163 - Close as Kin
“Let me see if I get this straight,” said Cloudbank, giving Lex a look of controlled disbelief. “You want me to find a bunch of ponies who’ll go back into the ruined city that they escaped from, risking their lives in the process, so that they can rob a bank?” She paused just long enough to take a breath before shaking her head. “I’m sure you’ve got some sort of angle here, but I can’t imagine what it is.”
Drafty gave the other mare a look of mild reproach. “Of course he has a reason, Cloudy.” She turned her eyes back toward Lex, smiling again. “I bet it’s something really important, right?”
Lex closed his eyes with a sigh. For a moment a feeling of irritation swept over him, wondering how it was that nopony else could see the problems that he considered obvious, but he couldn’t sustain the emotion, discomfort and fatigue causing it to fall away in a wave of weariness. “We need the money in the bank in order to start putting Vanhoover back together,” he explained. “With it, we can purchase food from nearby farms, as well as building materials that can make this place more livable while we focus on retaking the city proper.” He didn’t mention that – even if all of the ghouls were to simply vanish tomorrow – restoring Vanhoover to its pre-flooding state would take months at a bare minimum. More likely, it would require years. Despite the fact that it was still late summer, worrying about what would happen to this camp when winter arrived was not an unreasonable concern.
Drafty gave Cloudbank a look that was a mixture of smug and triumphant. “Told you so.”
But Cloudbank wasn’t listening. “I get that, but it-” She cut herself off as she glanced behind her, her eyes falling to Severance. Whatever it was saying made her frown. “But it’s not our money!” she said a moment later, looking from the weapon to Lex as she spoke. “You’re right that we need bits, but this shouldn’t be how we should get them.”
Lex frowned at the challenge, because that was what it was. She had just challenged the moral legitimacy of his chosen course of action, and that wasn’t something he could overlook. “First of all,” he replied coldly, “I am absolutely empowered to seize the banks’ assets, by virtue of my being the sole and absolute authority over Vanhoover and all entities – be they pony, business, or otherwise – that reside within it.” He struggled to sit up as he spoke, no longer being content to lie down while Cloudbank and Thermal Draft stood over him. The latter mare moved as though to assist him, but he waved a hoof to ward her off.
Sitting up was a far greater struggle than it should have been, and he almost keeled over at one point, but he managed to force himself upward, breathing heavily from the exertion. “Secondly,” he continued, “my ordering the remaining currency to be appropriated is not only lawful, it’s the morally-correct decision. That much capital has the ability to make a drastic and immediate improvement to the lives of everypony here. Even if you classified our taking it as theft, which would be profoundly spurious not only because I’ve authorized this action but also because that money’s current situation has effectively resulted in its abandonment since at least some of its owners are certainly dead and it’s uncertain that the accounting records have survived anyway, doing so in order to save lives is not only morally acceptable but morally required, as any deontological system worthy of the name will prioritize the saving of lives above the taking of someone else’s property when there’s no alternative to be found!” He was yelling now, causing both mares to wince. “And thirdly,” he snarled, his eyes boring holes into Cloudbank, “there IS no other way to be found! We need large amounts of money and we need it-”
“We understand,” interrupted Drafty. Lex shot her an angry look, but she didn’t flinch, raising a hoof in a conciliatory gesture. “We understand,” she repeated. “You’re right about us using the money.”
Lex glared at her for a moment, as though uncertain about her agreeing with him, before turning his eyes back to Cloudbank. But she didn’t meet his gaze, looking down uncomfortably, her ears folded back. Finally, satisfied that he’d thoroughly refuted the objections that Cloudbank had raised, Lex slowly laid back down.
His head had just hit the pillow when Sonata burst into the tent, a winded-looking House Call following her. “I heard yelling. What’s going on?” asked Sonata, looking around rapidly. “Is everything okay?” The words were barely out of her mouth when she realized how winded Lex looked. “Like, oh my gosh! What happened?” She knelt down at his side, giving him a quick once-over before looking back at Cloudbank and Drafty, her brow furrowed. “Did you two do something?”
Cloudbank licked her lips, still looking chagrined. “We were-”
“-just leaving,” cut in Drafty. Glancing at Cloudbank, she caught her eye and nodded her head toward the tent flap. House Call stepped around them and put his medical bag down, starting to rummage through it.
“Cloudbank,” called Lex just before the pair left. The mare in question paused, looking back as her name was called, biting her lip in anticipation of being dressed down again. “I want you to have those volunteers assembled and ready to leave by no later than noon. This needs to happen as soon as possible.”
Cloudbank nodded once, not meeting his eyes, and then turned and left.
Cloudbank’s eyes were still downcast as she trudged away from Lex’s tent, a dejected look on her face. A moment later, she felt Drafty press against her. “Hey,” came her girlfriend’s voice. “You okay?”
Cloudbank let out a sigh, not sure how much to say. The last time she had criticized Lex Drafty had almost taken her head off for it, and the last thing she wanted right now was another fight. “I’m fine,” she muttered.
“You don’t look fine.”
Alright, if she wants to do this, then we’ll do this. I don’t care anymore, Cloudbank decided. “He didn’t have to yell at me like that.”
“Cloudy…”
“I mean, I get it. We do need that money to fix things up here, and I guess it’s not really stealing because of…whatever it was he was talking about back there, but he didn’t need to cut me off at the knees like that! I was just saying what I thought, was all.”
“I know,” said Drafty softly.
Cloudbank almost tripped, unable to believe what she’d just heard. Whipping her head around, she found Drafty looking at her with a small smile. “Wait, you do?”
“Mm-hmm,” nodded Drafty, still giving her a warm look.
Her girlfriend’s expression didn’t match how Cloudbank felt, however, and that was enough to confuse her. “So…what then?” She wasn’t even sure what she was asking, except that she wasn’t sure why Drafty didn’t seem to be as upset as she should be if she felt that her hero had been unfair.
Drafty didn’t reply right away, the two of them walking in silence for a moment before speaking. “Do you remember when we first met Lex?”
Cloudbank’s face screwed up in confusion. Huh? “Yeah…it was, what, a week ago?” Admittedly, it felt like a lot longer, with everything that had happened.
“You didn’t like him very much then.” It was a statement, rather than a question. When Cloudbank didn’t reply, Drafty kept going. “You really gave him a hard time back when he wanted to investigate that dummy light and it turned out to be a trap, remember?”
Cloudbank’s frown deepened, not sure if she was being scolded or not. “Yeah…?”
“And you said something like he should leave playing hero to the princesses.” Drafty’s statement brought the memory immediately to Cloudbank’s mind:
She took a step closer to Lex, and the two of them were practically nose-to-nose as a result. “Maybe instead of running around and trying to do everything by yourself, you should call in the ponies who actually have a track record of saving all of Equestria!”
For some reason that felt uncomfortable to remember now, and Cloudbank huffed, her patience starting to wear thin. “What’s your point?”
Drafty stopped, and turned so she was facing Cloudbank directly, still giving her a happy look. “My point is look how well you two get along now.”
“Wh-, are you joking?! We don’t get along at all! Did you see what just happened back there?!”
But to Cloudbank’s consternation, Drafty just chuckled. “I did, apparently better than you.” Cloudbank opened her mouth to protest, but Drafty spoke up first. “Cloudy, he asked you to be the one to find ponies who can do what needs to be done. He didn’t ask Sonata. He didn’t ask me. You’re the one he’s counting on.”
Cloudbank’s mouth hung open, momentarily poleaxed. “I…that doesn’t mean-”
“And it wasn’t just then,” continued Drafty. “You’re the one he wanted to give that speech about the Night Mare, because you’re the one he introduced to his goddess.” She pointed to Severance, still laying across Cloudbank’s back. “You’re the one he lets carry around his super-strong magic weapon. And let’s not forget, you’re the pony he trusted to get the job done when we were all fighting for our lives against those monsters.”
“That was because I was the only one who volunteered,” protested Cloudbank feebly. All of a sudden she wasn’t sure what to think.
“And he believed in you when you did. Or do you really think that Lex Legis of all ponies wouldn’t have said anything if he didn’t think you were up to the task?” When no further protests came, Drafty’s smile widened. “I know that he’s really rough around the edges, but he’s not that hard to read if you know what to look for, and I’m telling you, he’s fond of you, Cloudy. Other than Sonata, you might be the pony that he likes the most.” For a moment her smile dimmed, but its intensity rallied a moment later. “And I know you like him, too.”
Cloudbank hadn’t noticed the momentary change in her girlfriend’s demeanor, having looked away as she’d tried to process what she’d been told, but that last part was enough to bring her back to reality. “Hold on…!”
Drafty gave her a pointed look. “If you don’t like him, then why were you so upset about how badly he’d injured himself?”
Again, Cloudbank looked away, biting her lip. Why had she been so upset? “That was…I was mad because he was being irresponsible, messing around with magic he couldn’t control.” Even to her, it sounded like a weak excuse. Lex had hurt himself because he’d been trying to create enough food for everyone. Calling that “irresponsible” didn’t really make sense, and she knew it.
Drafty knew it too. “Uh-huh…” Her sarcasm was obvious.
Cloudbank made one last-ditch effort to refute what the other mare was saying. “But we fight all the time.”
Drafty shrugged. “Whenever my uncle would come over and visit, he and my dad would always fight. It wasn’t any sort of big blow-up or anything, but they’d snipe at each other all the time. I couldn’t understand why he kept coming over to visit, until my mom told me that they weren’t really angry at each other. It was just something they did. I never really got why, but when I got older I could see that they weren’t really upset by what they were saying.” She put a wing over Cloudbank and started walking again, the other mare keeping pace with her. “I know that’s not quite the same for you and Lex, but it sort of is. You might bicker a lot when you’re together, but I know he trusts you, and I know you feel the same way.”
“Yeah, well…I don’t know if I agree,” answered Cloudbank with a sulk.
Drafty couldn’t help but laugh at that, before leaning over and giving Cloudbank a quick peck on the cheek. “Well, maybe I’m wrong,” she teased, “but in the meantime, we need to figure out who to talk to about robbing a bank.”
Relieved at the change in topic, Cloudbank turned to look at the tables where everypony was dining. “I think I have a good idea where to start…”
Stats
Page generated in 0.088 seconds
Total duration
622 users online
992,140 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Lex must be feeling restless and frustrated at how useless he is right now to yell at Drafty and Cloudbank. And yet Drafty is still intent on her plan to push Lex and Cloudbank together.
And while I would rather avoid using cliche lines but now that Drafty brought it up, Lex and Cloudbank do argue like a married couple, or siblings as she put it(well, that and what you said before) Of course, making Cloudbank feel like she's a better match for Lex than she was must have hurt her since Drafty likely wants to be Lex's number two girl since Sonata is obviously number one.
Personally, I doubt her plan will pan out the way she intends but we're probably a long ways off from that so I suppose the possibilities are still there.
As for who Cloudbank is going to pick, I'm sure I have a good idea on who's going to be going on a trip back to Vanhoover.
Alright, just caught up. I would love to hear what Severance is telling Cloudbank. The thing about being a hardcore follower of Night Mare is I suspect he will give her everything, from the LN to the NE. Will Cloudbank turn away from the Night Mare when she learns her full nature? If not, will she herself edit Severance's teachings before she passes them on to Lex? If she does edit them, will Severance tolerate it? I am fascinated to find this out.
Once a few more clerics start directly worshiping the Night Mare, will she be able to grant them magic even without Severance their to act as a conduit? Sooner or later someone is going to cast detect evil on Severance, see that he's got an overwhelming, and make some logical inferences about the Night Mare from her servant. He's needed in the short and medium term, but over time Severance is going to be an embarrassment to the new more enlightened church of the Night Mare. Like being a modern druid in the UK and having some really ancient blood-covered altars around. He's an artifact, I feel like he would have trouble being flexible, even for the greater good of the Night Mare. How would Severance react if a Lawful Good pony wants to join this new Lawful Neutral church?
I didn't realize Lashtada was neutral, I'm sure Cadance is spinning an NG version of her faith. But Cadance is A) A Princess, with a ton of moral and even spiritual authority already, B)Dealing with a much more tolerant and less powerful deity, and C)Doesn't really need Lashtada. She calls the shots in that church, and will probably do so no matter how big it gets. It's a bit like if the KingPriest of Istar got to found the church of Paladine in Dragonlance. Does Cadance even need an artifact to channel Lashtada's magic or is being an alicorn of love good enough?
If you want to handle stolen goods you need a Fence? If you want to open a way in, you need a Gate?
8535574 I wonder about that.
8535093 One thing I want to stress with regards to what I said two chapters previously is that I think that Lex and Cloudbank are in a sibling-like relationship at this point. That wasn't any sort of declaration on my part as to their relationship going forward; as Cloudbank noted, they only met a week ago (a confession here: that part where Cloudbank noted that it felt like a lot longer than that was my poking fun at myself - that bit of quoted text from where she and Lex were fighting was from chapter 75, which I wrote almost nine months ago), and their relationship has changed a lot during that time. First they were strangers who were almost at each other's throats. Now they're working closely together and apparently care about one another. If Drafty has her way, they'll keep growing closer...
That said, Drafty does seem to be a little down about Lex liking Cloudbank more than her (to her mind). But I suspect that she's not too upset about it, since we know that her goal is to be in a relationship with both of them. Though that does leave it rather open about what she thinks Sonata's take on that idea will be.
8535276 I'll admit that I downplayed the part about what Severance was telling Cloudbank because that would have dominated the chapter otherwise. That's because that will likely get into a lot of issues regarding the structure and organization of the Night Mare's religion, virtually all of which I'll have to extrapolate out from what (comparatively little) we've been given in the books.
I doubt that Cloudbank will turn away from the Night Mare when she realizes that she's following an "evil" goddess, but leaving aside the rather thorny issues with the absolutist nature of alignment versus subjective values (which, to my mind, are a mess because while the status of being good/evil/lawful/chaotic/neutral is absolute, there's no clear delineation on what actions - or even thoughts, by some interpretations - put you in a given alignment, keep you there, or remove you from there, let alone questions of how quantity or magnitude, etc.), I see her appreciating the Night Mare for who she is and the virtues she presents, much like Lex.
I say that because I see Cloudbank - and Drafty, for that matter - as being attracted to power (at least partially as a result of what happened to them in Vanhoover, and I suspect they aren't alone in this). The difference between their attitudes in this regard can be summarized by how they're reacting to someone who has power (i.e. Lex): Drafty wants him, whereas Cloudbank wants to be him (hence why she's been jealous of him up to now). That's a gross oversimplification, admittedly, but it outlines why I think that Cloudbank would want to stick with the Night Mare; she might have a crisis of faith if she gets the full dose of what the Night Mare is about, but as her speech made clear, she's already accepted the elements that she feels are most salient to her. That gets back to what I've mentioned before, where clerics and other worshipers of a deity can selectively focus on certain aspects of their gods, as represented by differing alignments, choosing particular domains and subdomains, etc. You don't have to be evil to worship the Night Mare, it just helps. (This wouldn't be an issue if Severance was allowed to alter Cloudbank's mind like it does to most people who wield it, but Lex has flat-out forbidden it from doing so. So far, it seems to be obeying.)
That said, it's worth remembering that Severance is not a conduit to the Night Mare per se. While it obviously has a powerful connection to her, it's not needed in order for any of her divine spellcasters to replenish their spells. Even Lex regains his divine magic automatically each day; he needs Severance to recharge his arcane magic, because of the underlying flaws in the spellcasting he invented that he still can't solve (as outlined more directly in chapter 25). As such, most worshipers probably won't ever get that close to Severance to cast a detection spell on it; that Lex is lending it out to Cloudbank is rather extraordinary unto itself (as Drafty noted).
Tangentially, I should say that I find the idea of someone with an incompatible alignment with a particular deity (e.g. an alignment two or more steps removed) who wants to worship that deity to be one of those situations that doesn't really come up very often from an in-game standpoint. That's because, if a god's alignment is already that different from yours, then they're not going to have values that you'd be very inclined to accept in the first place, let alone worship. You might have areas where you agree with them (e.g. if they're Lawful Evil and you're Lawful Good, then you can both appreciate law, but there's still going to be a good/evil divine which will be too large to be bridged), and might find some aspect of their portfolio appealing, but at the end of the day there's just going to be too many differences to reasonably stomach. If the Lawful Neutral branch of the Night Mare's church already strains what she'll accept, and you can't quite bring yourself to go that far (being Lawful Good, rather than Lawful Neutral), then you're not really going to want to be her cleric to begin with.
Insofar as Cadance and Lashtada go...I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but I will say that she does need Lashtada, if for no other reason than the divine spells she and other worshipers are receiving have to come from somewhere. (I know Pathfinder allows for clerics without gods, but I quite frankly can't stand that. There's already a kind of magic that doesn't come from a particular source, and it's called arcane spellcasting. Divine spellcasting being granted by gods is a fundamental aspect of what that magic is, what makes it work, and gives it its own identity; that's why it's called divine spellcasting!)
You want the people with class levels, so that would be Sonata and Aria. Maybe Nosey?
8536351 That's definitely the right way of thinking.
8536049
Whoops, nevermind then.
I figured Cloudbank was LN. Now that you point it out, I wonder if this experience will create a bunch of more neutral and evil ponies, like Garden Gate.
That makes sense to me. But in this case, as far as lay followers go, Night Mare would be a Lawful Neutral deity, because that's what Cloudbank is telling people. If I'm a LG wanna-be cleric and I hear about this LN deity, I might be willing to worship her. At what point do I realize no, Cloudy has been exaggerating things, and she's actually LE? That's a question you may not have the answer to, but it's an idea I am intrigued by.
it is going to take some power.
bits are gold = heavy.
in a safe or vault earth pony or unicorn to get that open.
8537759 Quite right. So what will they do about that, I wonder?
8537155
Regarding the alignment of the ponies of Vanhoover, that's a bit of a sticky wicket. Given that ponies strike me as being Neutral Good largely by default, it's hard to say exactly what a major disaster that received no relief would do. Obviously, a lot of them who felt abandoned would have cause to cease being Good - that's what Garden Gate did - but how far down they'd slide is questionable. Some might have become Neutral, and maybe even others Evil, whereas others might have held onto the best parts of themselves (e.g. Aisle).
But that's just the good/evil axis. Lex, for his part, is pointing at the disaster and saying "this is why you need to be Lawful!" He's pitching that case rather hard, though how well it gets across is always a point of difficulty for him. Still, he seems to be doing an adequate job. That said, it's possible for some ponies to go in the opposite direction, and decide that since order broke down so thoroughly that there's no point in putting any faith in it, going Chaotic.
Well, "lay followers" are basically those who don't receive spells or other powers from a deity, so alignment doesn't really matter for them. (I say that with some trepidation, not only because that's more of a truism for the use of character classes than with regards to class-less systems such as Eclipse, but also because even Pathfinder doesn't necessarily make that a hard-and-fast rule. Just look at Deific Obediences, which have no alignment prerequisite.)
But otherwise...*sigh*...you bring up a good point. I should add that I'm not sighing because of you per se, but because I can't really do anything but acknowledge that you're correct in terms of how you're pointing out that this is an area where the game doesn't help very much, since it only provides a limited, rules-based approach that doesn't really explain what's happening from an in-character standpoint, which is kind of what we need here.
As you noted, if someone presents only a Lawful Neutral version of a Lawful Evil deity, then insofar as some random Lawful Good person knows, they might wonder why the "one step away" rule of alignment-compatibility doesn't apply to them, since insofar as they're aware they are only one step away. The problem comes from the fact that, even if they think that, they're actually not: gods are specific individuals with their own alignments, even if you think their actual alignment is something else.
This, of course, doesn't answer the seminal question of why - from an in-character standpoint - that rule exists, however. If we don't know what it's supposed to represent, then we're kind of screwed in terms of exploring it further.
I previously mentioned the idea that this represented a particular diverge of beliefs between a deity and a mortal, to where a mortal couldn't "meet them halfway" if the deity's alignment was two or more steps removed from their own. That's certainly viable, but as you noted it relies on said mortal having a clear understanding of that deity's "real" alignment (and, presumably, their tenets, dogma, and other aspects of their religion). One could claim that the reverse is (also) true, and that deities simply don't want mortals who believe so differently from their own outlook; that's certainly not unbelievable, as there are plenty of individuals that even other people don't want to be associated with, let alone give them any sort of authority in their name (which, for gods, comes in the form of spells and powers). But again, this falls prey to the "but in these particular circumstances" test. If the Night Mare wants rather badly to be worshiped in Equestria, wouldn't she be willing to relax her standards somewhat?
So with both of those options gone, we turn to more objective explanations: gods don't grant spells and powers to divine spellcasters with alignments that differ from their own because they can't. This explanation - which might very well run into trouble from how many divine spellcasters don't have the "one step away" rule to begin with, such as rangers - holds that alignment forces are basically universal energies that even gods only have limited ability to go against. This actually makes a surprising amount of sense. After all, it explains why evil deities can only grant negative energy channeling, good deities can only grant positive energy channeling, and even neutral deities (which offer both) only grant channeling that matches whether the worshiper is good or evil (so that only neutral clerics of neutral deities can pick whether to channel positive or negative energy). Of course, this lends even more weight to alignment as being objective in nature (not that more weight was needed), and in turn fuels alignment debates when the subjective nature of interpreting various actions is pointed out.
I personally don't care for that explanation, even if it does fit the rules rather well. Even if we overlook the aforementioned classes that don't have these alignment restrictions, there's the issue of how some alternative alignments really aren't that different to the point where it feels intuitive that they'd be completely disqualified from being a cleric. If your god is Lawful Evil, then why is it that you can be Lawful Neutral or Neutral Evil and still gain spells, but not True Neutral? It'd be one thing if you were Chaotic or Good - we have no trouble seeing opposites as repulsing each other - but if you were True Neutral, you're not opposed on either axis, but rather one step away on each one, both of which are allowed individually. By this line of thought, it's not enough to not be opposed, but you have to match your deity on at least one alignment axis as well. (This also leads to weird corner-cases whenever you have a deity that doesn't play by the established rules, as well. The Dragonlance goddess Mina is Neutral Good and Neutral Evil! But she has no worshipers that she grants spells to...shouldn't a True Neutral worshiper qualify for some?)
So by that explanation, a Lawful Good mortal who ran across the Night Mare's Lawful Neutral church would indeed still be denied spells, which would have all sorts of awkwardness ensue if they didn't know that she was really Lawful Evil.
So did you get your goal?
Wouldn't that be 'got'?
I really hope she wasn't poleaxed. I assume you meant perplexed? Either way, this is some funny imagery going on. In a morbid curiousity kind of way.
8583315
I did!
50,600 words exactly during the month of November. It was much more difficult than previous years, but I did it. Now I get to relax and recover...or at least get back into the more relaxed one-chapter-every-three-days schedule again.
Thanks for asking!
I'm fairly certain it should be "get." That's because the line is being spoken in the present tense, because they're asking if their current understanding is correct.
Believe it or not, this isn't a typo. "Poleaxed" (I've also seen the term hyphenated) is an expression that means being so surprised that they're stunned into silence (as if hit by a terrible blow from an actual poleaxe). It's like being "thunderstruck."