Lateral Movement

by Alzrius

840 - Crystal Clear

It had been a very long time since Lex had found himself with nothing to do.

For as far back as he could remember, there had always been some task to occupy his time. Whether it was acquiring new knowledge, performing some line of research, or investigating a fresh way to attack whatever new problem had set itself against him, there had always been something that required his attention.

The last few months had seen the demands on his time skyrocket, as the work of saving Equestria from Celestia and Luna’s mismanagement had been enormous. Whether it was fighting off hordes of monsters or implementing an economic recovery plan, his every waking moment – save only for those few that he’d spent with the mares Kara had manipulated into loving him – had been dedicated to handling the tasks that no one else was capable of managing. It had been difficult, but eminently worthwhile.

And while his current trip to Everglow had been far less personally satisfying – though still incredibly fruitful, given the knowledge and power that he’d gained – it had been no less demanding of him. Beset by enemy after enemy, struggling to survive, much less find a way home, Lex hadn’t lacked for things to occupy his attention. Even during moments of respite, there’d been something to do; whether it was placing spells inside gemstones, journeying to a nearby destination, or making plans for a forthcoming fight, Lex had something to set his mind to.

Not now, though.

Now, there was nothing left to do but wait for Nenet to inform him when she had recovered his spine and gotten outside of her mother’s wards. Until then, he was stuck in his incorporeal form here in the wasteland surrounding Hvitdod’s lair, which left him near-totally at a loss for what to do in the meantime.

Continuing to converse with Nenet telepathically ran the risk of distracting her at a critical moment. Nor could he make a plan for what to do in the event that he’d need to fight Nenet’s mother – given how powerful she was supposed to be, it was entirely possible that she’d have some method of tracing teleportation – since he knew almost nothing about what she was capable of.

He didn’t dare experiment more with what his tulpa was capable of, either; now that he knew it had a limit on how much material it could produce in a given day, he needed to be judicious in what he demanded of it...not that he understood the full extent of what it could do anyway. And with his divine spells still being hours away from replenishing themselves, summoning Nisha again would likewise have to wait.

That left only imbuing more gemstones with spells, except that his meager supply of jewels was stored in his extradimensional pack, which – like the rest of him – was currently transmuted into shadow. Turning back to retrieve it now would accomplish nothing except killing him.

Which left him with only one other option: exploring Hvitdod’s lair.

That was the reason Lex now found himself back at the bottom of the massive chasm that the dragon had dwelt in, combing the snow-covered floor of the rift as he cycled through different visual spectra.

He had no particular expectation of finding anything, nor was he concerned about any further enemies lurking down there. But he told himself it was worth confirming, that taking anything for granted now was unforgivably foolish, particularly after his assumption about Paska’s death had cost him his spine. If he had time to spare, then he could at least make sure nothing else had laired down here.

It was an eminently logical course of action, especially considering how little fighting power he had left.

The thought made him scoff, not bothering to suppress of grunt of disdain.

Once, his tulpa would have mocked such a blatantly transparent excuse. But it no longer did that, nor did he need it to, being able to admit to his real purpose for being down here:

Avoiding Solvei.

Unlike Nenet, he could still sense her location, having settled near the other adlets near the edge of the abyss. Also like Nenet, he could sense her emotions, and knew that – whereas the sphinx was experiencing a chaotic rush of feelings as she carried out her mission – Solvei was hurt and angry, almost certainly because of their last fight. Most of all, he knew that if he didn’t find something else to occupy his time, he’d need to confront her about what had happened, and that wasn’t something he wanted to deal with right now.

As sick as he was of fighting with her – it seemed like that was all he’d done recently – it was still better than having to tell her the truth about why she loved him. He still had an obligation to reveal that to her, of course...but that could wait-, no, that had to wait until their situation was secure, and despite how remote the possibility was, it was still feasible that there was something down here-

Lex paused as he caught sight of something in the magical spectrum.

That shouldn’t have been the case. While he’d made use of a great deal of magic during his fight against Hvitdod – or rather, Hvitdod’s facsimile, according to what Soft Whisper had told him – all of his spells had since expired. Even the ice elementals that he’d summoned with Solvei’s cryomancy had all been destroyed when the dragon had exploded. And while elapsed spells left behind lingering auras, those echoes were quick to fade beyond detectability, at least without far more precise methods of examination.

And yet there was an aura of magic visible now, one that radiated the same sort of cold-based magic that Solvei – and himself, now – were capable of using.

Even stranger, it was coming from near where the bones of the original Hvitdod were scattered.

That was also anomalous. Lex had examined those bones in every form of vision he could think of, including magically, and found nothing. But other than the fact that the false Hvitdod’s explosion had knocked the fossils of the original askew, nothing should have changed now.

But the intact aura he was looking at suggested otherwise.

For a moment, Lex hung back, considering his options...only to conclude that he had none except to investigate what was going on. This wasn’t a situation that could be ignored, nor did he want to involve Solvei. He’d refused to send her with Nenet because doing so would put her in undue danger; that was just as true for this as it was for that.

Slowly, he floated forward, ready to retreat if there was any sign of danger. While he was almost completely helpless in his current state, he still had access to a bottomless reservoir of ice magic, even if he could only use minor effects in his injured condition. Likewise, he had Nenet’s countermagic as well; while it required him to sacrifice a prepared spell from his mental repertoire of thaumaturgical spells, it would allow him to potentially dismiss – or even take control of – an enchantment of similar or lesser power.

Those weren’t much, but at least he’d be able to defend himself if he had to.

Except, Lex saw as he moved closer to the spell aura, his caution was unfounded.

The source of the spell aura was a gemstone.

Frowning at the tiny diamond, Lex tentatively lifted it in his telekinesis, examining it with a critical eye. The jewel itself was unremarkable, being a marble-sized gemstone that was entirely lacking in polish or any sort of deliberate crafting. It was only notable because of the spell aura it exuded...and even that was odd. It hadn’t been infused with magical channels of its own, nor had it simply been covered with a false aura. It was almost like...

It’s holding a spell, he realized, shocked.

This was his technique for using gemstones as containers for what were essentially precast spells. Except he hadn’t imbued this gemstone; he’d never even seen it before now. And yet, examining it closer, he could see that it held a spell for summoning an ice elemental. A single, weak ice elemental...and yet it was undoubtedly the same cryomantic conjuration he’d used fighting Hvitdod.

What was going on?

Putting the spell-imbued crystal down, Lex took a moment to confirm the immediate area. This close to the epicenter of the explosion, the ice and snow covering the ground had been cleared away, and the scattered bones of Hvitdod were spread out along the blast zone. The ground itself was nothing more than the same unworked stone as the rest of the hinterlands, except...

Except for a small figure in the ground, barely large enough for a pony to squeeze through.

And lodged near the edge of the crevice was another small diamond...with a spell aura identical to the one he’d just examined.

It took Lex only a moment to confirm that the fissure was between the diamond he’d found and where the explosion had happened. Had the blast dislodged the gem from that crack in the ground? If so, it didn’t explain why there were two such gems with what could only be – for lack of a better term – remnants of the summoning spell he’d used while fighting Hvitdod.

Slowly, Lex made his way toward the fissure, examining it for several moments. But it wasn’t a straight passage downward, and his magical vision could only permeate solid objects so far.

Making a quick decision, Lex slowly floated down into the ground.

It took a few minutes for him to reach the bottom of the opening, and he passed by several more diamonds as he did. Several were imbued with minor copies of his summons, but as he went deeper, the imbued auras changed. It took Lex only a moment to confirm that, rather than summoning ice elementals, they now contained a stronger spell...

One to change the weather to wintry conditions.

His eyes narrowing as he started to see a pattern, Lex continued following the fissure downward, until at least he reached the terminus.

Had he still been in a physical body, he would have gasped.

The opening had widened, turning into a cavern slightly larger than a house. But what the cave lacked in size, it more than made up for in splendor.

The walls, ground, and ceiling – the latter being pockmarked with more fissures, extending upward over what must have been the entire bottom of Hvitdod’s lair – were all riddled with diamonds.

But the discovery of the vein of diamonds was far less notable than what was at the center of the cave.

Stretched between a stalagmite and a stalactite was a long, thin crystal.

Scalenohedral in shape, it was slightly over a foot in length. Unlike the diamonds studding the rest of the cave, its facets were smooth and well-defined. More than that, it was faintly luminous, and Lex could see a network of...what almost looked like pathways inside of it that were shining softly, as though it had an inner flaw that possessed its own radiance.

Frowning inwardly, he floated closer to the unusual crystal, only to stop as he caught a glimpse of some debris near the stalagmite that formed its base. A small piece of an icy wing, a fragment of a frozen claw, and a few similar chunks made it clear that he was seeing leftover fragments of his elementals, apparently having fallen down here in the aftermath of the explosion up above.

And now there were diamonds imbued with spells to summon those same kinds of elementals.

Intrigued, Lex moved closer to the central crystal, examining it in the magical spectrum.

It took only a few minutes to determine that the glowing markings inside of it weren’t so much pathways as they were magical channels, thin but potent enough that they were actually visible to the naked eye...something which reminded him uncomfortably of how Sissel had looked after using aristeia. Except even as Lex watched, these pulsed and dimmed slightly, as though fading out.

Long moments passed as Lex continued to study the gemstone, before he elected to try an experiment. Picking up one of the fragments of the elementals that he’d summoned, Lex moved it toward the central crystal-

Only for his telekinetic aura to wink out as it touched the facet, dropping the icy wing fragment to the ground, shattering.

But Lex didn’t even notice the item’s destruction, watching in utter fascination as his telekinesis was pulled into the crystal. The magic flowed inward, moving through the inner pathways of the gem like water through a riverbed. But it didn’t stay in the gem; even as he watched, it flowed upward, through the stalactite and...into a diamond embedded in the cavern’s ceiling.

Floating upward, Lex looked at the unworked diamond.

Sure enough, it now held a small telekinesis spell, just waiting to be used by anyone who knew enough to activate the magic’s release.

His mind whirling, Lex turned back to study the central gem, albeit from a safe distance so that it had no chance to absorb the dark magic that was keeping him in shadow-form.

Directly above them was Hvitdod’s lair, connected here by numerous small fissures. As a magical creature, one overflowing with intrinsic cold beyond even that of similar creatures suc as adlets and winter wolves. And here was a crystal that somehow absorbed whatever magic it came into contact with and channeled it into the nearby diamonds.

This couldn’t be a coincidence.

The obvious answer was that this was, at least in part, the reason why the dragon had originally decided to lair in this place. Remnants of its breath weapon – or whatever other powers it might have had, since Soft Whisper had made it clear that the original Hvitdod had been far stronger than the copy he’d fought – might have made their way down here, being inadvertently channeled into crystals contained the dragon’s frozen magic. Given that the gems above were unworked, it was entirely possible that the magic they were imbued with would leak out over time – there was a reason Lex made sure to use gems that had been cut and refined when he placed spells inside them – making the area cold in a way that the dragon might have found pleasing.

But that theory concerned Lex less than a different one which came to mind then.

Nenet had let it slip that Sissel, Grisela, and Vidrig had been the ones tampering with the weather, and that they’d done so in part to make a confrontation with Hvitdod possible. Soft Whisper had confirmed that, telling him that the extreme cold had been what had brought that facsimile forth; that the real dragon had been a creature of such power it had left some sort of psychic impression – for lack of a better term – on what the goddess had said was the fabric of the universe itself, just waiting for a period of excessive cold to actualize it.

Except there was a flaw in that theory.

After all, if Hvitdod had been slain an extremely long time ago (which was how Akna had made it sound), then why hadn’t its lesser copy been conjured during any winter since then? The ponies of Everglow manufactured the weather, the same way they did back on Equestria, but while these hinterlands were at the edge of civilization, they weren’t that from removed from the edge of the Pony Empire; surely at some point an intense winter had been called for, and the fringes of it would have found there way here.

And yet, even the adlets – who lived much closer to this area than the ponies – had shown no indication that their ancestral foe had ever revived prior to now.

Which suggested that it wasn’t just the cold that had brought Hvitdod back, but rather that it was magical cold that had done the trick...and if that was the case, it was highly likely that this crystal had played a part in that.

Which meant that it couldn’t be allowed to remain here.

The underlying cause of Hvitdod’s imperfect revival – that the dragon had somehow made a mark on reality itself – wasn’t something Lex knew how to affect. Without even knowing exactly what that was, there was nothing he could do about it. But he could at least remove what was likely a contributing factor.

Because if he didn’t, then it was likely only a matter of time until Hvitdod was revived again. Sissel and her sisters were no longer around to create a magical winter, but it wasn’t unthinkable that someone would. Bright Night, the magical school that was – according to what Mystaria had told him – renowned for its lack of oversight, was relatively close. What would happen if somepony there started researching weather magic? It wasn’t an impossible scenario; not with how the weather on Everglow was, for whatever reason, growing harder for pegasi to control.

If anything, recent events made that more likely. There was no way the students and staff of a magic school wouldn’t be aware that the unseasonable cold blanketing the region wasn’t magical. It was entirely plausible that it had driven any number of would-be wizards to turn their magic towards weather-released research. How soon would it be before they tried recreating this exact phenomenon under their own power?

And if Hvitdod was revived again, then what? Would he remember that a pony had slain him before and go looking for revenge? Would it seek out the adlets that had killed its original incarnation? Lex didn’t know, and that wasn’t acceptable. All of this was pure theory, but the theory alone justified his taking action to stop it.

Which meant this thing had to go.

His mind made up, Lex turned his attention to the diamonds studding the cavern. If that explosion had been enough to dislodge one of the uppermost gems, then a few of these should be loose as well...

It took a few tries before he found one that he was able to telekinetically pry loose; fortunately, unlike the central gem, the surrounding crystals were only able to receive magic rather than absorbing it themselves.

Then Lex hurled it at the spindly crystal in the center of the cave.

It took several tries before he was able to knock it free.

Clattering as it hit the cave floor, Lex watched closely in the magical spectrum as it rolled and slowly came to a stop. He could already see the inner channels fading...but not disappearing entirely.

Curious at its having survived the rough treatment, he reached out toward it with his telekinesis again, and felt it drink in the magic...but only for a moment, as its inner channels filled up and, with nowhere to discharge the energy it had absorbed, overflowed, allowing him to manipulate it normally.

Disconnected from the surrounding environment, it couldn’t expend the power it took in, rendering it little more than a curio...though one that, to Lex’s mild surprise, left him feeling mildly nostalgic.

This is similar to what I hypothesized about the Crystal Heart.

It had been second-hoof stories about the jewel of the Crystal Empire that had brought him to that northern province, eager to see if the crystal ponies’ famous artifact could help him correct the flaw that made his thaumaturgical spellcasting so hard to recharge. From what he’d been able to tell, the Crystal Heart was at the center of a network formed by the structure of the Empire itself, and the crystal ponies who lived there. The latter channeled their magic – though they apparently called it their “light” (or, even worse, their “love”) – through the lattice-lined streets, and into the Heart itself, which amplified and radiated it outward.

It had been fascinating to consider, and Lex had been looking forward to studying it in detail...only to arrive less than a day before King Sombra had attempted to conquer the place.

After that, Lex had more pressing concerns to worry about.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t put this to use now, he decided as he brought the crystal closer. Now that it was disconnected from the rest of the cavern, its ability to absorb and transfer magic was sharply curtailed...but not gone.

Pulling another loose diamond out of the cave wall, Lex held it up to the thin crystal...

Nothing happened.

Undaunted, Lex slowly applied the same technique he used for imbuing gems with his spells, pressing the pointed tip of the crystal to the diamond as he began to trace a sigil-

And his telekinesis immediately flowed into the diamond, perfectly imbued.

Grinning inwardly, Lex picked it back up, his telekinesis once again taking hold of it without effect now that the crystal had no receptacle. Taking a third diamond from the cave wall, he repeated his experiment, this time carefully maintaining his telekinesis as he threaded in an application of cryomantic magic. Briefly recalling all the time that he’d spent studying jewels with his mother, and how he’d folded that into his study of magic, Lex carefully made the necessary adjustments...and watched as the ice magic filled the diamond, leaving his telekinesis undisturbed.

The sight was enough to make him laugh in triumph. Normally it took hours to imbue a spell into a gem like that, yet with this crystal he had done it in seconds. With it, and all of the diamonds in this cave, he’d be able to replenish his stock of externalized magic with ease...or at least, he would once he had an opportunity to replenish his thaumaturgical spells again. Still, he had plenty of other forms of magic he could use in the meantime...presuming that Nenet succeeded in recovering his vertebrae.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than Lex registered a sudden rush of hatred from the sphinx.

Author's Note:

Investigating Hvitdod's lair, Lex finds an unexpected treasure!

Will he have a chance to restock his supply of crystallized spells? Or will Nenet's circumstances conspire to keep him from having that opportunity?

Comments

[Booster Spice]

You gotta Orn, Arry.

[Alzrius]

11613483 Lex already has a horn. Now, though, he's got a nice crystal implement to help him bank spells faster, plus a lot of diamonds to use (plus, you know, they're pretty valuable and all).

[Not so New Brony]

For some reason, as I finished reading, I had imagined Lex using the crystals to make an artificial spine though that's probably faint memories of comics and stories I read ages ago at play.

Putting that aside, Lex will probably want to strip all of the diamonds from the earth so as to give himself as much of an edge as possible and if it prevented Hvitdod's potential return down the line then all the better. Of course, he'll need to find out why Nenet is suddenly filled with hatred though he won't be able to do much aside from speaking to her and I doubt he'd risk distracting her if she's in a fight.

Though I do have a question, if Lex could sense Nenet's hatred then why not the fear she must have felt when she faced Paska? Or did the distance affect it? Or was Nenet so nervous throughout her journey that Lex didn't sense it?

[Alzrius]

11615079 To answer the last question first, Lex was fully aware of everything Nenet was feeling, including the fear she felt when facing Paska. He simply didn't respond to it, for what I suspect were two reasons: the first was Nenet was already filled with a great deal of nervousness and anxiety (and her going to pieces when she confronted Grisela's puppet didn't exactly make her seem stoic) so he didn't assign any particular importance to her upswell of fear. The second was because he didn't want to potentially distract her by breaking into her thoughts asking for updates when she was focusing on her mission. If worse came to worst, he's expecting her to reach out to him, rather than his second-guessing her every step of the way.

Hatred, however, is very different from what Nenet's been feeling to date, and so is something that he'd take notice of.

That said, Lex's finding that crystal and the surrounding diamonds is a great windfall...just not a very useful one, in the current circumstances. While that crystal is useful for magical transference, it doesn't really have the necessary biological capabilities to be used as an artificial spine. Which isn't to say that's not possible; "magical prosthetics" are very much a thing in the d20 System, but Lex doesn't have the time or the know-how to construct something like that. As it is, his plan of "get my spine back and regenerate/reintegrate it into my body" is very thin on the regenerate/reintegrate part. He is, once again, working from a place of desperation as much as anything.