Lateral Movement

by Alzrius

649 - Plan B

Lex had no intention of waiting to find out what Prevarius’ “Plan B” was.

“All of you!” he roared, causing the winter wolves’ ears to swivel toward him. “Blast him with your breath weapons! Now!”

It was a desperate strategy, and one that had evidence against its efficacy. After all, if Prevarius felt no apparent discomfort at being outside in the cold, then it was likely he had some sort of resistance to freezing temperatures. But that didn’t necessarily mean that he was completely immune to such things the way he apparently was to fire, which meant that if this worked, they’d at least have a viable vector of wearing the creature down. After all, whatever else the phistophilus was, he wasn’t regenerative; it hadn’t escaped Lex’s notice that the bite on his leg that Solvei had dealt him was still unhealed.

To her credit, Solvei obeyed him immediately, opening her jaws wide and unleashing a stream of snowy, super-chilled air at the devil. The rest of her family followed her lead, and in a moment Prevarius’ body could hardly be seen, reduced to little more than a vague outline as he was pelleted with freezing blasts from five directions at once. But despite being obscured, Lex could see the devil well enough to discern that he was hunching his shoulders and raising his arms in a crossed position, as if to protect his face. It was working!

Then he felt a magical fluctuation.

Thermal Draft, now in possession of magical abilities of her own, appeared to sense the same thing. “It’s not working!” she yelled, rushing over to Lex’s side. “He’s up to something!”

“I’m aware!” snapped Lex, tension making his voice come out as a hiss. That Prevarius was doing something was obvious; it was figuring out what he’d done – and how to craft an appropriate response – that was the problem.

The obvious answer was to use his circlet to peer into the magical spectrum in order to get a better sense of what the devil was doing. But that would take too long; with the amount of magic that had been put into play since the start of the battle, the number of active and residual spell auras would make it virtually impossible to get an adequate reading with any timeliness. And he doubted that the devil would sit back and let him decipher whatever he’d done at his own pace.

Which meant that the best course of action was to go forward with the plan he’d come up with right before Solvei’s family had intervened. Besides, he decided with a grim smile, it should work even better now that those other four are here.

Moving up alongside Solvei, fighting down a pained grunt as the burns he’d taken ached at the movement, he pulled Thermal Draft closer. The roar of the wind from the winter wolves’ breath weapons made it hard to hear, but right now that was a boon; a lot depended on keeping this strategy from Prevarius until it was too late…and hoping that whatever the devil was doing wouldn’t disrupt it.

“Solvei, Thermal Draft, I have an idea, but I’m going to need you both in order to make it work…”

It took only a few seconds to explain what he wanted them to do, which was just as well. The last word had barely left his mouth when Solvei finally ceased her frigid exhalation, panting as she finally started breathing in again. Nor was she the only one, the rest of her family following suit barely a second after her.

Almost as the same moment, Lex felt whatever spell Prevarius was using suddenly snap into effect.

But nothing happened to mark the sudden activation of the devil’s magic. There was no flash of light or burst of sound or anything to indicate just what the devil had done. Instead, the only thing that happened was the devil straightened up, letting out a sharp breath as he brushed the snow off of his arms. “I’ll admit, I felt a chill there,” he chuckled, infuriating grin still in place despite the painful-looking patches of frostbite dotting his body. They weren’t nearly what an ordinary person would have suffered after being hit with a multitude of miniature blizzards, however, and the devil himself didn’t seem overly bothered by them. “Now where was I? Ah yes! Plan B!”

In front of Lex, Solvei suddenly lifted her head, body going tense. “I smell something,” she growled. “There’s a new scent all of a sudden!”

“I smell it too,” growled Turid, nose twitching as she looked around, her other children doing the same. “It’s like…old bones that have somehow gone sour.”

Thermal Draft looked befuddled by the description. “What does that mean?”

“It means that something else is here!” cursed Lex, even as he held his foreleg out toward Solvei, giving her the necessary configuration of divine authority that she’d need in order to do her part of the plan. “That’s what his ‘Plan B’ is: calling for backup!”

Drafty’s eyes widened. “You’re saying there’s an invisible monster here?!”

“So, here’s the situation,” announced the devil, his voice loud enough to carry across the clearing. “I’m in the middle of closing a contract with the red-horned pony over there” – he nodded at Lex, his eyes looking carefully at nothing – “and some of my old customers” – this time lazily waved a hand to indicate Solvei’s family – “are getting in the way. If you wouldn’t mind running interference, I’ll give you five percent of the get profits when I sell that pony’s soul.”

Everyone tensed, waiting for the invisible creature’s reaction to the devil’s words. The wolves held themselves at the ready, still trying to figure out where the unseen creature was lurking. Drafty began casting a spell, and despite the lack of words or gestures on her part, the construction was familiar enough for Lex to recognize that she was looking into the magical spectrum. Knowing that she’d run into the same problems that he’d predicted, Lex had no expectation that she’d be able to find whatever Prevarius had brought forth; as it was, he was already figuring out an alternative, even as he finished giving Solvei the powers she’d need. If I use my dark magic, I should be able to enhance my senses enough to figure out-

“Ugh, fine,” moaned Prevarius suddenly. “Ten percent of the gross profits, and I’ll recommend you for a promotion interview. But only if you act now.”

Apparently the phistophilus offer was acceptable, because Sten suddenly let out a pained howl, blood spurting from his side.

And the invisibility of the creature that Prevarius summoned wore off.

To Lex’s eyes, the thing looked like some sort of humanoid that had spent its entire life underground, been starved for a year, and then stretched out on a rack. Nearly ten feet tall, it couldn’t have weighed more than a few dozen pounds, its gray skin clinging to its bones like its skeleton had been shrink-wrapped. Hairless and lacking anything resembling sex organs, the only thing it wore was a wispy gray cloak…which Lex realized a moment later were wings tucked against its back, the membranes far thinner and flimsier than those of Solvei’s kin. Its eyes were nearly too large for its cranium, giving it a bug-eyed look.

Despite the monstrosity’s frail appearance, it exuded a palpable aura of menace. Lacking lips entirely, its teeth weren’t separate bones, instead being jagged spikes that projected directly from its skull and jawbone. Its fingers and toes ended in pointed claws, one of which was already covered in blood as it pulled back from where it had raked bloody furrows into Sten’s side.

But the single most notable aspect of the creature was its tail. Thick, heavy, and segmented with a stinger on the end, it looked like it had been plucked from the body of some sort of giant scorpion and attached to the monster, a drop of poison leaking from the end as the intimidating limb curled up over the thing’s head…

And then came rushing down to bury itself in Sten’s flank.

The wolf screamed in pain, and his agonized cries took on a more anguished note a moment later as the creature pressed its attack, digging its other claw into Sten’s neck as it scuttled forward, burying its face in his side as its jaw worked at wound it had already torn open.

“STEN!!!” The name erupted from the throats of the rest of the mutated winter wolves, abandoning their positions around Prevarius to race to the aid of their comrade.

They weren’t alone, as Solvei moved to join them, only to stop as Lex’s telekinesis wrapped around her tail, causing her to stumble in place. “Stop, you idiot!” he snarled. “Remember the plan!”

Solvei looked back at him, her expression stricken. “But Sten-”

“Lex is right,” insisted Thermal Draft. “Your family can handle that thing. We-”

“Need to put your little plan into action?” called Prevarius bemusedly. “You know, I seem to recall mentioning before that I can read minds. Do you actually think I don’t know what you’re up to now that you’ve told those two what your strategy is?”

“You’re lying,” murmured Thermal Draft, squinting at the phistophilus. “It’s hard to be sure, because of all the spell auras around here, but I’m not detecting that type of magic from you.”

“Tsk, how quickly they bite the hand that feeds them.” Glancing back at where Solvei’s family were throwing themselves at the creature he’d summoned, the devil looked back at the white wolf with a smirk. “Speaking of which, I should mention that Degron, my association over there, is quite the experienced killer, even among osyluth devils. You already abandoned your family once when they all signed contracts with me; are you really going to do it again now?”

Solvei’s legs shook, not in fright but in suppressed rage. “I didn’t abandon them! I went to find help so I could save them! And that’s what’ll happen when we tear you apart!”

Clucking his tongue in paternalistic disappointment, Prevarius finally turned his attention back to Lex. “And then there’s you. So desperate to protect everyone around you, and yet look at you now: sending your pet to fight on the front lines, letting your girlfriend do reconnaissance, and even letting those poor wolves fend for themselves against a foe they can’t possibly defeat. What kind of leadership do you call that?”

In other circumstances, the words would have struck Lex deeply. But now he found it easy to ignore them, certain that Prevarius was trying to pull off some twisted scheme. “The kind that will result in your death,” he replied bluntly. “And won’t require any sacrifices in order to achieve it.”

“Hm, you know, I’m starting to think that you just might be able to pull that off,” admitted Prevarius after a moment, giving a thoughtful nod. “You’ve given me quite a bit of trouble during this fight; the fact that I had to call Degron is proof enough of that…which gives me an idea. How about we make a wager?”

Thermal Draft’s face screwed up in confusion at that. “A wager?”

“A contest,” replied Prevarius, keeping his eyes on Lex, “between your wolf and my associate. You can enhance her however you want, and they’ll fight to the death. If Solvei wins, I’ll turn over the souls of her family and Thermal Draft. If she dies, you sign your soul over to me, and I keep Thermal Draft’s as well. It’s a favorable offer, don’t you think?”

Reaching around to one of his body-horns, Prevarius plucked free a scroll; oddly, this one was rolled up, unlike the others, requiring him to slide it off of the horn. “Of course, I’ll need you to sign an agreement stipulating to the terms. If you could just look this over…” Holding the scroll toward Lex, he started to unroll it-

Thermal Draft gasped, her eyes going wide. “No!”

But before she’d even begun to speak, Lex was already taking action, his horn glowing as a thin spike of black crystal shot up from the ground, impaling the scroll and ripping it from Prevarius’ hands. Lex didn’t stop there, driving it further and further upward, carrying the thing dozens of feet into the air before he directed additional protrusions to erupt outward from the head of the spike, ripping through the paper and tearing it to shreds.

Shaking, Thermal Draft sat down, gulping. “That scroll wasn’t like the others,” she explained, catching a glimpse of Solvei’s confused and alarmed expression. “It had a spell on it, one which was radiating evil magic.”

“Yes, and it really was a fine piece of work,” sighed Prevarius. “Such a pity. I was quite looking forward to watching you all writhe in agony when you viewed the symbol of pain I’d inscribed on there.” Shrugging, he flicked away a scrap of paper falling around him. “For it to be destroyed so easily, I suppose that’s what I get for using chemically-treated paper rather than the truly infernal kind. It can stand up to fire, but not much else.” He shook his head then, his expression like that of an office worker forced to use substandard materials. “You know how it is with inscribed magic.”

“I do,” answered Lex coldly.

It hadn’t been any sort of chemical analysis of the scroll that had let him detect Prevarius’ trap. Nor had he analyzed its magical signature the way Thermal Draft had. Rather, it was simply that he’d recognized a situation similar to one he’d been in before.

Xiriel, the last devil he’d killed, had carried a scroll also. Unlike Prevarus’, Xiriel’s scroll had contained pre-cast spells, but it had also contained a rune that – as soon as Lex had looked at it – had exploded, injuring him badly and destroying the scroll in question. It hadn’t been a stretch for Lex to imagine that Prevarius had a similar trick, particularly since the scroll he’d withdrawn just now had been rolled, unlike all of the others; all the better to keep whatever “symbol of pain” it had from being accidentally activated.

“Lies,” muttered Solvei, her face twisted in an expression of utter loathing as she watched the last scraps of paper flutter to the ground, the sounds of her family still fighting Degron loud in her ears. “It’s all you do: tell lies. You lied to my family about what those pacts meant. You lied to Bolverk about making more pacts with other ponies. You lied to Drafty about being her friend. You lied about wanting to end things now with an honorable challenge.”

Snarling, she slammed a paw down, trembling with rage. “I’m sick of it! Your lies have done nothing but hurt everyone I know, and I’M SICK OF IT!”

Growling, she looked at Lex, seeking permission. “Is everything ready?”

Lex paused just long enough to glance at Thermal Draft – who nodded grimly – before answering. “It is,” he replied, before telling Solvei what she’d been waiting to hear.

“Take him.”

Author's Note:

The conflict escalates!

With both sides' backup now fighting, and Prevarius' attempt to incapacitate Lex and company defeated, will their counterattack be enough to take the devil down?

Comments

[Booster Spice]

This guy needs wrapping up, inscried with a sigil of pain then spiked and shredded? Whats the reformation speed of a dissoluted devil?

[Alzrius]

11027775 You have a unique talent for touching on areas of the game rules (upon which this story is based) where there's some bit of ambiguity, uncertainty, or otherwise require explanation.

The issue of demons, devils, and similar creatures potentially surviving their own deaths if they're killed on a plane other than their own has a long history in D&D...and it's a history of being uniformly unclear. In some cases it's an issue of them retaining their power but being banished back to their home plane, where they can't leave for a certain number of years. In other cases, they reform, but in a weaker form (though advancing back up the totem pole remains a possibility). In some cases it's both. And in other cases nothing happens; kill them off of their native plane, and they're just dead.

The d20 System (i.e. D&D 3.X and Pathfinder 1E) takes the latter view. So long as they're actually present (which includes calling spells, as opposed to summoning spells) when they're killed, then they're dead, period, regardless of what plane they're on. Of course, they can be brought back; not as easily as dead mortals, but it's still possible. So in theory if Lex and co. win here, Prevarius will be truly dead, assuming no one wants to bring him back.

[Not so New Brony]

Wow, just googled the image of what an osyluth devil looks like they look like one nasty piece of work. Solvei's pack will have their paws full fending them off. Hopefully it'll be long enough for Lex to enact his plan. Though my med-addled mind can't think of what it would be.

My only thought is that it involves the acid spell Thermal Draft tried to use.

[harts fire]

some one is going to be a chew toy.

[Alzrius]

11028361 A funny note about osyluth devils; in previous editions of the game, they didn't have wings at all, and even in Pathfinder 1E they're said to be vestigial, since they fly via magic. As such, I had to go back and add the description of Degron's wings in right before publishing this chapter; that's why they're described as bat-like, rather than insectoid (which probably would have made more sense, given the scorpion tail; I mean, scorpions aren't insects, but close enough).

But with Solvei's pack holding the osyluth off, Prevarius has Lex, Solvei, and Thermal Draft all to himself. So I suppose now we'll see if whatever plan Lex came up with will be enough to overcome the devil.

[Alzrius]

11028398 One can only hope; as of right now, it looks bad all around, but not so bad that victory is out of reach.

[Firefoxino]

To Lex’s eyes, the thing looked like some sort of humanoid that had spent its entire life underground, been starved for a year, and then stretched out on a rack. Nearly ten feet tall, it couldn’t have weighed more than a few dozen pounds, its gray skin clinging to its bones like its skeleton had been shrink-wrapped. Hairless and lacking anything resembling sex organs, the only thing it wore was a wispy gray cloak…which Lex realized a moment later were wings tucked against its back, the membranes far thinner and flimsier than those of Solvei’s kin. Its eyes were nearly too large for its cranium, giving it a bug-eyed look.

What's the problem?

°I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

[Alzrius]

11037739 There are a few devils that are known for their good looks. Osyluths aren't one of them.