831 - New Lease on Life
Numbness. Paralysis. Pressure.
They engulfed Lex in a crushing grip the instant he opened his eyes.
They weren’t sensations in the normal sense of the word. He couldn’t actually feel anything, but that lack of feeling was so intense that it was smothering, making him recall when Spit Polish had tried to suffocate him in his sleep back in Vanhoover. But this was a thousand times worse, as he couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t seem to breathe, and couldn’t even seem to think as it all weighed down on him in an overwhelming press that threatened to blot out everything else-
And then he managed to change into a shadow, the stifling pressure immediately falling away as though it were one of his nightmares.
The sudden relief was so profound as to be heady, and Lex found himself struggling to order his thoughts, badly jarred by what had happened. If Soft Whisper hadn’t warned me, I wouldn’t have been prepared to transform the instant I came back. The realization left him uneasy, managing to recognize that what he’d just felt had been his newly-restored life immediately slipping away. I’d have died a second time...
Whatever had happened to his body after Hvitdod had poisoned him must have been severe indeed.
As it was, he’d only sidestepped a sudden return to the afterlife, rather than avoided it altogether. His shadow-form was simply his body transmuted into an incorporeal state, leaving his biophysical processes suspended until he changed back. Which meant that the instant he returned to normal, he’d die again...unless something healed his wounds in the meantime.
Fortunately, he had someone who could do that for him.
Solvei. He could sense her, injured and distant, but alive. And with a thought, she was by his side again, groaning as she clutched at a bloody wound in her chest. Hold on.
“Healing.” With a word, the Charismata took effect, and Solvei immediately gasped as her injury closed. Lex had no idea how she’d come to be so badly wounded – the same way he didn’t know how she’d suddenly given him her cryomancy, or who had attacked him after he’d died – but right now it didn’t matter, and he used the Charismata to give her the power to mend injuries. “Now, heal me.”
“Yes, Master.” Rising up on shaky legs, Solvei brushed her fingers against the edge of his umbral form, and Lex felt the curative magic discharge. Sighing in relief, he started to change back-
Only to stop, the edges of his shadowy self suddenly roiling in tension.
Something was wrong. He didn’t know what, but something was still profoundly wrong with his body, and the healing magic Solvei had used hadn’t fixed it. The animal inside of him was snarling in agitation; it knew what life-threatening injuries felt like, and while it had no compunctions about fighting through them, it wasn’t so stupid as to ignore them when there were no enemies around. And right now it was screaming at him that changing back would have been exactly that.
Master, what is it? Solvei’s mental voice reflected the anxiety he felt then, but he didn’t know how to answer her, still trying to understand exactly what was wrong. His use of the Charismata just now had been haphazard, but he’d still been able to give her enough power to turn a mortal wound into one that wasn’t life-threatening. The only way he could still be on the cusp of death was...
His inability to restore Silla’s missing leg flashed through Lex’s mind then, and had he been corporeal he’d have inhaled sharply.
Curative magic could do a great deal, but it couldn’t restore missing body parts. That degree of regeneration required specialized magic all its own, and that wasn’t magic which Lex possessed. Nor was the Charismata any help there; he could grant Solvei considerable power, but that became exponentially harder when he needed to grant her a matching degree of complexity. Maybe if he had sufficient strength left to push the Charismata to the limit of what his new body could stand, he’d have been able to imbue her with the power to restore missing limbs and organs, but not now.
Which meant that whatever it was that he’d lost couldn’t be restored.
His resurrection was only going to last as long as he could remain in shadow-form.
Solvei, tell me what happened after Hvitdod’s poison took effect, he demanded, even as he began looking around. Information, he needed information; the sooner he figured out exactly what had happened to him, the sooner he’d be able to put together a plan for dealing with it.
I don’t know, she answered hesitantly. You were dying, and I was trying to figure out what to do because the healing didn’t work, and then I was there with you on the Astral Plane. Master...what’s going on? I can feel that you’re upset.
Giving her a curt summary of what he’d deduced, Lex continued to scan the area. For some reason they were back at the bottom of the chasm; he could still see Hvitdod’s bones – those of the original dragon, rather than the echo he’d fought – a short distance away. How had he gotten back down here?
You’re dying again?! yelped Solvei when he’d finished explaining the situation to her.
We both are, since my death was apparently the catalyst for your own, replied Lex grimly. He hadn’t expected that Solvei’s life would end if his own did. At the worst he’d thought she’d have a reaction similar to what had happened to him. He hadn’t ventured to guess how their connection would have functioned while he was dead and she was still alive – he doubted he’d have been tethered to her side the way she’d been to his after her own death – but he felt confident it would have persisted somehow.
Instead, her life had ended along with his.
Lex had long since embraced the idea that being a ruler meant that the lives of others were dependent on him. But he’d never expected it to be so literal.
Solvei cringed. I think that’s because of the Night Mare.
Her comment earned his undivided attention. What?
Her discomfort registered loud and clear across their link. I might have upset her a little bit...
Then it was her turn to explain things, telling him about the impromptu ceremony she’d held in response to his fight with Hvitdod taking a turn for the worse. Her stabbing herself, the Night Mare’s intervention, the revelation that she was holding back, being able to grant him the power to use the ice magic she’d gained from their connection...and the goddess’s anger at having her sacraments profaned. I think that’s why I died when you did, Master. I don’t know for sure, but since the relationship between the strong and the weak is a core part of her religion...
She trailed off as a new outpouring of emotions from Lex flowed into her then, and she staggered under the weight of them. Fury. Gratitude. Horror. Amazement. And guilt...so much guilt. Master?
For his part, Lex had to again struggle to keep himself together, knowing that it was Kara’s damnable blessing that had nearly driven Solvei to the point of suicide. But he couldn’t bring himself to deal with that now...not when this latest in the unending series of catastrophes that was his life now had to be dealt with!
I’m heading to the top of the chasm. Once I’m there, I’ll summon you back.
Alright...
He registered her worry, and although their bond didn’t tell him anything about what prompted her feelings, he was aware that his reaction was the cause. After all, he knew how she felt about him – he’d sensed it more than once now through their connection – and he had no doubt that it was Kara’s loathsome meddling that was responsible for making her so devoted.
But as much as he hated mental tampering on principle, he hated himself far more for the fact that he couldn’t seem to bring him to care that much. Or at least, not as much as he knew he should have. By the strict structure of his moral code, he should have informed Solvei about Kara’s influence as soon as Sanguine Disposition told him about it, and done everything possible to undo – or barring that, ameliorate – it.
Instead, he’d kept quiet, burying himself in other projects and crises, quieting his conscience with justifications. That there were too many other, more pressing concerns to merit bringing it up now. That their lack of a romantic relationship made her feelings moot. That the intimate nature of their bond made such emotions fait accompli. All perfectly sound reasons to wait to tell her.
All pathetic excuses.
Solvei hadn’t been concerned with what would happen to her if he died. She had been concerned for him. She had very nearly killed herself, and drawn censure from the Night Mare, for him.
She had died for him.
Again.
And by refusing to tell her the truth about why she felt the way she did about him, all he’d done was prove himself unworthy of those feelings, despite knowing that he had no choice but to accept them. He couldn’t remove a god’s blessing, not when that represented a direct alteration to reality itself. Instead, he’d quietly reaped the benefits of Solvei’s feelings, even as he’d refused to take responsibility for them.
Lex continued his quiet castigation as he rose through the air, until at last the top of the chasm came in sight. Still cursing himself, he rose above the lip of the stone walls-
And caused Nenet to shriek in fear, stumbling back from the edge.
The sight of her gave Lex pause, having forgotten about the ugly little sphinx.
The fact that she was out of her cage was a bad sign. His black crystals lasted for a full hour before disintegrating, and after imprisoning her in the aftermath of his battle with Sissel, it hadn’t taken nearly that long to find Hvitdod’s lair. And yet here she was now, free.
How much time had passed between his death and revival?
“What were you doing?” demanded Lex, backing up the question with one of his few remaining applications of the Charismata. “Answer truthfully.”
Nenet shivered, either from the cold or from being once again his prisoner, but she couldn’t stop herself from speaking. “The other adlets told me to come see what happened to Yotimo and Akna when they saw my cage disappear.”
Yotimo? Glancing past the sphinx, Lex cursed as he saw a prone figure in the distance, able to make out the sight of a blood pool around their head. With a thought, he summoned Solvei back, immediately sending her to go help the injured adlet.
He, however, remained focused on Nenet. “Do you know what happened to Yotimo? Or who injured me after my fight with Hvitdod?”
Nenet visibly struggled against the questions, for all the good it did her. “Yes...it was Paska...”
That was enough to make Lex’s eyes – the only visible part of him that was visible in his shadow-form – widen. Paska had survived? “Expound on that.”
Looking like she was going to throw up, Nenet whimpered. “M-Mother’s back. I heard her voice in my head a little while ago. She said that she would come and get me later, but that right now she only had enough magic to bring back one of us...and that Paska had already c-c-cut the s-spine out of the one Hvitdod cursed-, EEP!”
Her stuttering reply terminated in a shriek as Lex’s eyes glowed so brightly that his vertical pupils momentarily vanished, but the Charismata gave her no choice but to keep speaking. “...so she was going to bring him back, because the dragon’s curse was the last component she needed for what she’s making. That means he must have b-been the one to knock Yotimo out, since there wasn’t anyone else there.”
She closed her eyes as she finished, sinking down onto her belly as her trembling grew worse, but Lex was barely listening at that point, enraged at what he’d just been told. His spine?! That one-eyed creature that disguised itself as a human, the monster that had cursed Thermal Draft, had cut out his spine?! He’d been aware that someone had mangled his body after dying, but the utter indignity of one of his enemies mutilating him so badly stung Lex’s pride worse than he’d expected.
But now that he knew what had happened, perhaps – just perhaps – there was some way of fixing things. Lex had no idea if an attack on his enemies’ base of operations would yield any sort of regenerative magic, but even if it didn’t, retaking his stolen vertebrae would at least put him closer to that goal. He might not have known the specifics involved with that branch of spellwork, but common sense suggested that it was easier to reattach an existing body part than it was to regrow one from scratch.
Except that, according to what Nenet had said, the one that she, Sissel, Paska, and the rest of their siblings all called “Mother” was now there.
The one whom Sissel had credited with being the source of her aristeia.
Which meant that she was almost certainly powerful on the same scale as Hvitdod. Perhaps even stronger. And while Nenet made it sound like her mother was at some sort of magical ebb, she was also apparently using his spine – as a vessel for the curse Hvitdod had put on him, which had increased his sensitivity to cold, making the dragon’s blood-freezing poison that much more potent – in some sort of undertaking. Lex had no idea what that could be, but at the moment it was unimportant; what mattered is that it would likely be next to impossible to retrieve his bones and figure out how to replace them in his body without confronting her.
And neither he nor Solvei were up for another fight right now.
As it was, he doubted he’d even be able to finish interrogating Nenet regarding her mother’s strengths and weaknesses; each use of the Charismata only lasted for sixty seconds, and he was nearing the limit of how many times he could employ the Night Mare’s blessing in a given day. But waiting wasn’t an option either; not when his remaining dark magic was slowly depleting with every passing second.
Weighing those restrictions in his mind, Lex looked at where Solvei was helping Yotimo slowly sit up, the older adlet groaning as his eyes fluttered open. Gingerly, he touched his head, wincing as his fingers brushed his skull. Solvei gently pulled his hand away, and he muttered something that caused a faint smirk to pass her lips as she shook her head.
Not long ago, the sight would have made him jealous. Now it only reminded him of how much he owed her, how poorly he’d treated her, and how her life had become inextricably bound to his own in every way imaginable.
Which meant that he had to live. For her sake, as well as Thermal Draft’s, and everyone back on Equestria who was depending on him, he had to find a way to triumph over this latest seemingly-impossible task.
Even if it meant losing another piece of himself.
“Nenet, look at me.”
The Charismata made her obey, only moments before Lex felt the divine power fade, its sixty-second duration surpassed. But he didn’t bother renewing it. What happened next would be her choice.
“Do you want to form a bond with me?”
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Lex has been in situations where he was handicapped in one form or another though this one is more grievous as it deprives him of the strength that merging with the aurumvorax had granted him. Of course, his magic is still intact but given how much he had spent on the fight with Sissel and then Hvitdod, his options are even more limited.
Though with the knowledge from Solvei/Akna that those that form soul bonds become empowered in one way or another, I can see why he's asking Nenet. If Akna could grant him innate knowledge and control over cryomancy, then Nenet's knowledge of spells would prove to be quite beneficial to Lex though this depends on whether or not Nenet accepts his offer.
Also, congrats on making the Featured Box again. Even took a snapshot to commemorate the event...now if only the add image feature wasn't on the fritz
Pity the regenrative ability of the aurumvox, Solveis heal and Charismata cant Adapt an item of equivalence for replacement. Like grafting a living stump of a tree limb onto the living stump of a person limb, or replace the missing bone of a spine with the available piece f bone of dragon?
Wonder if Sphinx is actual functional immortal and only Mothers poweres have kept it crippled, and if the Wings will transfer over?
11590221 Lex is indeed working under yet another constraint; though given that he now has Solvei's ice magic, he's not completely helpless. Still, that's a far cry from anywhere close to his full power, and given that Nenet's mysterious mother seems likely to be an enemy comparable to Hvitdod, he's presuming that he's nowhere close to being able to mount any kind of offense against her in his current condition. In that regard, taking Nenet as another soul-bound servant will likely give him a boost, though what sort remains to be seen...and, as you noted, that's only if she says yes. Pity he threw Nisha away, since in hindsight she might have been even more useful than he'd previously thought.
And I missed it?! Darn! If you still have that picture, please try and upload it again!
11590437 Well, the aurumvorax doesn't regenerate per se; it's incredibly tough, but its healing factor isn't anything to write home about. And using Hvitdod's bones to deal with Lex's missing spine would be rather tough, given how the dragon is the size of a mountain. Still, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's nothing which can be done with an ancient dragon's skeleton, right?
11591542
i.postimg.cc/ZqHwpLjr/Screenshot-2023-05-22-133715.png
Had to jump through some hoops but here you go.
11592183 Woo hoo!!! Thank you!
