126 - You Reap What You Sow
Fencer ran face-first into a wall, unable to keep from crying out as the stump of her horn painfully collided with the rough wood of the crate.
The impact was hard enough to knock her onto her backside, causing her to scramble onto all fours in a panic and fling herself blindly to the right, worried that she’d hit the stacked crates hard enough that they were about to fall on her. That had been a useful tactic when she’d wanted to escape into the maze, but now, unable to see what was happening around her, it was a deathtrap waiting to be tripped. It would have been far better, she knew, to slowly feel her way through the pitch-black corridors instead of running flat-out, but that would have minimized what little hope for escaping she had left.
A scattered memory flitted across her panic-filled mind. When she was a little filly, she’d once had a nightmare that she was being chased by a monster. She hadn’t seen it, but she’d somehow known that it was a horrible thing and that if it got her, that would be the end. So she’d run as fast as her little legs could carry her, only to find that for some reason they weren’t working right, her muscles growing weak and uncoordinated, letting the unknown thing behind her rapidly draw closer. She’d woken up before it had gotten her though, screaming loudly enough to bring her dad running. He’d spent a long time reassuring her that it was just a dream, that it couldn’t hurt her, and had stayed right there with her until she’d fallen back asleep.
As Fencer picked herself up, not having hit another wall in her desperate rightward lunge, and started down the connecting passage, she wished with all of her heart that this was all just another nightmare, that any second now she’d wake up and her dad would be there and everything would be okay. But she knew it wouldn’t happen, the same way it hadn’t happened any of the other thousands times she’d wished for that since everything had fallen apart. All she could do was what she’d been doing, which was try to survive.
This isn’t fair! She knew that “fair” didn’t matter here, that it had fled along with harmony and justice and everything else that was good and decent when Vanhoover had flooded, but she couldn’t help but think it anyway. I didn’t do anything wrong! I just wanted to live! To protect myself from everything here! Why is this happening to me?!
Her breath was coming in heavy pants now, each one tinged with a sob, and her legs were burning from continual use. How long had it been since she had started running? It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since Lex had announced that she would be made to pay, causing her to turn and flee as rapidly as she could, but it felt like it had been hours. Running off into the darkness of the warehouse completely blind had been a foolish thing to do, she knew, but there had been no other choice. With no horn of her own she couldn’t conjure a light, and she’d foolishly let Cozy retrieve her necklace-lamp thing, thinking that it wouldn’t matter once she got Lex’s horn.
She had no idea where she was or where she going, aware that she was completely lost, but surely she’d find the exit eventually! She had to keep moving, had to find the way out before Lex found her…and she was sure he was coming after her. Just like the monster in her childhood nightmare, she could practically feel him behind her, waiting for her to get tired so he could swoop down on her and take whatever horrible revenge he was planning. And it wasn’t just him she had to worry about; she was certain that she’d heard a clattering a few minutes ago that could only be from those undead ponies. She had no idea what Lex would do to her, but she knew exactly what would happen to her if those things got her; the same thing they’d done to her dad. She didn’t know which frightened her more.
She hit another wall, and this time rolled to the left, thankfully not hitting another crate as she did. A second later, she heard a large crash from the space she just vacated, feeling the impact from where it had smashed against the ground, and whimpered in fear and frustration. Shaking, she climbed to her hooves, knowing that she had to get away before the crash brought everyone to her location. Standing up, she started to move…and then stopped dead.
Green eyes with purple flames from their outer corners were staring at her from the darkness.
“There you are,” came the familiar, hate-filled voice.
A scream of pure terror ripped itself from Fencer’s throat, and she immediately turned and ran in the opposite direction. Her hoof came down on a large piece of broken wood, and she howled as she felt it pierce her, but she didn’t stop, lifting her injured leg and trying to move forward with the other three. A moment later she collided with the main piece of the fallen crate, still largely intact despite the fall, and scrambled to get over it, splinters lodging in her belly as she dragged herself across the rough surface.
Any semblance of her old self, the mask of calm she’d forced herself to wear, was completely gone now. The same panic that she’d derided in others, that she knew could only lead to death, had completely taken her over. As she ran as best she could on her three uninjured legs, her only thought was to get away from the monster that was closing in on her, to try and buy herself whatever time she could by putting just a little more distance between herself and those horrible eyes. She hit wall after wall, turning corners and running down corridors completely at random. She didn’t dare look behind her, sure that she’d see Lex closing in on her, knowing that she just had to keep going forw-
Something suddenly struck the side of her face, sending her sprawling.
“Where’s the little pony going in such a hurry?” rasped an unknown male voice.
“She brought us a tasty treat before. Does she not have anythin’ now?” Another voice, female this time.
“That body you tossed us was delicious, but it was barely an appetizer,” whined a third voice, also female but higher-pitched.
Although she’d never heard them speak before, their conversation was enough to clue Fencer in as to who, or rather what, was speaking. It’s the ones from before! The undead things I fed that carcass to! She had left them behind while they were busy feeding, but this time she had nothing to distract them with. Worse, she knew from experience that these things could see in the dark somehow, whereas she could only roughly approximate where their voices were coming from. She had to get away!
But as she tried to climb to her hooves, she found that her body wouldn’t move.
NO! Hysterical, Fencer tried to climb to her hooves, to thrash or kick or roll or do anything! But her body refused to obey her commands, her limbs locked rigidly into place. Nonono oh sweet Celestia please no! She couldn’t even scream in her current state, her attempts coming out as nothing more than a slightly-heavier breath.
Hooffalls marked the things moving closer to her, the only clue to their approach in the pitch blackness. “Nothing to say? Well, if you’re not gonna be all hospitable, then you don’t mind if we help ourselves, right?” asked the male voice with gleeful sarcasm.
“It’d be rude for us not to have a bite or two,” giggled the female, “what with her goin’ to the trouble to lay it out for us like this.”
“I call dibs on her flank!” announced the higher-pitched voice. “Then I-, hey! Her horn’s gone!”
“Who cares?” replied the male voice. “The horn’s almost all bone with no meat on it. That’s why I want first crack,” the sound of a hoof striking the ground hard emphasized that word, “at her ribs. Warm meat on the outside with soft marrow on the inside makes them hoof-licking good.”
The other female snickered. “In that case, I get BOTH of her eyes!”
“You always get the eyes!”
“We’d like some candy for once too, you know!”
“Too bad! You two had your chances when you called dibs first, so her eyes are mine!”
By now the sound of their hooves had moved all around Fencer, and their voices sounded like they were standing right over her. Some part of her knew that they had to be doing this on purpose, deliberately trying to frighten her before they killed her out of some sick sense of entertainment. But it was working, with tears of utter terror falling down her face as she vainly struggled to move. Turbo! Piggy! Sonata! Somepony! Anypony! PLEASE! I need help!
The thought brought an immediate rush of anguish, however, as she knew that no one would come to rescue her. Her friends and family were all dead or missing, she had walked away from her old group after Lex took them in, and she’d turned on him and the rest of his ponies as soon as she could. There was no one left to help her now, and because of that she was not only going to die, but die in agony. She had shut everyone out, and now she was utterly alone when she needed someone the most.
At least, when it was over, she’d see her dad again…
The thought of him brought another memory to mind, this one of just after she’d gotten her cutie mark. She’d been designing an adorable little picket fence around the garden in their backyard, and her dad had come out to look at it. He had been nothing but smiles for days, obviously thrilled that she had continued in the family tradition, but he’d shaken his head when he saw what she’d made. “Sweetheart,” he’d said as he put a hoof around her, “you forgot the most important part.”
The gentle rebuke had left her flummoxed. She’d dug the holes, and had arranged the rails, posts, and pickets all perfectly, with everything set at the proper distances and firmly affixed to everything else. When she protested that she hadn’t forgotten anything, her dad had laughed good-naturedly. “You forgot to add a gate.”
He’d been right, of course, but she had been too embarrassed to admit it, childishly insisting that she didn’t need one. Her father’s smile had shrunk at that, and he’d bent down to look her right in the eye. “Sweetheart, every fence needs a gate,” he’d explained. “You might need to keep some people out, maybe even a lot of people, but there’s always some that deserve to be let in. That’s the way it is for fences, and for life.”
I’m so sorry, Dad. I forgot what you taught me.
“Now then,” came the lower-pitched female, dragging her out of her sudden memory. From the sound of her, she was a few inches in front of her face. “Let’s dig in before she starts thrashin’. I wanna savor this.” Fencer tried to prepare herself for what was about to happen, tried to shut it out or push it away or anything at all but she was so scared so scared don’t wanna die not like this don’t wanna-
“GET AWAY FROM HER!”
Fencer heard the three voices gasp, even as a harsher voice chanted something in an unfamiliar language. A second later a trio of red beams lanced out, illuminating the area to let her see the rotted forms of her attackers as Lex’s attack slammed into them. The undead things howled in pain, thrashing as they smoked and began to blacken. The beams ended a second later, plunging the area back into darkness, but the sound of bodies hitting the floor and the horrible smell that filled her nostrils a moment later told her what had happened.
A shudder of thankfulness worked its way down her spine, but a moment later the green-and-purple eyes that she’d been running from moved into her field of view, looking down on her with malice. For a moment she wondered if she’d avoided a horrible death only to experience an even worse one instead. But a moment later she felt something curl around each of her ankles, and she instinctively jerked her legs. “Wha-?” she started, then stopped as she realized she could move again.
“Get up,” ordered Lex coldly.
Shaking, Fencer moved to obey, almost tripping as she realized that what he’d placed around her legs were cuffs, from the sound of them with links of chain between them. There was just enough slack for her to talk small steps, but not enough to let her gallop, hobbling her. But the fact that he was telling her to move at all was enough to give her hope. “Y-you’re not going to kill me?” she hiccupped.
Lex turned away from her, his eyes looking elsewhere as he started to move through the darkness. A moment later Fencer felt a weight form around her neck, a collar this time, with another length of chain dangling off of it. A moment later it was enveloped in the roiling purple of Lex’s telekinesis as he pulled her after him, making her stumble as he led her along. “I don’t kill ponies,” came the terse response. “Not even criminals like you.”
It was the least reassuring response she could have asked for, but at that moment it was music to her ears.
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The gate parable was perfect for this sad survivor.
So close Fencer.
But you dont escape that easily.
8309646
Sad does not really describe her. I think weak is a better description.
8309646 I thought so too; I'm glad you liked it.
8309666 Not from Lex, at least. He doesn't ever forget, nor does he forgive (except under truly exceptional circumstances, such as with Sonata).
8309684 That's an interesting proposition; it's true that Fencer lost herself in the aftermath of what happened to Vanhoover. The question is if that makes her weak, or if the circumstances were such that anypony (or at least, anypony who didn't have moral fiber of an absurdly strong degree) would have succumbed.
Certainly, she failed the crucible she went through, but does that say something about her or about the nature of the crucible itself?
8309691
I have to say Lex is a very interesting, and deep character, the havoc he could unleash if he didn't follow his strict moral code...
Well, at least she gets to live another day though not in the way she expects but at least she'll live. Though the question is, what will Lex do to her as punishment. I doubt he'll let the group decide her punishment since it would create a divide between them and the new arrivals so he'll need to decide on one that will benefit the group as a whole.
Making her work for him outright is an unwise choice given her previous actions. Aisle might try to vouch for her...until he sees the state Pillow is in that is. Then again, Aisle seems to be the most sensible of the Vanhoover survivors so far. Imprisonment will likely be the immediate solution until Lex figures out how to deal with Fencer, even if it does cause some unrest with the survivors.
p.s: I love the dark comedy routine you did with the ghouls. A bit of levity and horror mixed together always entertains me so.
Well... In a way, Lex DID kill her. If the Undead got to her and they ARE ghouls (and intend to actually make more ghouls as opposed to consume whole, which seems to be implied), she'd have become a ghoul too.
Now, she won't become a ghoul. She'll stay mortal and die in a few years.
8309703 Thank you for saying so!
I agree completely, but being the author, that's sort of expected.
As for what Lex would be like if he ever abandoned his moral code...hopefully he, and Equestria, will never have to find out. All I'll say (for now) is that it would be very bad.
8310402 They were planning on devouring her. Victims of ghouls only become ghouls if they're bitten, contract ghoul fever, and then die of it (which takes several days). So if they'd eaten her alive, Fencer wouldn't have become a ghoul anyway.
8309821 The question of how Lex will punish her remains an open one, though it can pretty well be taken as a given that he WILL punish her for what she did, and quite likely harshly. However, he's opposed to outright cruelty, so it remains to be seen exactly how he'll bridge the gap between "she needs to be made to pay, and harshly" and "cruelty is forbidden."
Of course, this raises the question of how everypony else will react when they see Fencer (and/or what Lex does to Fencer). I suspect that reactions will be split between the members of Fencer's (former) group and everypony else. It's debatable if Lex will even realize that the reactions to whatever he decides might cost him what popularity he's gained. Hopefully Sonata can help him there...if he'll let her.
Also, I'm glad you liked the bit with the arguing ghouls! Like a lot of writers, I take inspiration from the things that I enjoy, and that particular scene was my homage to "The Heart's Final Beat," a Ravenloft adventure written for the RPGA as a companion to Champions of the Mists and was itself later reprinted in TSR Jam 1999. In it, the PCs come across a scene of some ghouls torturing a victim, and arguing over what cuts of meat to take (e.g. tearing at the person's ribs while cackling, "I'll take the brisket!"). It's quite different from how most products tended to portray ghouls as slavering, semi-sentient beasts, and it's been the basis for a lot of how I've written the ghouls in this story, so including that here was quite fun for me.
8310466
That's why I said "If they intended to make more ghouls".
It does make me wonder: How did so many ghouls come to be? It not only takes a whole day for a ghoul to rise, the disease isn't even as lethal and only triggers if it is the actual disease that does the victim in (it can take days for a character to die from the disease and virtually any damage taken could knock them out and make them a meal). I mean, there are ghoul cities, but they are made by ghouls for ghouls and they probably understand the concept of reproduction.
It feels like the disease shouldn't be the thing that kills someone in a ghoul infested place anyway, meaning no more ghouls rise. As soon as the disease had two or three days, virtually any attack should kill the infected, so if the infected is hunted by ghouls, he won't become a ghoul either. It's not like a ghoul can be tricked easily, if anything they are smarter than your average human/pony.
8310680 It's true that a large number of ghouls in a given area will make it difficult for any new ghouls to spawn, simply because their higher numbers make it more likely that a victim will be successfully run down and devoured before the disease can run its course. However, that's incumbent on there already being a large number of ghouls to begin with. If you start out with a small number of them, and a large number of potential victims, then it's fairly easy to see how their numbers can spread rapidly, since they're going to have more victims than they can easily attack, and so will have large numbers of initial bite victims who escape and later succumb to ghoul fever.
Essentially, the number of ghouls in Vanhoover is a (rough) function of Malthusianism.
can lex cast flesh to stone ? It would allow him to emprisonnate Fencer in waiting for when he will decide what to do with her
8310690
That makes sense. Originally I've been thinking about how easy it is to make the save (it's only DC 13) as a limiting factor, but if they don't hunt in packs (which probably not all of them do) and ponies have seen other ponies recover (making them less likely to consider the bitten lost causes and just kill them off, which would prevent spawning more ghouls) I can see why they would multiply.
Still... I can't believe the basic traps to be as effective against the ghouls as they seem to be. Ghouls are pretty smart, one would think they watch where they're going. They got darkvision and are pretty though too... Well, compared to level 1-2 commoners/ponies.
8310718 I keep, for my own utility, a list of all of the spells that Lex has used so far over the course of this fic. Since he's a preparatory caster, he's able to learn a potentially-limitless number of spells (though with some restrictions, such as needing to be on the sorcerer/wizard list, and no area-of-effect destructive spells), and that's just taking into account his primary spellcasting!
With regard to flesh to stone, we haven't seen him use that particular spell...but I'm going to remain silent as to whether or not he already knows it, or any other particular spell that he hasn't used yet. Doing so is easier to keep track of, and leaves open creative avenues that I might want to use later on.
Which is to say, "no comment!"
8310728 Don't forget that ghoul fever is a disease that deals Constitution damage, which means that once you fail the Fort save against it, you're more likely to keep failing over time. Also, even if they do beat the disease before it kills them, ability damage takes some time to recover, so they'll remain at heightened risk if they're exposed at a later date (i.e. bitten again).
Insofar as traps go, your average ghoul has a fairly decent Perception modifier (+7), but be aware that even CR 1 traps tend to have a DC 20 Perception check to notice them, so they'll fail more than half the time.
A couple typos in here.
she could only.
And then, this comment.
8310690
There.
8386911
Darn it! Fixed now.
B'oh!D'oh! Also fixed.