783 - Ceremonial Invocation
“Lay them both upon the altar.”
“Why?”
Lex didn’t so much as glance at Shadow as he walked over to the raised dais, consulting the large book he had brought down from the second floor, stand and all. “Because I said so, that’s why.”
Having just finished carrying Woodheart inside the cathedral’s entrance together with Valor, Shadow let out a low growl. “Is it really too much to ask for you to stop being a condescending jackass for five minutes and just tell us what you’re going to do to help our friend?!”
From behind her, Mystaria – who along with Spinner was helping Thermal Draft stumble forward – groaned. “Shadow, please. Not now.”
“In her defense, I think most people would balk at putting someone on the altar of an evil goddess,” muttered Spinner.
“That’s not even half of it,” continued Shadow, coming to a halt as she stared daggers at Lex. “Let’s overlook for a second that the Purple-and-Green-Eyed Monster here has, on two separate occasions, completely lost it and become a danger to everyone around him, which in case anyone’s forgotten is the entire reason Woodheart needs help to begin with. Instead, let’s focus on the fact that he somehow just shoved Solvei’s soul into Akna. Is no one besides me worried that he’s going to try the same thing with Woodheart and Drafty now?”
Valor’s eyebrows went up at that, trading alarmed looks with Spinner and Mystaria. But Thermal Draft shook her head. “I trust Lex,” she muttered, and even though she had a foreleg over Spinner and Mystaria, her voice still came out strained and raspy. “He wouldn’t do something like that.”
“On the contrary,” replied Lex casually, still not looking up from the book whose pages he was slowly turning. “While not precisely what I’m intending to do, the underlying idea is largely the same.”
“I knew it.” Practically pushing Woodheart’s body onto Valor – and drawing an angry meep from Littleknight, the almiraj pawing at his mistress’s still form worriedly – Shadow drew her dagger and placed herself between Lex and her friends. “If you think for an instant-, AH!”
Her pained yelp was accompanied by the clatter of metal on stone as her dagger hit the floor, the blade covered with ice. Cursing as she cradled her hoof, rubbing the frostbitten portion against her chest as she turned to stare hatefully at the winter wolf who was padding in behind her. “Akna, what’re you-”
“You conveniently left out how much my master has done for you,” interrupted the adlet, her voice colder than the ice she’d coated Shadow’s dagger with. “Like how he saved your lives when Grisela and the yetis invaded your village. Or how, even when he was suffering from your friend pushing him to reveal his secrets” – she glanced briefly as Mystaria, who cringed – “he still chased off Paska and his monsters. And that he put everything on the line to save Valor when she was drowning, which was the reason that I-, that Solvei-, d-”
She stopped speaking as Lex sharply closed the book he was reading, the pages impacting hard enough to send a muffled thump throughout the interior of the cathedral. “This entire line of discussion is misplaced,” he announced calmly even as his horn lit up, snatching Woodheart’s body from Valor’s back and levitating her over to the altar.
“This is going to happen because I’ve deemed it to be necessary to safeguard the health and safety of both the ponies involved,” he continued as he laid the comatose mare down. “None of the rest of you have standing to object to that, nor any right to be informed as to the particulars of what I’ll be doing. The insight I shared with you just now about the nature of the procedure I’ll be performing was a courtesy; if I think that you’ll use that as a pretext for interfering, then I’ll show you what my discourtesy looks like instead.”
No sooner has he finished speaking than Littleknight launched himself forward, meeping furiously. The almiraj’s sudden charge caused Fail Forward to tense, and Solvei to take a step forward, only to stop at a telepathic command from Lex. The unicorn himself spared the horned rabbit only the briefest of glances before turning away from it, instead arranging Woodheart’s limbs so that she was lying in a more natural position – her hind legs straightened and her forelegs as her sides – as the oversized rabbit drove leaped up to spear him in the side with its horn...and bounced off.
“Of course, none of what I just outlined applies to Thermal Draft herself,” he continued, turning to look at the pegasus in question. “As a participant in the process, you have every right to know what I intend to do, and even object to the procedure should you feel so inclined, though I recommend against doing so in the strongest possible terms.”
Blinking as all eyes turned to look at her – save for Littleknight’s, who instead tried to gore Lex a second time, only for it to turn out no better than the first – Thermal Draft swallowed. “I said I trust you, and I meant it,” she stammered, “but, um, if you wouldn’t mind telling me what you’re planning, I’d appreciate it.”
Lex nodded once. “As I said, the fundamental idea is similar to what happened with Solvei and Akna, but with several salient differences. The most important being that instead of transferring souls, I want to remove the positive energy in your body – your life force – and place it inside Woodheart.”
Spinner’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, what?”
She wasn’t alone, as Mystaria blinked several times in rapid succession. “You want to do what?”
Valor’s brow furrowed. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“Meep meep!” added Littleknight, futilely pressing the tip of his horn into the side of Lex’s back leg.
Lex didn’t so much as bother to glance at any of them, keeping his eyes on Thermal Draft as he telekinetically lifted her up and laid her alongside Woodheart on the altar. “In theory, this will reverse your situations, rendering you comatose while returning Woodheart to consciousness.”
“And transferring Paska’s curse to our friend, is that it?!” snarled Shadow, retrieving her knife, though a glare from Akna was all it took for her to keep the weapon lowered. “You’re going to save your girlfriend at the cost of Woodheart’s life?!”
“Lex wouldn’t do that!” snapped Thermal Draft, before turning to look at the stallion. “That’s not what you’re planning, right?”
The question made Lex scowl. “Of course not. The idea is that without any positive energy in your body, the curse will have nothing to target, which means that its effects will be suspended. That will give me more time to find a way to break it, after which I’ll subsequently revive you.”
“But...” Swallowing, it took the pegasus a moment to continue. “Lex, I’m not an expert on...all of this, the way you are, but I thought that anypony who loses all of their life force, you know...dies.”
Lex gave a single, curt nod in Woodheart’s direction. “That’s how it normally works. But in Woodheart’s case, what happened – as near as I’ve been able to determine – is that the negative energy that the mask infused her with has somehow reached a state of equilibrium in her body. She’s neither alive nor dead at the moment-”
“That’s not-, I’m sorry for interrupting, but Lex, that makes no sense!” cut in Mystaria. “I tried casting healing spells, which are stabilized doses of positive energy, on Woodheart as soon as we got her back, and they didn’t work!”
“Not to mention that we’ve been making sure to give her food and water at regular intervals,” noted Shadow darkly. “Which is a pretty big hole in your ‘neither alive nor dead’ theory.”
Letting out a slow breath, Lex finally turned to face the rest of fail forward, his horn lighting up again as he grabbed Littleknight – the almiraj still trying in vain to stab him – and flung the creature at Valor, who grabbed hold of it. “Did any of you ever bother to confirm that she was metabolizing anything that you had her ingest?”
Spinner cocked her head. “Meta-what now?”
“And as for why your healing spells didn’t work,” continued Lex as he looked as Mystaria. “My hypothesis is that the current balance of positive and negative energy in Woodheart’s body is resisting being altered, and so requires a larger infusion than what your healing spells are capable of.”
“You keep using words like ‘hypothesis’ and ‘idea’ and ‘theory,’” noted Valor. “As much as I appreciate your addressing our concerns, this is all starting to sound like a guess on your part.”
“Yeah, and for that matter, when exactly did you come up with this idea that Woodheart’s caught in some sort of in-between state of life and death?” added Spinner. “It’s not like you’ve ever taken the time to examine her.”
This time Lex didn’t answer immediately, instead looking back at Thermal Draft, who slowly nodded. “I’d like to know too...if that’s okay.”
“Very well.” Reaching a claw, Lex gestured to his horn. “You’re aware that I can use the magic of my horn to enhance my senses, correct?”
A small smile crossed her lips then. “Yeah. It’s not as flashy as turning into a shadow, making black crystals, or cursing someone, but I’ve always watched you closer than most other ponies.”
Lex fought down the urge to wince at that. “As part of my recent metamorphosis, my physique has been enhanced. A side effect of that is that I can now utilize my horn to a greater degree than before. To that end, I’ve begun experimenting with alternative ways to augment the degree of information my faculties can perceive.”
Unable to help herself, Mystaria piped up. “Like what?”
Knowing that Thermal Draft would echo the question, Lex didn’t bother ignoring her. “So far, seeing into various other spectra. Magical. Infrared. Ultraviolet. And most recently, a visual medium sensitive to the presence of positive and negative energy. And right now, the quantity of both in Woodheart’s body are almost perfectly even.”
Near the back of the cathedral, Spinner’s eyes widened. “Magical vision...wait a second, I know what this is about!” She quickly trotted behind Valor, peeking at Lex from around the brawny mare. “You’re trying to see through our clothes, aren’t you?!”
Ahead of her, Valor groaned. “Spinner...”
“What?” protested the bard. “It’s what I’d do!”
“As for the other point that was raised,” growled Lex. “I’ll admit that the procedure I’m proposing is entirely speculative on my part.”
“That sounds suspiciously like you’re going to make it up as you go along,” noted Shadow.
“While I’m not sure I’d phrase that in quite such a confrontational way,” added Mystaria, “I am a little concerned by what you mean by ‘speculative.’ And I don’t think I’m the only one.” She finished with a worried look at Thermal Draft, who nodded guiltily.
“I mean,” answered Lex. “That I’m currently without the requisite knowledge or ability to perform the transfer I’ve proposed.”
Shadow threw her forelegs into the air in exasperation. “Then why are we even here?! Why drag Woodheart and Drafty onto that altar if you’re not going to do anything?! Or was your big plan to just pray to the Night Mare and have her fix everything?!”
“Yes.”
“Maybe she’ll throw in a big bag of golds and a few diamonds-, wait, what?”
“I plan on formally asking the Night Mare to intervene,” replied Lex evenly. “Specifically, as I mentioned before, for her to reverse Woodheart and Thermal Draft’s current conditions.”
For a moment, no one could say anything, just staring at Lex.
Valor found her voice first. “Why...listen, I get asking for a god’s help. What I don’t understand is why not just ask for her to heal them both? Why ask for something that’s not going to fix everything?”
“Because the Night Mare is not in the business of fixing her faithful’s problems on their behalf, and so I believe that a more limited intervention is likely to be accepted than a grandiose one.”
Mystaria shook her head. “Lex, divine intervention doesn’t work like that. Every single day ponies all across the world ask for them to step in and take action-”
“And every single day, they answer,” cut in Lex. “Now, their answers take the form of spells granted to their worshipers. But before that” – he gestured to the book on the stand behind him – “mortals asked for godly assistance using far more elaborate methods, engaging in formal displays of sacramental reverence to call down the power of their deities.”
“Mysty, what’s he talking about?” muttered Spinner.
But Mystaria didn’t seem to hear her friend, instead blinking as she gave Lex a dubious look. “You mean a ceremonial invocation? Lex...even if that book does describe how to perform them for the Night Mare, there’s a reason that ponies don’t try those anymore. Not only do they take hours to complete, they also require elaborate displays of faith, large congregations of worshipers, holy relics imbued with divine power, consecrated ground...”
She trailed off as she looked around them, her eyes glancing from the altar to the barbed wire wrapped around Lex’s foreleg, to the monstrous statues visible on the buildings outside the cathedral’s door. “Oh...”
“Indeed,” replied Lex. “Now, stay here and keep watch while I go and collect the Keeper’s acolytes. Once they’re all in attendance, we’ll begin.”
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...Ok someone REALLY NEEDS to tell him about the foal, because I can't be the only one who sees that, even if it works as intended, either it dies when Drafty's body does, or the curse goes after it instead.
Heck the only way to save it at this point is so that Lex can adapt things to transfer its life force too, in which case he still needs to know!
Drafty hasnt realised by this point yet or she would say otherwise, or her fanatisism to Lex is giving her Catch 22 mental state so preventing her from telling Lex about her state so he can compensate or ajust his plans accordingly?
Communication is key and like a lot of problems Lex find himself in it all comes down to miscommunication or faulty information... hopefully they tell him about the foal. While I am sure Lex will feel betrayed He always seek to make morally good judgement
.
I am not sure if the positive energy transfer will harm the foal but I am inclined to believe it to be true. But WAIT A SECOND... How did he not see the foal in her womb with his vision? didn't he scan Drafty? or is it just because it didn't reach an advanced enough state yet
Hopefully The Nightmare will do something to fix the situation or at least kick-start it in someway.
well now this is vary vary interesting.
Like the other comments stated, the unborn foal is potentially at risk though like reliczexide, I also wonder why Lex didn't detect Thermal Draft's pregnancy. Is it due to it still not mature enough to be considered it's own being yet? Or was it somehow overlooked due to the curse eating away at Thermal Draft?
Regardless, someone needs to speak up about the foal or else there's a high chance of an unintended abortion...though I suppose it depends on whether or not the Night Mare will answer Lex's call and even if she does, would she even agree to do as Lex asks?
11462547 Well, Kara already confirmed that the curse isn't really targeting Drafty's body per se, but rather her life force. The question at this point is what happens if Lex puts her in a state of balance between positive and negative energy, which is apparently a neither-dead-nor-alive comatose state; what effect does that have on a pregnancy, especially one that's roughly only a week along?
11462658 My suspicion is that Drafty, with her health rapidly declining, is leaning more on Lex because she wants/trusts him to fix everything. She's been in a similar situation to this one before, after all; don't forget that she met Lex when he saved her from dying of ghoul fever.
11462862 With regard to why Lex's visual scan of Drafty didn't reveal that she was pregnant, this is one of those areas where what the game rules don't say is just as important as what they do.
While I don't want to go too deep into the mechanical side of things, Lex has basically gained an upgrade to his Witchsight power (Eclipse: The Codex Persona, page 110; don't forget that the names are just placeholders, rather than being descriptions of what those powers are or how they work). Specifically, he's now able to spend up to 2 power points on it (and any other witchcraft power, i.e. his dark magic) for free. Crucially, he can also do this even without any other expenditure, which means that even without spending any of his limited supply of power points, he can use various effects without any cost (and, thanks to having the Amplify metamagic theorem, can increase the effects markedly if he does elect to spend power).
Because of that, Lex can easily upgrade his senses – which are already sharpened due to his having taken on many of the physical properties of an aurumvorax, giving him natural darkvision, scent, etc. – to supernatural levels. One of which, he's discovered, is that he can use deathwatch, which is how he's figured out that Woodheart is in the "neither alive nor dead" category (which is itself unusual, in that it's outside of what normally happens when you're hit with a huge negative energy effect).
The question then becomes "does deathwatch detect a (week-old) pregnancy?"
There's no answer to that question in the standard game rules, and even the third-party books I looked at, which included both the Book of Erotic Fantasy and the Book of Passion, had nothing to say on that particular subject. There could conceivably be a detect pregnancy spell (I came across at least one homebrew instance of such a spell), but given that it's a discrete spell unto itself, Lex would need to deliberately calibrate his heightened senses to look for that specifically...and thus far, he simply hasn't thought to. After all, insofar as he knows, he's taken measures to make sure there were no consequences from his dallying with Drafty.
Which is course is getting Drafty, and her unborn baby, into deeper and deeper trouble.
11463206 Thanks! As an author, that's a high compliment indeed!
11463336 I went on at length in a previous post, but the long and short of it is that Lex's augmented vision wasn't really calibrated to detect a pregnancy; while there's certainly an argument to be made that an unborn baby has its own positive energy, that's arguable when it was only conceived a week ago (and there's no rules for when the soul enters the gestating baby). So it's perhaps no surprise that it flew under his radar.
Of course, there's no way of knowing what will happen to the child if Lex goes through with his plan. But I suspect that there'll be a quick (and somewhat panicked) conference among Fail Forward, Drafty, and Solvei/Akna (I'm having some trouble deciding which name to use when referring to her in the narration, which is why I keep defaulting to other descriptions
).