81 - A Tenser Transformation
As he finished reading the spell-scroll, Lex’s consciousness suddenly came back into focus, and he immediately took stock of his situation.
The trident was swinging down in a lethal arc. The unarmed fish-creature was rocketing towards him, one limb already pulled back in preparation to strike. The spellcasting thing was diving at him, its sibilant voice already chanting. Death was approaching him from three different directions, only seconds away.
He really couldn’t help the vicious grin that crossed his face. This was going to be fun.
As the sahuagin stabbed downward, Lex kicked out with a hind leg, his hoof catching the trident just below where its head split into three. Already committed to its lunge, the sahuagin couldn’t regain control of its strike, thrown off-balance as Lex redirected the force of its attack, pushing it up and over him…directly into the charge of its unarmed ally. Although the pudgy fish-thing’s expression didn’t change, its surprise was telegraphed by how it stumbled and only barely managed to throw itself into a clumsy jump to avoid the unexpected danger, twisting its body parallel to the floor and passing over the points of the trident by mere inches.
As it did, Lex twisted his body into a crouch, putting his hooves under him before heaving upwards in a leap of his own. Both the sahuagin and the pudgy creature realized what was about to happen, and lashed out in an attempt to stop it, the former with one of its lower claws and the latter with a punch. But Lex ignored both, knowing that neither was positioned correctly to put any power into their blows, and the attacks bounced off of his now-toughened hide harmlessly. A moment later, he reached the apex of his leap and thrust his head upward, letting his horn pierce the torso of the fish-thing as it passed over him. The blood that rained down over his head was cold and oily, but Lex paid it no mind. Instead, he twisted his head to the side sharply, flinging the disgusting creature directly towards the descending spellcaster, causing the two to collide in mid-air and go tumbling to the ground in a heap.
Landing on his back legs, Lex stayed upright as he turned his attention back to the sahuagin, which had just managed to regain its footing. “Poh-nee!” it screamed the word as an insult as it swung its trident wildly, aiming to skewer him again. But Lex was ready, and his right fore-hoof lashed out to knock the thrust wide, before following through with the motion and curling his foreleg around the haft of the enchanted weapon, just behind the head of it, and pulling it against his side, trapping the weapon. The sahuagin gave a single tug on the trident to try and retrieve it, but this served only to pull Lex closer to him.
The creature roared in outrage, swinging its free claws, but they raked over Lex’s flesh harmlessly, his augmented defenses ablating the damage. It tried to lean in to bite at him, but Lex brandished his horn like a dagger, forcing it to abort its course of action lest it be stabbed in the face. Finally, Lex lashed out with a blow of his own, using it to push the two of them apart even as he heaved backwards, wrenching the trident out of the sahuagin’s grasp as they stumbled away from each other.
Lex couldn’t contain his smirk as they separated, a heady sensation rushing through him. That spell was incredible! Its design was a thing of elegance, achieving multiple simultaneous effects all based off of the skillful implementation of an exceedingly simple design. The artfulness of it was enough to earn Lex’s honest admiration for whoever had invented it; they had to have been a wizard – obviously a pony – of extraordinary brilliance.
All living creatures had natural magical channels throughout their bodies; Lex had determined that as a colt, when he had decided that using such channels as a conduit to cast spells was insufficient for what he wanted to achieve. Although he largely ignored his own body’s natural channels in favor of the thought-based spellcasting that he’d invented, they were still there. And the spell on that scroll leveraged them to a greater degree than he’d ever thought possible…but in a way that he had never thought of.
Whereas most living creatures would use their physicality to leverage magical energy, this spell reversed that process, utilizing magical energy to enhance the caster’s physicality. It flooded the caster’s body with so much energy that it back-flowed into the body, heightening its physical prowess. Strength, reflexes, fortitude, coordination, and so much more; all of it was pushed to incredible heights. The result was that Lex now felt that he could trade blows with his enemies on their own terms and potentially come out victorious.
But for all of the spell’s benefits, it still had its deficiencies, he knew. For one thing, the use of such energy was inherently limited. For all the power in that spell, Lex knew that it would only last for a little over a minute before it expired. And although his wounds were no longer paining him, they hadn’t actually been healed; rather, they simply didn’t hurt as much due to the sudden rush of adrenaline that the spell was artificially inducing. Once it wore off, he’d be back in the sorry state he'd been in, if not worse.
But the most severe side-effect was that, while the spell was active, he was unable to use magic.
It couldn’t be helped. Even though his own style of spellcasting utilized thought-forms rather than physical channeling, there was simply too much energy in his body right now to properly shape and direct a discrete amount of it in the form of a spell. It was severe enough that even interfacing with a magic item would have been nearly impossible; luckily most of the ones he was still wearing were self-contained, and didn’t need any sort of activation beyond being worn. And of course, his permanent enchantments were still active. But all other magic was out of reach for the time being.
But that was fine. He had been running low on attack magic anyway. Now he could safely discard the hit-and-run tactics he’d been using up until now, and instead simply rip his enemies apart without restraint. Somehow, that thought was appealing to him.
Chuckling as much to mock his enemies as to express his delight, Lex spun the weapon in his grasp skillfully, as though he had trained with it all his life. He glanced back at the other two to find that they were already picking themselves up, warily starting to circle him as they tried to come to terms with this new development. Turning his attention back to the sahuagin, Lex couldn’t resist the urge to taunt the thing. “You said something about my not deserving to have ‘maa-jik,’ didn’t you?” he sneered. “Would you prefer that I kill you with your own weapon, then?”
The sahuagin shook with anger, its four claws clenching and unclenching as it glared at Lex, its eyes shining with hate, letting him know that his barbs had hit home. “You dare?!” it howled. “YOU DARE?! I am Lirtkra! The greatest warrior of the Red Water sahuagin tribe! I have killed every enemy that I have ever faced and I WILL KILL YOU TOO!”
“You say that,” sneered Lex, “but here I am, still alive.” He lifted the trident, pointing it directly at Lirtkra, clearly intending to bury it in the sahuagin’s body. “That’s more than you’re going to be able to say in a minute.”
Lirtkra crouched down, baring his teeth as he glared daggers at Lex. “Monitor, Cripple,” he hissed, not bothering to glance at his two companions. “If either of you steal this poh-nee’s death from me, I will eat you right here.” No matter that he had been instructed to kill those two anyway. No matter that this poh-nee had insulted the Holy Ones by using maa-jik. No matter that he was hungry, even. This poh-nee’s existence was now a personal insult, one that could only be resolved with its death!
With a howl, Lirtkra threw himself forward, claws and fangs bared. Swinging the trident around, Lex rushed in to meet him. Behind him, Monitor started to charge as the Cripple began to whisper a spell.
“Okay, so…anypony know what the heck this is?”
Drafty’s question was met with a round of mute shakes of the head as the four ponies gazed at the sight in front of them. Just a few feet ahead was an area of fog, but unlike the misty pathways they’d been navigating for the last few minutes, this one was pitch black in color. It was also holding to a definite shape, forming a wall directly in front of them, and refused to change its shape no matter how much air Cloudbank and Drafty stirred up with their wings.
“It’s probably just for show,” ventured Cloudbank, her voice thick with uncertainty. “Some sort of illusion meant to scare off anypony that’s getting too close.”
“If we’re taking guesses, then I’m calling ‘portal to Tartarus’ as mine,” muttered Aisle with a shiver.
“Somepony’s going to have to go through and see what happens,” said Cozy quietly. She didn’t miss the shudder that went through her friends at her pronouncement; she felt the same way. But when no one spoke up, she let out a nervous breath, starting to step forward even as she silently recited a prayer to Lashtada.
But before she had taken two steps, a hoof was thrust in front of her, barring her way. “Hold on! What do you think you’re doing?” frowned Cloudbank.
“Exactly what I said,” replied Cozy. “We can’t just stand here and wonder what to do. We need to find that shelter, and so somepony needs to go through that…whatever that is, and see if it’s behind there, so I’m stepping up.” Despite herself, Cozy’s words were tinged with relief that somepony had stopped her.
“Well I think that’s a bad idea,” retorted Cloudbank. “You’re the only one who has any magic, so if something happens to you and then somepony gets hurt, you won’t be there to heal them.”
“That’s not-”
“She’s right, Cozy,” interjected Aisle. “The only reason we lasted as long as we did when we were hiding out was because of you. You can’t be the first one to head in there.”
The crystal mare frowned, unhappy with the implication that she was more valuable than everypony else. “So I’m just supposed to sit here while my friends go into danger?”
“No,” replied Drafty, moving next to Cozy and putting a hoof on her back in a friendly gesture. “We’re just supposed to sit here while one of us goes into danger. That was your idea, right? That one of us steps up?”
“Yeah,” sighed Cozy, still uncomfortable. “But that wasn’t supposed to mean ‘one of us, but not me.’”
“We should draw straws,” proposed Aisle. “Just me, Cloudbank, and Drafty. That’s the only fair way to-”
“Nuts to that,” scoffed Cloudbank, turning to face the wall of black mist. “I’m going in!” Without another word, she charged forward and vanished into the misty barrier.
“Cloudy!” yelled Drafty, a look of alarm spreading across her features as she rushed right up to the black fog, stopping just in front of it. “Cloudy! Are you alright?!” Long seconds ticked by as she waited for an answer, but none came. Starting to breathe heavier in worry, Drafty shifted nervously. “Cloudy! Answer me!”
Several more seconds went by, and Drafty could feel panic beginning to set in. She turned back to Aisle and Cozy, both of whom looked as worried as her. “I’m going after her! If we’re not back in two minutes, I want both of you to r-AAAAHH!” Her instructions ended in a shriek as she turned back towards the black wall of fog only to almost collide with Cloudbank as her head poked through the insubstantial barrier, flinging herself back and falling onto her rump in fright.
Blinking, Cloudbank frowned at the sight, emerging in her entirety from the black fog as she went over to were Drafty was sitting. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?! What about you?!” Anger and relief warred on Drafty’s features for a moment, but relief won out. Wrapping a foreleg around her friend’s neck, Drafty squeezed her tight for a moment, causing Cloudbank to smile and return the gesture, before Drafty stepped back. “Why didn’t you answer me when I called after you?”
“I did!” protested Cloudbank. “I heard you, and said that I was alright, but you didn’t seem to hear me. I think that,” she pointed to the wall of black fog, “blocks sight and sound, but only in one direction. I could see and hear you guys just fine on the other side of it.”
“That’s great and all,” spoke up Aisle. “But what was on the other side of it?”
“Oh, right.” Cloudbank gave a triumphant grin. “I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think we’ve found the shelter!”
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60 seconds of melee to change things round is only 10 turns? Still given three oponants means only three, most four actions to total kill each? He needs every hit to crit. Or he has a very good chance of still being there when the scroll runs out and the enemis last actions are still in effect. At that point if he doesnt get crit success for Shadow Walk, he is almost certain dead?
Good thing the dark wall is only passive, possibly? Even so, they took a long while to step back.
8002586 It's actually a little more than sixty seconds; Lex was approximating. In fact, it's sixty-six seconds (i.e. eleven rounds, the minimum for a 6th-level spell with a 1 round/level duration), but that includes that initial exchange where he deflected their attacks, and then wrestled the trident away, so it's a bit less than that now.
And the black wall of mist that the others ran into is what a mage's private sanctum spell looks like from the outside.
Trading use of magic to enhance physical attributes and the skills required to utilize it. Add in Lex's calculative mind, even if it is affected by what seems to be battle lust, Lex might be able to turn things around. That is, provided he can take them all down before the spell wears off or he'll be at his enemies' complete mercy.
So the survivors(probably more appropriate given their circumstances), made it past another ward and into what they assume to be the shelter. Wonder if that's actually the case...
Well, nowadays it's just "Transformation", isn't it?^^°
Wasn't Transformation a level 6 spell though?
8002999
The title was referring to how things were tense, and now they're even more tense, or "tenser." There's no intellectual property infringement here, no sir!
Whoops, so it is! I've edited my previous response to correct for that. Thanks!
8002692 The spell mentions that it causes the caster to relish combat, and Lex seems inclined to enjoy decimating his opposition anyway, so that he's enjoying this isn't that big of a stretch. Plus, as you noted, he's still retained his mental faculties as well, so he's certainly betting that with both of those, he'll be able to turn things around in the time that he has. Because if not, then it's game over.
As for Cloudbank and friends, let's hope that she's right and that they've finally made it there!
Not sure how this works. Assuming that the sahuagin is aiming for Lex's torso, how would his hind leg kicking outward be able to hit it?
The sorry state he had been in? Was implies he still is.
I read this as "Would you then prefer that I kill you with your own weapon?" Or maybe put commas around the "then".
It doesn't usually end well for the opposing party when someone says this.
He seems to have a heavy dose of racism.
Lex is getting crazy.....
8192022
He didn't kick "outward" - as that could be construed as a particular direction - but rather "kicked out." That doesn't say anything about where exactly he was kicking, only that he did.
Fixed.
I thought about it, and decided that moving the "then" to the end of the sentence worked better.
As Big Mac would say, nnnope.
Yeah, Lex is fairly open about being a pony-supremacist.
Crazy awesome, amirite?