226 - Mission Report
You really can’t do anything right, can you?
Lex didn’t react to his shadow’s taunt, save to let his eyes flick towards the thing. It was currently falling perpendicular to the light from the sun, which was nearing the horizon. For a moment he found himself wondering again what had caused it to assist him during his fight with Xiriel, but his curiosity faded away after a few seconds, unsustainable in the face of the overwhelming languor he felt right then.
He could hear Sonata addressing the crowd of ponies on the other side of the medical tent, but he couldn’t bring himself to pay attention to what she was saying. He knew it was important, knew that lives could very well depend on getting everypony to try and fortify this place as much as possible…but at the moment it was out of his hooves. Sonata would either succeed or fail, and then he’d have to deal with it either way. But right at this moment there was nothing for him to do.
That was what Sonata had wanted, of course. She’d flat-out told him to rest, just like House Call had, not understanding that rest was the last thing he wanted right now. He had almost called her back when she’d gone to address everypony, wanting desperately for her to stay there with him, for her warmth and her caring and her love to push back the despondency that had engulfed him in the wake of his anger. But he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do so, knowing that she had an important job to do. Instead, all he’d been able to do was utter a brief statement of gratitude for the moment of respite she’d given him, wondering if she knew just how deeply he’d meant it. But that moment was over now…
Now, there was nothing left to distract him. No half-hearted theories to cling to, no enemies to fight, no injured ponies to attend to or instructions to give. Now there was nothing to do but sit there and face the overwhelming, awful truth.
It’s your fault they died.
Cloudbank. Thermal Draft. C. Shells. Sandbar. Turbo. Block Party as well. Lex sat there and silently recited their names, remembering each of their faces, those ponies that had died because he had been neither strong enough nor smart enough to protect them. No matter that the circumstances had been extreme, or that he had been completely taken in by Xiriel’s deceptions; he had taken on the mantle of responsibility for all of the ponies here, and there was no excuse for not being up to the task.
You were supposed to be better than the princesses, whispered his tulpa silently, spurred on by his despair. After all your talk about their incompetence, what have you accomplished? Right now your people are hungry, but all you’re doing is putting them to work. Nosey was brutalized right in front of you. And there are six ponies dead under your watch. Seven, really, since you couldn’t save Cozy’s husband either. The words were laced with scorn, despite having no voice. You should go crawling back to Celestia and Luna and admit that you’re unfit to govern.
Lex shuddered at the verbal assault, and it was only with extreme difficulty that he tried to look for something else to focus on. His shadow was rarely this loquacious; for it to be so unrestrained in its mockery, even without his interacting with it, meant that he needed to think about something else. Anything else. Doing nothing was no longer viable, there had to be something-
Glancing to the side, Lex saw Severance – still hovering where Sonata had directed it – and quickly took action before he had time to think better of it. “Severance, come here.”
For a moment he didn’t think the scythe would obey, but it slowly began to float toward him despite the altercation they’d had. Despite its seeming calm, Lex still grasped it in his telekinesis when it had halved the distance between them. Reassured when he didn’t feel it struggle against his grip, he pulled it closer, until it was right in front of him. After a tense moment, he decided that the weapon wasn’t going to attack him over what had happened. Probably because it doesn’t want to endanger the Night Mare’s investment in me, he thought cynically. But that was fine. Although he’d lost his temper, Lex felt no remorse for how he’d treated the weapon. Severance’s failure to protect the others, as well as its indifference about what had happened, meant that it had gotten what it deserved.
Instead, Lex turned his attention back to what they had been discussing before he’d lost control of his emotions. “Finish your report,” he ordered brusquely. When the weapon hesitated to respond, he continued. “Everypony was killed. What happened then?”
Another second passed, and then Severance began speaking again. The scythe talked about how it had flown at Nosey then, intent on cutting her down – Lex’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly at the weapon’s choice of words, indicating that it hadn’t recognized that the blonde mare was being possessed even if it had known something was wrong – only for her to get the drop on it, sending it elsewhere. Despite Severance’s words being entirely psychic in their communication, Lex’s ears perked up at its description of what happened next, his misery forgotten.
Xiriel’s attack had sent Severance to another plane of existence, and the denizens there had detected its presence immediately and attacked it aggressively. Although the scythe’s description of the battle it had fought was presented in crisp, clinical terms, it still painted a vivid picture. It described hordes of lesser creatures flinging themselves at it, engaging it with almost fanatical zeal despite how easily it cut them down. Undeterred by the ineffectiveness of their massed assault, they managed to keep it busy long enough for some of the plane’s more powerful residents to notice the commotion, coming to join the fray. By the end of the battle, Severance had apparently engaged with a creature whose power – if the scythe wasn’t exaggerating – eclipsed even Xiriel’s. Disturbingly, Severance apparently hadn’t won that last encounter. Instead, it had fought its last foe to an impasse, using the moment when its enemy had paused to regroup to cut the planar border and return to Equestria. Even then, that had only barely worked, its enemy having engaged magic to try and prevent its escape; the scythe had made it out, but it hadn’t returned directly to Vanhoover as it had intended, reappearing on the other side of the Unicorn Mountains. It had taken it almost a day to physically travel back.
Lex was silent for a long moment after Severance finished, brooding over what he’d just been told. That Severance was able to traverse the planes under its own power was new information, a stark reminder that he still didn’t know everything the weapon was capable of. But there was another aspect to the story that concerned him more. “Could those monsters have followed you here?” he asked grimly, already imagining the worst-case scenario. “Do they have magic that can determine your location?”
The scythe’s answer was the one he least wanted to hear: it didn’t know. That was enough to make Lex bite his lip, cursing softly as he tried to figure out how to respond to this latest unwelcome revelation. Severance was in his grasp now, which meant that if anyone tried to scry on it the anti-scrying spell he kept on his person should have activated, but that offered little in the way of reassurance. Severance had been back in Equestria for almost a full day already, and besides, his spell hadn’t prevented Aria’s tracking spell from locating him, which meant that the protection it offered was less than perfect. If those creatures came to Equestria…
He’d just have to deal with it, then. For all that he’d bungled things with Xiriel, he’d still managed to uncover and slay the creature. He’d do the same to any of those angels that Severance had fought if they came here.
His thoughts were interrupted as Severance requested that he fill it in as to what had happened during its absence. For a moment Lex considered denying it, but he recognized that the impulse was petty, and pushed it aside. Instead, he gave the scythe the same curt recitation of facts that it had given him, telling it how he had gone into Vanhoover to look for the missing ponies before returning and confronting the devil that had possessed Nosey, slaying it.
Saying that reminded Lex that there was one other thing he could be doing: examining the scroll that had been in Xiriel’s possession. Releasing the scythe, Lex telekinetically dug through his saddlebag, pulling the scroll-tube out a moment later. Eyeing it warily, he called upon his circlet again, peering at the multiple magical auras around it. Again, he saw the necromantic magic that was contained there…but now that he could properly analyze it, there myriad other magical auras surrounding the case as well, all of considerable power, some of them incredibly so.
Abjuration magic, which was designed to protect, was there. So was divination, which was the type of magic that gathered information. Transmutation was also present, as was at least one aura of enchantment magic, and illusion magic as well. Evocation, with its direct manipulation of energy was likewise to be found. That’s almost every type of magical aura that this is capable of detecting, Lex realized. Only conjuration magic, the magic that was designed specifically to interact with other planes, was missing…something which was understandable, given that Xiriel had been from the planes itself. After all, Lex knew that it was laborious to store spells in a physical medium, whether it was a scroll or a gem. Xiriel wouldn’t have wanted to embed magic that it could utilize on its own.
Despite the prospect of so much new magic at his hooves, however, Lex regarded the scroll critically. So far there wasn’t anything to indicate that it was trapped or otherwise protected against tampering, but his circlet’s ability to view the magical spectrum was far from the most definitive method for checking such things. One of those auras might very well be an active spell effect, rather than an embedded one, he knew, just waiting to go off if someone other than a designated user unrolled it.
Even so, the temptation was there. New knowledge had long been one of the extremely rare sources of joy in Lex’s life, particularly where magic was concerned. More than that, however, was the fact that the spells in the scroll might be of vital help in combating the ghoul threat. Besides, there was no guarantee that the scroll was trapped; Xiriel had hidden it inside its own body, and the thing had been arrogant enough to believe that no one would ever take it from it. Maybe…maybe a risk was what was called for now. No one was around, besides Severance, and it was strong enough that any potential traps were surely no threat to it. If no one else stood to be hurt-
You always hurt others no matter what you do, came the voiceless words of his tulpa. The rebuke made Lex’s ears fold back, sighing as he lowered the scroll and reluctantly placed it back in his saddlebag. Despite the venom in the words, they weren’t wrong. It wasn’t certain that the ghouls were an imminent threat, which meant that examining the scroll any further without taking the proper precautions was the height of foolishness. Waiting was the more responsible action, and he needed to act responsibly, lest he end up having more lives weighing on his conscience.
Hearing that Sonata was still speaking, Lex found himself with nothing to do again. Frowning at the prospect, he only belatedly realized that he felt terrible. Despite his wounds having been transferred to Xiriel, he still felt sore all over from how badly he’d overextended himself, and the mild dizziness that he’d been fighting off was already starting to come back. More than that, although he’d woken up from an entire day’s worth of sleep a few hours ago, the contents of those last few hours had utterly depleted him. But even so, he had no desire to sleep…not when he could guess what torments would await him in his dreams. Instead…instead he’d just lie down for a moment. That way he’d be able to tell Sonata that he’d been resting when she came back.
Sinking to the ground, Lex cast a weary glance at Severance. “Stay alert for…anything that isn’t a pony,” he muttered. The weapon gave no response except to turn its blade away from him, which he took to be a sign of acquiescence. Now he just had to rest for a short time without falling asleep. He’d think about something else, rather than the ponies he’d let down…
Turning his thoughts toward the projected costs of rebuilding Vanhoover, Lex let the numbers and calculations fill his thoughts. From there he let those segue into what he’d do for the city’s economy, which in turn led to the legal reforms he planned to implement. All of them were thoughts he’d had before, to the point where they were like books that he’d long since memorized, turning the familiar computations and forecasts over in his mind soothingly. He didn’t even notice when he laid his head down, his eyes fluttering shut as exhaustion finally overtook him.
His dreams were filled with blue fire.
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I noticed a thing that the weapon did not witness. An important thing.
Severance cant act as a unitary familiar with Lex close by, never mind planar distance, so all those XPs wracked up dont affect Severance, and dont feed back to Lex?
Nightmare has direct read of head follower, and Tulpa reports also?
8865628 Okay, you've piqued my interest. What is it? (If you think it's too spoilery, PM me instead.)
8865874 Severance isn't any sort of familiar to Lex. It might very well have gotten experience points for the battle it fought, but those won't help Lex in the slightest.
As for what sort of tabs the Night Mare is keeping on Lex...well, that remains to be seen, but I'd be surprised if she wasn't keeping an eye on him somehow.
Should the demon Severance fled from manages to locate Equestria, the possibility of it continuing where Xiriel left off is rather chilling though highly unlikely since he had kept Equestria and subsequently, his plans for it, a secret. Still, the havoc it would cause is still nothing to dismiss, especially given that appraisal of its power that it gave. Though how did Severance know how strong Xiriel/Nosey was to make the comparison? Or does the scythe have some previously unknown capability to detect a being's power levels?
While Lex told himself that he would deal with it should it come to Equestria, I wonder if he'd be prepared for the potential losses should he face it. Maybe he should get Severance to tell him more of what it's capable of to ensure he can utilize it to its' full extent...though that could also breach on the over reliance rule it has.
On another matter, I think I see a pattern in the tulpa's taunting, or rather a framework of one, it seems to taunt more when Lex is unsure of himself, even if it's on a subconscious level. Regardless of how confident one is in their decisions, there is going to be the one voice in their mind that undermines it though it's a literal one in Lex's case. So any decision he makes will likely be attacked with doubt and guilt over his perceived failures.
This could either push Lex to ensure that every facet of his decision making is foolproof, or it would make him second guess himself more in the future, or both. At least that's how I see it.
p.s:Did anyone else think of heavy-metal battle music when you imagined Severance cutting through a demon horde in the other dimensional plane?
8866163
Angels. I deliberately downplayed the nature of what it was Severance fought, with the reveal being given so subtly that I thought it might be overlooked, so I made sure to call it out in the author's notes: Severance was sent to a realm where it fought legions of angels.
Likewise, that appraisal of its power was Lex's; the narration has him evaluating what Severance told him, and based on the description of that last angel Severance fought, Lex came to the uneasy conclusion that it was a stronger entity than Xiriel. Presumably, this included Severance describing exactly what its enemy was capable of, though in this case I've glossed over it. But if it turns out to have followed Severance there, then we might get to see those up close.
Lex has long since established that his tulpa lashes out at him when he's experiencing negative emotions, essentially kicking him when he's down. The worse he feels, the more likely it is to speak up and make him feel even worse, starting a feedback loop. That's why he was so desperate to think about anything else, here; for it to start speaking that much, he knew he was at a low ebb, and needed something to take his mind off it. While Sonata's heart was in the right place, Lex isn't the sort or person who does well when he has nothing to do.
8866415
Oops, guess that's what I get for skipping those. Still, are the angels any better than the demons? I mean, aside from the obvious good aligned angels vs evil aligned demons thing though that would explain why they attacked Severance upon seeing an artifact belonging to the Night Mare. Though this makes me wonder why Xiriel had a spell to send someone or in this case, something to a realm inhabited by angels. Or did he use it to send his rivals to their deaths at the hands of their enemies?
Regardless, should the angels appear in Equestria in pursuit of Severance(quite likely considering the untold numbers the scythe slain), it could potentially open Equestria up to the many denizens of the dimensional planes seeking to gain more power, which their rivals and enemies would oppose. This in turn leads into conflict that would most likely escalate into war, war that Equestria is sorely ill prepared for.
8867714 As a belier, Xiriel had the ability to use plane shift once per day, either on itself (and several passengers, if it wanted) or on another creature, even if that other creature isn't willing (and fails its saving throw). Moreover, the spell isn't plane-specific; while the components do require that you have "a forked metal rod attuned to the plane of travel," that's a moot point here since Xiriel had it as a spell-like ability, which explicitly needs no components. Hence, it can use plane shift to send a creature to any other plane (in the local cosmology, at least; other multiverses require a higher-level spell).
That said, you're right about its reasons: sending your enemy to the realm of your other enemies - when you know that they'll both intrinsically hate each other - is usually a good way to ensure that someone you hate is going to lose out. Of course, Xiriel didn't know that Severance had the ability to traverse the planes by itself; if it had realized that its plan could lead the angels to Equestria, it likely wouldn't have done what it did. As it is, this could very well draw more planar denizens to Equestria...what that means for the future as yet remains unknown.
interesting back to the blue fire.
8870233 What does it mean? Well, I suspect the answer is obvious...but what's going to happen next is a mystery!
Until the next chapter, that is.
8870315
leaving the camp
Angels in Equestria? That should be interesting. Sounds like Lex's method of storing spells is a bit like a witch's familiar, but inside his head. (Geeze, basically a tumor familiar). He absorbs the scrolls into his matrix and then can cast them.
8872062 His shadow doesn't have anything to do with that; Lex's ability to store spells can basically be summarized as "like a wizard, but with no spellbook." The doesn't need an external record to maintain the list of spells that he knows, but must still actually learn a spell in order to add it to his mental catalogue. That said, his weakness is actually preparing them, since he needs a major energy source in order to do so, and even then it takes hours upon hours to fulfill his entire complement of spells (though if he's only replenishing some of them, he can cut down on the time).
Well, the Night Mare is not too happy with him? Or maybe she is quite pleased with him due to his triumph over the devil.
9219134 She has something to say, of that you can be sure.