Lateral Movement

by Alzrius

808 - And Then There Were Two

Sissel was already dodging out of the way as Lex threw Belligerence at her.

With her nimbleness enhanced by the magic she and the venedaemons had cast on her – the latter of which Lex knew was still active, despite the planar monsters having been slain – the snow giant was able to pivot and leap back despite still being dazed from the devastation he’d so recently unleashed. Turning in profile as she flung herself backward, Lex could already see that the killing blow he’d been hoping to unleash wasn’t going to land.

But neither did he miss completely, as the barbs dotting the head of the weapon sliced across the front of her cuirass, cutting through the magically-toughened leather as though it were made of tissue paper. Lex had just enough time to see her tense – her eyes widening and her lips pulling back in a twisted grimace – before the quill flew past her, burying itself in the shattered walls of the canyon.

But Sissel wasn’t looking at the weapon which had now almost killed her twice in the last few seconds. Nor was she looking at the one who’d held it. Instead, all of her attention was focused on the damage he’d dealt to her armor, dropping her axe as her hands flew up to the cut and pressing at it, her breathing turning rapid.

“NO! No no no!”

With how unflappable she’d been up until now, Lex couldn’t help but be surprised as Sissel began to tear her armor off, hurriedly plucking at the ties and yanking it free of her torso, revealing that she was wearing a simple silken shirt beneath...

Then a small metal frame the size of one of her hands, along with several shards of what looked like broken glass, tumbled down from where she’d apparently been concealing them beneath her armor.

Belatedly recognizing the small mirror she’d projected her image through the last time they’d met, Lex didn’t have a chance to speculate as to its significance as Sissel turned to glare at him, her expression one of white-hot rage. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” she hissed. “That mirror was my only connection to Mother! Without it, I can’t receive any more spells from her! There’s no-”

A jolt went through Sissel then, causing her to jaw to snap shut as her eyes widened. “That’s right! Nenet is Mother’s backup spellbook!” Standing up, she made no move to don her armor again as she looked around frantically. “Nenet! Nenet, where are you?!”

Despite the monster inside him screaming that he should be pressing his attack, Lex couldn’t help but pause as he considered what the snow giant had just let slip. So Sissel’s spells had been given to her by whoever her Mother was via that mirror? And Nenet – he recognized the name of the ugly little sphinx that had been perched on Sissel’s shoulder before – was some sort of auxiliary repository of spells? He knew most of the wizards on Everglow kept their spells written down, using spellbooks as both repositories of the magic they’d learned as well as devices to imprint the requisite energy into their minds. But using a living thing for that-

“HA!” Grisela’s triumphant cry tore Lex free of his speculating, seeing that the winter hag had dived over to where Belligerence was stuck in the wall of the ravine.

Cackling, she reached up and yanked the quill free, pointing it at Lex. “My turn!” she whooped. “Gonna bury you under so much cold, no wards’ll be able to save yoAAAAARRRRRGH!!!”

Lex snickered as Grisela screamed and flung Belligerence away, and as she did he could see the barbs along its length retract from where they’d sprouted outward across its length, piercing the hag’s hands. You fool, he laughed inwardly. As though I’d ever let anyone use my own weapon against me.

Prevarius had once scolded him about using magic items that had no safeguards against tampering, no wards to prevent their functions from being discerned by looking at them in the magical spectrum, and no restrictions on who could use them. As much as Lex despised the devil, he had taken his words to heart when designing Belligerence, making sure that the weapon was cursed to injure anyone other than himself who tried to use it.

Nor was that the only special effect he’d built into it.

Holding one claw out, Lex focused his thoughts.

As soon as he did so, Belligerence vanished from where Grisela had thrown it, reappearing in his grasp.

Hours of prayers and numerous acts of self-flagellation had earned him the Night Mare’s favor in creating what was now his single strongest weapon. But while the goddess had seen fit to bless Belligerence with numinous qualities reflecting those of her own ethos, Lex had asked for more. Although he’d stopped short of placing any of his own soul into the weapon, he’d still sought to recreate a lesser version of the bond he shared with Solvei, allowing him to teleport Belligerence to his side whenever he wished.

In this, the Night Mare had obliged, and Lex couldn’t hold back a dark grin as he pointed the weapon at Sissel balefully. The snow giant glared back at him, and though Lex couldn’t read her expression, he was sure she could read his: that his next spell would fill the entire canyon, leaving them nowhere to run and with no chance of survival.

For a moment the two of them simply stood there, staring each other down...

Then they both started casting, chanting as quickly as they could while making the necessary gestures.

But even before he finished, Lex could see that the contest was already over, and that he’d won. He recognized the spell that Sissel was casting; it was the same cloud of poison fog that she’d almost killed him and several of his companions with during their first encounter. She didn’t realize that he was immune to poison now! Even though the venom she’d hit him with before had done nothing!

Fighting down the urge to roar with laughter, Lex concentrated on his own spell. Let’s see what happens if I cast magic missiles through Belligerence, he laughed inwardly, starting to channel more power into his spell-

“Kill...you...!”

Lex had just enough time to realize that the voice he heard then was coming from behind him.

Then Vidrig’s mangled body flung itself at him, sending him stumbling and disrupting his spell before he could finish it.

Snarling, the troll locked her arms – broken in several places, but still functional – around his neck, trying to choke the life out of him. It was futile, his organometallic fur easily repelling her grasp, but it gave her enough leverage to drive him to the ground. The wreck that was her face was twisted in hatred as she glared at him with the one eyeball that had grown back, the other still having a leech’s wriggling tail jutting from it. “Kill you!” she screeched, misshapen mouth opening wider as she leaned down to bite at him.

Lex’s response was a roar that was matched by the beast within as he tossed Belligerence aside, claws grasping her arms just below the shoulders and pushing her back. If leeches in her brain weren’t enough to incapacitate her, then he’d simply rend her limb from-

Suddenly they were surrounded by a bank of swirling green vapors.

Vidrig immediately began to choke, her grip weakening, and Lex – able to breathe without issue – disarmed her in the most literal fashion possible, wrenching both appendages free from her shoulders, kicking her off of him and sending her stumbling into the mist as she hacked and wheezed.

But her hands around his neck kept squeezing.

Hissing in outrage, Lex pulled them from his neck – the fingers continuing to grasp and flex of their own accord – and flung them away carelessly. Grabbing Belligerence, knowing that even if he couldn’t see his enemies because of the fog he’d still hit them along with everything else nearby, he started casting...and then stopped.

He’d chosen his magic missile spell because it had a homing component to it. No matter how many of those Belligerence made, the spell’s structure should still have kept them focused on Sissel and Grisela. But Vidrig had interrupted the casting, and that spell was gone now, which meant he’d need to use another.

Except none of his other spells had any sort of targeting safeguards built into them. Whether he used acid or fire or electricity, Belligerence would fill the entire canyon with whatever spell he cast. While Lex had no doubt he’d be fine – he still had the clasp Mystaria had given him, which protected him from the effects of his own magic – the chance that something more malleable than an explosion of force would flow through the contours of the rift and hit Solvei and Yotimo were very high. Even if Solvei was warded against fire, and likely strong enough to suffer little damage from anything else, the same couldn’t be said for Yotimo.

And friendly fire was something Lex was determined to avoid if at all possible; it was the entire reason he’d worked to exclude wide-area spells from his repertoire in the first place!

Cursing himself for not having properly tested Belligerence before using it, Lex instead darted forward, seeing the edge of the fog. He wouldn’t be able to direct any further spells through the quill for the rest of the fight, but that still left him with plenty of other options! Whether by casting his spells normally or using Belligerence as a spear or simply ripping them apart with teeth and claws, Sissel and her sisters were all going to die!

Except when he cleared the fog a second later, Lex saw that he’d been beaten to the punch where Grisela was concerned.

The winter hag was on the ground, twitching as she looked at the bloody hole in her chest, her eyes wide and her jaw working soundlessly. Her head lolling back, she caught Lex’s eye for a moment, reaching out toward him in...desperation? Hate? Fear? He couldn’t tell, nor was there any chance to ask, as the winter hag let out a wet, rattling exhalation and lay still.

Standing above her, Sissel – blood covering one of her hands and the lower half of her face – sighed as she shook her head. “I wish it hadn’t come to this,” she murmured, her equanimity back in place as she looked down at Grisela’s corpse. “This isn’t something Mother will forgive me for.”

Giving Lex a neutral look, she gestured to the dead hag. “It’s not just because the three of us were supposed to bring her Hvitdod’s death curse either” – that earned a frown from Lex, his confusion deepening; death curse? – “or even that it took all three of us to keep the weather unseasonably cold like this. It’s just that she hates it when any of her children are killed.”

She bent down again, and it was only then that Lex saw that her foot was planted on Vidrig’s collarbone, the troll apparently having wandered directly toward her sisters when she’d exited the poison mist. But that apparently brought her no solace now, her armless body kicking and thrashing beneath Sissel’s boot. “But even if it upsets her,” continued the snow giant, bending at the waist and reaching down toward Vidrig’s torso, “I’m not willing to die for Mother’s schemes!”

With that, she plunged her hand into Vidrig’s chest, and the troll’s scream wasn’t able to drown out the sound of ribs breaking. A second later Sissel found what she was looking for, and yanked her arm back out, a beating organ that could only have been Vidrig’s heart clutched in her fingers.

Then she brought it to her lips and bit down.

The creature inside him yowled in anger, having wanted that prize for itself, and that was enough to snap Lex out of his confusion, rattling off a spell as fast as he could. It was obvious now that she hadn’t cast that toxic mist in order to poison him, but because she’d wanted to buy herself enough time to do...whatever she was doing. But if he could interrupt her before she was finished, then it wouldn’t matter!

Three beams of searing heat burst forth from his outstretched claw, but Sissel had already kicked Grisela’s corpse up, grabbing it and using it like a shield. The winter hag didn’t burn easily, protected by whatever wards against fire they’d used before the battle, but with the power Lex had poured into the spell the first ray caused her dead body to shrivel and blacken. The second caused it to fall apart completely, reduced to nothing but ashes. And the third...

Impacted Vidrig this time, Sissel not having hesitated to pick up her other sister and use her for additional cover.

The troll convulsed as the heat cooked her, and then shuddered and went limp as the extreme heat – one of the few things which, by her own admission, could kill her – was more than her wards or her mutilated body could handle.

All of which gave Sissel more than enough time to finish her grisly meal.

“You think you’ve grown stronger just because you have claws and a magic spear?” snorted the snow giant as she swallowed the last of Vidrig’s heart. “That’s nothing compared to the power that Mother has.”

Cursing, Lex summoned Belligerence to his grip, hurling it as soon as he felt its weight in his claw. But Sissel wasn’t dazed this time, and easily avoided Lex’s desperate throw.

“But we’re her children,” Sissel continued. “We have some of her power in us. That’s why the three of us could use magic together that none of us were strong enough to use alone. And concentrating all of it in one place the way I just did unlocks its full potential...”

A glow began to emanate from her chest then, as though her heart had transformed into a miniature sun. Grunting Sissel doubled over, one hand clutching her chest as she grit her teeth, apparently in pain. “And the name...of that power...”

In an instant, the light from her chest brightened, spreading throughout her body as though carried through her veins. It illuminated her from the inside out, and it took Lex a moment to realize what he was seeing, his blood running cold.

“...is...”

The magical channels in her body had become so flooded with magic that they were visible to the naked eye.

“ARISTEIA!”

Author's Note:

With Lex's victory in sight, Sissel turns on her sisters to gain a power-up!

What exactly is aristeia? Will Lex be able to figure it out in time, or will Sissel not give him the chance?

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Hopefully Lex has something othrewise small, innocuous and slow acting that can interact with an overcharged magical source to set up an instability that can be exploited at the right time, preferably when Solvie manages to get out of blast range?

[Alzrius]

11529644 Lex can come up with brilliant strategies in just a few seconds, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he has a method of utilizing them. Of course, the Charismata and his tulpa can help with that, but even then there are limits to what he can do. Of course, given what Sissel's just done to herself, she presumably has a lot more power at her disposal now too, so I doubt she'll let Lex freely utilize whatever scheme he concocts...assuming he can come up with one.

[TheAbsoluteRadiance]

What kind of mother do they have? some kind of minor divinity that they use as a warlock's patron but the mother's having a spellbook don't add up?
Seeing that Sissel's veins are showing I wager that this is some kind of "do or die" ability that will leave her exhausted so he just need to survive until them.

[Alzrius]

11529861 At this point, the identity and true nature of Sissel and the others' Mother (capital M) remains completely unknown. But her having so much power, and a living "backup spellbook" is certainly not helping to decipher things. Of course, that's a mystery for later, since right now Sissel looks to have gotten a major power-up; even if it is temporary (which is equally uncertain), surviving until its duration runs out might be a difficult strategy if she's grown strong enough to overrun any attempts to outlast her.

[Not so New Brony]

Well, this explains why Nenet is essentially a living spellbook , a backup spellbook by Sissel's words if I recall correctly. Still, the fact that their unique traits and abilities were just fragments of a whole implies that this Aristeia is on a whole other level and after a quick googling, I can now tell that it's a 'Hail Mary' move for Sissel though her offing her sisters is also indicative of that as well.

Now I'm worried that even with his power up and Belligerence, Lex will be hard pressed to win, especially if Solvei is unable to retreat from the immediate vicinity.

[Alzrius]

11530429 I confess, the name is a bit of a clue as to what that power can do. That said, it's probably bad news for Lex, even given his personal power-up and Belligerence. Still, he's come through tight spots before, though not knowing precisely what Sissel can do now is something of a setback. If knowledge is power, he's already shown a lot of what he's capable of now, whereas this seems to be Sissel's trump card.

Hopefully Lex has some other plan he can come up with, and fast.