790 - Show and Teleport
“So you heard the Keeper chanting outside, and thought he was doing something to Teyu?”
Mystaria nodded in response to Lex’s question, pausing to swallow a mouthful of honey-glazed plums before answering. “That’s mostly right. We actually heard Littleknight meeping first, and then Teyu barking. Then we heard the Keeper scolding them, and it was as we went outside to check that we heard him start chanting.”
“We think he was – oh wow! Valor, have some of these! – trying to do something to him. Teyu, I mean,” added Spinner, passing a bowl of sugared grapes to her friend. “No idea what, but it probably wasn’t good if Littleknight was worried about it.”
“Since we thought he might be trying to do something to disrupt your ceremony, we tried to stop him,” added Valor, taking the offered confection as she paused to gulp down a mugful of blueberry-flavored water, letting out a loud belch as she finished. “But since we couldn’t actually see anything, it didn’t go very well.”
“I still don’t understand where that giant spike came from,” muttered Shadow, shooting a suspicious glare at the quill Lex was holding, Thermal Draft still held aloft in his telekinetic aura. “I get that it somehow got lodged in the Keeper’s eye socket-”
“Trying to eat, here!” announced Spinner with a grimace.
“-but what I want to know is how.”
“...it’s not important,” decided Lex, taking his eyes off of the weapon, instead glancing at where Teyu was curled up, sleeping off the meal he’d just eaten. “It’s unlikely that whatever the Keeper was doing would have worked anyway.”
Woodheart looked up from where she was cuddling Littleknight, rubbing the almiraj’s belly as she fed him caramelized raspberries. “Why?”
“Does this have something to do with what Akna mentioned before, about the whole ritual thing he did being a sham?” added Spinner.
“For a sham, it got some serious results,” muttered Valor, looking Lex up and down.
“These results had nothing to do with the Keeper,” snorted Lex, taking a dried pear slice and looking it over. Taking a bite, he resisted the urge to wince. While sugary things had never been amenable to his palate, something that mild shouldn’t have been overly disagreeable. But although the dried pear had little in the way of sweetness, it was all he could do not to gag at the taste now; his new body, it seemed, had less even less tolerance for sacchariferous fare than his old one. “It was entirely due to the nature of the planar aperture that Akna and I entered, and the circumstances that we encountered on the other side of it. The actions the Keeper took prior to us going in had no effect on that whatsoever.”
“And that would have been the same for Teyu?” prompted Mystaria.
Lex nodded. “I believe so. The Keeper’s madness seems to manifest as an outsized sense of his own capabilities, as well as an inflated estimation of his own importance.”
Smirking behind her mask, Shadow opened her mouth, but before she could make a cutting remark a sugared grape hit her between the eyes. “Hush, you,” chided Valor.
Ignoring the earth mares’ antics, Lex continued. “Given that the Keeper has used his time here to verse himself in the Night Mare’s religious traditions” – likely due to his having little to do except read the Auctoritas Caliginous, Lex knew – “my guess is that, while he’s clearly able to perform ceremonial invocations, he thinks it’s entirely due to the Night Mare holding him in high esteem, and that the use of religious paraphernalia, the presence of his acolytes, and other supporting activities are purely ancillary in nature, rather than being necessary for those rites to function.”
“So in other words,” chimed in Spinner, “the Keeper really can do a bunch of impressive stuff, but he thinks that it all comes from the Night Mare thinking he’s a celebrity, rather than the fact that he’s just putting on a show for her?”
The analogy made Lex sigh. “Close enough.”
Smirking, she took a bite of a chocolate-covered banana. “I’ve known some bards like that. An impressive instrument and a few flashy spells, and suddenly they think they’re as handsome as a devil and have the voice of an angel.”
“And he went after Teyu because he saw that you’d bullied the rest of his freaks into submission,” snorted Shadow. “Which means this was all about a stallion trying to assuage their wounded pride. Why am I not surprised?”
“I think it’s kind of nice that this Keeper fellow makes all those creatures smarter, though,” added Woodheart, petting Littleknight’s belly as the horned rabbit finished his meal. “Back home, the hierophant would do that for some of the animals in the forest. That was how new initiates would learn to respect nature; you wouldn’t want to throw a rock at a squirrel if it would tell on you later!”
“They don’t sound as bad as the sisters at the Atheneum Arcane,” chuckled Mystaria. “If you got caught dog-earing a book, you had to assist the scribes for a week, transcribing everything from old dictionaries to donated journals of retired adventurers.”
“You’ll have quite the journal to donate yourself someday, Mysty. Especially after the last couple of days,” added Valor.
“And before you say anything, Shadow, yes, that does assume we’re all going to live through this,” cut in Spinner, giving the masked mare a wry look.
But Shadow shook her head at the filidh’s remark. “I wasn’t going to suggest otherwise,” she answered in a voice completely devoid of humor as she glanced at Woodheart, before looking at each of her friends in turn. “We’re all going home together. Even if we have to fight our way through every yeti, hag, troll, and other monster in this frozen wasteland.”
“That will not be necessary,” announced Lex, standing up as he pushed the remainder of his portion of the food away, only half-eaten. “Once you’ve finished eating, I’m sending you back to the village where I met you.”
Dead silence fell over the mares of Fail Forward at that.
Spinner was the first to recover. “You said what now?”
“Lex,” began Mystaria, keeping her voice carefully restrained. “That village is roughly a week away, through heavy snow and a monster-infested forest.”
“Not to mention the very real chance that Grisela and her kin are waiting outside to ambush us,” added Valor.
“And did you forget that we’re not exactly the adlets’ favorite ponies right now?” huffed Shadow. “You’ve already messed up their shaman’s soul. If they think we were part of that and then skipped out on them, the next invasion those villagers suffer will be from them!”
Lex shook his head. “I will settle things with the adlets. Without killing them,” he added, eyes flickering in Woodheart’s direction for a fraction of an instant. “And I’ll deal with Grisela and the rest of her twisted family. But I won’t allow any of you to be placed in further danger as part of that.”
Spinner leaned back. “So help me, if whatever you’re planning involves a trip to the Night Mare’s realm...”
“Of course not,” replied Lex with a sneer. “One of the spells I’ve readied allows for a group of ponies to undertake a short-range teleportation. I’m going to feed additional power through it, hypothetically increasing the distance it can cover, in order to send you all back.”
“‘Hypothetically’?” echoed Valor.
“I’m sorry, how exactly are you able to boost the spell’s range like that?” added Mystaria.
“Mysty,” warned Shadow in a low voice, also rising to her hooves. “The last time you asked him about his magic, he lost it, remember?”
Despite not being directed at him, the admonishment made Lex grit his teeth, but he forced himself to remain calm. Mystaria had already seen through his attempt to keep the deficiency behind his thaumaturgical spellcasting secret. For that matter, so had Toklo, who by now had likely told his entire tribe. Which meant that to keep that particular weakness under wraps was at best pointless, and at worse counterproductive, since he needed Fail Forward to go along with what he was proposing.
But that didn’t make it any easier for him to admit to something he’d been trying to keep hidden from everyone – even the ponies dearest to him – for so long.
“The nature of my thaumaturgical magic is...complicated,” he said slowly, forcing himself to meet Mystaria’s eyes. “I can prepare arcane spells in the same manner that you do, via the construction of thought-forms which hold the requisite energy necessary to actualize them.”
Scowling as he caught himself hesitating to continue, Lex forced himself to keep speaking. “I didn’t learn how to do this from anyone else; I designed the entire system from the ground up when I was a colt. However, I have yet to find an operational methodology capable of compressing that energy to the point where it can be contained within a conceptual framework without the assistance of an externalized tool or device.”
Several pairs of eyes turned to Mystaria then, waiting for her to translate what Lex had just said. The mare in question furrowed her brow, lips moving silently as she parsed what she’d just been told. “You mean...you were trying to come up with a way to prepare spells, arcane spells, without a spellbook?”
Lex nodded curtly.
“So, like a sorcerer?” ventured Spinner. “They can cast all kinds of arcane magic without studying it.”
“That’s not the same,” answered Mystaria immediately. “Sorcerers only know a few spells, which are determined by their biological heritage. They actually gather the energy via subtle mutations in their physical form, including spell patterns in their brains which-, no, it doesn’t matter.”
Shaking her head as she forced herself to concentrate on what Lex had just told her, Mystaria licked her lips before speaking again. “So, you came up with a way to build the mental architecture of arcane spellcasting all on your own – which I have to tell you is unbelievable, especially since you did it as a colt! – but you’re saying you can’t actually prepare those spells, right?”
“Except he clearly can, since we’ve all seen him do it,” snorted Shadow. “So what’s the big deal?”
“The ‘big deal’,” spat Lex, giving the masked mare a dark look. “Is that if the concentration of energy in the local area is great enough-”
“Then you wouldn’t need to worry about condensing to the point of fitting it into an abstract format, because it would already be sufficiently dense!” finished Mystaria, her eyes lighting up as she saw what Lex was getting at. But her excitement faded a moment later. “But in its ambient state, that wouldn’t happen naturally.”
“On the contrary, it does happen naturally,” countered Lex. “Exactly four times a year, during the solstices and equinoxes.”
Valor cocked her head. “You’re saying magic gets easier to cast during those days?”
“In the forest, we celebrate the turning of the seasons, but I’ve never heard of magic becoming easier to use when that happens,” added Woodheart.
“I’m not surprised,” muttered Mystaria, now deeply engaged with what Lex had revealed. “Those of us who use arcane spells have standardized preparatory devices via our spellbooks. It wouldn’t matter if the ambient amount of magical energy had swelled; their inscriptions are designed only to gather a set amount of power necessary for each particular spell. If there was any excess, it would be naturally filtered out. Divine magic would have even less interaction, since the energy necessary to cast the spell comes from a god, rather than being gathered locally.”
“I use divine magic, and it doesn’t come from a god,” noted Woodheart wryly, causing Valor, Spinner, and Shadow to groan softly; the fact that Woodheart had godly magic despite belonging to a pagan faith that didn’t worship a deity was a point of academic frustration for Mystaria.
Fortunately, the nun-in-training was able to overlook the friendly jab. “Yes, well...the mystery of who or what is granting Woodheart’s spells aside, Lex, that means you can only renew your arcane spells four times a year?”
“Or if I have access to an artifact of extreme power,” added Lex. “Something which radiated so much magical energy that the excess alone was sufficient to prepare my spells with.”
Valor gave a soft laugh. “I imagine those aren’t exactly a dime a dozen.”
Lex ignored the quip, and Mystaria jumped in, still following her train of thought. “That explains why you’ve been so reluctant to use your arcane magic. But how does that tie into what you said about enhancing that short-range teleportation spell you have?”
“While I’m not able to prepare my arcane spells very often, I’ve developed a technique for getting additional uses out of them,” explained Lex. “Specifically, since all living creatures have an inherent degree of magic flowing through their bodies, I simply redirect mine so as to supplement a spell while I’m casting it. Depending on the rate of transfer, I can have it either replenish the energy as its being expended so as to maintain the thought-form, or expel it into the spell during its actualization so as to supplement the effect.”
Mystaria blinked once.
Then twice.
Then a third time.
Finally, she spoke.
“Are you...” She couldn’t seem to finish, swallowing before trying again. “Are you telling me that you’ve figured out a way to take the magical energy that your body gathers as a byproduct of its physical processes, and deliberately – as in, via conscious act of will – move it into conceptual structures?”
Lex shrugged. “It wasn’t that hard.”
“ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!” shrieked Mystaria, leaping up, her face twisted in an expression of incredulity. “Lex, do you have any idea how many archmages and wizard councils have tried to figure out how to do that?! I’ll give you a hint: ALL OF THEM! And you know how many have succeeded?! NONE OF THEM!”
“Mysty? Down girl,” soothed Spinner, going over and gently putting a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. “Didn’t you just say that sorcerers do that?”
Mystaria batted Spinner’s hoof away. “Not like this they don’t! I told you, sorcerers can’t choose their own spells! They just awaken to them, their brains developing micro-structures which make specific thought-forms on their own, letting their physical magical reserves flow through them!”
A crazed laugh escaped her then, causing Spinner to back away nervously. “But this guy” – Mystaria pointed at Lex then, a wild look in her eyes – “not only taught himself how to build those thought-forms via purely conceptual processes, which is the basis of wizardry, but he’s moving physical energy into them, which is the foundation of sorcery! That’s supposed to be impossible, and here he is saying it WASN’T EVEN THAT HARD?!”
“The point,” growled Lex, rapidly losing patience for Mystaria’s prolonged descent into hysterics, “is that while I haven’t actually augmented this particular spell before, my current form allows me to move larger amounts of energy into my spells than I could before. As such, my primary concern – which was trying to teleport to a destination while not being able to supply power sufficient to reach it – is largely allayed now. So I can-”
“No,” shrieked Mystaria. “That is NOT the point! The point is that you keep turning the conventions of magic on their heads! You have a familiar you shouldn’t be able to have! You deconstruct spells like they’re puzzle pieces! And now you’re casually ignoring the line between wizardry and sorcery! You can’t just act like that’s-, HEY! LET GO!”
“Everyone hang tight for a few minutes while we get Mysty straightened out,” sighed Valor, appearing at Mystaria’s right and grabbing hold of her.
“Bad enough you were just losing your mind, now you’re making our mage lose hers,” huffed Shadow, giving Lex a dark look as she took hold of Mystaria’s left.
Together, the two mares dragged her off back in the direction of the building they’d been staying in, squinting as they moved further from the light of Lex’s horn, Mystaria’s frenzied babbling accompanying them as they disappeared from sight.
“It’s been a while since this happened,” sighed Woodheart, looking at Spinner. “The last time was when we met that pony who said he could cast two spells at once, remember?”
“Yeah,” grinned Spinner. “That really drove her nuts, at least until we finally figured it out. Turned out he just had a partner who was casting the second spell while invisible, using some kind of magic wand so that he didn’t have to actually chant out loud to do it.”
The two chuckled at the memory for a few moments before the filidh turned back to Lex. “So listen, not to sound ungrateful or anything, but would it be possible for you to send us back to Viljatown instead of that snowy village where we met? You’ve been to Viljatown before, right?”
“I have, and I’m not sending you back there,” replied Lex tonelessly. “That city’s Mythril Map is a powerful teleportation device, and while I’m confident I can increase the range of my spell, I’m not risking possible interference from it.”
“...right, okay,” sighed the bard. “Well, at least we’ll be able to make our way to Bright Night and let Mysty see her grandmother. Hopefully that’ll calm her down some. And I guess if the range is a big deal, it’s better to keep it short since you’ll be sending five of us at once.”
“Six,” corrected Woodheart. “You always forget Littleknight.”
“Seven,” amended Lex. “That’s the other reason I’m sending you away.”
Spinner blinked. “Huh?”
Lex gestured to the unconscious doppelganger floating in his telekinesis. “I want you to take Thermal Draft with you, and watch over her until I return.”
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Hola, a pasado un tiempo espero que lo allá pasado bien en año nuevo espero que tenga un buen día y que todo que se allá proporcionado para este año se cumplan cuídate bye
Holy shit, this story is still going?
I admire the commitment, truly. But after nearly 2 million words and 790 chapters, don't you think its time to give up the gun already?
I keep forgetting that Lex is a special case when it comes to the norms of the setting though I suppose from a gaming perspective, Lex is a PC and from the few anecdotes and threads I stumbled upon while surfing the web, Player Characters can be built in ways that just boggles the mind.
Still, with Thermal Draft under their care, Fail Forward will need to make sure they keep her safe or else they'll have a very unhappy Lex to deal with though now I can't help but imagine Thermal Draft getting kidnapped and the party getting into an adventure of their own to get her back.
ahh bummer we are losing several of the cast.
for now.
11482831
Lex is prepping to send the crew back to safety in the town that is said to be totally safe, which is going to end up twinned with Io Jima due to being hit by both the adlets and Griselda for revenge?
As for the difference between Pc and NPc, Ive been looking at a procedural deterministic character generator that uses 3 Die for the gaussian, but rolls the 4th and stores the Roll 4 Die and drop lowest result for whenever Any entity becomes a PC. this means that due to stat levels, ability, traits, feat levels and triggers etc, like casting Awaken on an animal, its possible to go from dobbin the Donky, to Mr Ed with a single roll, and a cascade of level triggers. Rarely?
Ok, so... who's gonna discover Slovakna eating herself ?
I have a question tho. Doesn't her eating the body not make sense? the adlets normally eat the body because they think it's the only way for the soul to rejoin the tribe but in this case Akna and Slovei fused together. Or is she just doing it a "That's what's you are supposed to do" type of deal and just going with the funerary rite.
Is Lex is a magic savant of some sort? From the outside the stars align.
When the vanilla rulebook character meets the homebrew.
11482817 ¡Gracias! Agradezco los cálidos deseos, y espero que estés teniendo un buen año nuevo también.
11482826 Let me think about it...
Nnnope.
11482831 The funny thing is, under the d20 System rules (i.e. D&D 3.5/Pathfinder 1E) there really aren't any differences between how PCs and NPCs are built. While other editions of D&D (I'm not sure about Pathfinder 2E, since I haven't looked at it very closely) use different rules for player-characters and non-player-characters, the rules set I'm using as the basis for this story has virtually none.
In fact, strictly speaking, the two most notable differences are little more than guidelines than any hard-and-fast rules. Specifically, NPCs tend to use a lower point-buy allocation for their ability scores, and they use a somewhat less-generous table to determine the value of the equipment they have at a particular level. So from an in-game standpoint, the only difference between PCs and NPCs is that PCs have slightly more innate potential, and have been somewhat luckier in terms of finding treasure.
Naturally, I'm adding a bit more to it here.
Specifically, the majority of Everglow's population use character classes to advance (i.e. the standard way of gaining levels). Now, that still allows for boatloads of content, as there are a metric crap-ton of options based around that particular method of character advancement; just using the first-party options alone (i.e. the stuff for Pathfinder 1E, and I suppose even the D&D 3.5 materials) allows for myriad options. Mix in the oceans of third-party content, and you can get some crazy stuff in a hurry, to the extent where characters can be wildly different in numerous regards.
Lex, whose entire build is made with the point-buy system of Eclipse: The Codex Persona is beyond even that. (And a few exceptional characters use a little bit of that book (mostly using the "Quick NPC Conversion" rule on page 191). From an in-game standpoint, that means that there are a lot of rules which simply don't apply to him, and which he can thus ignore completely.
Actually, that's kind of true even from an out-of-game standpoint too.
11482866 Well, if they're keeping watch over Thermal Draft, I suspect we'll see them again at some point.
11482905 Well, ideally Lex and Solvei/Akna will settle things with everyone, i.e. the adlets as well as Grisela and co., and that sleepy little town can go back to being sleepy.
By the by, I love that idea for modifying NPC ability scores into PC ability scores that you came up with!
It's very inspired, and kind of similar to what I did with Solvei when Lex soul-bound her to himself.
11483245 In terms of strict adherence to adlet tradition, Solvei/Akna eating Solvei's body doesn't make much sense, since as you noted the idea is that they do this for adlets only so as to keep the deceased's spirit within the tribe, waiting to be reborn. To that end, I inserted this bit to try and suggest what was going on:
Essentially, this is Akna (who, as noted earlier, was quelling the part of herself that was Solvei) essentially making up an instance of syncretism, merging her people's religious practices with those of the Night Mare's faith. That she was eating Solvei's body despite Solvei's soul already being a part of her was, in that regard, likely to be an attempt to resolve how conflicted she felt at being two people at once.
As for whether or not it worked, I guess we'll see.
11483407 Hey, given that he's in another world now, Lex is technically an isekai character, so that sort of thing is necessary.
11484174
Alright
Whatever makes you happy, I guess