821 - Between Frozen Rocks and a Cold Place
This time, when Hvitdod inhaled, the dragon made no effort to close the distance between them.
The beast inside of Lex yowled at that, pleased at how their enemy was exercising caution, something it associated with weakness. But despite the instinctual thrill he felt, Lex couldn’t bring himself to share his inner monster’s joy.
He’d been hoping that a serious injury would leave Hvitdod so blinded by rage that it would abandon all pretense of strategy, leaving itself open to mistakes that could be exploited. Instead, the opposite had happened; apparently recognizing a legitimate threat to itself, Hvitdod was no longer willing to leave itself vulnerable by going on a wild rampage.
In other words, Lex knew, it was now going to take their battle seriously.
That it was hanging back was the most obvious example of that. Lex had no idea if the damage from the bombs he’d exploded inside of Hvitdod’s gullet was healing or not – Vidrig hadn’t been able to regenerate from wounds caused by fire, after all – but the fact that the dragon had recovered after only a few seconds of falling through the air suggested that he hadn’t overcome its unnatural powers of recovery. Presuming that was correct, it was keeping away from him so as to give itself as much time as possible to recover.
Which means it’s going to release its breath weapon omnidirectionally again. Of that, Lex felt sure. It knows that I’ll need to fall back outside of its range, giving it more time to recover-
Then Hvitdod breathed out, not in an expanding sphere of inescapable cold, but in a narrow beam of tightly-compacted algidity that caught Lex completely by surprise.
It was only because of his astral construct’s inexplicable cognizance that the glowing blue ray – its shape completely different from the wide-angled cone it had breathed at first, or the expanding sphere it had subsequently made use of – didn’t score a direct hit, with his creation showing no hesitation as it dove off the edge of the abyss to avoid being struck, immediately turning into shadow as it fell.
Hvitdod was already correcting for having missed, still breathing out as it turned its head, bringing the glowing beam of cold around. But his astral construct was already moving, circling around the blue band of freezing death, avoiding it by scant inches as the ray struck the sides of the chasm, coating them in glittering ice.
“Retreat back into the ground!” snarled Lex. Falling back now would only give Hvitdod more time to recover, but trying to assault it head-on while simultaneously dodging like this was too risky. “Then circle around so we can attack from a different angle!”
Thankfully, his creation didn’t see fit to second-guess his orders this time. “Acknowledged.”
Immediately, it reversed course, looping over the frost ray and circling back the way it had come before turning abruptly and racing toward the ice-covered face of the yawning abyss-
Only to collide with it and bounce off.
Lex had just enough time to comprehend that he’d made a serious mistake, that he should have realized that if Hvitdod’s breath weapon could freeze his constructs even when they were incorporeal, then the frozen residue such attacks left behind would act like an impenetrable barrier, even when he had turned to shadow. And that the sweeping motions with its breath had completely coated the side of the chasm all around him, preventing him from fleeing into the ground the way he had barely a minute ago.
It wasn’t just trying to hit me! It was sealing off my escape route!
Then Hvitdod’s breath weapon washed over him.
“Look out!” screamed Nenet.
The sphinx’s terrified yell made Solvei curse, whipping her head back around from where she’d been glancing back in Lex’s direction just in time to see another rocky outcropping ahead of them. It took only a thought for her serac to adjust its course, avoiding the obstacle as the ice sheets carrying the others behind her did the same.
“That’s the fourth time we’ve almost hit something!” wailed Nenet, shivering in her cage. “Please, at least slow down!”
“NO!” Solvei’s response came out in a snarl, clutching Nenet’s cage tighter against her chest. “Master’s back there fighting so that we can all escape! The slower we go, the longer he has to face Hvitdod by himself!”
“Then at least watch where you’re going!” begged Nenet with a whimper. “You’ll have a harder time getting everyone out of here if you crash!”
“We could all get out of here faster if the rest of my tribe could take to the wind!” Lifting Nenet’s cage higher, Solvei glared at the tiny creature within. “What did Sissel and the others do to them? Why can’t they transform?”
Inside the bars of black crystal, Nenet cringed. “It...it was a curse.”
Solvei almost crashed her serac again. “A curse?! Like what Master uses?!”
“Huh? I...don’t know?” answered the sphinx uncertainly. “There’s a spell that can be used to curse someone. I know it, and Sissel told me to teach it to her. The effects can be whatever you want, so long as it’s within the spell’s power, and she cast it on each of them to keep them from fleeing.”
For a moment Solvei couldn’t answer, her thoughts whirling. Yotimo hadn’t said anything about being cursed...but it was just as likely that he didn’t know. As the leader of the troop, he wouldn’t try to flee without being sure that everyone else could get away, and between what Grisela had done to him and the confusion spell he’d been placed under when their captors had split into two groups, it was likely that he hadn’t been aware. It wasn’t as though there was any visible mark of Sissel’s magic.
The same way there wasn’t when Master cursed Toklo to stop him from fleeing after he was captured, she noted grimly.
Pushing that thought away, Solvei glanced back at the pint-sized sphinx. “How do we remove it?”
“Y-you need to cast the counterspell,” murmured Nenet, before tentatively adding, “I know it.”
The admission made Solvei want to scream. “How else can you remove it?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I mean, what other ways are there of removing a curse?!” Lifting Nenet’s cage, Solvei gave it a sharp shake. “I’m not a spellcaster, and you said you can’t use the magic that you know, so what other options do we have?!”
The rough treatment made Nenet curl into a ball, whimpering. “Th-there’s another spell, a more complicated one, that removes all sorts of afflictions, including curses-”
Solvei shook the cage again, harder this time. “What else besides a spell is there?!”
“I...I don’t know!” wailed Nenet.
“LIAR!” Holding the cage outward, Solvei let it bang against the rocky terrain, sending it rocking wildly to and fro. “You’re part of Sissel’s twisted little family, aren’t you?! I know you know something else!”
“I don’t!” shrieked Nenet, curling up tighter, though that did little to keep her from bouncing around inside the cage as it crashed against the landscape. “I swear, I don’t! Please, pull me back in!”
“Akna!” From behind her, Solvei heard Yotimo’s voice. “What are you doing?!”
She ignored him, instead raising Nenet’s cage up and slamming it down onto the ground, causing the sphinx to scream in terror. “If you don’t give me a better answer right now, I’m going to leave you here! You’ll either starve to death in that cage, or be an appetizer for some monster that comes along and finds you!”
But when Nenet’s reply came, it wasn’t what she’d expected.
“H-he t-told you to take c-care of me!”
Solvei’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“Lex! Your m-master!” moaned Nenet. “He told y-you to take c-care of me!”
The words sent a sick feeling through Solvei. What was she doing? It had only been a short while ago that Lex had lectured her about not mistreating Nenet for what her siblings had done, and an even shorter time since he’d explicitly ordered her to take Nenet away from danger as well.
Leaving her master behind had felt like someone had torn her heart from her chest, and the only way she’d been able to console herself was to silently vow that she’d live up to the expectations he had for her, including completing the task she’d been given to figure out how to let the rest of her tribe take to the wind.
And right now she was letting him down twice over.
Bringing Nenet’s cage back to her chest, Solvei couldn’t bring herself to look at the sphinx inside it, still curled up and shaking like a leaf. “I’m sorry...”
The only reply she received was the soft sound of weeping.
Wincing inwardly, Solvei let out a slow breath before trying again. “Nenet, I’m sorry. You were right; my master wanted me to get you to safety, the same as everyone else. I shouldn’t have...have acted like that, just now.”
Again there was no response, but the sphinx’s crying had trailed off now, turning into sniffles and labored breathing.
Knowing that everyone behind her could hear what she was saying, Solvei forced herself to keep speaking. “The truth is, I’m scared. Right now, Lex is facing the worst enemy I can imagine, short of Ikumak-Amaguk – Vutok the Destroyer – himself. And after how far he pushed himself and how badly he was hurt fighting Sissel...”
Nenet’s sniffling had stopped by now, her breathing slowing to a steadier pace.
“Even if this is all I can do, I can’t fail him. Not again. Which is why I need to get everyone out of here as quickly as possible. But that means helping the rest of my tribe take to the wind, and they can’t do that while they’re under this curse. So please, Nenet...is there any other way – any way at all, no matter how wild or outlandish – to get rid of a curse besides that counterspell?”
No answer came, and Solvei couldn’t help but fold her ears back as the silence stretched on. But just when she’d given up hope for an answer, Nenet’s voice – shaky and uncertain – floated up to her. “Curses...not just the kind used in a spell, but any curse that actually works...all have to be maintained. Usually by a planar entity of some kind.”
Solvei’s ears perked up. “You mean like those venedaemons?”
“I don’t think so. The spell basically asks for a planar creature to donate some energy to making your curse work, in exchange for nothing but the satisfaction of hurting someone. Venedaemons only care about taking souls and acquiring more magic.”
Frowning, Solvei wracked her brain for any way she could put what Nenet was telling her to use. “Okay...so what’s maintaining the curse on everyone here?”
“I don’t know,” answered Nenet, her voice thick with anxiety, clearly expecting to be punished for her answer. “The spell doesn’t doesn’t really care who answers or why, and doesn’t have any sort of way to track down or communicate with whatever’s maintaining it. Features like that would only make it harder to cast.”
“But there’s got to be some way of making them quit,” pressed Solvei. “Are they listening right now? Could they hear me if I offered to bargain with them?”
“I don’t think so,” murmured Nenet. “I mean, if they have the means to then I suppose they could, but the spell doesn’t build anything like that in. It’s like asking someone for money; once they give you some coins, they don’t automatically find out how you spend them unless they go to the effort of following you around.”
Solvei didn’t know what “money” or “coins” were, but she still understood the point that Nenet was making. “So there’s no way to make them quit?” She couldn’t keep the desperation out of her voice, grimacing in discouragement. “No way to disrupt whatever it is they’re doing to maintain the curse?”
“The counterspell is supposed to break the link that the curse spell establishes,” replied Nenet after a few moments of consideration. Solvei idly noted that she sounded calmer now, her voice level and somewhat louder. “Other than that...the only thing I could think of would be if you asked some other planar creature to run interference for you. But they’d have to be able to figure out what was doing it, and be strong enough to force them to stop. Something like a genie or an angel or even a god.”
Solvei almost groaned, but then caught herself.
A god...
When she’d just been Akna, she’d received some basic instruction in the Night Mare’s worship from the Keeper when she’d first gone to the Shrine of the Starless Sky. But that had only been a brief introduction to the goddess and her faith.
In the aftermath of her adventure through Darkest Night with Lex, however, her master had undertaken several ceremonies in the Night Mare’s name. She hadn’t been present for the first one, where he’d asked the goddess to revive Woodheart and put Drafty into an enchanted sleep, but she’d been there for all of the others he’d held, taking part in the sacred rites that he’d practiced to help create Belligerence.
In fact, once she’d finished teaching him the runes that her tribe had used to enchant their weapons, there’d been little for her to do except study those rites, wanting to be as useful as she could.
Slowly, Solvei brought the convey of seracs to a halt.
From behind her, she heard the others – still trussed up in their bindings, since there’d been no time to free them – shifting nervously. Nor were they alone in their anxiety. “Why are we stopping?” came Yotimo’s gruff voice. “We’re still too close to Hvitdod’s lair!”
Solvei didn’t answer immediately, still clutching Nenet’s cage to her chest as she glanced back at the other adlets.
The canyon they were in now was a far cry from the Shrine of the Starless Sky. It wasn’t consecrated ground. There were no sacred relics or holy items. There wasn’t anything remotely like the Confluence. And she was the only worshiper of the Night Mare here.
But that last part, at least, was something she could do something about.
Licking her lips, taking a moment to remind herself that she had already changed in ways that made going back to her tribe impossible, Solvei – or rather, Akna – turned and looked at her fellows.
“I want you all to pray with me...”
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Well, that's one way to convert others to one's religion. A baptism by fire of sorts...or ice if Hvitdod's attacks reach them by mistake. Though the question is if the Night Mare will even listen to them. Then again, if it works, then the adlets will be endeared into worshipping the Night Mare or at the very least tolerate it.
Regardless, it will take time, something that is in short supply for Lex as well as Solvei and the adlets.
Lettuce Prey?
My Cabbages.
Okay, now that is nasty when a magical attack has a prolonged self sustaining AOE post action. I have no ides what level that would be, then again even Goodberry can be a cantrip yet remain for 24 hours.
Would be an intresting way of surviving a contact with short range bridging splash effect spell, abuse Create Food and Drink, and put a giant pie crust around yourself.
SUPRISE.
11564203 Point of fact: goodberry is a 1st-level spell in D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder 1E, to say nothing of Pathfinder 2E and D&D 5E.
That said, yeah, Lex overlooked a critical detail here, namely that Hvitdod has been altering the properties of the local environment so as to keep him from using the ground as cover. Unfortunately, he figured that out just a touch too late. Hopefully he has some other trick to play, otherwise this could turn out very, very badly for him.
But at least Solvei is doing her part to wrap up things on her end. If it works (which is a significant "if"), maybe she'll send everyone away and then rush back to help? Of course, Lex told her not to do that, but somehow it's hard to see her standing by after getting everyone else to safety.
11564186 It's somewhat ironic that Akna wanted to convert the rest of her people to the Night Mare's worship, but wasn't quite sure how to go about it, hence why she wanted to retrieve Breakdown. Now, there's a very good reason for them to make a sudden conversion...if she can get them to agree to it. Presumably if she can, the goddess would respond favorably, but then again (as she herself noted), that's not exactly a locale that's designed to catch the Night Mare's attention.
Hopefully things will work out, but right now the odds look very much against Lex and Solvei both.
11564600
Its just that I thought I saw something many years ago that there was some character class, ability, feat combo that let you take 1st level spells as Cantrips, or zeroth level, but cant remember what the limitations were on per day etc. Just that I think I was playing a wizard with a combat weasel/ferret familiar and trying to use remote touch Break with it?
11564638 I suspect that you're referring to the idea that, in Pathfinder 1E, you could use a combination of the Metamagic Master (also known as Wayang Spellhunter) and the Magical Lineage to drop a spell below its original level, i.e. each lowers that spell's level by -1 when you apply metamagic to it, so if you choose a metamagic effect that only bumps the level up by +1, such as Intensify Spell, you end up with a net -1 result, turning a 1st-level spell into a level 0 spell, which is basically a cantrip, and cantrips can be cast at-will. (Shocking grasp was a favorite here, if this combination was used for magus characters, typically used in combination with their spell combat and spellstrike class features.)
Of course, that build was always based around an exploit in the rules, i.e. that those two traits forgot to include a clause about how they can't lower a spell below its original level. Naturally, the designers offered errata to that effect later, which resulted in everyone quietly leaving this build behind.
Hey, finally caught up with this.
Yeah, this'll either convert them like she wanted or just guarantee they pull a Vault 13 on her when it's all over.
11565116 Glad that you're still finding the story worthwhile!
As for Solvei's/Akna's attempts to convert the other adlets, yeah, this is either going to push them into accepting the religious conversion that she's springing on them, or mark her as a heretic. I suppose we'll find out which one in the next few chapters.