685 - Similar Yet Different
“You know that she’s completely full of it, right?”
Shadow’s question made Mystaria grimace, shooting a worried look at where Lex, Thermal Draft, and Solvei were walking ahead of them, leading the way toward the mountain pass. “Will you please keep your voice down?! The last thing we need right now is to start another argument!”
“Fine,” huffed Shadow, rolling her eyes. “But someone please tell me that I’m not the only one who’s aware that everything Spinner said Thermal Draft told her last night is bunk.”
“I don’t know,” shrugged Spinner, her voice pensive as she looked at where Drafty and Lex were conferring in low tones. “I mean, she had to be stretching the truth some – and she admitted that she wasn’t there for a lot of what she told me – but she really looked like she believed everything she was saying. Which is really something, considering that a lot of the details she dropped made it sound like she’s not from anywhere in the Empire…”
Valor raised a brow at that. “You think she and Lex are from some distant corner of the world?”
“That or another world entirely,” mused the bard.
“Oh come off it,” huffed Shadow. “Planar travelers are like the Legion of Imperial Sentinels. Everyone knows about them, and almost everyone’s got a story about how their cousin’s best friend’s spouse met one of them one time, but good luck finding someone who’s actually seen one of their number in action. And he’s supposed to be a prince too? Please.”
The masked mare canted her head toward Drafty then. “She said they’re here because of a teleportation accident, right? They’re probably from some remote kingdom where he’s distantly related to whoever’s in charge, and they want to get to Viljatown to use the Mythril Map in order to go home. The rest of it’s just her being lovesick and gullible.”
“I’m with Shadow on this one,” agreed Valor, nodding her head. “There’s too much of her story doesn’t check out. If that guy could use his magic to create some kind of gigantic suit of ‘astral’ armor or whatever she said it was, why didn’t he do it when he was fighting that winter hag night before last?”
“I’m sure he’s saving it for the next time he has to fight a dragon all on his own.” Shadow laid the sarcasm on thick, her tone changing to disgust a moment later as she glared at Lex from behind. “First those idiot guards on the caravan we took to get here, now this guy. Why does every stallion think a ridiculous story like that is the way into a mare’s pants?”
“If the way he was banging Drafty the other night is any indication, because it works,” noted Spinner wryly. “But all kidding aside, my guess is that Lex fought some sort of saurian or reptilian creature – something like the wyvern that Valor killed before she met the rest of us – and protected himself with some sort of force-armor spell during the fight. He taught her a spell like that last night in order to have it stored in one of those gemstones, so he almost certainly knows a stronger version. After that, the story doubtlessly grew in the retelling.”
Shadow nodded. “Probably the same for the so-called ‘army’ of ghouls he destroyed almost entirely on his own.”
Woodheart chimed in then, chittering and trilling as she raised a hoof to point to her eyes, then at the pegasus.
Valor took a guess at what her friend was trying to say. “You’re asking about the stuff she says she saw with her own eyes, right? Like the sea monster invasion?” She paused long enough for Woodheart to nod before continuing. “I’m guessing that was-”
“Severance,” cut in Mystaria quietly.
“Right, his magic scythe,” scoffed Shadow.
But Mystaria shook her head. “Severance isn’t just a magic weapon. It’s one of the Night Mare’s Umbral Regalia.”
Spinner’s brows furrowed at that, trying to place the term. “Those are…sacred relics of her faith, right?”
To the bard’s mild surprise, Mystaria shook her head again. “They’re more than mere relics. The Umbral Regalia are living weapons and armor that the Night Mare personally created. There’s an entire collection of them, and they’re considered to be some of her most powerful servants.”
“I have some experience with receiving favors from divine servitors,” noted Valor, her voiced laced with skepticism. “If Lex really had such a powerful weapon – or creature, I guess – helping him, then where is it now?”
“Yeah, that part of her story was really weak,” noted Shadow. “Lex brings Drafty and her friends all back to life, using another magic item that he conveniently doesn’t have anymore, and says that he just up and returned that incredibly powerful weapon to the Night Mare because it backtalked him or whatever?”
“It’s not that unusual,” insisted Mystaria. “Even leaving aside the resurrection issue – and, by the way, magic items with that function are rare, but not unknown; the archpriestess of the Sun Queen’s temple back in Viljatown is famous in religious circles for possessing New Day, an exceptionally powerful staff of life – the Night Mare has a history of lending out parts of the Umbral Regalia, but only for short times. In fact…”
She almost stumbled then, her eyes widening as a sudden realization struck her. “In fact, the Umbral Regalia are infamous for warping the mentality of those who wield them! Prolonged usage supposedly alters the fundamental nature of whoever holds them, making them domineering and ruthless in accordance with the Night Mare’s ethos! That’s it!”
Valor frowned, not putting things together quite as fast as her friend had. “What’s what?”
“That’s why Lex is so unfriendly!” squealed Mystaria, her eyes shining as she put the pieces together. “His antagonism isn’t who he really is; it’s a result of his wielding Severance!” Almost prancing in excitement, she turned to Spinner. “Maybe that’s what your prediction meant! Remember what I said about damnation originally meaning ‘condemned by a god’? Maybe whatever’s going to happen results in Severance’s influence being broken, restoring Lex’s original disposition and resulting in his leaving the Night Mare’s faith!”
“Is that really something you should be happy about, Miss ‘I respect all the gods in the pony pantheon’?” noted Shadow wryly.
For her part, Spinner put a hoof to her chin in consideration. “I don’t know…what about that part where his body becomes ‘misshapen’? That doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with what you’re suggesting.”
But Mystaria was on a roll now. “I bet that’s a reference to all of his other weird features,” she gushed. “Like how his shadow always falls the wrong way, or how his horn is miscolored, or how his eyes glow sometimes!”
“You’re saying that if those things go away, he’ll be misshapen compared to how he is now?” The doubt in Valor’s voice made it clear what she thought of that idea, Woodheart adding a chirp of her own as she nodded.
“It’s probably just poetic. A lot of prophecies are like that, mixing literal and thematic elements with no clear distinction,” murmured Mystaria, one hoof coming up to touch Luminace’s holy symbol hanging around her neck. “This is why we’re here, I’m sure of it. Luminace wants us to help turn Lex back to normal while we save that village from those monsters!”
“Great,” snorted Shadow. “Maybe you could tell Luminace that if she’s putting us on double duty, maybe she should look into actually rewarding us for doing her job for her. And I mean a real reward,” she added as she saw Mystaria open her mouth again. “Something we can spend, not virtue or satisfaction or whatever it is we’re supposed to take away from this.”
“Let’s not count our gems before they’re cashed,” cautioned Spinner. “Mysty, even if you’re right about this theory – and I’ll be honest, that sounds like a pretty big if to me – you do realize what that means, right?”
Mystaria cocked her head, confused by the trepidation in her friend’s voice. “That we’re going to save a pony from a curse they probably don’t even realize they’re under?”
Spinner shook her head. “Think for a second,” she pressed, lowering her voice even further. “I’ve heard about magic items that change someone’s personality, and one thing they all have in common is that the victim doesn’t want to change back; they have to be forced to.”
She let that sink in for a moment, and judging from the pensive expressions that her friends all adopted then, knew that they were remembering how things had turned out the last time they’d fought the dour unicorn.
“I don’t know what’s waiting for us at this temple, the Shrine of the Starless Sky,” Spinner continued after a few moments, giving each of her friends a serious look. “But if Mysty’s right, and this place has a way to remove Severance’s influence from Lex, then our biggest challenge isn’t going to be our rematch with that winter hag…”
She paused, looking at where the pegasus and the unicorn that they’d teamed up with were conferring with each other, her eyes settling on the latter.
“It’s going to be us versus him again. And I’m betting that when he figures out what we’re trying to do, he’ll start playing for keeps.”
“Do you have any idea,” rumbled Lex, his voice thick with repressed anger, “how egregiously poor your judgment was?”
Thermal Draft winced. “I was just trying to help…”
“How could telling those five miscreants everything you know about me possibly-” Lex forced himself to stop, choking down the torrent of invectives that he wanted to unleash on the pegasus. Only twenty-four hours earlier he’d been chastising himself for pushing both Thermal Draft and Solvei too hard. That, along with his still having no idea how to interpret the liaison she’d initiated between them, was still very much at the front of his thoughts now, and it helped him to clamp down on his temper. “Explain your reasoning to me.”
Knowing that it wasn’t a request, Thermal Draft bit her lip for a moment before complying. “I thought that if they knew everything you’ve been through…all the good that you’ve done, and how hard you’ve worked to try and help so many ponies…that they’d realize what a wonderful person you are, and that you deserve their respect.”
Lex forced himself to contain his initial reaction to that, which was to berate her for caring so much about something so inane. Instead, he kept his voice low and level when he spoke next. “I want to make this clear as possible: I don’t care what the ponies of Fail Forward think of me. I don’t hold them in anything remotely resembling high regard, and their opinions don’t concern me in the slightest.”
Off to the side, he saw Thermal Draft wilt a little, though he had no idea why she’d be discouraged by that. “What I am concerned about,” he continued, “is them now knowing about our home world.”
This time Thermal Draft’s reaction was to blink and cock her head. “Wait, Equestria? You’re upset that I talked to them about Equestria?”
“Keep your voice down!” hissed Lex, glancing back at the five mares following them. Fortunately, they seemed caught up in a discussion of their own, not noticing his anxious glance in their direction. “I don’t want them to know its name!”
“Why?” Thermal Draft couldn’t have looked more clueless if she’d tried. “What does that matter?”
Lex let out a slow breath. “It matters because knowing that a place exists is the first step toward locating it. Those idiots might not have the ability to travel between different planes of existence, but if they propagate the existence of another world that has ponies, eventually it will reach the ears of someone with sufficient magic to go there.”
He fell silent then, remembering the unknown entity that had started spying on him in the aftermath of his disastrous scrying on Adagio Dazzle. He hadn’t detected any instance of their continued presence since shortly before he’d gone to confront Dark Streak – let alone since he’d come to Everglow – but that that brought him little comfort. Without knowing what had prompted them to stop monitoring him, their change in activity could have meant any number of things, most of them bad. “…even the most innocuous leak of information can lead to disastrous consequences.”
“I mostly just talked to them about you,” murmured Thermal Draft. “I didn’t mention Equestria by name. I think.”
Lex bit back a sigh, wondering if it was worthwhile to explain to her the tactical folly of making those five aware of the greater range of his magic – since he couldn’t rule out the possibility that he’d need to fight them again – but didn’t have a chance as Solvei, who had ventured several yards ahead, reached out to him telepathically. Master.
Abandoning the conversation he’d been having with Thermal Draft, Lex instead looked toward the winter wolf. What is it?
We’re here. Right up ahead is where I saw those things yesterday.
The news brought Lex to a halt, with Thermal Draft doing the same. Behind him, he heard the other five slowly close the gap between them. “Everything alright?” came Spinner’s voice.
“We’re almost to the area where Solvei was accosted yesterday,” answered Lex, scanning the surroundings slowly, switching between normal vision and the magical spectrum. “Use the rod I gave you and start scanning the area,” he ordered Thermal Draft gruffly.
The mountain pass wasn’t particularly narrow, offering several dozen feet of snow-covered landscape to their left and right before rising upwards toward the peaks that they were passing between. Even then, the mountainsides bracketing the pass were angled acutely upward, but lacked sufficient verticality to be unscalable, presenting challenging slopes more than sheer rock walls. If they needed to retreat from whatever it was Solvei had seen, they’d have options besides turning back the way they’d come.
But that was grim comfort to Lex, who found the terrain to be altogether disadvantageous.
Despite being far lower than the mountains surrounding it, the pass was still at a greater elevation than the village they’d left. As a consequence of that, the trees that they had spent most of the day picking their way between had thinned out, allowing the snow to pile up in thick drifts that were becoming progressively more difficult to wade through. Despite that, the immediate area still offered several places to hide even though it was relatively open; large rocks and several wiry evergreen shrubs that didn’t seem to mind the desolate terrain provided multiple areas of concealment.
Worse, while the slopes on either side of them might not have been impassible barriers, they were still good places to set up an ambush. The elevated terrain would allow for ranged weaponry, boulders, and even spells to be rained down on anyone in the pass from relative safety, even with how the wind was starting to pick up. Nor was the fading light helping any, the heavy clouds and late hour conspiring to offer plenty of dimly lit areas all around them.
The complete lack of magical signatures – both active and residual – did little to allay Lex’s suspicions. The range of his circlet’s detection was only a little over fifty feet, meaning that any spells or enchanted items outside of his range wouldn’t show up when he looked into the magical spectrum. The hostility-detecting rod that he’d given Drafty was similarly limited in how far out it could pick up enemies. Given how open the area was, that sharply limited their usefulness.
As if guessing his thoughts, Drafty looked at him and shook her head. “I’m not getting anything.”
The cave where I killed those glacier toads was further up the mountainside, reported Solvei, glancing to her left. I can lead the way back there now if you think it’s a good idea, Master.
Lex didn’t need to consider it for more than a moment. “We’ll take cover in the cave Solvei cleared out yesterday,” he announced.
Mystaria grimaced. “Do you think it’s wise to camp so close to whatever it was that she saw?”
“Wiser than pushing onward after dark,” answered Lex. “At least in a cave, we’ll be harder to surround.”
No further challenges to his decision came a result of that, and he quietly gave the order for Solvei to move. She nodded once, then turned and bounded toward the mountain.
But she’d barely taken a single leap when a figure suddenly rose up out of the snow ahead of her, their form obscured by the white spray that they flung into the air as they pointed a spear directly at the winter wolf’s throat. “Don’t move, unatattik, if you value your life!”
“Solvei!” yelled Thermal Draft, wings spreading in alarm.
But she didn’t have a chance to do anything as another spear came flying from behind a rock, landing within a foot of her. “Stay where you are!”
More spears landed around them, coming from every direction. “Drop your weapons, omigiji, and remain still! If you try to run or cast a spell, you’ll be killed without hesitation!”
The owners of the voices – all of them having expertly hidden behind the terrain’s natural cover – appeared a moment later. The sight of them drew a round of shocked gasps and surprised grunts from the mares surrounding Lex, who narrowed his eyes when he saw what they were dealing with.
All around them were white wolves with icy blue eyes. But unlike Solvei, these creatures wore clothes and walked on two legs, their forelimbs ending in hands rather than paws. As they slowly moved closer, each of them clutching another spear, it didn’t escape Lex’s notice that their steps left no tracks when they passed over the snow…and a moment’s concentration revealed that, unlike the ones they’d thrown at them, the spears they were holding now were magical.
Standing a few inches taller than the others’ six feet, the largest of the bipedal wolves strode up to them. His muscles were tense, but he wore a smirk as he came to within five feet of Lex, the tip of his spear only a few inches away from the unicorn’s chest.
“Now,” he sneered as his eyes swept over the group, “if you cooperate like good little ponies, you might just live another day. Resist, and we’ll be gnawing on your bones before nightfall.”
He paused then, his smirk faltering as he realized that the red-horned pony was meeting his gaze evenly, showing no signs of fear whatsoever. The sight made his lip curl. “Look at this one!” he shouted to his fellows. “Acting so brave from behind his mask!”
That brought a round of derisive laughter from the other two-legged wolves, who moved in closer as their leader joining them in their snickering, though he never took his eyes off of Lex. “Let’s see how much courage you have when you’re not hiding your face like a coward.” Tightening his grip on his spear, he pressed the point of it directly over Lex’s heart. “Take your mask off. Right now.”
A dark smile crossed Lex’s lips at that. “Certainly.”
Then he attacked.
Stats
Page generated in 0.068 seconds
Total duration
719 users online
766,619 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
The attacker didnt explicitly state Which of Lexs masks he had to remove.
So Lex removed the mask of restraint and civility.
11148884 Among others.
Fail Forward have no idea how right they are that it's hilarious and yet so sad at how wrong they are at the same time. The fact that Lex's mind wasn't warped by Severance is likely a harder pill for the adventurers to swallow...well, compared to the tale of his feats viewed through admittedly rose-tinted eyes of one Thermal Draft.
At least Lex can vent some of his frustrations on these...Kobolds? Not too familiar since their appearance and traits tend to vary whenever I see Kobolds pop up in stories and other forms of media.
Regardless, depending on what happens, Fail Forward might need to reconsider any thoughts on confronting Lex. Not without proper preparations at least.
11148884
i was thinking the same thing.
may the real Lex come out to play.
11149064 Given that they have incomplete information, as well as a noted slant on the information they do have (which, rather ironically, they know is biased, but they're overcompensating for how untrustworthy they're treating Drafty's testimony as being), it's not surprising that Fail Forward came to the wrong conclusion about Lex. Of course, as Spinner noted, any attempt they make to "help" Lex will definitely mean a confrontation first; given what he's apparently about to do in response to this ambush, hopefully they'll sit back and rethink Mystaria's theory.
As for what exactly ambushed them now...I'll say that kobolds aren't six feet tall, so that's out. I suspect we'll find out soon enough.
11149470 That's the appropriate response, yes. If they can get away with simply being laughed at for how wrong they are, Fail Forward will be getting off easy.