146 - The Way of Conviction
“Manipulates life and-,” Sonata paused in mid-sentence as her eyes suddenly widened. “Wait, you mean he’s responsible for those undead ponies?!” Her surprise was enough to make her forget to whisper.
“Keep your voice down!” hissed Lex, glancing around reflexively. He glanced back at the ponies he’d brought with him when escorting Block Party to the train station – all of them were sailors from C. Shells’ crew, though he hadn’t bothered to learn their names – but fortunately they didn’t seem to have picked up on what Sonata had said. Giving a small sigh of relief, Lex kept marching back towards where everypony else was conducting the relief effort, letting Sonata and the others follow him.
“Sorry,” whispered Sonata, giving him a contrite look. But it only lasted for a moment before fading into concern. “But for realsies, if he’s got a necromania spell on him, and that’s the kind of magic that messes around with death and stuff, then doesn’t that mean that the undead ponies are his fault?”
“Possibly,” admitted Lex, not bothering to correct her slip of the tongue. Nor did he look at her as he spoke, too focused on his thoughts to pay much attention to his surroundings. “What it definitely proves-”
“Hang on,” interrupted Sonata. “How is that not definite? If he does the necromamba, doesn’t that mean he has to be the one who did it?”
Lex shook his head, again overlooking her mispronunciation, though it made one of his eyes twitch for a moment. “No, Sonata, it’s doesn’t.” He glanced at her then, his eyes running down her flank to rest on her cutie mark. “On Everglow, there are a lot of spellcasters like you, who have intuitive magic. The spells they learn often, though not always, reflect an underlying thematic element. But there are other methodologies for learning magic, ones like my own which don’t require the user to limit themselves to a particular category of effects. If we make the reasonable presumption that he cast that spell on himself then it’s certainly suspicious, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate that he knows any other necromantic spells.”
Sonata blinked, a mystified expression on her face. “Huh?”
Fighting back the urge to roll his eyes, Lex tried again. “What that means is that Block Party’s using a necromantic spell doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s responsible for what’s happened with those undead abominations in Vanhoover. Even if we overlook that there were spellcasters among those aquatic monsters we fought, knowing one necromantic spell doesn’t prove that he knows more. And even that spell might be for something else entirely.”
“Like what?” asked Sonata doubtfully.
“There’s a necromantic spell on Everglow that some of the wizards there like to use as a preemptive defense if they think that danger is imminent. It temporarily augments the connection between their body and soul, giving them a better chance to survive wounds that might otherwise be lethal. Block Party’s spell was stronger than that, so maybe it was an enhanced version. Or it could be for something else altogether. My detection spell can’t isolate the specific functionality of the magic it analyzes.” That last admission came with a growl in his voice, his eyes flickering up to the circlet on his head in irritation. In addition to being a minor reservoir of spell energy, it let him look into the magical spectrum whenever he wanted, but doing so didn’t provide him with as much information as he would have liked.
“Ohhh.” Sonata nodded, trying to wrap her head around what she’d been told, when she realized that was the second time he’d mentioned that place. “So, you think he’s from Everglow?”
“I’m sure of it. Even if we overlook the fact that Equestrian magic doesn’t have any necromantic traditions, Block Party is an earth pony, not a unicorn. If he cast that spell on himself, then he couldn’t have learned magic here. That, and whatever spell he’s placed on himself is strong enough that it’s not something Equestrian magic could easily accomplish, at least not unless the spellcaster has a cutie mark related to magic.”
“And that’s not what his cutie mark is,” added Sonata.
“Exactly. Which means that he’s not using Equestrian magic at all. Hence, he’s from Everglow, or at least has spent some time there.”
Sonata started to say something, but then paused as something occurred to her, closing her mouth and glancing back at the train station. Although they’d only walked a short distance from it so far, the building was almost completely hidden in the nighttime gloom, with only a dim light shining from a few of the lower windows. Finally, she spoke up again. “But he could be responsible for the undead ponies, right?”
Now it was Lex’s turn to nod. “The possibility is not inconsiderable.”
Sonata digested that for a long moment, trotting beside Lex in silence as they moved back through the camp. Finally, though, she couldn’t take it anymore and darted forward, planting herself directly in his path and turning to face him. The action was so unexpected that Lex stumbled and almost collided with her before managing to come to a stop. “Sonata?”
She looked behind him, at where the other ponies that they’d brought with them were looking at the two of them in confusion. “Can you guys go back ahead of us? We’ll totes be along in a sec.”
The ponies glanced at each other in confusion, with more than a few of them shooting inquisitive glances towards Lex. Seeing their hesitation, he canted his head back towards the other end of the camp. That was enough, and the rest of the ponies moved past them, heading back towards where they’d left everyone else in their group. Once he was sure they were out of earshot, he looked back at Sonata. “What’s going on?”
Sonata let out a breath, a slightly frustrated look on her face. “Okay, look. I know I’m not the sharpest crayon in the toolshed, and that you’re a super genius and all, but…how does this make any sense?”
“How does what make any sense?”
“This!” Sonata pointed a hoof at the train station, now barely visible behind Lex. In that moment all of the stress she’d been feeling, the tension that she’d thought she’d gotten rid of when she and Lex had fooled around earlier, came rushing back to her. Fencer’s callousness, everyone’s losing faith in Lex, Aria’s needling, the misery that permeated the camp…it was suddenly just too much, causing her to worries to boil over. “Block Party is a bad guy, right? I mean a really bad guy! When you were telling him what an awful job he’d done taking care of everypony here, he didn’t care at all! And I don’t mean that he was being standoffish or anything the way you usually do-”
“Hey!”
“-I mean he looked like he was trying not to laugh, as though all those poor ponies were just some kind of joke to him!” The vision of Block Party’s bemused expression as he’d looked at them, right in the middle of all of that suffering, was one of the worst things she’d ever seen. Although it lacked the immediate terror of almost being killed by a dragon, it was no less frightening for it. It was enough to make her skin crawl at the thought of being anywhere near him. The very idea that he’d been enjoying their anguish was off-putting on a visceral level.
Sonata decided right then to take Aria up on her offer. The thought of anyone treating Lex as though he were anything like Block Party was completely unacceptable.
“No one is denying that Block Party’s administration over this camp has been a disgrace,” spoke up Lex, thinking that Sonata was done. “That’s why I’ve removed his authority, and had him confined while-”
“But that’s not enough!” She shook her head, as much to showcase her disagreement as to try and get her train of thought back. “I’m saying, it was one thing when we thought he was just doing a super bad job running this place. But now he has Everglow magic too? Magic which might have been responsible for causing Vanhoover to be overrun with those undead ponies? If that’s the case then I don’t think locking him up like that is gonna be enough to keep everypony safe!”
Lex was silent at that, looking at her with an unreadable expression. Sonata took his lack of response as an excuse to keep going. “Fencer was a dangerous person that got one pony killed, and you cursed her a whole bunch and tossed her in a cage for it. Block Party is an even more dangerous person that, even if he isn’t responsible for those monsters in Vanhoover, caused all of this!” She swept her hooves around to indicate the entirety of the camp. “And all you’re doing is locking him in the train station.”
“That’s all I can do right now, Sonata.”
“But Fencer-”
“Her name is Garden Gate,” interrupted Lex. She’d said her piece, and now he was going to say his. “And the nature and extent of her crimes didn’t need to be investigated, since she committed them right in front of me. That’s why I could condemn and sentence her immediately. But that’s not the case for Block Party. In order to pass judgment on him, there’ll need to be a public inquiry into the offenses that he’s committed in order to determine their precise nature and scope, as well as his being guilty beyond plausible skepticism. At that point I’ll be able to hand down a harsh penalty. But until then, the conditions of his confinement need to justify themselves based on the minimum requirements necessary to stop him from being a threat to everypony else, and that determination is based on his actions to date, not his potential capabilities…which we don’t really know anyway.”
“I still think you should just curse him so that he can’t use magic, just like you did with F-, Garden Gate,” frowned Sonata. “If it’s too much then you can always undo it later.”
“He hasn’t taken any action to justify that level of intrusive action, and I can’t presume to impose such a thing without sufficient merit,” replied Lex. He walked past her as he spoke, letting her know that this conversation was over. He didn’t mention that in order to use a curse of that magnitude, he’d need to channel additional magic through his body, and he’d already exhausted his ability to do that when he’d condemned Garden Gate. Until he rested, such an option was out of his reach. Even then, that curse impeded spellcasting ability, rather than negated it altogether. If the power of that necromantic spell on Block Party was any indication, cursing his spellcasting – presuming that he wasn’t able to resist it in the first place – would only partially stop it.
But of course, all of that presumed that Block Party would accept the results of his guilty verdict with as much aplomb as he had his incarceration. Although the smirking stallion hadn’t seemed to care about being locked up, somehow Lex doubted that would be the case when it came time to condemn him for what he’d done.
“I really don’t think this is going to work,” muttered Slip ‘n’ Slide as he laid down.
“If you have a better idea, I’m sure Turbo would love to hear it,” shot back Funshine. “For that matter, I would too.”
“Princess Luna didn’t visit your dreams, my dreams, or anypony else’s dreams that I ever heard about the entire time Vanhoover was falling apart.” Slip gave his brother a flat look. “You really think she’s going to come running just because the boss mare got cursed by that spooky stallion?”
“I think we have nothing to lose by trying,” answered Funshine with a shrug. “It’s not like we weren’t going to sleep anyway, so we might as well give it a shot.”
Slip couldn’t argue with that, so he just snorted instead. Turning onto his side, he looked over at where Fencer had curled up in her cage, her back turned towards them. A short distance away, Turbo was standing vigil, giving her a worried look. For a moment Slip couldn’t figure out what was making the other stallion so anxious – they’d finally made it out of the city! – until he remembered that one of Lex’s curses was to make Fencer have nightmares every night.
Biting his lip at that, Slip ‘n’ Slide laid his head down and made sure to think of Princess Luna as he closed his eyes.
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The typos seem to be keeping Block Party company. None around Lex.
Is necromancy able to generate and use magic from the suffering of others? I honestly don't have that much knowledge of DnD, or pathfinder, the only experience being playing a couple games on the computer based on the d20 system. So could the spell on Block Party be tapping into the fear and pain of those around him to give him power? Can he use power to influence others thoughts/actions?
Huh, so that's Turbo's plan...which is surprisingly more simplistic and innocent than I assumed. I keep forgetting that despite everything they've done in the name of survival, they're still Equestrians.
Still, I kind of doubt getting out of the city itself will let their message get through since if it did then the Princesses would have arrived ages ago by getting alerted by the number of nightmares experienced by the ponies in Block's group.
Still, it would be interesting if Turbo somehow does get in contact with Princess Luna though I wonder if she would send the cavalry Turbo is hoping for. At the very least, I think the princesses would send a small team to investigate since having a large military force depart would garner public attention that might incite panic since the nation is still technically recovering from the elemental bleeds.
So many nightmares spread so far accross the country, Luna couldnt focus attention on just one, and interfereing effects might have diverted her away even more?
Given Lex is straight off up frnt and bnoxious, is there at least one embedded operative from one of many departments in the Castle, or have they all missed the chance by thinking it was the other departments problem, duty? Even if they miss a daily passcode drop?
8445098
Whew!
As cool as that idea is, it's not something that the D&D/Pathfinder rules touch upon. In point of fact, the game doesn't concern itself with "power sources" for magic beyond some light flavor text. For most spellcasters, just getting eight hours of rest followed by one hour of quiet concentration is enough to completely renew their entire spell capacity (though such a renewal can only be done once per day). Wizards and some other preparatory spellcasters need to pour over their spellbook during this time, but other than that there's no real question of "necessary conditions" required to refresh their magical ability. That Lex does suffer from such a restriction is unusual, and rankles him greatly.
8445511 The elemental bleeds were among the worst disasters Equestria ever suffered, and a lot of ponies are still having nightmares in their aftermath, leading to Luna being rather overworked, as was stated back in chapter 60. As for whether there's anything else going on...well, we'll just have to wait and see about that.
As for the princesses sending along any sort of reconnaissance...well, no one made the trip to Tall Tale with Lex and Sonata, and they personally chose who would accompany them from the population there (which they weren't originally headed towards anyway), so that doesn't seem likely. I'd dismiss the entire idea of them having any sort of tactical/intelligence-based organization altogether, save for Bon Bon's backstory in season five's Slice of Life, where she says that she was part of a covert anti-monsters squad that Celestia later disbanded. That was actually a rather interesting bit of world-building, but with no further information there's virtually nothing to build upon. Between that, and no more information to the contrary, the idea of some sort of secret organization serving the princesses from the shadows doesn't seem likely (though Luna was starting her own cult back in A Dangerous Sparkle).
8445460 One thing I wanted to hint at before was that Turbo knew they were basically out of options. Fighting Lex was self-evidently a losing proposition (remember, they tried that when they first met him), and escape was pretty clearly impossible, especially since the state of Vanhoover meant that there was nowhere to escape to. That left little effort but to try and call for help, which isn't a good plan (as Slip 'n' Slide noted, Luna should have been there ages ago if that worked) but it's basically all they have left. At the very least, there might be some chance of running away now that they're outside the city...though that'll obviously need to wait for daylight.
As for what Luna's response would be...presuming that she's told about even a fraction of what's going on there, I suspect that she and her sister would move past "investigating" straight to "immediately respond." That wouldn't involve sending a military, however - for the most part, Equestria doesn't seem to have a military; other than the (near-totally useless) royal guards, there's local law enforcement in towns and cities and a scattering of private security guards, and that seems to be it according to what we've seen in the show. True, the alternate universe in The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 1 did have an army fighting King Sombra's forces, but that honestly looked like a mixture of the royal guards and private citizens who'd been called into (or volunteered for) military service.
Even then, I'm honestly a little skeptical of the entire idea of Equestria having much in the way of a military anyway. Much like D&D, the show has amply demonstrated that a small group of individuals with extreme power are more effective than trying to gather a large number of low-power individuals. Even in the alternate timeline, King Sombra and Princess Celestia were both able to easily disregard groups of low-level attackers. As such, if the princesses were to hear about what's happened in Vanhoover, they'd almost certainly show up themselves.
8445587
True, there doesn't seem to be any proper form of military aside from the royal guards and the few law enforcement types we've seen in the series(both the comics and the show itself) so it kind of upsets me that the Princesses didn't at the very least set up a unit for the express purpose of rescue and recovery.
Sure, Cadence and the followers of Lashtada are filling that role but the goal was more to spread the faith as missionaries rather than properly aiding recovery efforts as shown with the arrival of mere two ponies to Vanhoover.
As for Turbo and the others escaping with Garden in tow...I am doubtful of their chance out there unless the ponies in Tall Tale have finished restoring the tracks and had sent a train to Vanhoover to aid Lex to help him with the recovery effort though that's highly unlikely given the damage the dragon did.
Still, if the princesses do arrive to save the day(maybe?), Lex would likely lose a lot of authority due to their intervention and be possibly chastised for his 'cruelty' followed by his 'victims' turning on him. But as you've said, many ponies were traumatized in the aftermath of the elemental bleed so the chances of Luna picking out Turbo and the others in their dreams are rather slim.
Lex and Sonata talk about Block Party. i am thinking this is going to get messy way before it gets better.