199 - Beneath the Anger
Lex stumbled as he exited the basement, almost collapsing as he reached the bottom of the exterior stairwell.
It wasn’t physical exhaustion that caused him to lean against the wall, breathing heavily. Although his muscles ached from expending so much effort so soon after being injured, the fatigue wasn’t so bad as to be debilitating. Nor was it due to any sort of injury; although that last ghoul had tried to fight in the final moments of its existence, it hadn’t been able to so much as bruise him before he’d beheaded it with a thin blade of black crystal, killing it instantly.
They’re dead.
It was that thought that made Lex’s steps falter as he slowly climbed the stairs back to ground level. Those two little words, repeating over and over in his brain, caused him to reach the last stair and emerge onto the street with as much effort as though he’d scaled a mountain. Even as he stepped onto level ground, he almost collapsed, struggling to support the weight of the truth he could no longer escape.
They’re all dead. There was simply no other possibility that could be plausibly countenanced in the face of such overwhelming evidence. The number and location of the blood puddles. The bags of bits surrounding them. The physical details that the ghouls had provided. Even the unknown aspects of what happened – both Severance’s unknown whereabouts and all five bodies lying there without a mark on them when the ghouls had found them, according to that last one’s testimony – merely served to obscure how and why this had happened, rather than denying that it had.
For long moments Lex stood there, simply trying to process it. Various lines of thought, each concerning potential implications, ramifications, courses of action, and other consequences floated through his mind, but it was impossible to focus on any of them for more than a few seconds before another demanded his attention. If the ghouls hadn’t killed them, what had? Was it some sort of intelligent entity, and if so was it connected to Severance’s disappearance? Or had the scythe finally found cause to abandon them, and that had contributed to what had happened here? He had arranged for Waterlily’s resurrection; could he do something similar for everypony now? Was it even possible to resurrect someone when there was no body left?
That last question made him squeeze his eyes shut, suddenly reminded of what that ghoul had said about Thermal Draft. “I got the yummiest parts of her face,” she taunted. “The lips and nose and ears are dandy, but eyeballs make the sweetest cand-” Grimacing, Lex violently pushed that memory away, not wanting to think about someone he’d known being defiled like that. The utter lack of dignity with which their bodies had been treated was almost as painful as the knowledge that they were gone, and Lex refused to let his thoughts linger on it.
But his shadow had other ideas. No. You don’t get to ignore what happened to them. Not when you caused this. The words lacked their usual mocking element, nor were they filled with the scorn he’d come to expect. Instead, they were almost seething, as though the tulpa were enraged. You will witness their desecration in your dreams. You will watch as each of them is slowly reduced from ponies that you knew into unrecognizable chunks of meat. You will see it, over and over, and you will know that this is your fault.
The hateful diatribe continued as Lex slowly climbed to his hooves and began to head back the way he’d come. He had no doubt that the thing would make good on its promises, but that didn’t matter right now. Regardless of what nightmares were waiting for him, they were no excuse for not doing what he needed to do.
Rage had always been Lex’s answer to the innumerable failures and disappointments that had come to define his life. Ever since he could remember, anger had galvanized him to persevere in the face of repeated setbacks, and in doing so had blunted the horrifying uncertainty that came from living in a world that consistently refused to make sense. More than that, it had given him a crucial point of stability in his life; even if he couldn’t figure out what the proper response to a particular situation was, anger was ALWAYS the proper response to something that was manifestly senseless.
But Lex had learned, over the last few years, that there were some situations where even his anger couldn’t sustain him. There were some situations of such unremitting horror that even rage was no shield against the despair that threatened to consume him utterly. He had felt that for the first time when he’d come back from the Crystal Empire only to realize that he’d been thrown forward in time, and in doing so lost his parents, the only ponies who had ever truly cared about him. He’d experienced it again on his initial trip to Everglow, where he’d witnessed violence and brutality taken to a degree he’d never thought possible. The third time had been when Sonata had left him. And now…now it was all happening again.
In those moments, when he was at his absolute lowest, the only thing that Lex had left was what he knew – not believed, not theorized, but knew from long years of examining and refining moral philosophy – to be right. So long as he held to that and followed the dictates of what constituted virtuous action, then what he did still made sense, even if nothing else did. Maintaining moral righteousness meant that his existence still had meaning. It meant that there was still hope, no matter how painful things became.
Slowly, putting one hoof in front of the other, Lex forced himself to keep moving forward.
Aria had almost finished scooping the last few coins into the hole when Lex reappeared.
She wasn’t able to resist a sigh of relief as she caught sight of him. Although she wasn’t afraid of ghouls, being left all alone in a completely deserted city had been distinctly unnerving, all the more so when surrounded by large puddles of blood without any bodies. It had been eerie enough that she’d had a spell on her lips as she’d gathered up the fallen money, ready to raise a wall of fire around herself if anything had attacked her. With that protecting her, she’d just cast another fly spell and beat a hasty retreat. Fortunately, that hadn’t been necessary, and now that Lex was back there was no reason to be worried.
Then she saw the stricken look on his face, and felt her relief dissipate in favor of renewed anxiety.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered anxiously. Forgetting the coins, she dragged herself over to him. “What happened? I told you it was a trap!”
His eyes met hers then, and she saw several emotions flicker across his face, too fast for her to identify them before he seemed to settle on stoicism. He regarded her just long enough that it was awkward before he looked over at the coin-filled magic hole in the ground behind her. “You should have been done by now.”
There was no heat in his voice, but Aria still felt irritated. I ask if you’re okay, and that’s your response? “I was doing the best I could,” she snapped. “If you really wanted this done faster, you could have helped-, no, you know what? Forget it.” With a snort, she dragged herself over to the last few coins and brushed them into the hole with her tail. “There, it’s done. Happy now?”
He didn’t answer her, instead looking at the bloodstains on the ground, his features tightening as he stared at them. He was still doing that when Aria picked the hole up – the empty space becoming a round black cloth as it peeled away from the ground – and crumpled it up in her grasp. “So are you going to tell me what happened or not?”
Blinking, Lex looked at her. “What?”
Aria frowned, starting to feel nervous again. What was going on with him? She hadn’t known her idiot sister’s boyfriend very long, but he’d made it very clear that he considered himself a bigshot, always barking orders and acting like he knew everything. Seeing him acting so out of it was starting to creep her out. “You were going on about how this was all an ‘elaborate deception,’ remember? That Cloudbank and the others weren’t really devoured by ghouls?” She waved a hoof at the bloody cobblestones. “So, what’s the real deal with what happened?”
“I-” Lex started to answer, then cut himself off, looking away from her.
But this time she could read his face, seeing him struggling – not to come up with an answer, but to bring himself to say one he already had – and that told her everything she needed to know. “Nevermind. Can we just get out of here already? I hate this place.”
Lex cast one last look around before giving a crisp nod. “We’re leaving.” Almost as an afterthought, he telekinetically took the crumpled material that was the extradimensional hole from her, stuffing it back into his saddlebag.
Snorting, Aria didn’t bother to make a fuss, instead casting another flight spell and hovering several feet in the air. “Finally. Now let’s get g-”
“Cast your spell again,” interrupted Lex.
“Huh?” Aria’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You want to fly too?”
“Not that spell,” answered Lex, a bit of his usual petulance returning to his voice. “Your detection spell. Use it again now, for Severance this time.”
“For Sev-, are you kidding me?” Aria laughed incredulously. “I don’t even think that would work. That spell detects creatures, not things. You’re magic scythe’s not alive.”
“Neither are the ghouls,” Lex countered. “But you didn’t object when I told you to check for them while we were recovering after the battle.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It’s exactly the same. Based on what you told me, that spell can detect nearby creatures of a particular type or specific individuals. Severance is a specific individual, and if that spell of yours can potentially detect ghouls than it can potentially detect it. Cast it.”
Aria glowered at him. What he was saying sounded good, but she had no idea if it actually worked like that. But the bigger problem was that she didn’t want to try. Using that spell again would exhaust her ability to use her most powerful magic, leaving her with only lesser spells remaining. To be fair those weren’t exactly weak, and she’d recover her strongest magic by tomorrow morning, but she still wanted to hedge her bets. After all, even if they were leaving they were still in the city right now, and wasting what was left of her strongest magic would just be asking for trouble. Except Lex, she was certain, would never accept that.
Which means I’ve got to improvise, she decided. Luckily, she knew exactly how to do that. “Alright,” she nodded, before beginning to gesture and whisper a chant.
Lex looked mollified at her apparent agreement, glancing at the bloodstains again, and Aria mentally crossed fingers she no longer had in hope that he wasn’t paying attention. He’d heard her cast this spell before, and although whispering was by definition hard to overhear, the city around them was notably silent. If he was paying attention, he’d realize that she was faking the chant, altering the syllables just enough so that they were meaningless sounds rather than invoking any magic. It’s a good thing this spell doesn’t do anything that can be seen.
A second later she finished, and Lex glanced back at her. “Well?”
“Give me a second to check,” she growled, making sure to hide her elation. He hadn’t noticed! Slowly looking around, she made a show of concentrating before looking back at him with a shrug. “I’m not detecting anything.”
Lex sighed, before turning and heading back toward the camp. “Let's go. There are hungry ponies that need to be fed.”
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I know Lex was desperate, but there's no way Locate Creature would have found Severance. Aria not casting it was exactly the same effect. I'm assuming she doesn't know Locate Object. To bad Lex didn't ask her to cast Detect Magic, it might have picked Severance up if they were less than 60 feet away.
(BTW, what kind of Spontaneous caster knows Locate Creature? No wonder you were never the leader Aria!)
I share howard035's thoughts on Lex wanting Aria to cast Locate Creature since despite its sentience, Severance is still an object, a magical object but still an object regardless. Though if Severance had actually been an individual that was turned into a scythe...er is there anything like that in the games?
Still, I wonder if this is Lex trying to salvage a bad situation or was he hoping that his initial assessment of Severance's absence could lead him to a more favorable outcome for Cloudbank and the others.
I'm guessing Sonata has raised Lex's public image back at camp in his and his return without the first party is going to break that image.
Aria just lied to Lex in that condition?
Shes sushi.
8689056 Lex can use detect magic on his own, thanks to his circlet. He didn't bother because it's not very helpful in this regard; its range is only 60 feet, and its area is a cone-shaped emanation, which means that he needs line of effect from himself to the magic aura in question in order to detect it. In other words, he could only locate Severance with detect magic if he could (for the most part) already see it, which sort of defeats the point.
As for whether or not Aria's locate creature spell could have potentially found Severance, well, consider the following text from the Intelligent Item rules:
That seems pretty definitive as to whether or not her spell could have detected it! Of course, neither Aria nor Lex were entirely certain about that; Lex doesn't know the spell himself and so isn't aware of its intricacies, and Aria doesn't bother to deconstruct and examine the capabilities of her spells the way Lex does (nor does she know very much about sapient magic items). That uncertainty was why Lex wanted her to use the spell, since it meant there was a chance they'd have learned something. But that's apparently not going to happen now.
And yeah, Aria isn't exactly an optimized character. Maybe she'll be better if and when she becomes a pony?
8689505 Only if he finds out. Aria's fairly selfish and untrustworthy that way.
8689372 I'll refer you to that text I quoted from the Intelligent Item rules, insofar as Severance being a creature or an object goes.
As for transforming a creature into an object...well, there's a joke to be made about "they become objects when they're dead," but other than that the only real ways of doing this are via high-level transmutation spells like polymorph any object, presuming I'm not forgetting something obvious (which does happen sometimes). There are more ways of doing this under the Eclipse rules, but even then it can be fairly difficult, simply because an "object," under the game rules, is something that essentially can't take any actions for itself; it literally needs to have no Wisdom or Charisma scores (not just scores of 0, but lacking those scores altogether), and that essentially makes it unplayable. You need to be a "creature" to be a character, after all. Even sentient items are treated as characters, despite having certain object qualities.
Lex wasn't entirely sure that Aria's spell would work to find it, but because he wasn't sure he at least wanted to try. Aria, however, was more dubious, and since her primary concern is herself found it more convenient to lie than to deplete herself - even a little - for something she considered to be a waste of her magic. The irony is that, under the game rules, Lex probably would have been right.
As for what's happening back at the camp...well, we'll see...
Update! So sweet and tasty. Update! Of Lex and Sony. Update! Update update update!
8689787
I take it you liked the latest chapter, then?
8689796
Haven't read it yet. I actually haven't touched the story much since I reviewed it
, but I remember it exists, so yay.
8689602 Detect Magic would go through almost 3 feet of wood or dirt and a foot of stone, so if Severance is nearby and inside a building, depending on the building Lex might get a ping anyway, or even if he was buried.
Ah, I didn't realize Sev counted as a construct.
I am a bit curious on why such a selfish creature as Aria would take that spell. Perhaps she uses it as a hunting aid?
ok this is a vary good chapter.
Severance would never abandon Lex for this they are still alive some ware.
8690249
I confess I had forgotten the clause regarding detect magic penetrating a certain degree of materials, but it's still not a very good spell for the sort of wide-area searching Lex needs. It requires concentration, only works out to 60 feet, and only covers a cone-shaped area. That and I'm not completely sure about the construction or thickness of the buildings in Vanhoover, so that might very well run up against those restrictions as well (just imagine if the buildings use lead-based paint).
That's one of those little rules that, if used properly, can be all sorts of fun.
I was wondering when that question would come up.
There is an answer, but I'm not sure how satisfying it'll be:
The thing is, I see a degree of narrative disconnect between how sorcerers (though not necessarily all spontaneous casters per se) pick their spells, and how the players pick their sorcerers' spells. What I mean by that is that the in-character text makes it clear that sorcerers are gaining magical power via their bloodline, and while there's some pedantry involved over the degree to which that involves actual hereditary genetics, the implication is that this is magical power that's utilized via biology, rather than study or conscious control. To me, that strongly suggests that sorcerers are not picking what spells they gain as they progress; rather, the specific spells they gain are due to inherent biological quirks that are ultimately beyond their control.
Consider this passage from Oath of Nerull (p. 18), made with regard to Hennet, the 3E Iconic Sorcerer:
What that tells me is that, while sorcerers can actively try to learn new and stronger magic (which is an in-game representation for leveling up), the specifics of what they learn isn't up to them. Nowhere in that passage (or anywhere else in the book that I recall) does Hennet mention having particular new spells that he wants to learn. Rather, he's simply trying to draw out new magic that already exists within himself, suggesting that the magic isn't his to deliberately choose. That's distinct from how players pick the spells that their sorcerer knows, but that's only to be expected; player-characters don't actually do anything without the player, after all.
Obviously, the idea of sorcerers forgetting an old spell and replacing it with a new one at 4th level and every even-numbered level thereafter throws something of a monkey wrench into that idea, but it doesn't invalidate the entire concept. (Indeed, the aforementioned concept was a central pillar of the idea of "sorcerers as freaks" that was implied in a lot of 3.X D&D.) Although Pathfinder tightened up the theme of inherited power, and added some much-needed variability, with their bloodline mechanics, the idea of sorcerers as mutations went by the wayside, which I think was a shame.
As it was, I much preferred the alternate sorcerer rules found in the little-known third-party supplement Octavirate Expansions: Feared and Hated. They beat Paizo by just over a year on introducing the idea of sorcerer bloodlines (since Paizo didn't have those until version 2 of the alpha playtest document for the Pathfinder RPG, released in mid-April, 2008), and had them be much more thematically comprehensive, as well as supplementary mechanics that played up the idea of sorcerers being alien, frightening, and dangerous. It's a shame that it's been so completely forgotten by the wider community.
I bring all that up because, while this isn't necessarily true for all spontaneous (arcane) spellcasters per se (and I wouldn't build Aria using character classes anyway, opting for using the Eclipse rules, just like Lex and Sonata), it's very much how I see Aria operating. She isn't consciously deciding what spells she gets; she just threw herself into a new magic to try and survive and is taking whatever she happens to figure out how to do.
8690633 Thanks for the kind words!
Hopefully you're right about the others still being alive.
8690722 You're right that Detect Magic wouldn't be effective in actually tracking Severus throughout the city, and that modern buildings would probably block Detect Magic, since they are a combination of at least a foot of stone and an inch of metal as far as I know. I'm just surprised he didn't spend 4 rounds to through a quick cone in each direction, see if there was any magic around. Low chance of success, but the only cost is 24 seconds. Whenever an adventuring party I'm in encounters something bizarre, and we're not under immediate time pressure, we throw out a few detect magics on the off chance there's something to be learned.
That's a really interesting take on sorcerers. Now I hope we get to learn a bit more about Aria and Sonata's bloodline.
8690795 Well, if it's just an issue of checking the immediate area for magic, don't forget that Lex did do that back at the end of chapter 196. He didn't find anything.
Well, keep in mind that Aria isn't a sorcerer per se; she's just (as I see her) utilizing the same thematic explanation for drawing upon inherent magical ability to spontaneously cast arcane spells. She won't have a typical bloodline insofar as what Pathfinder sorcerers have; rather, she'd be built with Eclipse, the same way that Sonata is, since that's really the only way to model her with game statistics that wouldn't effectively cripple her, in terms of mechanics.
Can it actually work like that? Severance isn't a 'person', but rather a magical item. Does that count?
9197474 Hm, apparently I never answered this; sorry!
The short answer is yes, it can work like that. Some of the earlier posts for this chapter go into more detail, but basically sentient magic items count as constructs (a creature type) and so can be found via locate create.