165 - Recuperation and Recoup Operation
“I want you to spend the day recovering. After twenty-four hours, I’ll come back and we’ll see where we are.”
House Call didn’t look at Lex as he spoke, putting his equipment back in his bag. Of course, he didn’t need to look at his patient to know that his advice wasn’t being received well; the disapproval was practically radiating off of Lex. Having treated him before, House Call knew that the only mystery was whether Lex would flat-out refuse or say that he could use his strange magic to heal himself. Though if that were the case, he no doubt would have done so already, so probably the former, he decided.
But to his mild surprise, it was Sonata who piped up. “Wait, for realsies? You just want him to lie down for one day?” She gave him a disbelieving look, glancing at Lex before looking back at him. “Wouldn’t a little longer be better? Like, maybe a week or something?”
“That’s completely out of the question,” snorted Lex. “A day is too much, and a week is absolutely unacceptable. I have other tasks that need to be seen to, for everypony’s sake.”
He was already trying to get up as he spoke, and House Call gave him a flat look in response. Out of his periphery, he saw Sonata looking at Lex also, though her expression was one of worry. For a moment, she looked like she wanted to move over to help him, but then seemed to think better of it, biting her lip as she watched him rise. Just getting his hooves under him was quite clearly a struggle for the dour unicorn, every motion drawing pained groans from him despite his obvious efforts to silence them. Seconds passed as Lex finally managed to stand, and by the time he did he was breathing heavily from the effort, having broken a sweat. “Now…” he panted, giving House Call a cold look. “Stand aside.”
House Call didn’t move. He knew he wasn’t a brave pony – but the thought of getting into another fight like the one he’d participated in against those sea creatures was enough to nauseate him – but when it came to his patients there was nothing under Celestia’s sun that would make him give them anything less than the best care that he possibly could. “You need to lie back down.” His tone was soft, lacking anything remotely threatening. Rather, it was the voice of someone stating a fact, nothing more. “You’re in no condition to move around.”
Lex’s eyes narrowed in response, jaw clenching. “Move,” he ordered coldly. “I won’t tell you again.”
Despite his commitment to his patients, House Call felt a shiver run down his spine, remembering what Lex had done to Garden Gate barely a day earlier. If he did the same thing now… There’ll be nothing I can do about it.
But Lex didn’t have a chance to do anything as Sonata stepped in. “Lex, please, just listen to what he’s saying. You totes did what you needed to do, so why not take it easy for a little bit?” She put a hoof around him, trying to gently guide him back down.
“There’s still more th-, whoa!” Raising a hoof to brush hers away proved to be too much for Lex to accomplish in his current state, and he pitched to the side, falling towards Sonata. Giving her own yelp of surprise, she tried to catch him, but her unpreparedness and his greater weight made it futile, and she accomplished nothing except to cushion his fall as they landed on his bedroll.
House Call shook his head lightly. Although he knew better than to say it out loud, the phrase “I told you so” floated through his mind. Instead, he looked over at the two of them to make sure that neither had been seriously injured in their tumble. Sonata seemed fine, judging by how she was scrambling to make sure Lex was okay. As for him…he was quite clearly still conscious, and the lack of any obvious signs of dizziness or pain meant that he was most likely alright as well. Even better, the fall seemed to have used up the last of his energy, and he didn’t try to rise again.
Figuring that this was as close to listening as Lex was likely to get, House Call started to explain the reasoning for what he’d said before. “The next twenty-four hours are an observation period. You need to let your body rest and recover from the stress you put it through, and we need to chart your progression during this time so we can figure out the best medical regimen to help you do it. After that, you’ll probably need to keep recuperating, but at least then we’ll have a better idea of how long that will take.” He turned to leave then, picking up his bag in the light blue glow of his telekinesis, but stopped midway through opening the tent flap, glancing back as his professional demeanor slipped. “I know you feel responsible for everypony here, but right now getting better is the responsible thing to do. You won’t be able to help anyone if you don’t let us help you.”
Having slid out from under Lex, Sonata nodded as she helped him get into a more comfortable position. “Like, what he said. Doctor’s orders and stuff.”
“No one gives me orders,” replied Lex churlishly, staring up at the tent ceiling in a way that made it clear that he was deliberately refusing to make eye contact with either of them. Sonata shot House Call an exasperated look, to which he shrugged in response, giving her a sympathetic smile before leaving.
Neither spoke after he left, and an awkward silence settled around the pair. After almost a minute, Sonata finally broke it. “So, um, are you hungr-”
“No.”
Frowning, Sonata huffed. “Look, I get that you’re mad at me, and that’s fine. I’m mad at you too. But starving yourself isn’t going to help anybody.” She didn’t even notice that she’d forgotten to use the correct term. “You haven’t eaten anything since yesterday morning, so how about I go get you something from all that food you just made?”
“I’m not hungry,” he snapped, turning his head away from her.
It was all Sonata could do not to scream at him. “Okay, fine,” she replied through gritted teeth. “I’m going to go get something for us to eat. If you don’t say what you want, then you can deal with whatever I get you. Got a problem with that? No? Good.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and left, having to resist the urge to stomp her hooves as she did.
She returned several minutes later, carrying a plate between her teeth and another one balanced carefully on a hoof. “Alright!” she announced, her spirits lifted by the delicious dish in front of her. “Two plates full of blueberry pancakes, topped with maple syrup, powdered sugar, strawberry slices, and a dab of whipped cream!” Placing his plate next to him, she didn’t miss the way he winced at her announcement, unable to help but feel a bit of satisfaction at the sight since she knew he hated sweet things. Serves you right for being such a jerk.
Without further ado, Sonata attacked her pancakes with gusto, only realizing as the food hit her tongue how hungry she was. Maybe that’s why we’re doing so awful this morning, she thought as she practically inhaled her pancakes. Everything’s worse on an empty stomach. In less than five minutes she’d cleaned her plate, giving a contented sigh as she sat back, rubbing her belly appreciatively. “That really hit the spot,” she announced.
For a moment no reply came, and Sonata had just enough time to worry that Lex was going to keep shutting her out, when he finally spoke up. “We need to talk about what comes next.”
It’s about time! It was all Sonata could do not to cheer. Everyone knew that “we need to talk” was code for “let’s have a heart-to-heart.” Now we can FINALLY get past this! Setting her plate down, Sonata smiled as she gave him her full attention. “Okay. You go first.” She could already see how this was going to go, with him trying to let her know that he was sorry without actually saying it, and then she’d explain how she felt, and lead him along as he awkwardly did the same, and then they’d say how they loved each other, and-
“I’m sending you to Las Pegasus.”
Sonata blinked, her thoughts screeching to a halt. “…huh?”
Still looking upward, Lex kept talking. “I’ll use my scrying spell to contact Ribbon Cutter back in Tall Tale. She only opened the harbor when we left, so it’s unlikely that there’s any ships there, but we might be fortunate. Either way, as soon as one arrives I’ll have her divert it here. With the pegasi we have here, spotting it won’t be a problem, and we should be able to get you aboard without any undue difficulty.” He paused as he considered something. “We can probably send some of the most-injured ponies here back as well. Dropping them off in Tall Tale should be no-”
“Hold on!” yelled Sonata, giving Lex a look of wide-eyed disbelief. She had a vague notion of where Las Pony-Vegas was, and it wasn’t anywhere near here. “We had one fight, and you’re sending me away?!”
Lex finally looked at her, frowning. “This has nothing to do with us fighting. I’m sending you there because that’s where I need you to be.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense!” protested Sonata. “We totes just got here, and-”
“-discovered that Vanhoover is in far worse shape than either of us had imagined,” concluded Lex. “Which is why we need a massive influx of capital in order to begin restoring the city.”
“Okay, but can’t you just cast a spell or something to make some, like you did with all that food?”
“If I had something like that, I would have used it a long time ago,” snorted Lex contemptuously. “As it is, I’m having Cloudbank find ponies that are willing to go into Vanhoover to appropriate whatever they can from the city’s financial institutions, but that’s not going to be enough.”
Sonata held up her fore-hooves, already lost. “Wait, slow down. You’re having her do what now? And what does that have to do with me going to Las Pegasus?”
“I’m having ponies collect whatever money they can find in Vanhoover’s banks. In the short-term, and perhaps even the medium-term, that will be enough to procure food and shelter for everypony here. But that won’t be enough for the long-term. For that, we’re going to need a much larger supply of bits, and the best place to get them is Las Pegasus.” Even in Lex’s day, the resort city had been a famous tourist destination thanks to its numerous casinos, as well as the secondary businesses that had grown up around them. It was self-evident that such a place had wealth in abundance, especially since – from what Lex had been able to determine – it had managed to avoid the elemental bleeds almost completely. “As the most comely and socially-adept pony here, I need you to get in touch with as many of the richest ponies as you can in Las Pegasus and convince them to come here and meet with me. It’s important that you don’t use magi-”
“Hold it! Just…back up a second!” Sonata squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head as she desperately tried to keep up with everything she was being told. “You want me to round up a bunch of rich ponies and bring them here?! Why?! This place is still overrun with ghouls!”
“I want them to see how everypony here is being forced to live,” replied Lex matter-of-factly. “Ferrying them back and forth from the camp while avoiding the ghouls shouldn’t be unduly difficult. If it is, I’ll just meet with them on whatever ship you use to bring them here instead. The point is that I need to get in touch with those ponies. They’re our best chance of taking out a loan large enough to rebuild this city.”
Sonata was getting more and more confused. “A loan? Why do-, no-, nnnngh!” Groaning in frustration, she put her face in her hooves, trying to regain her train of thought. When she lowered them a moment later, she gave him a serious look. “No.”
He raised an eyebrow at that. “No? No what?”
“No, I’m not going anywhere.” She sat on her haunches and crossed her forelegs, daring him to argue with her.
Apparently he dared. “This needs to be done, Sonata.”
“Um, hello! Spokespony, remember?! If I’m not here, who’s going to do that?”
Lex waved a hoof dismissively. “It will almost certainly take several days for Ribbon to send us a ship. By that point I’ll have transformed Aria into a pony, so I’ll have her do it.”
“…”
Without another word, Sonata grabbed the plate of pancakes she’d put down by Lex and upended it over his head before turning and storming out of the tent.
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8538078 Thanks for answering! I agree the default pony would be NG.
Yeah, from a mechanical point of view it's problematic how a LG acolyte raised in a very LN version of a LE deity church would not grant power. I would venture that when a cleric connects with their deity to pray for spells, there is some level of connection there, that no lies or artful exaggerations can conceal. A good cleric trying to gain divine magic from an evil deity (or vice-versa) is going to instinctually rebel at the feeling of this magic trying to pour into their soul. They could eventually choose to accept it, but only after spending a great deal of time devoting themselves to their deity's perspective and values, which would basically change their alignment to be within the proper distance of their god.
But that's just a mechanical way of looking at it. I agree, a character/story way of looking at it can be more interesting. I'm just imagining random goody pony acolyte out helping ducklings cross the road after class with Cloudbank, and a grumpy Severance teleporting in out of nowhere to yell at the acolyte that he should only be helping those ducklings if they can be converted into dire-mallard servants of the Night Mare or something. Such an event would help any LG acolyte realize the true state of the Night Mare fairly quickly.
8539371
Haven't there been cases in the Forgotten Realms where branches of a god's church that focused on an adjacent alignment ended up breaking off into a separate but allied church under a lesser god? I guess that would require Lex or Cloudbank or somepony to become a god, though.
Maybe Starswirl the Bearded. He seemed pretty LN, and he certainly has worshippers.
8539415 That sounds more like Pathfinder, where Iomidae the Inheritor sucked up most of the faithful of Aroden after he died and turned a LN church mostly into a LG church.
In Forgotten Realms, I can't remember anything quite like that happening, unless you count humans of different alignments taking over for gods in the Time of Troubles. I think a more likely outcome is Lathander and Aumanator, where the dude just shifted back and forth depending on what people wanted of him. The Night Mare is thirsty for worship, she could well spin off a version of herself for Equestria that is LN the way gods in Forgotten Realms had to spin off localized versions of themselves to satisfy Ao.
Disobeying a medical professional is definitely something Lex would do, especially if it stops him from doing his moral and civic duty though he doesn't have the strength to defy the doctor this time though I doubt Lex will take this lying down, both literally and metaphorically. And with that last line, Lex is back in the doghouse though it's undoubtedly lost on Lex again.
I'm going to say what the other readers are thinking: Sending Sonata away is not a smart idea. Well, it is smart in the sense that Sonata is a logical choice to go and find and bring the rich ponies over to Vanhoover on paper, at least. She would likely use her powers to manipulate them into going with her should they prove difficult. I know that Lex said not to use her magic but he didn't necessarily finish what he said and Sonata was probably not listening to it all. Either way, sending your spokespony is a bad idea.
Also, Lex is assuming too much of Aria if he believes she would stand in as spokespony. I doubt she'll phrase Lex's words as nicely as Sonata and will probably attempt to use her newly restored voice to manipulate them if she doesn't use it on Lex the moment he turns her into a pony if her words several chapters ago about showing everyone what she's capable of is anything to go by.
Of course, everything hinges on Lex getting his scrying spell through whatever prevented him from making contact with the Princesses and Twilight days ago. I would assume that Block was the source since he could contact the Kraken though I really wonder if there's more to it than that.
8539425
Nah, it was definitely older than Pathfinder (and also I don't know any of the Pathfinder gods except Llamashtu because she came up in the game we're currently playing). I think I'm thinking of St. Cuthbert splitting off from Pelor, although it looks like that isn't the official story (he's a LN god of beating people over the head with sticks elevated by 'the gods of good').
...also, he's from basically every setting *except* the Forgotten Realms. Doh.
If the locals thought Lex was brusque and obnoxious now, just wait till they get a load of Aria stating his words in her own way.
Be almost as bad as getting Piggy to speak for Lex in his best Bernard Manning, Chubby Brown flow?
Well, at least Sonata served Lex with what he deserved.
8539415
8539425 Okay, I'm going to be cherry-picking some of the best points you guys brought up.
That works too. It's certainly not an unreasonable idea when you presume that your divine spells are actually granted to you by your deity (or servants of your deity, which was the idea for certain levels of spells back in AD&D 1E). That they'd have to "touch" you directly to grant those spells, and in even forming the necessary channel to transfer the requisite power from them to you, at which point you can "feel" their true nature and necessarily reject it if it's too far from your own (or vice versa), would certainly work. It also plays into the idea that, when resurrecting someone, they can necessarily know your name, alignment, and the god you worship when their soul decides if they want to come back or not. Although, this does bring up issues of personal forbearance with regards to waiving that particular problem of compatibility (e.g. "but my Lawful Good character is okay with receiving spells from the Night Mare, even if he knows she's Lawful Evil; he's just going to use them for good, like...in her name, or something").
That idea is far funnier than it has any right to be.
Though my favorite story along those lines is the one about the DM who had a party come near a red dragon's lair, and found that it was guarded by his children...red half-dragon sheep. 
Sort of. There are (rather loose) political alliances among certain deities in the Realms whereby lesser deities will operate under the authority - and, by extension, aegis - of stronger gods with whom they share related portfolios, typically along the lines of the weaker deities representing specialized interests among a particular field whereas the stronger deity represents the entire field. The major example of this that comes to mind was how Mystra was the goddess of magic, whereas Azuth was the god of wizards, and beneath him were the demigods Savras (of divination and diviners) and Velsharoon (of necromancy and necromancers). There were several groups that operated in this manner, and they typically (though not always) had alignments that were close to each other.
Insofar as branches of a particular church actually drifting away from one deity, due to an alignment schism, and falling in with another deity...that's rather specific, and I can't think of any examples of it off the top of my head. However, there are numerous examples (in the D&D in general and the Realms in particular) of various divine shenanigans going on whereby some sort of deception, alteration, or unusual circumstances were happening. Quite a bit of this involved changes across editions and attempts to give the new rules an in-game explanation (i.e. the various "Realms-shaking events," though plenty of other campaign worlds had them too).
For what it's worth, despite the Realms having arguably the largest number of deities active in it (though, if you took a close look, Greyhawk was actually competitive in that area), I always felt that the manner in which divine politics was portrayed was rather haphazard. The deities were all portrayed as rather individualistic in terms of their goals, methods, and activities, with only small and relatively loose confederations taking place where general areas of concern tended to overlap. In particular, the idea of stronger gods actively promoting and grooming weaker gods - which was, when it worked out, symbiotic, in that it meant that stronger deities had capable agents who could oversee less-important matters and simultaneously giving themselves a larger force with which to resist hostile deities/divine-level monsters while at the same time the lesser deities could utilize the framework of their superior's church to introduce themselves to a lot of mortals (some of whom might want to convert a la the previously-mentioned issue of weaker deities representing specialized interests) while also being part of a household that would shield them from divine predators - was one that never seemed to manifest.
This was a shame, as I always felt like it made the gods more static, and so more bland...and this is in the Realms, where the gods are active and dynamic compared to most other D&D campaigns! Despite the gods of the Realms getting the most focus of any D&D deities (with several books dedicated to them across multiple editions), they didn't focus on the "how" and "why" of what godhood entailed, the result being that even when the deities had full stat blocks given for them, we didn't get a sense of them as being characters in a greater backdrop. Contrast this with The Primal Order, which did an incredible job outlining the how's and why's of being a deity, along with neatly tying it in to high-level game-play. Despite that book being well over twenty years old, I still think that it set the standard where this particular topic is concerned.
Eh, being a bit conceited doesn't make someone non-good. Mostly because, when faced with immediate proof that he was wrong, Star-Swirl changed his ways and apologized, learning from his mistakes. Likewise, having fans isn't the same as having worshipers.
Boy did that interpretation change across editions. In 2E they were completely different deities, in 3E they were different but there was a heretical sect that thought they were the same and were trying to turn Lathander "back" into Amaunator, and in 4E they'd "succeeded" but only because the two really were the same god all along. Holy retcon, Batman!
The idea of gods having "aspects" of themselves - which may or may not be different from their "base" versions - is even murkier where D&D is concerned (though "aspects" as being "like avatars, but weaker" actually originates in AD&D 1E). There's nothing concrete about that, but you can find singular examples and counter-examples all over the place if you know where to look. Just look at Chauntea/The Earth Mother, for instance, or Tiamat/Tahkhisis and Bahamut/Paladine. Then 2E introduced issues of "access" to crystal spheres (which contained solar systems on the Prime Material Plane) and helped to make the entire issue even more difficult to figure out...
His D&D origin is actually from the Greyhawk campaign setting, and he's largely confined to that. I think he might some wider exposure during D&D Third Edition, since several Greyhawk deities were presented as being the "default" D&D pantheon insofar as the generic sourcebooks went, but I don't seem to recall him as being one of them. Of course, he's originally supposed to be based off of the actual St. Cuthbert anyway.
8539616 Well, that's if Lex's plan goes the way he's outlining...but yeah, I somehow don't see Aria as doing the whole "spokespony" thing quite so well as Sonata.
Wouldn't she just love being told that she was worse than Sonata at something?
8539505 Lex isn't the sort to let anyone tell him what to do, be they doctor or deity. Insofar as he's concerned, there are bigger things to worry about, and he's sure that he can handle the strain, so nopony else has the right to say anything to him about his health. Of course, that doesn't mean that House Call was wrong, as Lex found out when he went tumbling and could barely move.
Insofar as Sonata is concerned, Lex will likely think that he didn't do anything wrong (again), since technically he didn't...but you can't build a relationship on technicalities. While Sonata probably could get the rich ponies of Las Pegasus to come meet with Lex, being away from him that long won't be good for him...or, for that matter, anypony else. Aria's abrasive personality and penchant for selfishness wouldn't lend itself to being a spokespony very well; Lex seems to be assuming, rather wrongly, that one Siren is as good as another where that's concerned. In that regard, he insulted Sonata rather badly.
I should mention that, where the scrying spell was mentioned, that chapter where I used it before did outline that the spell itself had multiple failure modes built into it, so it might not have been an issue with interference. Just something to keep in mind going forward.
8540256
That is a great point, and here's what I think that means: 95% of people with a neutral alignment, if you asked them, would tell you they are "good." In their view, they're just more pragmatic than individuals who happen to ping a detect good spell, more willing to see the bigger picture.
I think if a LG cleric had that experience, and was willing to tolerate increasing the influence of the Night Mare in the world "for the greater good," they still wouldn't be able to channel the magic right away, similar to a person chugging a gallon of milk in one setting. However, with time, and repeated attempts, if they are willing to accept this level of evil... congratulations, you can now channel the Night Mare! Also, you're now Lawful Neutral. Sort of a reverse atonement.
It was haphazard, and I liked it that way. Mystra had that key insight where she spied on the minds of a bunch of other gods and realized that gods, especially ones that didn't start out mortal, are really bound to their portfolio and aspect to a frightening degree, so that permanent alliances are hard to form, even between good gods who make natural allies.
It did some times. Finder and Tymora, Tyr and Torm, then Torm and Tyr when Tyr demoted himself to angel, these alliances were occasionally formed, but I agree they were rare. I think historically gods of all stripes generally avoided promoting mortals to god, even their most loyal followers, which is what would really be required for such a relationship to take off.
Never heard of it before, thanks for the tip!
Probably what inspired them to film Smaug and the Hobbit in New Zealand!
I remember Lathander being a smug cagey jerk about his followers killing themselves over this debate and saying "The truth is whatever you guys want." Basically truth by majority rule. So it was fine for his followers to go murder each other, as long as no one lost faith in him because he disabused them of some history.
I dunno, Starswirl could definitely be LN to me. Very quick to banish individuals permanently, no possibility of reform. By D&D standards he'd probably fit into the good spectrum, but I feel like the show might have higher standards, and he doesn't quite meet those.
8540305
Well, that's pretty much the dog-whistle for alignment debates, isn't it?
The funny thing is that, when we get into specifics, we start to see that spells like detect good really aren't all that they're cracked up to be, in terms of being the be-all end-all of alignment detection. That's largely because the Pathfinder version of detect evil slipped in some subtle alterations from the 3.5 version. Notice how the Pathfinder version, for instance, has a "None" column for detectable auras, which explicitly states that creatures of 4 Hit Dice or less (notwithstanding undead or outsiders) have no detectable aura. So right there, most ordinary people you meet aren't going to register to any of those spells, unlike in 3.5 where they had a faint aura.
Moreover, notice the addition of a new sentence: "Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell." All of a sudden, you can get false positives for these spells (since the good, chaotic, and lawful versions all function the same way as detect evil) which won't reproduce if the person is in a different mindset later on. Another bit of subjectivity that 3.5 didn't have.
Pathfinder, in other words, really wanted to tone down how absolute these spells were.
Well, if I may nitpick, that's not really a "reverse" atonement - since that spell is supposed to fix any sort of alignment/class requirement transgression, which means that evil creatures can seek an atonement for having been too good; and, of course, you can use the spell to openly tempt a creature into changing its alignment to match yours - but I like the idea. That, and "the greater good" has become a justification for doing terrible things to the point where that's how its more usually perceived nowadays (which, to be fair, overlooks the fact that sometimes there really is a greater good that demands immediate concessions, or even sacrifices).
You know, I remember reading somewhere that Troy Denning didn't like how James Lowder had portrayed the gods using objective narration in Prince of Lies, and so, when he sat down to write Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad, made sure to write the entire thing from the first-person perspective of Malik el Sami yn Nasser, Cyric's "most faithful worshiper," to get around that. I suspect that Lowder's writing about them as having severe tunnel vision regarding their portfolios was a big part of that.
There's also the fact that Crucible essentially turns Mystra's insight from the previous book against her, as she (and Kelemvor) are accused of allowing their humanity - that is, their personal morality - to interfere with their dispassionate and objective administration of their portfolios. (Cyric is accused, not of that, but rather of insanity.)
Well, that's true, but that never seemed (at least as I saw it) like it was meant to be a mutually symbiotic "business" decision on either party's part. It was more like "you're doing awesome, and I really like you; have an apotheosis." I find it much more plausible that a deity would elevate another deity as a calculated attempt to promote someone who will, in turn, work to advance your own interests in tandem with their own, utilizing the not-inconsiderable power you've given them to your mutual benefit (which is more than "we have kinda-related portfolios"). If a deity promotes another someone into being a new deity, then they should get something out of it besides very indirect promotion of your own portfolio.
It's a truly excellent book. You can find the second printing of the main book as a PDF or print-on-demand hard-copy - with similar options for two of its supplements - but I tracked down print copies of both printings (and all the supplements) since I wanted those AD&D conversion rules in the appendix.
(Fun fact: according to D&D historian Shannon Appelcline, the rules for another book, The Military Order - which was never printed, but was supposedly going to do for for military battles what The Primal Order did for deities - were eventually used in the D&D Miniatures Handbook.)
I don't recall that, but it wouldn't surprise me. As much as the current portrayal likes to say that this sort of confusion is intentional, I really don't see it back in the original descriptions of the two gods, and consider it to be a retcon that - at least beyond the idea of it being a heretical-but-powerful splinter group in Power of Faerun - isn't very good. (But god damn do I love Power of Faerun.)
See, I really wonder if he was normally - in his everyday life - the cranky, conceited jerk we saw in Shadow Play. Bear in mind, all of the Pillars believed the worst about Stygian (one might argue that Star-Swirl convinced them, but the story they told Starlight Glimmer - without Star-Swirl being there - made it sound like they bought into their mistaken belief about him on their own), and Star-Swirl had just seen their last-ditch sacrifice be undone by some idiot mare who didn't think things through. So he probably wasn't in the best mood at the time.
8540433 I remember at the time how different Prince of Lies was from the prequel. I felt like the story of Prince of Lies was better, because of the perspective change, but I liked the way the setting was portrayed in the previous book more.
Sonata's final action gave me a chuckle.
8541391 Yeah, that was a slapstick moment if ever there was one.
8540752 You mean from the sequel? Prince of Lies came before Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad. Or were you actually referring to the Avatar Trilogy (which was what Prince of Lies was the sequel to)?
this is a vary bold plan and it looks good to me.
8542933 Economically, Lex has indeed come up with a very sound course of action. Of course, that's not really what Sonata is worried about.
No typos!
8670776 Woo hoo!