind each of them, stubby tails lashed from side to side, knocking away the last of the loose rock as they climbed out of the holes they’d dug.

These were the landsharks that Akna had mentioned to him earlier, being among the many different types of magical creatures that the Keeper had gathered. But when he’d called for them, the Shrine’s undying caretaker had termed them “bulettes,” introducing them as Grit and Gristle; apparently they were familiar with the creature the Keeper wanted him to fetch, having run into it before they’d been elevated to sapience.

Lex wasn’t sure which one was which – the Keeper had presented them as a pair, and Lex could barely spot any differences between them anyway – but mentally designated the one with the slightly smaller dorsal fin as Grit, and the other as Gristle.

“Why did you stop?” growled the former.

“Need to rest already?” sneered the latter.

For a moment, Lex didn’t reply, instead giving both creatures a hard glare before repeating his earlier question. “How much further?”

The duo laughed derisively in unison. But their chortling came to an abrupt halt as Lex turned his wire-wrapped foreleg toward the pair. “I warned you when we set out that my patience was already thin. Now, answer my question, or see what’ll happen if you continue wasting my time.”

The sound of gnashing teeth came from them then, but Lex had no idea if that signified anger, fear, or something else altogether. “Not very far now,” answered Grit.

“Its lair is close,” added Gristle.

“How close?” demanded Lex.

The question made the two of them shift their weight, huffing and snorting as they pawed at the ground. “Close enough to run there easy,” replied Grit after several seconds.

“Wouldn’t be winded when you arrive,” agreed Gristle.

Lex weighed that for a moment, trying to decide if they were being deliberately evasive or were just too stupid to offer anything more specific. Deciding that the second reason was more likely – even discounting that their enhanced mentalities were probably recent developments, it was unlikely in the extreme that either of them had been taught even the most basic methods for measuring time or distance – Lex slowly lowered his hoof. “If we’re that close, then I want both of you to stay here and wait for my return.”

The order set their tails to lashing. “Keeper said to help you,” insisted Grit.

“We do what Keeper says,” added Gristle.

Despite how simpleminded they sounded, and his having heard the Keeper relay those exact instructions to them, Lex didn’t let up. “Consider very carefully what happened to the last one of the Keeper’s minions who angered me. If this creature is as fearsome as your master says it is, I doubt he’ll care overly much if it replaces the two of you as well as Ganas.”

Another round of gnashing of teeth came from them then, but it wasn’t followed by any further challenge to his orders. Satisfied that they would obey him, Lex strode forward, passing between the two of them. Although he was well within reach that their claws would have been able to lash out at him with virtually no warning – to say nothing of how easy it would have been for them to lunge at him with open jaws – neither made any attempt to challenge him. It wasn’t until he’d passed them both by that they turned around to watch him leave.

“We’re not like Ganas,” called Grit as Lex continued walking.

“We’re bigger and stronger,” snarled Gristle.

“We’ve fought many battles and always survived.”

“We’re too tough to be killed easily.”

“We’ll wait right here while you fight that creature.”

“And we’ll be ready for when you come back.”

Lex didn’t bother responding as he marched down the tunnel.

That the bulettes were intent on revenge for his having killed Ganas, despite their insistence that they would follow the Keeper’s orders, was a possibility he’d been prepared for ever since they’d set out from the Shrine. Despite that, Lex hadn’t been overly concerned; even if he couldn’t simply bring them under control with divine authority, turning into a shadow would easily render most of their raw power useless. He had no idea if they had any magic at their disposal – Ganas had, in his few moments of resistance, tried to cast a spell – but Lex couldn’t bring himself to feel anxious about that either.

Even so, the last place he wanted Grit and Gristle to be was alongside him as he brought whatever it was he was about to face under his power, for one simple reason:

His two primary methods for dealing with those creatures if they turned out to be treacherous, dark magic and divine authority, were both running dangerously low.

He’d already used multiple applications of both of those powers during his disastrous confrontation with Sissel and her siblings, followed by even more in his subsequent exchanges with Ganas and the Keeper. The result was that both were now on the verge of being depleted. While he normally regained his full reservoirs of both while sleeping – unlike with his thaumaturgical spellcasting – that hadn’t happened during his recent bout of unconsciousness; replenishing those stores of energy required rest, and he’d experienced none of that in the wake of Solvei’s death.

Worse, his physical condition was in poor shape as well. 

While externally, his only visible wounds were where the barbed wire around his leg had cut him as a result of his trying to enact violence within the Shrine, the pain from his other injuries hadn’t faded. His head still ached from where Grisela had struck him, as did his back from when the hag had flung him over her shoulder. Worse, he could still feel a creeping sense of fatigue from having overcharged his body’s natural magic multiple times over the last several hours; even now, it was all he could do to walk without his legs trembling from exertion, the trip through the tunnels having exhausted what little stamina he had left.

Carefully managing what power he could still call upon was a major priority if he wanted to complete the Keeper’s errand and make it back alive, in other words. Which meant not having to waste any bringing Grit and Gristle back in line if they decided to turn on him at an inopportune moment. Far better to leave them behind so he could concentrate on one monster at a time...though that presumed they’d actually stay put. 

If not, then he’d likely need to dispatch them. It wasn’t as though he lacked the means to do so; quite the opposite, since – in a reversal from how things more usually were – he still had plenty of thaumaturgical spells ready to be used, despite his dark magic and divine authority running low. While not all of them were combative in nature, he still had more than a few that would almost certainly be sufficient to put the bulettes down.

And if the Keeper tries to use that as an excuse not to perform the Rite, Lex decided silently, then I don’t care what the Night Mare wants, I’ll bring that entire Shrine down on his unliving head!

The barbed wire around his foreleg twisted slightly at that, jagged edges running painfully across wounds that had only recently stopped bleeding, but Lex ignored it. Instead, he focused on the curve in the tunnel up ahead, noting how the passageway – already large enough to allow Grit and Gristle to stand side by side with room to spare – widened even further. More notable was the sound of breathing coming from around the bend.

Slowing to a halt, Lex took a moment to steady his breathing and give his aching muscles a chance to rest before pressing forward, moving further down the passageway as he glanced at where the breaths were coming from...

And caught sight at last of the creature that the Keeper had sent him to capture.

It was the size of the dragon he’d fought outside of Tall Tale, and the reptilian nature of its lower body lent itself to that comparison. But where the dragon had been saurian in appearance, this creature’s legs, tail, and middle were all crocodilian in nature. Nor were there any wings to be seen. But unlike its squamous body, the creature’s head was that of an entirely different animal altogether.

Or rather, its heads were of a different animal altogether.

All seven of them.

Lex had heard about hydras as a child, though he’d never seen one. But unlike the multiheaded statue back in the Shrine, the creature in front of him now had heads that were lupine in nature, each one of them sporting triangular ears, a protruding muzzle, and shaggy fur atop short necks.

That alone wouldn’t have been so disconcerting, but for the thing’s eyes.

Specifically, that it had none.

Instead, its sockets contained only flames. Smokeless and flickering despite the lack of a breeze, the fourteen ocular cavities were bright yellow, and Lex knew that if he hadn’t been using darkvision the light from the flames would have cast weird shadows across the open space it had chosen to make its lair in. All the more so since, as he watched, it got up and padded across the cavern, heading toward a pool of water on the far side of the place. 

Upon reaching it, three of its heads bent down to lap at the pool. Another ducked back to gnaw at its haunches, tending to some itch. The fifth head did the same, twisting around so that one leg could come up to scratch at its ear. The sixth yawned, as though sleepy. And the seventh was sniffing the air, glancing around as it searched for whatever had caught its attention.

And then it looked back at him.

Knowing that he’d spent too much time being surprised by the thing’s bizarre appearance, Lex rushed forward. The effort nearly sent him stumbling, his lungs burning with effort, but he paid them no mind. Divine authority had a relatively short range, and now that he’d been spotted it was imperative that he close the distance in order to use it.

Fortunately, even as the other six heads all turned to look in his direction, Lex was already holding his foreleg out as he got to within a stone’s throw of the thing.

Divine authority!

Invisible bands of power surged from his outstretched hoof, wrapping around the creature in an instant. The monstrosity stiffened in surprise, registering the sudden binding, and Lex felt it begin to thrash against the Night Mare’s power, throwing all of its strength into breaking free. 

Its resistance caused Lex to smirk, knowing that its effort was doomed to fail; of all the creatures he’d bound this way, only Tlerekithres – the kraken he’d fought back in Vanhoover – had possessed the raw power necessary to struggle against divine authority with any success. This creature, while certainly unusual, was no-

Then, with a howl that emanated from seven throats at once, the monster tore its way free from the shackles of divine authority and rushed toward him.