Lateral Movement

by Alzrius

869 - No Quality in Quantity

With his enhanced senses and heightened intellect, Lex needed only the briefest glance to affirm that monsters rushing through the gateway were more numerous than the snowflakes whipping through the air.

But unlike the blizzard, the creatures from the Plane of Ice weren’t moving randomly, nor positioning themselves indiscriminately. Instead, they all threw themselves directly at him, seeking to overwhelm him with sheer numbers.

Coming in from his right, a trio of horned bears galloped forward, intent on trampling him with their bulk. Nor were they acting alone, as five of the red-eyed ooze creatures on his opposite side lashed out with their tentacles, trying to affix him in place. Up above, several dozen tiny humanoids – each of them barely a foot tall, having dragonfly-like wings and clutching oversized icicles – swooped toward him, wings buzzing like a swarm of angry hornets.

Behind him, a huge white worm, easily the length of a skyscraper lying on its side, clacked its mandibles as it moved in for the kill. Further away, on the side of the mountain, almost a dozen hunched figures – each of them humanoids slightly smaller than a pony, with beards of ice and dark blue caps – were standing in formation, hands held out as they fired magically-generated streams of ice shards. On the opposite slope, a wrinkled old hag that looked vaguely similar to Grisela screeched an incantation as she waved her hands upwards, the clouds above flashing with lightning in response.

All of it was, in Lex’s opinion, a truly pathetic display.

Sidestepping the tentacles reaching for him, he instead grabbed the writhing limbs, the oozes somehow shrieking in pain despite having no mouths as he yanked hard on them. Two of them simply had the tendrils torn from their bodies, quivering in agony as their red eyes spun wildly. But the others were apparently made of sturdier stuff, holding themselves together. Their reward for their tenacity was to be flung directly into the path on the oncoming bears, trampled in an instant by the two-ton creatures.

Said creatures didn’t even seem to notice as they squashed their allies, barreling toward Lex with the velocity of falling boulders. But the boulders veered off-course a moment later as he – with a momentary thought – blurred the vision of the outermost one, causing it to roar in surprise as it lost its balance and plowed into the other two, knocking them aside. Only one managed to correct its charge, the others colliding with the head of the massive worm, its jaws impaling both of them in tandem and causing it to howl as they swiped at its eyes in retaliation, trying to free themselves.

The third bear actually reached its target, only for Lex to stop its charge with a single outstretched claw, grabbing its horn and arresting its momentum as though the monster was a plush toy instead of a raging behemoth. Casually raising it upward, Lex ignored the cracking sound that came from its neck as he hoisted it aloft, letting the descending pixies slam into its body, the diminutive creatures cursing as their tiny weapons sank into its body harmlessly.

Their snarling stopped an instant later, however, as a bolt of lightning shot down from the heavens, frying them and the bear’s carcass alike.

Ignoring the electricity that was transmitted to him through the corpse – the voltage nowhere near enough to injure him – Lex instead hurled the dead body at the crone that had called the lightning. She had just enough time to give a terrified scream before four thousand pounds of charred meat slammed into her at several hundred miles per hour, reducing her to a bloody stain on the mountainside.

Not bothering to glance at the opposite slope, Lex raised a group of black crystals along its upper edge, having already noted the weakness of the accumulated debris. The jagged protrusions immediately displaced the rocks and sediment there, the resulting avalanche sweeping over the ice-bearded humanoids and burying them all alive.

Sparing the briefest glance to confirm that they were all dead or dying from the rockslide, Lex turned his attention to the white worm, knowing that it was about to tear the bears – finally having died – free of its jaws. He saved it the trouble, his horn lighting up as he ripped the corpses clear of its mandibles, pausing just long enough to run them through with a dozen long spikes of black crystals before forcibly shoving their bodies down its throat. The worm immediately heaved and thrashed, choking on the corpses, and its segmented body wriggled as it worked to further pull them down its gullet...only to immediately give an agonized cry as the spikes he’d impaled the bodies on cut into it, tearing the thing apart from the inside.

Not bothering to watch it die, Lex immediately turned to face the next wave of enemies, led by one of the three-eyed blue giants. Springing forward with a cry, it pulled its fingers back, launching a barrage of palm strikes at his head. Each one moved so quickly that it seemed to blur, making it look at though the giant had a dozen arms rather than simply two.

Lex avoided them all without even looking.

Instead, his eyes were turned upward, where another humanoid was flying toward him, riding the breeze as it cackled with laughter. Ten feel tall, its fur was grey and mangy, scarcely hidden by the rags it wore. Its eyes were covered in filmy cataracts, making them look like blank orbs, and its muzzle was covered in blood, as were the elk-like horns that sprouted from the top of its head. More notable were its legs, which ended in stumps just above where its knees would have been, the ends looking blackened and burnt.

Flinging itself bodily at him, claws outstretched and jaws wide, Lex sidestepped its dive with contemptuous ease. At the same time, he made the fire clinging to him run down his forelegs, covering his claws with flaming gauntlets. A single swing of his talons was all it took, and the laughing creature’s voice turned into a strangled shriek as it fell into a half-dozen flaming pieces, burning brightly despite the blizzard.

But Lex didn’t stop, instead gathering his aura around his horn. An instant later, he lanced out with a beam of unfiltered dark magic – his body able to replenish the amount lost instantaneously now that he no longer felt fatigue – and struck a winged, gargoyle-like creature that had been sneaking up on him from behind, claws held at the ready. The beam struck it dead-center, its body shattering under the blow, and the pieces of it rained down over the rest of its fellows.

Said fellows seemed not to care in the slightest.

The three-eyed giant pressed its attack, and Lex snorted in disdain, swinging his body around so that one of its palm strikes caught his fiery cloak. Its hand immediately ignited, bursting into flames as though its skin were made out of tar, and the giant screamed in agony, falling back as it tried to put the flames out.

Lex didn’t give it a chance. Leaping bodily onto the monster, he tore it literally limb from limb, talons sinking into its shoulders and ripping them free from its body even as the fire he wore set the rest of it aflame. His back legs were no less destructive, digging through muscle to find purchase on the giant’s ribs before tearing them off, plucking one after another until there were none left to grab.

Riding the dying monster’s body down as it fell backward, Lex landed in front of yet another new opponent, a pale-skinned humanoid female whose lower body was that of a huge, white serpent and with a nest of equally pale snakes for hair. Immediately, she tore her veil – the only clothing she wore – from her face, revealing a fanged visage as she grinned. “Look into my eyes!” she cooed, even as the serpents framing her face hissed and spat savagely. “Join my collection of ice sculptures!”

“Look into mine,” rumbled Lex, meeting her gaze evenly, “and join the collection of corpses.”

In his foresight, the snake-thing frowned, recoiling slightly as she stared at him. Then blood began to drip from her eyes, trailing down her cheeks, and she had just enough time to touch her face in shock before she began to convulse, retching as she doubled over. Collapsing in place, violent tremors ran through her, the snakes in her hair writhing and biting at each other in a frenzy before she suddenly went still, one last rattling breath escaping her lungs as the life left her.

Healing someone through pure will alone was incredibly difficult; Lex had learned that while treating the adlets.

But altering someone’s body chemistry to the point of causing fatal organ damage, as it turned out, was much easier.

Fortunately, he would have plenty of opportunities to put that knowledge to use, as the next wave of enemies was already moving in...

All while Kryonex continued to watch, having yet to take any action.

---

“He’s quite the accomplished killer,” murmured Blaze, watching the battle through the viewing window that Luminace had conjured. “Maybe I should grant him a blessing of my own.”

The comment brought hateful growl from the towering inferno that she’d called Vutok, the creature gnashing its teeth. But standing a short distance away, the Unspoken gave a sigh. “I thought there’d be more of a light show,” he squeaked, the words coming out oddly high-pitched from his rodent’s muzzle. “Like, a lot of magical ‘fwoosh!’ and ‘zing!’ and ‘krazak!’ Instead, it’s all just a claw/claw/bite routine with a few crystals.”

The blob next to him made a blorping sound, and the Unspoken turned one bulging, fish-like eye toward it. “No, telekinesis doesn’t count even if it’s colorful. He’s holding back, and it’s boring.”

“That’s because he knows what Kryonex is doing, and he’s trying to counter it,” cut in the Moon Princess, a sour note in her voice. “Those creatures can’t overcome a titan, and he’s aware that they’re not supposed to. They’re just fodder, meant to press him enough so that he’ll expend spells and other limited resources.”

“And because the Night Mare’s champion is aware of that, he’s making sure to restrain himself to physical attacks, along with a few minor tricks that he can use indefinitely,” explained the Sun Princess, watching the slaughter with a sad look. “And yet Kryonex continues to waste so many lives on a futile attempt to gain such a small advantage.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” murmured Luminace.

The Sun Queen gave her student a sad smile. “I agree. To be so cavalier with something so precious has always been beyond my understanding as well.”

“That’s because you’re dumb enough to think that lives are precious,” snorted Blaze, gesturing toward the screen as another creature – its lower half resembling an eight-legged horse and its upper half that of a frost giant – was torn apart by its own fellows after Lex had beguiled it into fighting on his behalf. “Look at how fragile they are. Anything so weak isn’t worth saving.”

“It’s because they’re so delicate that they’re worth protecting,” insisted the Sun Queen.

Blaze sneered a retort, but Euclase didn’t bother listening, instead keeping a close eye on Luminace. Leaning his long neck toward the alicorn goddess, the dragon couldn’t help but notice how she was diligently keeping an eye on the viewing window that she’d conjured, despite the senseless loss of life it was showing. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.

“Hm? Oh, nothing,” answered Luminace absentmindedly.

But Euclase knew his goddess too well to be taken in by the denial. “You weren’t agreeing with the Sun Queen when you said that didn’t make any sense,” he insisted, keeping his voice quiet. “You meant something else. What?”

Cringing, Luminace glanced at the other gods and their attendants. Fortunately, no one seemed to have overheard them; the Sun Queen and Blaze were still debating the value of life, while the Unspoken and the Moon Princess chimed in every so often, all of their attendants close by. Curiously, Kara and the Night Mare were a short distance away, quietly conferring with each other, while the leatherwing that the latter had brought was pointedly ignoring Honeymoon Trap.

Seeing that no one was listening to them, Luminace turned her eyes back to the screen. “What Kryonex said before, about how whoever brought him Lex Legis would be made into his avatar...that doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?”

“Because he said he’d do it using the divinity that Siren stole.”

“So?”

“So, there shouldn’t be enough for him to do that!”

Pursing her lips, Luminace took a moment to calm herself. “Between The Author’s discouraging direct involvement on Everglow and what’s happened with the elves and the griffons, it’s been a very long time since any of the gods here bothered to create an avatar. In fact, I think some of them might not have ever made one. But I only became a goddess two hundred years ago, and one of the first things I did was make an avatar to watch over my family from when I was mortal...at least until the Sun Queen convinced me that giving them that much attention was only endangering them more.”

“Yes, I recall she had to work quite hard to win that particular argument,” noted Euclase wryly.

Adjusting her monocle, Luminace gave the dragon a serious look. “My point is, I’m very familiar with what goes into making an avatar. If Adagio Dazzle only stole a few drops of godsblood, that shouldn’t be enough to build one, and yet Kryonex just said that it was.”

Euclase frowned at that, glancing at where Lex was making short work out of a pack of frost drakes. As far as he could tell, the unicorn had yet to be struck a single time, much less threatened to the point of needing to cast any spells. Against so many, that was an impressive feat, even for a titan. “Perhaps Kryonex was lying? He needs his minions to throw themselves at such a powerful enemy, and knows that only the promise of a great reward will motivate them?”

“Maybe,” admitted Luminace, before glancing back at where the Night Mare and Kara were talking.

“Or maybe not.”

Author's Note:

Despite holding back the majority of his strength, Lex easily holds off Kryonex's minions, while Luminace grows suspicious as to the source of his power.

Is she right to think something’s wrong? What exactly are Kara and the Night Mare discussing?

Comments

[TheAbsoluteRadiance]

Well, Fodder is still Fodder after all. The Demi-god still appears calm. I have my head full of speculations about what's happening. But they are all probable and I didn't pay attention enough to catch the clues left behind.

Nice chapter.

[Booster Spice]

Beyond a certain difference in Class Level in D20, the maximum number of attacks that can be made, given maximum ranges etc, coupled with defence values that only Crits can even hit, then a Crit is needed just to get passed teh armor class can make it alread that 1 in a thousand attacks can even cause a couple points of damage at most, and by tat point the entity being attacked should have Regeneration or at least Healing of some form as a continus Ability which negates such minor damage per round, never mind mitigates.

I really hope Lex is taking this Cold War to analyze and research combinations of long cast spells, particularly those that are more destructive when theyre interupted than when they succeed, generally, but sucess gives them efficincy, accuracy or dispell and recover resources capability as the temporal sense is disabled.

theres a spell that can break other spells, but would that even be able to affect the portal or anything else cast by someone of such level as Kryonex?

[Not so New Brony]

“Look into mine,” rumbled Lex, meeting her gaze evenly, “and join the collection of corpses.”

Now that was a badass line and he certainly delivered.

Lex is going one-man-army on Kyronex's minions and as the Pony Pantheon had observed, they're not doing much against Lex so wasting the lives of so many minions for so little gain is rather befuddling. Makes one wonder if the demigod is just delaying Lex long enough for him to accomplish his goal.

The pony gods' discussion on the godsblood inside Lex is also intriguing, either Lex does have enough of the godsblood inside him for Kyronex to turn a minion into an avatar or maybe there's another source of divinity Kyronex could use for it. Perhaps from an outside source? Then again, Kyronex seems like the prideful sort that is unlikely to accept outside help though taking it for himself is another matter altogether...

[Alzrius]

11701959 At this point it seems more and more certain that there's no amount of creatures Kryonex can fling at Lex that will wear him down, or even make him tip his hand. Without tiring or being worn down gradually, Lex is capable of essentially fighting forever, and the horde of monsters isn't enough to make him call upon his limited resources.

Which brings up the question of why Kryonex is bothering with this tactic to begin with.

On a related note, please don't hold back from speculating here! Such comments are how I know the story is engaging to read!

[Alzrius]

11702068 This reminds me that I need to get around to posting Lex's updated character sheet now that he's a titan.

You're right to note that, under the d20 System, it might seem odd that Lex hasn't been taking any damage; after all, a natural 20 on an attack roll is always a hit, the same way a natural 1 on a saving throw is always a miss. Even taking into account that Lex has fast healing now (along with several other restorative abilities), the notation in this chapter that he hasn't taken a hit yet (or rather, hasn't been injured at all, since that call lightning spell did hit him, just without actually inflicting any damage thanks to his high resistances) might seem odd in that regard.

That's largely due to the massive number of powers and abilities Lex has now, many of which are permanent or can be exploited every round. For instance, he has a high damage reduction value which isn't overcome by anything; he's simply shrugging off a few dozen points from every physical (i.e. non-magical, non-elemental) attack that happens to reach him. Of course, he also has Block (Eclipse, pg. 50-51) against melee and ranged attacks, each usable once per round (there's technically a Reflex save involved in using it, and that it can only stop so much damage, but both of those limits are effectively pro forma with his stats), which means that if an enemy rolls a natural 20 (and he thinks it might actually get past his damage reduction), he can effectively negate it, albeit only once per round.

And that's just the basic stuff! For instance, Lex has bought an Immunity (Eclipse, p. 34) to having to use the standard Pathfinder skill list, which not only lets him use the condensed skill list in its place, but also lets him purchase ranks in Occult Skills (Eclipse, pg. 38-39) without having to pay Character Points to access each one first; he can simply buy them with skill points directly (and thanks to a few specific powers and some monstrously high stats, he has several hundred skill points now). So his having purchased high ranks in several action skills (along with an Immunity to their normal limits) gives him some extremely unorthodox options to work with in a combat situation.

Given that he's also immune to fatigue, exhaustion, hunger, etc., that's basically why he can't be worn down in ordinary combat; as a titan, anyone going up against him needs to have extraordinary methods of fighting...and Lex has answers for that too, in the form of his magic. Hence why Kryonex is apparently trying to get him to expend those, and Lex is refusing.

As for the portal that Kryonex opened, well...that's part of the stalemate that they now seem to be at, which then begs the question, who will try and change things up, and how?

[Alzrius]

11702236 I'm glad you thought that line was cool! I confess that I was a bit pleased with it myself.

Kryonex's indifferent reaction to Lex slaughtering so many of his minions is rather odd, isn't it? At the very least, it seems like he's relying on a strategy that's clearly not working, so why isn't he changing things up? Why keep throwing his servants into the meat grinder? Presumably there's a reason, but it's as-yet unclear.

As for the discrepancy that Luminace observed, that is odd isn't it? Something's not adding up, since Kryonex seems to be implying that Lex has more divinity than he should. Throw in the sudden conference between Kara and the Night Mare, it suggests that there's more to what's going on than we've been led to believe regarding Lex's having become a titan...