Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
Lex could only stare in horror as the monster began to move.
“dID yOu…REalLy tHInK…yoU CoUlD…sLaY mE?” the thing’s maw croaked, its voice even more twisted than normal. More black sludge oozed from its fang-filled orifice as it spoke, slowly picking itself up. “Did you actually believe,” coughed the left head, its ability to speak apparently less impaired than its other end, “that you could take this opportunity away from me?”
Lex was barely listening, struggling to come up with some sort of plan of action. He tried to cast a spell, any spell, but his chest felt like it was in a vice, making every breath he drew into a painful struggle. In such a state, it was all he could do to gasp a word or two, making the complicated chanting that his spells required – with their exacting syntax and stringent intonation – completely impossible. His dark magic didn’t require verbal components to invoke, but he’d expended it all. He might have been able to gasp the few words necessary to unleash the spells he’d stored in gemstones, but even if the stored spells hadn’t been completely unsuitable for combat, they’d all been inside his haversack, and that was gone now.
As the creature lying mere feet from him picked itself off the ground, surviving what should have been a decisive blow for the second time since their fight had begun, Lex realized that he was completely helpless.
But the creature didn’t look to be in much better shape. Its slug-like body had become emaciated, its skin hanging loosely where it had once been stretched tight around the thing’s bloated form. Its breathing was now audible, with ragged panting coming from the mouths of its equine heads. Most notably, its movement was halting, as though it was struggling to keep moving after the damage it had taken. But for all the damage it had clearly taken, it was still managing to rise, and that was more than Lex was capable of at the moment.
The thing knew it too, and it didn’t rush as the left head extended its tongue – now slick with blood and liquefied organs – to grab him again, coiling around his neck and lifting him into the air. “I’ve waited millennia for a chance like this!” screeched the middle head, its androgynous voice clouded with anger. “To find a world that had completely slipped beneath everyone’s notice! Whose people were so backward, so ignorant of strife or sin, that they were practically crying out to be corrupted! And you think that you, one little mage-ling, have the power to deny me this?!” The creature's rage seemed to give it strength, its movements becoming more sure as it ranted.
The tongue wrapped around his neck whipped downward suddenly, slamming Lex into the ground, driving what little breath he had from his lungs. “I am Xiriel!” roared the creature’s right head angrily. “A belier devil of Stygia, the Fifth Hell! I have manipulated the wisest of mortal archmages and turned pious saints toward heresy, all with nothing more than words and misdirection! I have overthrown kingdoms and subverted nations far greater than anything this pathetic little world has ever known! And you, a nothing that calls itself Lex Legis, dare to injure me?! To wound me?!”
It lifted Lex into the air again, and this time the middle and right tongues snaked out, the two organs curling around his horn. In his current state, Lex could do nothing more than grimace and twitch as he felt one of them wrap around the base of it, preventing him from moving his head as the second tongue grabbed it just a bit higher and began to pull it to the side. “bUt THaT’s tHE bEsT yOu COulD dO, ANd i BaREly eVEn BrOuGHt aNY oF mY eQUiPmeNt wItH mE wHEn i cAMe hErE,” screeched Xiriel’s leech-like craw, apparently having gotten its breath back. “aFTeR aLl, THiS wAs OrIGiNalLY A nOThInG aSSiGnmEnT. fInDinG oNE mISsiNg eRinYEs DeVIl AnD hER EnTOuRaGe oN tHE pLAnE oF fIRe; wHaT A wAStE oF mY tImE!”
Lex felt the devil’s grip around his neck ease then, letting him manage to draw enough breath to remain conscious, even as it pulled harder on his horn. “Imagine my surprise when I found out that they’d been caught in a spontaneous planar rift,” mused the feminine voice of Xiriel’s left head. “Fortunately I had arrived early enough that I was able to follow the lingering traces of it to this world.”
The pain in his horn was getting worse, the thing slowly applying more and more pressure until Lex felt the underlying bone reach its limit. He couldn’t help but struggle then, reaching up with his one unbroken fore-hoof to bat at the tongues grabbing him, but the belier didn’t even seem to notice. “Of course, the other devils were all killed shortly thereafter,” sneered Xiriel, speaking through its middle head now. “I found out later that one of your princesses and her friends dispatched them…but it took everything they had to do it. That was when I knew that this world was ripe,” it suddenly twisted his horn harder, and Lex’s vision swam as agony exploded through him, only distantly hearing the snap of his horn breaking clean off, “for the plucking!”
Somehow, impossibly, he managed to stay conscious, but that was all he could do, hanging limply in the devil’s grasp. Seeing that, the belier brought him closer, until he was hanging right in front of its trio of equine heads. “Can you still hear me, Lex Legis?” taunted Xiriel’s right head. “I truly hope you haven’t lost consciousness yet. We haven’t even gotten to the best part.”
It was all Lex could do just to keep his eyes open, and although he tried to mouth a curse at the thing, even that much proved to be more than he could accomplish in his current state. That was enough to make Xiriel laugh, its four voices snickering in chorus. “You see, Vanhoover has just been a trial run. I wanted to see how your people would react to a crisis, how your leaders would respond to disaster and disinformation, and I must say I’ve never been so pleased. You ponies are weak and cowardly, your leaders foolish and complacent, and that means that your society is just waiting for me to tear it down and rebuild it however I want.”
The tongue holding him by the neck turned, rotating Lex until he was facing away from the creature, looking back toward the camp. “Very soon now, the ghouls are going to come and devour your precious little camp.” The voices were now dripping with equal parts viciousness and smugness. “After that, they’re going to scatter in every direction, spreading their plague to all of Equestria. And when they do, that’s when my job really begins. I’ll be there, wearing the bodies of different ponies, making sure that the people of this world turn on each other in response. Your princesses can offer all the friendship lessons they like; in the face of the dead rising up to devour the living they won’t matter in the slightest. Fear of disease, food shortages, and communication breakdowns will make every village, town, and city embrace self-imposed isolation. And once that happens, it’ll be easy to maneuver each fearful community into adopting a new order: one where the group functions at the expense of its individuals.”
Xiriel turned him back around then, Lex’s body swaying as the belier glanced at the barbed wire wrapped around his broken left forehoof. “You worship a deity, so perhaps you know that the faithful go to their god’s side when they die. But did you know that holds true for secular mortals as well?” When Lex gave no visible response, Xiriel reached out with its right tongue, grasping Lex’s broken leg and twisting it sharply, causing him to spasm. “Do try to keep up,” tsked the devil. “I’m going out of my way to enlighten you as to what’s going to happen to your world once I’m done with it. You see, the souls of dead mortals flow toward the Outer Planes, specifically whichever plane best matches the ethos they held at the time of their death. And when I make your simpering little ponies adopt structured, hierarchical depravity, their souls will all flow straight to Hell.”
The devil brought Lex closer again, this time until he was within inches of Xiriel’s central head, able to smell the creature’s fetid breath. “When that happens, when the souls from an entirely new world are added to Hell’s ranks, I’ll receive what I want most,” murmured the androgynous voice. “Not only will I be rewarded for what I’ve done, I’ll be promoted.”
Xiriel flung Lex downward again, but he only barely felt the impact, his entire body numb. Heedless, the devil continued to gloat. “When that happens, I won’t just be a belier anymore. I’ll ascend even further and become a deimavigga, or an advodaza. Maybe even a pit fiend!” The creature's unoccupied tongues spread widely, as though reaching out to encompass all of Equestria. “This world will take me to the very brink of the infernal nobility itself! And you actually thought that you could interfere with such a thing! You pathet-, hm? What’s this?”
Lex didn’t understand what had happened to cut the creature off, not able to so much as lift his head to look around, but a moment later he understood as he felt one of the belier’s tongues run along his now-restored horn. “Interesting,” murmured Xiriel, speaking through its left head again. “Your horn regenerated. But none of your other wounds have. I wonder why?” It seemed to consider the matter for a moment, before deciding it was of no consequence. “Ah well, it’s not like you have any power left anyway. I’d tear it off again, but in your current state any further trauma might kill you, and I can’t have that just yet. You need to suffer more for everything you’ve done to me.”
“Of course, death won’t release you from your torment,” noted the middle head idly. As it spoke, Xiriel’s right head withdrew its tongue back into its mouth, and then began to bob its head strangely, as though trying to dislodge something that was stuck in its throat. “I would have stopped there before,” continued the central head’s epicene voice, “but now you’ve earned a special level of anguish. Ah, there it is.” As it spoke, Xiriel’s right head stuck out its tongue again, but this time it was holding something.
Dimly, Lex recognized that it was a scroll case. He’d seen wizards on Everglow use them as protective cases for the pre-cast spells that they’d scribed. Apparently devils used them as well. “i oNLy HAvE oNe mORe uNdEAd-CReAtIOn sPeLl lEfT,” continued Xiriel, “bUt i’Ve DeCIdeD tHaT yOu’Ve EArnEd iT. yOu’Re GoINg tO bECoMe eQuEsTrIa’S nEWeSt gHoUL, tO pREy oN tHe pOnIEs yOu cHEriSh sO mUcH.” The belier’s faces were too gaunt to give them much in the way of facial expressions, and its other end had nothing like that at all, but Lex could still hear the smile even in the ear-splitting voice of its maw. “i tHiNK i’LL hAvE yOu dEVouR yOuR pREciOuS sOnATa fIRst.”
That got a reaction of out Lex, and he struggled weakly in the thing’s grasp, anger and fear sweeping over him. Black crystals began to sprout from the ground, and Xiriel’s heads swiveled as it surveyed what was happening. “Fascinating,” admitted the right head. “You’re completely out of power – you must be, or you would have tried something by now – and yet you’re still somehow radiating this ‘dark magic’ of yours. But where’s the energy coming from?” It seemed to ponder the question for a moment speaking again. “An academic question, I suppose. For now, we need to continue your punishment.”
The thing glanced pointedly in one direction, and after a long moment Lex managed to do the same…and his eyes widened as he saw Nosey lying a short distance away from them, eyes closed and breathing shallowly. “It’s a shame,” murmured Xiriel’s left head. “I was quite fond of my Nosey-suit. But I’ll just have to find another pony to wear.”
The devil look back at Lex, savoring the words it spoke next. “When I killed those other ponies of yours, I made sure there were no witnesses. This time, I’m going to do it right in front of you.”
The monster reveals its name and its goals as it tortures Lex. Will he be able to do anything to stop it from killing Nosey?
As a note: a portion of events that brought Equestria to Xiriel's attention can be found in chapters 83-85 of David Silver's A Dangerous Sparkle.
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You know, under other circumstances, I bet Lex would love knowing his fears about how Celestia runs things were completely justified...
Still hoping for a last minute rescue from Sonata or even Aria...
8752437 Well, it's not like he wasn't completely convinced of that already, and even more so after having to fight off a dragon and ghouls and sea monsters and all...but yeah, this is definitely going to increase his stance on proactive rulership. If he survives, I mean.
Lex isnt even the most singular powerful entity in Equestria and he managed to mess it up? Or is it relying on the Sneak And Spoil to regain overpower?
8752511 Sorry, this is one of those times when I can't follow what you're saying at all.
So the belier has been in Equestria all that time. It's likely been moving from place to place with his magic, gathering information and planting mind controlled ponies to maintain lookouts of sorts while it does its 'trial run' in Vanhoover. Still, the fact that Xiriel is doing this for a promotion is rather chilling, not only because of its actions but because there are beings that are higher up in the ranks that could come to Equestria in the future.
Then again, judging from Xiriel's words and its nature to deceive, I assume that it hasn't reported Equestria's existence to whoever assigned it to locate the missing devils so as to ensure no other devil, whether they be higher or below Xiriel could steal his promotion. This hopefully leaves Equestria out of the sight of any malicious beings from the Outer Planes for the forseeable future.
Of course, all of this is pointless unless Lex can find a way to survive what Xiriel intends to do to him and stop its plans. Wonder if the belier's observation of Lex's dark magic could be the key to that...
Oh well, time to wait and find out.
I agree that their should be more proactive ruling but lex is not the answer. His view of everything is colored by his racism. I would kind of like to see lex go up to a human and state all his reasons why he is superior to him only for the human to use to use purification magic and crush him.
8753215 Lex is certainly a pony-supremacist. But considering that Equestria is out-and-out better than virtually every other nation we've seen in their world - to the point where friendship lessons honestly seem like their chief export - can you really blame him?
That said, that's not really a lens that colors much of anything about his world-view. To him, it's just another fact, and isn't really something that needs to be brought up when dealing with other ponies, as he has for most of this story.
8753108 As you noted, Xiriel has let it slip that it's been here for some time. It went looking for a few other devils that were caught in the elemental bleeds, so that means that it can't have been longer than a few weeks. But still...in just a few weeks, look at how much misery it's spread. Hopefully, you're right in that it hopefully has kept silent about its discovery, since its rhetoric about a society that functions at the expense of its individuals likely means that it wouldn't share its "opportunity" to be promoted.
That might be the one bright spot in all of this, since – although belier devils are powerful – they're not at all the top of the heap. There are stronger devils out there, and that's without getting into the unique individuals who make up the infernal nobility, let alone the devils at the top of the nobility...
Of course, that's looking at what might happen in the long-term. Right now, Lex has to figure out how to turn this fight around, or he's not going to be in a position to worry about Equestria's future.
The only good news is that Xiriel wants witnesses, which hopefully means he wants to do this right in front of Aria and Sonata. I wonder where Severance is at this point?
8752437 Well, consider the source. Devils believe all organizations that aren't rigid and depraved hierarchies are weak and inferior. If I was Lex I'd be worried that my views on the way society should be run seem to be lining up at least a little with Xirel.
8754305
Well, it wants to kill Nosey in front of Lex, but other than that it's not particularly looking for other witnesses. But yeah, Severance's location remains an open question. Maybe there'll be a dramatic last-minute rescue? ...though that doesn't seem like something Severance would do.
I know this wasn't directed at me, but I had to note that this could simply be that they're both Lawful in nature, something neither Celestia nor Luna seem to be.
8754324
Well in the d20 system Lex is out of options, maybe he could spontaneously ascend as an alicorn?
Yeah, it sounds like Xiriel only wants Nosey as a witness when he kills Lex, and just wants Sonata to see Lex as a ghoul.
Sure. Whether Lex is LE or LN, he's certainly closer to Xiriel's POV than the Regal Sisters are. I'm not saying that means Lex is wrong, I'm just saying Xiriel saying "oh man, if your society was a proper rigid hierarchy where the strong crush the weak into service, it would be harder for me to invade" isn't exactly an indicator that Lex was right all along.
Assuming Lawful Evil atheists end up in Hell anyway (differs depending on the setting), a society that Xiriel judges as the "right type" to resist him would be one where he basically sees nothing he wants to change.
8754495
*Crosses out that idea*
Er, no, you've still got that backwards. It wants to kill Nosey in front of Lex, not the other way around.
Well, that's not really what Lex wants anyway. He certainly intends to push things closer to the Lawful end of the spectrum, but he hasn't taken it to levels that involve outright tyranny, at least not according to what we've heard him say. He is likely to take this as a further indictment of the princesses, though. But then, that was a foregone conclusion once he saw the state Vanhoover was in to begin with.
Yeah, but given that Hell represents the archetype of such things, those souls would end up going there already, and there'd be no need for him to infiltrate it to begin with. It's pointless to corrupt that which has already given itself over to wickedness.
8755125
I mean, Xiriel might want the commission on souls, but that was my basic point. Devils aren't just evil jerks, they believe in the correctness of evil and law just as much as archons believe in goodness and law. Xiriel doesn't just look down on Equestria for being weak as he sees it, he cannot even comprehend the the values a society might put on personal freedom or compassion towards the less fortunate, though wise devils like him have learned to anticipate how those who value these things might act.
Outsiders are, in a sense, uniquely bad at making nuanced value judgments, because they are an ideal as much as an entity. All that is to say that Xiriel's opinion of any society is pretty worthless, unless the question is "how far from the ideal of Hell is this society?"
8755461 This is an interesting point to consider, and one that I'm partial to myself. As Outsiders (whose body and soul comprise a single unit, rather than a duality) with alignment subtypes (representing that aspects of Good, Evil, Law, or Chaos make up elements of what they are, rather than simply being views that they have), creatures like devils, angels, and similar beings could very well be said to lack the (degree of) free will that mortals have in choosing their outlook and view of the world. In that regard they are - as mortals would call it - insane, due to their inability to comprehend pluralism. The best that can be hoped for, as you noted, is that certain powerful, intelligent members of their respective races have figured out "if you do X, they'll react with Y" with regards to beings whose outlooks they are otherwise incapable of understanding.
Of course, we know this is not an absolute inability; regardless of whether we look at D&D or Pathfinder, there are Outsiders with alignment subtypes who've managed to change their alignment (hence why it seems like we keep running into so many good-aligned succubi; though the true example of this is the ubiquitous tale of myriad angels falling to Hell). Doing so, however, tends to have serious consequences on their state of being, though again this will vary wildly depending on which product line is showcasing the creature in question. It typically manifests as either some sort of immediate loss of power, or possibly a conversion to similar powers, and ends with them changing into a more appropriate type of Outsider altogether.
What's notable about this is that, just looking at the previous two paragraphs I've typed - as well as the d20 mechanical representations discussed - you can see that this is presented as being completely parallel for all alignments. Simply put, D&D/d20/Pathfinder does not and cannot present any one alignment as being "better" than any other. As such, arguments that goodness is a more fulfilling state, has intrinsic powers to create and uplift that evil lacks, and that turning your back on it represents some sort of fundamental deviation from how things "should" be - such as in, say, Middle-Earth - are simply not supported under the game rules. I bring this up because, other than issues of personal happiness, the game could actually be said to present a somewhat stark presentation in how it presents the various alignments as being completely equal in their opposition (or orthogonality) to each other.
I won't say that's necessarily a bad thing, but rather that - if you're writing a story in which the universe functions according to the d20 rules, such as I am - it makes certain types of stories less stable if the readers are able to really dig down into the "how" of things. After all, if you die, does it really matter if you go to Hell or Heaven in a d20 universe? Either way, you become a petitioner who, if you're successful, transforms into the local type of Outsider and can eventually work your way up the ranks to become more and more powerful and influential, until you become a demigod-level unique entity who can, from there, potentially become a true deity. It might take a long time, and be quite arduous, but overall it just seems like you might face some more competition in Hell than you would in Heaven...and that's not really that much of a disincentive for PC-types anyway, who are naturally expectant of having to fight to get what they want.
That, unfortunately, makes it harder to justify the underlying presumption as to why we want our heroes to be - at least in some respect - good guys, rather than selfish and unrepentant villains with no redeeming features whatsoever. We can no longer say that, at least in the most obvious ways, being good is better than being evil due to the inherent qualities that we assign to those traits. Consider the following two passages: the first is from Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword (where a witch is about to be slain by several elves chasing her, and calls upon Satan to rescue her)...
...and the second is from the end of Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley's If at Faust You Don't Succeed (where a former witch named Ylith has spent time as both an angel and a devil)...
Personally, I find the former more compelling than the latter, at least if you want to create a story with some emotional weight behind it (though the latter was an excellent read as well, particularly if you want to see what a "kitchen sink"-style universe where all the alignments are equal would look like, albeit with a humorous slant). Having things matter requires that some things be more worthwhile than others, rather than simply being equal and opposite to each other. That's part of why I enjoy Dicefreaks' The Gates of Hell so much (that and they treat the powers of the planes as actually being epic beings, rather than just slightly tougher monsters). And I appreciate what they're trying to do with passages like the following:
That's an incredibly evocative passage, but if we limit ourselves strictly to the game rules, it's hard to enforce that, since alignment is so divorced from what can actually be accomplished under the mechanics of the universe. In that regard, we're limited strictly to role-playing, and while that can still create powerful and moving choices unto itself, I'd honestly prefer if the game rules lent themselves just a little more toward their stated goal of being a game about heroes. Don't get me wrong, I love evil-aligned adventure paths (though Fire Mountain Games' "Way of the Wicked" was much better than Paizo's "Hell's Vengeance," even if FMG did later go down in flames after their disastrous second Kickstarter...I was one of the people who lost money on that). There's no d20 equivalent of "the Dark Side isn't more powerful, but it's easier, seductive," and that's something of a shame from a narrative standpoint. Angels should be better than devils, rather than just "crazy in a different way."
8756090 I tend to think of outsiders in this manner as a lesser form of gods, and I know you remember how Mystra and the other gods had their views locked into their own portfolio in Forgotten Realms. From a mortal point of view, you're absolutely right that could be considered insane.
I prefer the idea that good and evil can be mechanically balanced. I don't think that really offers encouragement to evil souls. You've read the description of what evil souls endure along the path to power. Do Demon Lords and Infernal Dukes actually seem happy? Have you ever heard the Allegory of the Long Spoons? It's the idea that even if Hell and Heaven were functionally identical environments, one would seem great and the other terrible because of the other individuals around you. The game system doesn't really focus on that because it may not affect your ability to fight much, but to a real person living in that world I think uncountable millenia of torture or bliss outweighs how one becomes a great being of divine power.
That said, I've Read the Gates of Hell and I totally agree that they are by far the best examples of the 9 Lords of Hell ever put forth in a Role Playing Game. Not so much the mechanics, but the flavor text showing the author's vision of Hell, and the average corruptions conducted by each member of the 9. Asmodeous's temptation of Alman is the best example of infernal manipulation I've ever seen in fiction.
8756590 The issue that this brings up is why, in a realm where the gods, the afterlife, and what happened when you died were all factually known, anyone would choose to be evil. That's an issue that gets even more problematic when you remember that someone can be conclusively determined to be evil via a simple detect evil spell, which is 1st-level. (Though, to be fair, Paizo's alterations to this spell in Pathfinder, as opposed to the 3.5 version, make it so that low-level characters who aren't clerics fly under that spell's metaphorical radar.) There's no doubt that most evil Outsiders are, to some degree, far more miserable than their celestial counterparts, so that brings up issues of why anyone would act in a manner that would condemn them so such a fate.
Of course, there are various ways around that problem, which are to say that people really don't know much about the afterlife after all (though ranks in Knowledge (religion) and Knowledge (planes) might make that rather awkward...especially if you decide that such information is DC 10, which means that you don't need to have ranks in those skills to know that). Presumably this makes sense for relatively low-fantasy worlds, such as the Dragonlance campaign setting. On the other hand, it's much harder for the Forgotten Realms or Golarion.
My answer to that is that, in point of fact, the evil Outsiders actually don't seem that unhappy...at least to people who'd end up going to the Lower Planes when they die anyway. To put it another way, evil Outsiders (from a mortal standpoint, at least) are probably locked into a sort of unending schadenfreude, where they're always taking some sort of perverse pleasure in the suffering they cause others. Obviously, we know that's not anywhere near real joy, but given that Outsiders aren't able to approximate a mortal's standpoint anyway, that's knowledge is nothing more than an abstraction for them. Demons and devils are (for the most part) unable to feel true happiness or love, and so that could be said to comparatively mitigate their existential angst; if you don't know what joy is, are you really suffering? To that end, it's questionable if such creatures are really as unhappy as the people trapped in Hell in the Allegory of Long Spoons...or at least, if they're aware that they're that unhappy.
Likewise, evil mortals are likely to be sympathetic to that state of mind anyway (even if they don't know it). If all you value is strength, or if you think that the world is divided up into victims and victimizers, then seeing a devil's strength is likely to appear attractive. By that metric, they're not really unhappy at all, and instead represent something to strive for. Of course, that's a rather perverse outlook, but it's apparently not an uncommon one...which, I think, makes it something of a shame that goodness can't really (in a d20 universe) showcase why it's more fulfilling than evil. There should be more to it than "a different kind of nice feeling."
Interesting. I really want to see how Discord would fare against something like this. Surely it can't dispel all of Discord's magic?
9217594 It's difficult to say; I've seen a few different attempts to chart out Discord's power in d20 terms, but so far I'm not sure how much I like any of them. One of these days I'm going to have to sit down and figure out his stats on my own.