Lateral Movement

by Alzrius

727 - Under Pressure

“Everyone into the river! Master’s orders!”

Solvei didn’t have a chance to look back and make sure that everyone was following her command, needing to put all of her concentration toward fighting Grisela and Paska at the same time, something which was turning out to be more difficult than she’d expected.

It wasn’t that either of her enemies were particularly strong. So far neither had been able to land a substantial hit against her, the black crystal armor she was wearing turning aside the human’s hammer and the winter hag’s staff with ease. Even the worst of the hits she’d taken – a powerful strike to the side of her head from Paska’s hammer when she’d been pursuing Grisela – had left her with nothing but a mild bruise to show for it.

No, the problem was that neither humanoid was interested in fighting her face-to-face. Whereas Blat had been quite willing to throw himself at her, accomplishing nothing except tiring himself out and taking several serious injuries before Solvei had finally been able to deliver the deathblow, the manticore’s siblings were apparently unwilling to follow his example.

Instead, the two of them kept directing their attacks toward the ponies, forcing Solvei to rush in and fight them off when they darted forward to strike at the more vulnerable members of their group. Worse, whenever she moved to counter one of them, they would fight her just long enough for the other one to advance on the ponies from a different direction, at which point they’d back off. It was enough to leave Solvei scrambling to defend her charges, and made it absolutely impossible to deal any significant damage to her foes in turn.

Thankfully, they didn’t need to worry about the tiny winged-cat thing that had been hiding in Sissel’s image breaking the stalemate. The wind that Lex had summoned was keeping it pinned against Grisela’s ice wall, its mangled wings flapping miserably as it tried and failed to free itself.

But that didn’t mean that there weren’t other problems that needed to be dealt with.

“We can’t go in the water like this!” protested Mystaria, even as she carried Woodheart’s unresponsive body, Littleknight meeping as he circled her protectively. “Woodheart will drown! And Littleknight can’t hold his breath for very long either!”

“What about a water-breathing spell?” Spinner’s question came as she barely managed to deflect a quick jab from the end of Grisela’s staff, catching it with her dented lute. The impact drew a strained grunt from her, and she almost collapsed when Solvei made the winter hag back off a moment later. “You’ve got a scroll for almost everything, so there’s one of those in there too, right?”

“No, there isn’t!” came Mystaria’s frantic response.

“Are you kidding me?!” groaned the filidh. “How is that the one spell you don’t have written down and ready to go?!”

“Buying scrolls is expensive!” shot back the nun, a hysterical note creeping into her voice. “That’s why we came here in the first place, remember?! To make some money!”

“Sure, except you really wanted to visit your long-lost grandmother!”

“What does that have to do with anything right n-”

Will you shut up and figure out a way to get Akna out of those vines?! Although Solvei was thankful that Mystaria’s telepathic connection was still active – at the moment she was too busy spitting out a mouthful of snow to speak, having tried to bite off one of Paska’s legs and missed her mark – she couldn’t keep the frustration out of her voice. Master did his best to protect her from the heat, but she’s still burning, and he wants her rescued!

Grimacing as she looked toward where the adlet was still struggling against the grip of the flaming plants, Mystaria bit her lip. “Okay...okay, I think I can-”

“INCOMING!”

That was all the warning they got before Thermal Draft crashed to the ground next to Mystaria and Spinner, the unconscious form of Shadow Star on her back. “G-got her,” croaked the pegasus.

The duo’s reappearance sent a rush of relief through Solvei. Protecting Mystaria, Spinner, and Woodheart had already been a difficult task; doing the same for Shadow Star, lying unconscious on the other side of the battlefield, had been more than she’d been capable of doing.

Fortunately, Thermal Draft had realized that also, and had immediately moved to recover the masked mare. Able to fly faster than Grisela or Paska could run, she’d managed to scoop up Shadow before either of the bipeds had been able to get to her, circling back around to rejoin the group.

But even at a glance, it was clear that the effort had taken a toll on Drafty. Despite having only made a brief flight, she was already breathing heavily, nor could her rough landing be attributed to carrying another pony’s weight. Even as Spinner rushed over to them and put a hoof on Shadow’s side, chanting a healing spell, Drafty suddenly doubled over, convulsing for a moment before spitting up a mouthful of blood.

It was exactly like what had happened a minute ago when Paska had cursed her.

Apparently Solvei wasn’t the only one who thought that way, since Grisela was cackling as he slipped past the distracted winter wolf, swinging her staff in a low horizontal arc toward Mystaria. “Succumbing even faster than expected!”

“SUCCUMB TO THIS!”

Solvei’s angry shout came with a rush of concentration as, rather than turning to confront the hag, she instead called upon her magic.

Trying to freeze Grisela was a losing prospect, Solvei knew. The winter hag was like her, a creature for whom the cold was an intrinsic part of her nature. Unlike Blat or Prevarius, who had been able to resist only a certain degree of frigidity before succumbing to the super-cooled magic she’d thrown at them, Grisela wouldn’t be harmed by freezing temperatures, no matter how cold.

But even if she couldn’t be harmed by ice magic, she could still be affected by it.

Solvei could still remember how, shortly before they’d arrived at the pony village several days ago, she’d confided in Drafty about how useless her newfound command over ice magic seemed. The pegasus had tried to cheer her up, pointing out how she’d used that same magic to overcome Prevarius, but at the time it hadn’t done much to lift Solvei’s mood. Freezing things was all well and good, but it didn’t have the range of effects that made Master so fierce in battle, leaving Solvei wondering how useful it really was.

But she’d just been shown that being able to shape the cold was, in fact, far more versatile than she’d initially realized.

Indeed, it had been Grisela herself who had shown her that barely a minute ago.

After all, if the hag could raise a wall of ice in front of herself to prevent being knocked into a cloud of poison, then Solvei could raise a ramp of the stuff beneath her to send Grisela tumbling end over end.

Directly into the field of flaming plants that Sissel had raised.

Her shriek of surprise turning into a scream of fear as she saw where she was headed, Grisela frantically scrambled for purchase. But there was nothing for her to grab hold of, her fingers scratching at the sheer surface in vain as she slid down with greater and greater speed. In desperation, she stabbed at the slick surface with the end of her staff, trying to arrest her movement the same way she had when Thermal Draft had almost knocked her into the toxic fog.

None of it did any good, and when Grisela reached the bottom of the ramp a moment later, the flaming tendrils were waiting to scoop her up.

The wail of agony she gave then was music to Solvei’s ears. But she didn’t stop to enjoy it, the memory of how she’d let her master down by showing off while defeating Blat still fresh in her mind. Instead, she looked back at Mystaria. Now, get Akna out of there!

Mystaria nodded, already in the middle of casting a spell.

With that taken care of, Solvei swung her head around to look at Paska, but the human was already backing off, clearly having no desire to face Solvei all on his own. For a moment she considered going after him anyway, sure that she could tear him apart in short order-

“C-coming,” hacked Thermal Draft, gasping for air before running a hoof across her muzzle, her foreleg coming away wet with blood. “She’s coming...”

“Who?” grunted Shadow, wincing as Spinner helped her sit up. “Who’s coming?”

“Sissel.” Managing to get her legs under her, Thermal Draft stood up shakily. “I saw her on my flyby just now. She’ll be here any second.”

The declaration sent a shudder through Solvei, remembering the agony of being enveloped in the field of flames that the pale-skinned giant had conjured up as she glanced at the nearby trees. From this angle, it was impossible to make out anything from inside them, but she thought she could detect a flicker of movement from further within the shadowed greenery...

“We have to get to the river,” she murmured, nudging the others toward where her master had gone. “Now!”

That was the moment that Mystaria finished her spell, waving a hoof in Akna’s direction as she pronounced the final syllable.

The effect was immediate. Still caught in the coils of the burning plants, Akna’s struggles were suddenly more effective than they’d been a moment ago. Even as Solvei kept nudging the ponies toward the river, she saw the adlet yank one arm free from the vines that had been entangling it, then another, pulling her legs free a moment later as she stumbled toward the edge of the fiery field.

The plants themselves seemed to take umbrage at this, thrashing harder as they tried to entrap her again. But each time they wound themselves around her limbs or snaked over her torso, she someone managed to slide free of them, as though the plants simply couldn’t keep hold of her.

Which, Solvei realized a second later, was exactly what was happening. As Akna got closer, the effects of Mystaria’s spell became clear, having coated the adlet’s body in some sort of slimy substance that was making it hard for the plants to maintain their grip on her. The result was that the adlet was scrambling toward the edge of the lashing plants in a lurching start-and-stop motion, pulling herself free and stumbling slightly closer to where the flaming vines ended before being caught again, at which point the process repeated itself.

“C’mon,” muttered Shadow, barely glancing at Akna’s painful struggle toward freedom as she moved to grab Woodheart. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“We can’t take Woodheart and Littleknight underwater,” protested Spinner. “She can’t hold her breath like this, and his lungs are too small to hold enough air.”

“Well then why isn’t that red-horned know-it-all here to do something about that?!” raged Shadow. “What, did he decide to save his own flank first?!”

“He went ahead to save Valor,” retorted Thermal Draft, though she only glowered at Shadow for a moment before giving a worried glance at the treeline. “She and that monster she was fighting fell in the river and haven’t come back up.”

Beneath her mask, Shadow turned pale at that, but she didn’t have a chance to respond before Mystaria suddenly pointed at where Akna was struggling. “She’s almost clear!”

Despite keeping an eye on Paska – who was still hanging back, apparently content to let them get away and in no hurry to save Grisela, who was still screaming in pain as she was enveloped by the flaming vines – Solvei dared to glance over at Akna again. Sure enough, she’d managed to reach the edge of the field, dragging herself clear before collapsing with a sob of relief.

Mystaria rushed over to her then, canceling the slipperiness spell she’d put on the shaman before hurriedly casting a healing spell, pressing her hoof to the adlet. Immediately, the worst of her burns began to fade, her scorched fur turning white again, causing a shudder of relief to go through Akna. “Thank you...”

The words made Mystaria shake her head. “It’s Lex you should thank. That ‘grease’ spell I used normally only coats a single article of clothing. He created the variant that allows for an entire creature to be covered, which is what made it possible for you to escape.”

“That’s great,” interrupted Spinner, struggling to carry Woodheart’s insensate body. “But now that we’re all here, can we please exit stage left, ideally without killing two of our number in the process, before the big bad boss lady reappears?!”

“Can you use a spell to make it so Woodheart and Littleknight won’t drown?” asked Shadow, moving to steady Thermal Draft as the pegasus swayed in place.

Biting her lip for a moment, Drafty shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried anything like that before...”

“No time like the present, don’t you think?!” shot back the frantic filidh.

“Just get to the hole in the ice!” ordered Solvei, exasperated. “We’ll figure it out!”

The others grumbled, but didn’t argue as they made their way toward the place where Valor and Vidrig had fallen into the river. Solvei stayed at the back of the group, alternately eyeing Paska and the forest. Master, I’ve got everyone, and we’re ready to go into the river-

No! Stay off the ice!

The sharp reply caught Solvei off-guard, almost making her stumble. Master?

“What the hell is that?!”

Dazedly looking toward the source of Spinner’s outcry, Solvei’s eyes widened as she saw that water was suddenly spouting up from the hole like a geyser. But that wasn’t the only place where it was happening, as cracks were rapidly spreading across the frozen surface, with more spouts erupting upward.

In her mind, however, Lex kept speaking. Solvei, listen carefully. I had to stop the flow of the water. Right now, the pressure is being redirected upward, which is going to shatter the ice. As soon as I release it, everything will flow down through, which means that if you’re in the water when that happens you’ll all be battered to death by the ice chunks. You have to wait until I tell you it’s safe!

But Master, Sissel is almost here! And the other ponies are saying that Woodheart and Littleknight won’t survive the trip!

Once the pressure is released, there’ll be a few moments when everything is pulled through at an accelerated rate. If you time it right, you can make it down after the ice has cleared the passage but before the water returns to its normal rate. That should get everyone here fast enough that no one will drown.

Another loud series of cracks signified that the pressure buildup Lex was talking about was increasing, and this time the ice broke into fragments, starting to float and collide as the water continued to spurt up between them. I understand, Master. Please tell me when, and I’ll-

A flash out light out of the corner of her eye was all the warning Solvei got.

Then a bolt of lightning – coming not from the sky, but from between the trees – lanced out, going straight through her.

It hit with enough force that her armor shattered, the black crystals blown to pieces in an instant. Flung through the air by the incredible force of the blow, Solvei came down hard on one of the larger pieces of ice floating in the river, dazed and struggling to remain conscious, her eyes somehow finding the others, seeing them screaming at her from the edge of the shore.

And behind them, her axe swung casually over her shoulder as she emerged from the wintry forest, was Sissel.

SOLVEI!!! In her head, Lex’s voice was thick with alarm, demanding her attention. Hold on, I’m going to summon you here!

N-no...Master...don’t...

What?!

Have to...tell them... She was already trying to speak, trying to tell everyone what Lex had told her about waiting until the ice was pulled down, that they had to enter the water immediately after it. But her voice didn’t seem to want to work correctly, and she couldn’t say anything as she saw the others – realizing that they were out of time – venturing into the water, making their way toward her. Behind them, Sissel was casting another spell, her lips moving as she gestured with her free hand. No...no...

Somehow, even as her thoughts grew hazy, an idea came to Solvei then. It had been using her magic creatively that had let her get the best of Grisela. If she could just do it again now...

Master...we’re in...the river... Her thoughts were becoming sluggish, like when she’d tired herself out as a pup trying to keep up with her siblings. The memory made her smile, recalling how her father had always carried her home whenever she’d exhausted herself too much to make the trip back. Please...release it...

What are you saying?! You’ll be killed! You’ll all be killed!

Trust me...please...I won’t...won’t let you...down again...

Just sending the message was exhausting, and concentrating enough to use the last bit of her magic was even more so, but an instant later Solvei felt a sudden rush of movement as the water began to flow again, and she let out a slow breath as she relaxed. She could make out her master’s voice in her mind, but the words were muddled and indistinct now, growing fainter and fainter until she couldn't hear him anymore.

But it was alright. She’d been so afraid before, scared that Lex would throw her away when he realized just how much better Akna was than her. Now, though...now that thought was comforting. Even if she was an adlet, at least there’d be someone who could stay by his side and make sure he didn’t get lonely.

Then she closed her eyes and waited for her father to come carry her home.

Author's Note:

Solvei carries out her duty, paying a high price to get everyone to safety.

Will Sissel and the others head after her? Or will Lex and the others finally be granted a reprieve?

Comments

[Booster Spice]

I really hope that was a once per day spell Sisel used, and that it was jsut straight lighting instead of the visible arc being a side effect of something physical. Its usually extremely difficult to make OSK spells apart from Command Word, and a couple others, given the way the mechanics works?

Oh boy, riding the resonant wave? Its like Treasure Planet and Solvei is Big and Toughly?

[Not so New Brony]

Geez, party members are falling one after the other here. However, I can't help but hope that Solvei's connection to Lex will save her though I doubt that she'll be like the NMK's own familiars where they can just pop back after getting their physical forms destroyed.

[Alzrius]

11273793 You're not wrong in that most d20 spells are single-function in nature. That's a topic I could go on about at length, but I'll try and restrain myself by saying that it's one of the relatively few control mechanisms that the game engine places on spellcasters (as a significant number of their restrictions and limitations from prior editions were removed when the d20 System was implemented). In fact, this was actually more true as the game progressed from D&D 3.0 --> D&D 3.5 --> Pathfinder 1, since spells with a high degree of variability such as emotion (from D&D 3.0) were broken up into crushing despair, good hope, rage, etc. That's not the case for every spell, of course; something like resist energy allows for different effects, even if they're identical in terms of how they function (i.e. they just differ in terms of what energy type they protect against), and in fact Lex exploited that by generated lower-level versions of the spell that have set effects, but these are very much the exception rather than the rule.

Now, it's certainly possible to have spells with multiple effects built into them (not just in terms of variability, but actually doing more than one thing upon casting), but in virtually every case you're going to need to invent those yourself, and that's not exactly easy to do. The more information you try to cram into a single spell, the more complicated it becomes, and so the harder it is to make use of (i.e. its spell level goes up). Not to mention those almost always need to be independently researched, which as this story's demonstrated is difficult in direct proportion to the type of change you're making (and that would be a big one).

In other words, it's probable that Sissel's lightning bolt was exactly what it looked like.

...though don't ask me if it was modified by any metamagic.

[Alzrius]

11274029 Ultimately, Thermal Draft and Fail Forward are simply out of their league where Grisela, Sissel, Paska, and their ilk are concerned. We've known that ever since they faced a small horde of yetis and quickly found themselves needing to retreat (and even then, they couldn't). Lex, Solvei, and Akna are really the only ones with a real chance of standing up to them in a fight, and with Sissel apparently being the strongest member of the enemy forces, it seems like only Lex has any chance of matching her...as Solvei found out here.

Let's hope you're right about Lex being able to save her!