246 - Fatal Flaw
In the end, it wasn’t the limited duration of her enhancements that led to Garden Gate being undone. Rather, it was simple bad luck that made it happen. Bad luck that Lex cursed himself for not having anticipated. After all, he’d seen it happen before.
A trio of ghouls were hurling themselves at Garden Gate, thinking that they might be the ones to succeed where the numerous mutilated bodies around them had failed. Despite the fact that she hadn’t so much as paused to catch her breath in some time, she immediately moved to engage them. A quick sidestep around a bite and a vicious slice sent the head of one of the undead ponies tumbling away as its body collapsed. The second ghoul threw itself at her hooves, thinking to knock her down; that was its last thought, as she somersaulted over the clumsy tackle and – at the apex of her leap – grabbed the ghoul with her gem-enhanced telekinesis and pushed it straight down as hard as she could, instantly crushing the monster to paste against the ground.
It was when she dealt with the third ghoul that it happened. It had gone high where its fellow had gone low, and was already off-target due to not having anticipated how Garden had crushed its comrade to death. But the thing swung its legs anyway, flailing wildly as it passed through the space where she had been just a moment ago…and by pure coincidence, one of its flailing limbs happened to make contact with one of the gems orbiting her head.
Watching from a short distance away, Lex’s eyes widened as he watched the dusty rose prism go spinning away from Garden Gate, immediately becoming lost amidst the corpses piled up around her. No no NO! he cursed silently. That gem was the one granting Garden her preternatural awareness of her surroundings! Without it, her defensive capabilities would suffer…as the blow to the jaw she took a moment later underscored.
The uppercut, delivered by the ghoul that had knocked her gem away, wasn’t a fatal one. Although it snapped her head up, Garden’s body didn’t go rigid, nor did she stop moving. Instead, she fell back, telekinetically waving her knife in front of her in order to buy herself some room. But the ghoul, sensing victory, plunged forward recklessly, seeming not to notice as the knife buried itself to the hilt in its chest.
It was much more cognizant of it a moment later, as Garden focused her telekinesis and shoved the knife all the way through its body in one hard push.
The weapon exited the thing’s backside in a shower of gore, with several bits of viscera still clinging to the blade as the undead pony collapsed, dead before it hit the ground. Bringing the filth-covered knife back to her, Lex saw Garden’s head twist around to look at where her gemstone had fallen. But she had no time to go after it as more ghouls were already on her, forcing her to devote all of her attention to these new threats.
The sight was enough to make Lex whisper the most profane oath he knew (making Sonata wince as she kept singing, since the whisper-spell between them was still active). This was exactly what had happened with Xiriel! A stroke of bad luck had knocked the gems from around its heads and ultimately proven vital to the devil’s downfall, and now it was happening again!
Silently swearing that he wouldn’t let history repeat itself, Lex focused on one of the mangled bodies lying near where the gemstone had fallen, trying to drag it out of the way with his telekinesis. If he could just get line of sight to the fallen gem, he’d be able to pick it back up and place it around Garden’s head himself! But to his complete lack of surprise, he couldn’t move the dead body even slightly, his strength too depleted. For a moment he kept trying anyway, attempting to power through with sheer force of will the way he had done so many times in the past. But after several seconds of sustained effort, all he had to show for it was a headache so painful it was nauseating, forcing him to stop.
Groaning, he tried to think of another way to reunite Garden and the gemstone, but there were no viable options that he could think of. Sending Sonata was completely out of the question – she needed to keep singing, and sending her that close to where Garden was fighting would make her a target for the ghouls – and even if it possessed some sort of ability to grab objects, Severance was too busy annihilating the bulk of the horde. Bringing in somepony else from within the illusion ran the risk of exposing the camp ponies, which left…no one.
Realizing that he was completely out of options, Lex could only lie there and seethe at his own powerlessness as Garden Gate continued to fight. Even the few spells he had left were no help in this situation, nor were the remaining spells on the scroll, not that he was in any condition to utilize them anyway. Which meant that, with no way to get the gem back to her, there was nothing he could do except hope that Garden could either find a way to retrieve it herself or manage to continue fighting without it.
It was all up to her now…
But it wasn’t very long before the next gem was lost. This time, it happened as a ghoul reared up and kicked out with its forelegs, hissing as it tried to land a blow on her. Rather than weaving between the strikes as she would have with the dusty rose prism, Garden fell back, giving ground in order to get out of the ghoul’s range. But as she did, the orange prism came around in its orbit, flying near enough to the undead pony that it growled at the perceived distraction and lashed out with a hoof, batting the gem away as if it were a particularly large mosquito. The blow sent it tumbling end-over-end to the ground, bouncing and rolling before it too was lost amidst the bodies and bad lighting.
The ghoul paid for its action a moment later as Garden Gate brought her knife around sharply, lopping off one of the monster’s forelegs completely. Heedless of its dismemberment, the thing continued to advance on her, only to have its momentum reversed as Garden surged forward, plowing into the creature and shoving her knife through its neck. The hit knocked it onto its back, and the knife blade protruding from the back of its neck sunk into the ground, leaving the creature’s three legs flailing as it tried to get up. Its motions stopped as Garden brought her hoof down as hard as she could, stomping on the thing’s face again and again until the thing’s head split open like an overripe piece of fruit.
Watching from a short distance away, Lex knew that was a bad sign. She’d needed to bring her hoof down more than once in order to kill that thing, despite having only needed a single buck to crush the skull of an attacking ghoul a few minutes ago. But that wasn’t a function of the gemstone being lost; the orange prism enhanced its user’s ability to use magic. Without it Garden wouldn’t be using her telekinesis to fling the ghouls around anymore, but her strength shouldn’t have been reduced. Which either meant that she was getting tired…or some of her other enhancements – namely, the spells that Sonata had cast on her – were wearing off.
Or perhaps it was both. As he watched Garden Gate fling herself at the next group of undead ponies that came at her, he could already tell that she was slowing down. Even as he watched, she didn’t manage to completely avoid a bite to her flank, the ghoul’s face red with blood as its teeth sank into her skin just above her cutie mark. He saw her go rigid then, and the other ghoul immediately lunged for her throat, certain that she was paralyzed. But just before it could land the killing blow, Garden jumped to the side – having been feigning being frozen in place – and lashed out with a foreleg, clocking the ghoul in the back of the head and sending it sprawling into the undead pony that had bitten her.
But it was a short-lived victory. Already, four more ghouls were making their way toward her, and the other two were struggling to get back up even as she fell upon them, her knife plunging into them again and again. By the time the newcomers reached her, forcing her to break off her attack, only one of the downed ghouls had stopped moving, the other one picking itself up as she was forced to engage with the newest undead ponies.
Averting his eyes from what was now less of an even match and more of a battle for survival, Lex looked back at Severance. The ground in front of the scythe was completely hidden from view, buried beneath a carpet of body parts and ichor. Even as Lex watched, it whirled in place and reduced another wave of ghouls to pieces, righting itself as the next group followed them without hesitation. Fourteen hundred ghouls, estimated Lex, gritting his teeth at the apocalyptic number. Maybe fifteen. This was far beyond what he had originally estimated, and painted an even grimmer picture of just how bad things had been in Vanhoover, something he hadn’t thought was possible at this point. Although Lex knew that he needed to worry about their immediate circumstances, he couldn’t help but spare a thought for just how badly the rest of Equestria would have suffered if these things had been allowed to spread across the continent…which they still might, if they failed here.
Failure which seemed to be not only inevitable at this point, but imminent now, as Garden Gate lost the last of the gemstones.
The final one was taken from her as one of the last batch of ghouls, a pegasus whose left wing had been torn to shreds at some point, leaped into the air. Looking almost like it was trying to fly, the thing spread its legs and sole remaining wing wide as it pounced at Garden Gate. The move was far too blatant to catch her unaware, however, and she managed to fling herself back…but by a thin enough margin that the ghoul landed next to her, its body coming down at just the right moment to collide with the pale green prism that was enhancing her physical coordination and knock it to the ground.
This time Lex was ready, and he tried to immediately grab the gem in his telekinesis before he lost sight of it. But in his weakened state, it proved impossible to react quickly enough to snatch the thing as more ghouls moved in to try and finish Garden off. In a moment, the gemstone was lost among the shuffling bodies, hidden from sight before he had a chance to retrieve it.
It took only a moment for the loss to prove devastating. Garden lashed out at the ghouls, but it was impossible to miss how her strikes suddenly lacked the precision that they’d had a moment ago, being noticeably slower and weaker. She still managed to leave a deep gouge in the face of a ghoul that was trying to get behind her as she slipped by it, but even with Sonata’s voice still raised in song it was clear that Garden was now badly overmatched…a situation which grew worse as another four ghouls managed to survive Severance’s lethal barrage of attacks and rushed to join their comrades attacking Garden.
With eight ghouls now arrayed against her, there was nothing Garden could do except conduct a fighting retreat, her knife now being used to defend more than attack as she was steadily pressed back. The sight was enough to make Lex grimace, and although she didn’t stop singing he could detect the panicked undertone in Sonata’s voice as well. At her current rate of retreat, Garden would be pushed back to him and Sonata in just a few seconds, at which point at least some of the undead ponies would realize that there were easier meals closer to them. When that happened, they would both die, and die horrib-
A small, pea-sized ball of orange light suddenly shot down from the sky. Landing behind the pack of ghouls, it suddenly burst into flame, the fireball exploding outward just far enough to cook the ghouls while leaving Garden unhurt. The conflagration lasted only for a second, but when it died a moment later the undead ponies had all been reduced to smoldering corpses, silent and unmoving save for a soft, residual sizzling.
The sight was so unexpected that it took a moment for Lex to tear his eyes away from the spectacle and glance toward the northern sky where the fireball had come from, barely able to make out a dim shape against the starry backdrop. Behind him, he was vaguely aware that Sonata had stopped singing. A second later, her voice rang out in a relieved cry.
“Aria!”
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The loss of the ioun stones certainly proved to be rather crippling to Fencer's fighting capabilities but at least she had enough wits to actually fall back instead of throwing herself headfirst towards imminent death. Guess just like with Cozy, death, despite the grief and rage, was too terrifying to follow through.
Or she simply wants to last longer so as to ensure she takes more ghouls out with her. Though I am curious about when she realized the significance of the gemstones since the benefits just worked without her being aware of them. Was it when she lost their benefits when the first one was knocked down? Or was is simply mere coincidence and Lex assumed her actions as such?
Either way, while I didn't expect backup, certainly not Aria of all characters so it was quite surprising. Still I think she's not the only one to come help...well, provided somepony rolled a good number for their diplomacy check.
DM rolls D10 each round for loss of items, after rolling D20 for assistance encounter table duration and gets a 1 round overlap?
i am really hopping Garden make it threw this shit storm.
8984385 It's an open question as to what's going on with Fencer's state of mind at the moment. My suspicion is that she's convinced that her death is an inevitability in the face of so many ghouls, and is fighting purely to take down as many as she can before that happens. After all, if she just wanted to commit suicide without delay, she could have emerged without fighting. As to whether or not she's serious about throwing her life away, though...well, she's lost some people she cares about, but surely she remembers that she still has others...?
Regarding the effect that the ioun stones had on her, it's uncertain if she realized what they were doing or not, but I'm suspicious as to whether she would have cared even if she knew. After all, if you're playing to lose, then does it really matter how long you last? Given where her head is at, Fencer might not care about details anymore; being stricken with guilt, grief, and all sorts of other negative emotions tend to make it hard to be rational, after all.
Fortunately, everypony got an unexpected bit of help right when things were at their bleakest. But will it be enough? We'll just have to wait and see!
8984688 Eh, I wouldn't go quite that far.
8984821 Stay tuned to find out!
Poor Garden, she's running into the inevitable cost of relying on magic items to do so much for you (I'm guessing Lex didn't notice the many failed attempts by ghouls to swat the wayfinders, since they are pretty hard to hit for a ghoul). If only Lex had gotten her a Wayfinder of Passage, or at least a Western Star Ioun Stone!
I can't wait to find out what convinced Aria and the gang to turn around and face the ghoul horde.
What's annoying is, I am quite confident Lex did some basic research on the population of Vanhoover when he assumed he would take it over, so he has to know what its original population is. If he'd have thought of that number, I could begin wildly speculating on the number of ghouls remaining!
8985467 Well, those aren't wayfinders, they're ioun stones; things would have been quite different if she'd had something like those to set the stones in, but she didn't. As for the ghouls being able to hit the stones' AC of 24 despite having only a +3 attack bonus...well, sometimes the dice just turn against you in short order.
Emojis aside, that's not really a tongue-in-cheek answer; rolls are not evenly distributed, nor does a particular run of a certain result mean that you're necessarily less likely to achieve that result later on, hence the Gambler's Fallacy.
Insofar as population goes...this is a chestnut that has no satisfactory answer, simply because everyone has their own line of reasoning which may or may not fall in line with the show, due to how the show not only never comes close to giving us a firm answer, but what circumstantial evidence it does give is typically extremely vague and quite often contradicted by something else that the show has said. Throw in the existing presumptions and biases that various people bring to the discussion, and it's essentially the worst sort of debate: one where there's no clear resolution. Ultimately, while such a back-and-forth can stimulate the imagination, there's very little room for saying that it can lead to a deeper understanding of the source material (and, thus, enjoy it more).
Having said all of that, we do know that there are at least fifty "cities" in "Equestria," according to the dialogue in season five's Princess Spike. The liberal use of quotation marks there is because not only is there no definition for what exactly constitutes a "city," but we still don't know exactly what constitutes Equestria proper. For a good example of that, recall this line - said with regard to Griffonstone - from season five's The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone (emphasis mine):
So apparently Griffonstone is part of Equestria, for example, whereas places like Klugetown are not...despite the fact that the ponies can apparently walk to the latter in the better part of a day or so, while the former is on another continent on every version of the official map that we've seen to date. Which just goes to show how unhelpful the show is with regard to defining the world it's set in.
To that end, I'm simply reaching for what seem like the most useful, as well as most consistent and internally-logical, answers I can find on this topic. Hence, I'm taking my cues from Thoth's article about Equestria's population, as well as his follow-up regarding why their cities simply aren't very populous. Now, there's one area that I'm departing from with regard to his recommendations, which is the total area of the Equestrian continent. I'm picturing it as being closer to North America than to England, even with the population being about 32,000,000 and fifty-some-odd cities which (for the most part) aren't going to get above around 30,000 people. That puts about 95% of the population as not living in "cities" per se, hence why I like the larger landmass; it allows for most of the population to be rural and still have massive expanses of unclaimed land, hence why White Tail Woods covers so much of the official map. (We've been down this particular road before, so I don't expect you to agree with the numbers for city populations, but Thoth's reasoning strikes me as more cogent.)
As for taking a purported 30,000 ponies living in Vanhoover and referencing that against the number of ghouls Lex and co. have faced so far...well, have at it!
Regarding Aria, we'll see more about her motivations in the next chapter!
8989256 So 30,000 people, and at least 1500 ghouls have already died. Honestly, I would think that's as many or more ghouls as would reasonably be turned, depending on the vector of ghoul infection.
If the reason ponies turned ghoul in Vanhoover was 1 or 2 Everglow ghouls got pulled through a portal into Vanhoover, they started attacking ponies, some of those ponies later turned into ghouls and so on and so forth, you would not actually get very many ghouls. Why? Because of a critical fact of ghoul fever: Ghoul fever only turns you into a ghoul if you died from the ghoul fever. So if you lose the 1d3 con damage for several days in a row and die, you come back as a ghoul. But if a slavering ghoul paralyzes you with a swipe and then tears out your throat, you just remain dead. Given the animalistic hunger we've seen from these ghouls, it seems likely that once a few hundred ghouls had been created, most of the population would either have fled or just been torn to shreds by the ghouls.
Of course, there are other causes for a massive ghoul outbreak. Some powerful undead or necromancer from the Everglow could have been deliberately trying to engineer an army of ghouls, carefully guiding his controlled undead to not kill civilians so they can be turned. But the ghoul horde sure isn't acting like they are in anyone's control right now.
A third cause is that do to the starvation of Vanhoover, lots of different ponies engaged in cannibalism, before themselves dying of starvation. That seems unlikely for obvious reasons.
There is, however, a 4th cause of a mass ghoul outbreak, one that could easily turn an army of dead bodies into the ghouls we see and be explained by the recent planar disruption: Lazurite. If the planar disruption caused a bunch of deposits of lazurite to appear right beneath Vanhoover, or even in the sewers and somehow effect the water supply (as though ponies who drank it were affected by lazurite flakes), that could quite handily turn the entire population into ghouls fairly quickly. In that case anyone who didn't get out of the city in a day or two could be a ghoul, so up to like 25,000 ghouls.
8993341 There's no real way of proving or disproving this either way. The fact of the matter is that there are two methods for trying to calculate this sort of thing. One is where we look at real-world aspects of a potential zombie outbreak (ghouls aren't zombies in strict D&D/Pathfinder terms, but in terms of what we see in popular culture they're remarkably similar), and the other is where we examine the game rules. Unfortunately, neither are very helpful; Equestria is just different enough from contemporary Earth (and, more notably, the United States) that such comparisons don't quite manage to hold up, especially given the number of areas where the show has failed to shed light on some of the basic information that we'd need. Likewise for the game rules, they tend to gloss over numerous salient factors in the name of "playability" that scenarios like this come across as ill-fitting if you try to run them purely "by the numbers."
However, that second way at least gives us a baseline for making some casual observations, so in that regard I'll mention a few things that I think are worth noting.
The biggest point is that, strictly speaking, you're correct: a character must die from ghoul fever in order to become a ghoul (exceptional circumstances notwithstanding). More specifically, that means that Constitution damage from the disease must reduce their Constitution score to 0, killing them and causing them to rise as a ghoul at the next midnight (presuming that their body hasn't been sufficiently mutilated, I would think). This is actually rather stringent: the DC for ghoul fever is only 13, and requires only two successful saving throws to recover from. Presuming that your average ponies have no Constitution bonus (and, in that write-up, pegasi have a -2 racial adjustment to Con), and that your normal background pony is a level 1 commoner, that's a 40% chance of success on their saving throw to avoid contracting the disease in the first place (i.e. when they're bitten), and the chances of making two consecutive saving throws are only 16%.
Presuming the disease is contracted, a 16% chance of shaking it off is roughly 1-in-6, which sounds bad when you take into consideration that it does 1d3 (average 2) points of Con damage on a failure. If your average pony has a 10 Constitution, then they'll fail five pairs of saving throws (remember, that 16% is to make two consecutive successes), which means they'll take, on average, 2 points of Con damage each of those five times (and that's presuming that they only failed one of the two saving throws we're looking at. There's a 36% chance - looking at two Fort saves again - that they'll fail both of them, for an average of 4 points of Con damage). So the odds of the disease killing whoever contracts it seems very high.
...but now we throw the monkey wrench into things, which is natural healing. The rules for natural healing tell us that resting for 8 hours - getting a good night's sleep, in other words - will restore 1 point of ability damage to each ability score. Twenty-four hours of complete bed rest will restore 2. These double if someone is giving you long-term care, which is a DC 15 Heal check that can be made untrained. This means that, at the absolute worst, you'll recover 1 point of ability damage every night. Given those incredibly generous rates, and that you only save against ghoul fever once per day, this reverses just how deadly the disease looks. One-third of the time, you'll take 1 point of Con damage on a failed save, only to effectively sleep if off. If you rest for an entire day or have someone caring for you (and 30% of the time even someone who has no idea what they're doing, i.e. no bonus to Heal checks at all), you'll cure 2 points, which is what it deals on average. If you have both, you'll not only take no further damage from the disease, but actually regain lost ground.
So now we see the disease looking far less deadly, even for people with a +0 Fort save bonus. So this brings up the question of how it could ever have wiped out so much of the city?
Well...that's where everything else comes into play.
Vanhoover, as described many times over the course of this story, is a disaster zone. The city's infrastructure is completely gone, and Xiriel had the place "quarantined" with just enough effectiveness to keep quite a few survivors trapped in the place, albeit more due to the perceived inability to leave than actually patrolling the city with any real effectiveness. But the more notable point for this discussion is what this did to the city's food stores, which was decimate them. In the wake of the flood, what food was left was quickly consumed by the surviving ponies, at which point the place was effectively stripped bare. Cities, after all, aren't self-sufficient; they need to have food imported, which is why Vanhoover has a relatively large farming area north of it. But the influx of food stopped after the city fell apart.
That's a problem, because now the starvation rules come into play. Water isn't too big of an issue, since there's a nearby river that flows into a bay, but after three days with no food you need to make a DC 10 Constitution check to avoid beginning to starve...and the DC goes up by 1 for each day that follows, with every failure resulting in 1d6 points of nonlethal damage...and when your nonlethal damage exceeds your current hit points, you not only fall unconscious until your current hit points once again exceed your nonlethal damage, but any further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage.
Why is that relevant? Because damage to your Constitution lowers your maximum, and current, hit points. If your current hit points are at their maximum, that can't kill you - remember, you always have at least 1 hit point per Hit Die, regardless of your Constitution penalty - but if you've taken nonlethal-to-lethal damage from starving, then you can take enough damage to be killed.
For instance, Examplehoof is an earth pony commoner 1 with a 10 Constitution score and 5 hit points who was in Vanhoover when the city went to pot, not being able to get out in time. Bitten by a ghoul for 3 hit points, he managed to roll a 17 on his save versus paralysis and so was able to get away, but rolled a 6 on his Fort save against ghoul fever, which means he caught the disease. So now he has to start making subsequent saves each day to avoid taking penalties.
Hiding out on his own, Examplehoof has to fend for himself, and so can't afford to rest for twenty-four hours most of the time, nor can be provide long-term care to himself. He rolls a 12 on his first check, failing it just barely, and ends up taking 1 point of Constitution (and Dexterity; the disease targets that also) damage. But luckily, he sleeps it off that night. So far, he's managing to make it.
Three days later, he hasn't been very lucky, having found no food and failed two more checks, having made only a single success so far. Worse, he's taken 2 and 3 points of damage on those failed saves. There were two nights between those three days, so now he's reduced that down to 3 points of Constitution damage thanks to 1 point of natural healing each night, but now things are getting worse: he has to make starvation checks. With an effective Constitution of 7, he's taking a -2 penalty right off the bat. He fails his first check (rolling an 8, which is a modified 6 for him), and takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. He rolls a 3, but since his maximum hit points are only effectively 3, due to his damaged Constitution, he's barely maintaining consciousness, being staggered now since his nonlethal damage equals his current hit points.
The next day, he manages to recover another 1 point of Constitution damage via resting, and even better makes his Constitution check to avoid further starvation damage (rolling a 19), but rolls a natural 1 on his save versus the disease. Worse, he takes 3 points of damage, effectively lowering his Constitution to 5. That lowers his maximum, and current, hit points to 2...below his nonlethal damage. He falls unconscious from hunger, and will stay that way until his nonlethal hit points are diminished or his current/maximum hit points rise. But since the rules don't allow him to recover nonlethal damage from starvation without actually getting some food...well, things look grim for Examplehoof.
Sadly, that turns out to be the case. He drank enough water yesterday that we don't have to worry about dehydration yet (1 day plus one hour per point of Constitution before those checks start), but that doesn't help with the next bit of bad news: he's failed both his starvation check and his save against the ghoul fever! While being unconscious apparently counts as "24 hours of bed rest," letting him regain 2 points of Constitution and bringing his maximum hit points up to 3 since that makes his Constitution an effective 7 again, he would regain consciousness since his hit points and nonlethal damage are equal. Unfortunately, the starvation damage kicks in a short while later, and after staggering around, he collapses again as he takes 2 points of nonlethal damage...except it's now lethal damage due to exceeding his current hit points, bringing him down to 1 hit point in total.
...and then we apply the failed Fortitude save against the disease, dealing another 2 points of damage, bringing his hit point total below 0. Technically, that won't kill him, since he needs to hit a negative hit point value equal to his (original) Constitution score to die in this manner, but the results would likely be the the same either way. Since the scenario is running long, the GM decides to put Examplehoof out of his misery, and rules that he dies at 0 hit points...due to the lowered Constitution score from the disease. As such, Examplehoof becomes a ghoul on the following midnight.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that, due to the hit point damage you take from starvation, the Constitution damage you take from ghoul fever could kill you that way, which still counts as dying from the disease and so still turns you into a ghoul. While I suppose you should check to see if the further hit point damage from further failed Constitution checks versus starvation are what actually lowers your hit points across the final threshold for death, that's too parsimonious even for me. Hence, I'm quite comfortable saying that the starvation damage plays into the ghoul fever (thematically, it certainly works) and going from there.
So... Aisle convinced Cozy to come back? Or Aira's super keen hearing let her know?
9220945 The answers await you in the next chapter!