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.
“Okay, so that’s probably enough of an encore for today,” announced Sonata as she helped Lex back toward the camp.
“There’s still more that needs to be done,” he muttered obstinately. He’d meant for the rebuke to come out sharper, but hadn’t been able to muster up the energy. That was little surprise, considering that he was once again leaning heavily on Sonata just to walk.
“Oh come on, Lex. You already led a bunch of ponies back into Vanhoover, got a motherlode of supplies which this place needed super badly, and rescued a bunch of ponies that were still there! Plus, you know, buying all the food on that big honkin’ train. Which, FYI, is the first time we’ve had anything to do with a train that didn’t come back to bite us. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that all that’s no ‘fight off an army of ghouls,’ but it’s still, like, more than enough for one day. Getting everypony to start working on a new project, even if it is just digging a big hole, is a teensy bit overkill, don’cha think?”
Lex’s only response was to sigh.
After covertly observing the suspicious figures he’d seen outside the bank and discovering that they were another band of survivors, apparently drawn by the spectacle of so many ponies openly walking the streets of the city, Lex had elected to send a small contingent of his band out to meet them while he watched from concealment. Given how poorly Aisle, Cloudbank, and Cozy had reacted when they’d caught sight of his shadow-form in their first meeting, Lex knew better than to introduce himself to another group of survivors that way. It had proven to be a wise decision, as the half-dead ponies had been suspicious of the news that the blockade around the city had been lifted, to say nothing of their disbelief that the ghouls had all been wiped out.
In the end, it had been the news that an entire train’s worth of food had been delivered, and was being passed out to everypony even as they spoke, that had convinced the survivors to take a chance on them. But rather than the small group of three that had come to investigate what was going on, they had admitted that they were scouting for a band of almost three dozen ponies hidden in a nearby mattress store. The large number of survivors all in one place had surprised Lex when he’d heard it, but only until he saw the store in question.
The place had been converted into a fortress. Every door was not only boarded up, but locked with the keyholes deliberately jammed (and, as he’d seen later, barricaded from the inside). The windows had been in much the same condition. Anything that could possibly be used to climb the building – drainpipes, gutters, and even most of the windowsills – had been torn off the sides, and the roof access door had been given the same treatment as all the other doors, but also with what looked like glue poured between the door and the frame. The only way in or out had been via a single window on the third floor, which had its glass broken out but had been subsequently sealed by having a mattress far too large for the window frame shoved through it. It had taken significant effort on the part of three ponies to dislodge that mattress from the window before lowering a ladder when the scouting team came back, silently signaling their presence to some unseen watcher in the building. Despite himself, Lex had been mildly impressed; for anyone without his level of magical capability, getting in there would have been extremely difficult.
His appreciation for the fortifications had fallen away when he’d seen the state of the ponies inside, however.
Sprawled across filthy mattresses, huddled in dark corners, or simply sitting and staring blankly at the walls, most of the building’s occupants had looked more dead than alive. All of them had been painfully thin, several to the point of looking more like ghouls than living ponies. In fact, there had been a few that could very nearly have passed for being undead; only the lack of obviously-fatal wounds and the slow rise and fall of their chests had shown them to still be among the living…barely. Others were more active; from a dark corner in the ceiling, Lex had observed several coughing and hacking so heavily that it seemed like they were trying to expel their lungs, burying their faces in their hooves to try and stay quiet, doubtless to avoid attracting attention from any nearby monsters. The rest simply stayed still or shuffled about, listless and glassy-eyed. Even the return of the scouting party had attracted little attention except for a few inquisitive stares.
It had been at that point that Lex had realized the true nature of the building these ponies were in. They might have set it up as a fortress, but it had long since become their prison, and it wouldn’t be much longer before it became their tomb. Action needed to be taken immediately.
Fortunately, the members of his expedition that he’d sent had been admitted into the building shortly thereafter, explaining again that the city had been rescued. Lex had chosen that point to reveal himself, knowing that he’d need to soon, since his dark magic was already running out. To his mild surprise, his shadowy-form hadn’t been met with widespread panic; illness, injury, and apathy had left most of the ponies incapable of that level of activity. Most had simply whimpered or wept quietly, shaking in fear but otherwise unable to take action. Only the scouts – apparently the healthiest of the bunch – had needed to be talked down.
After that, it had been a matter of getting everypony out of there and bringing them back to the camp with them. Knocking down one of the sealed doors had been easy thanks to his magic, but only the fact that they’d acquired so many hospital beds earlier in the day had made it possible to transport everyone; over a third of the ponies there hadn’t been able to move under their own power. A few had become hysterical at the thought of going outside and needed to be forcefully taken. The others had trudged out willingly, albeit fearfully.
It had only been then – barely able to carry all the hardware, medicine, money, and injured ponies – that Lex had led everyone back to camp.
The first order of business had been to immediately hand the newly-found survivors and the medical supplies over to the doctors. The second had been to deposit the money they’d acquired on the train platform and tell Coal Hopper to figure out how much she was owed. The third had been to pass out the shovels that they’d acquired and start working on the mass grave for the ghouls.
Sonata had protested that last one, seeing that he was exhausted and telling him that it could wait until tomorrow, but Lex had refused. “It needs to happen today,” he’d insisted, “and it needs oversight to be sure it’s done properly.” He’d started to explain to her that excavation was a meticulous process, one with issues that ranged from where the displaced earth was put to methods of access for holes that were too deep to easily climb into and out of, when he’d immediately stopped himself, realizing to his shock that he was quoting his father. It had been unnerving enough, so soon after encountering those phantoms from his nightmares last night, that he’d allowed Sonata to lead him away from the dig site, letting the volunteers get to work on their own with Severance to guard them.
I’ll coordinate them tomorrow, he decided wearily. The initial stages of a dig were the easiest anyway. In the meantime… “Head for the train station,” he directed Sonata.
“Right-o!” she cheered as she turned toward the building. “We’ll find a nice spot in there, far away from Aria, and get you all tucked in nice and snug. I’ll get you some real food, and after you’ve eaten and slept, you’ll feel like a whole new pony!”
She continued on like that as they walked, but Lex wasn’t listening. Or rather, he wasn’t paying attention to the words she was using, instead focusing on the sound of her voice. It was the most beautiful part of her; more than her face, more than her mane, more than the curves of her body, just hearing her sent a warm feeling through him. Even when the content of her speech was asinine or flat-out nonsensical, the simple fact that he got to listen to her was pleasant in and of itself, especially when she said his name. He knew there was more that needed to be done, further tasks that required his attention, but just for right now, for this short walk back, he didn’t want to think about anything except her. Just her, and not old memories that he hated recalling…
They got back to the train station far too quickly, but he still felt a little better by the time they did.
“Okay!” announced Coal Hopper as they climbed onto the platform. “Now this’ll do it! You even had some extra here!” She pointed to a few sacks of bits that she’d set apart from the rest. “I stuck a copy of the manifest in one of the bags, and all of the food has been unloaded, so you’re all set.” She was moving as she spoke, turning and picking up one of the sacks of bits from the much larger pile in her telekinesis, levitating it over to another member of the train crew, who grabbed it and carried it inside the locomotive. “We’re gonna head out just as soon as we get this on board. If we keep the boiler going hot and go past the smaller towns without stopping, we can get to Canterlot in three days, and from there it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump back to the Crystal Empire!”
“Have a safe trip,” replied Sonata with a wave, already maneuvering Lex towards the station doors. “Here’s hoping you don’t run into any broken tracks or anythi-”
“No,” announced Lex suddenly, stopping in place before turning to look at Coal Hopper. “You can’t leave yet.”
The declaration was enough to make Coal Hopper freeze in place, a bag of bits held aloft in her aura. “What?”
“What she said,” interjected Sonata. “Why can’t they leave?”
“We just recovered a group of survivors from Vanhoover.” Lex kept his eyes on Coal Hopper as he spoke. “Several of them were in extremely poor health.” Certainly, using the weak healing spell that the Night Mare had given him hadn’t done anything for the two ponies he’d used it on. But then again, it was solely meant to deal with actual wounds, and those seemed to be less of an issue than disease and malnourishment. Even so, it was enough to make Lex wish that he’d had access to greater healing magic, or even that he’d bothered to study medicine in his youth instead of more conceptual disciplines. But while he was no doctor, he still knew enough to be confident in what he said next. “If the doctors say they’re well enough for transport, then I’ll need you to take them to Canterlot for treatment.”
Coal Hopper’s eyes widened. “Wait, hold on…”
But Lex had already turned to Sonata, his earlier romanticism gone now that he was back to problem-solving. “I need you to go find Garden Gate for me.”
One of Sonata’s eyebrows went up. “Her? How come? Oh, and she’s still going by Fencer, by the way.”
“I don’t care. Bring her and her friends here.”
“Fine, but can I tell them why?”
Lex hesitated just for a moment before answering. “I want them to be on board in case any of the ponies we brought back don’t survive the trip to Canterlot, and turn into ghouls.”
Lex brings the latest group of survivors back, and seems to finally be getting a handle on things...apparently not a moment too soon.
But is he about to send Fencer and company away?
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Oh fuck the hell yes update!
A sensible precaution.
Looks like if Cozy and Aisle do get on the train, it's going to make the ride a whole lot more awkward. Especially if Lex doesn't get the chance to remove their curses before they leave though it could force Cozy to help the ponies now that she has a way back to the Crystal Empire that doesn't involve dragging a body in the dark.
Joking aside, I do wonder how many of the survivors Lex brought back would actually even be able to handle the trip to Canterlot cause last I recall, the train doesn't have passenger cars attached.
A train arrives in Canterlot with a couple cargo trucks filled with emaciated near dead residents of a city a known dark magic user has been sent to?
That cell in the dungeon on the moon is looking nice this time of year.
a good chapter with new plans.
a vary good idea and it sure looks as if Garden Gate has earned Lexs trust or a bit of trust.
9119025 Glad to see you're still following along!
9119044 But how will Fencer and her friends react?
9119431 The train doesn't have passenger cars, but there will still be empty cargo cars that ponies can be loaded into; that's not optimal, but it's better than nothing. Plus, the staff has to have had some sort of cars for them to live in during the multi-day trip. One way or another, it probably won't be a comfortable trip, but that's not really the point.
Likewise, if Cozy manages to get on there, well...yeah, things could get awkward in a hurry.
9119477 Now, I'm sure things won't go as badly as all that.
9119840 It is notable that Lex is calling on her for this, isn't it? It's almost like she's managed to win his respect...
9122627
Again, that's what Concordance was for. As I understand it, most of Concordance wasn't really any more deadly than the material plane. Heck, the lack of powerful magic could actually make it safer in some ways if adventurers don't have such magic themselves.
I was hoping you were wrong or lying about this, but you're not. How did the 4E FR designers sleep at night?
Normally I would agree. I think a designer could make the case that something about magic in the environment doesn't cause electrical equipment to function properly, and only in the uniquely magic-poor environment of the Spire could such technology work. It's a stretch, but it's about as scientifically logical as reversing the polarity on something.
2nd Edition was in many ways the height of the setting. Although that might be because they didn't need to reissue a lot of obscure content for 2nd edition the way they did for later editions.
Interplanetary Teleport. Although you could arguably use Greater Teleport if friendly aliens had a really concrete description of their home planet.
I mean, it's probably closest to Emulate Alignment, and you still have to be pretty skilled to pull that off. If someone got a DC 30 Spellcraft or Knowledge Arcana check I would think they were a very skilled wizard even if they were quite lucky as well.
Considering the Equestrian army was greatly bolstered by Cyborg Rainbow Dash, either Sombra was an idiot for not keeping his limited air power near his person for dogfights, or you're right and the helmets interfere with flight magic.
9122648 I mean, Lex just dragged a bunch of hospital beds back to camp, he can just load the beds onto the trains, right?
9122693
I don't know about it being quite that safe; both Gzemnid and Ilsensine had their divine realms there, after all. To be honest, the Outlands (what the planar natives called the plane of Concordant Opposition) never really got its fair shake to my mind. Even its boxed set seemed to focus a bit too much on the gate towns and the local divinities. Those were interesting, to be sure, but they didn't really get at local areas that typified that plane's intrinsic aspects; if it wasn't a gate-town or where a god had set up kip, it wasn't really detailed there.
It's telling to see just how much 5th Edition and The Sundering are walking back the 4E changes.
Sure, that would be those "extraordinary circumstances" I mentioned before. Of course, the opposite tact was taken in a lot of cases where sci-fi elements were introduced, which was to say that - in terms of game mechanics - they were no different than magic. So a plasma cannon really didn't do any more damage than a lightning bolt, for instance. Of course, this ignored a lot of non-combat areas where technology readily surpassed what existing magic could easily do (e.g. radios and telephones are much more prevalent and easier to use than a sending spell).
Well, I was speaking with regard to crossing cosmologies; interplanetary teleporting wouldn't work for that. Though it's interesting to note that, back in AD&D 2nd Edition, the rules for teleporting explicitly stated that you couldn't move between crystal spheres via teleportation.
This is the perennial problem of trying to judge power/ability from a narrative sequence; the author/writer/director/etc. gets to pick the result of the "die rolls." Make Sunset Shimmer 4th level, and have her buy 4 ranks in Use Magic Device. Make it a class skill for whatever her class is, and that's +3. Give her a Charisma of 16, and that's another +3, for +10 altogether. Now have her make the attempt, and voila! She's managed to emulate an alignment!
That's cheesy, of course, but then again it's a show and not a game session; it doesn't need to go any other way for the sake of plausibility, since we don't get to see the underlying mechanics. Of course, Eclipse allows for you to bridge this sort of thing via abilities like Luck.
Rainbow Dash had a prosthetic wing; calling her a cyborg when there's no indication that her artificial part is cybernetic in nature (i.e. that it relies on some sort of feedback) is iffy, at best. Either way, I suspect that the small portion of crystal pegasi we see throughout the series made this something of a moot point to begin with.
The hospital beds could be loaded onto the train. Since the wheels on those are able to be locked so that they don't roll, that's certainly viable. But it's not exactly ideal, since they don't have anything to anchor them to the ground and trains rock and sway as they move, particularly when taking curves.
9122763
Oh wow. I thought Ilsensine was in Hell or something, since she's the combination of a ton of ancient tiefling mercenaries slaughtered by devils.
I think Interplanetary Teleport was inspired by that idea, that you weren't able to reach other Crystal Spheres with Greater Teleport, and Interplanetary was explicitly supposed to be trans-sphere. Otherwise the only difference between a 7th and 9th level spell was the amount of description you need.
So you're saying she's the same level as Aragorn? I take that as high praise.
Hey, I called myself a cyborg when I had braces, it's a sliding scale!
Maybe just the mattresses then.
9122796
Huh?
Ilsensine is the illithid god, manifesting as a giant brain with innumerable tentacles. It has nothing to do with tieflings or devils.
You're mixing editions, here. Interplanetary teleport is specific to Pathfinder, whose cosmology doesn't include crystal spheres.
Interplanetary teleport itself is actually a solution in search of a problem. The greater teleport spell, as written, has no limits on the physical distance it can cross. Rather, Pathfinder subtly introduced the idea that it can't move you between celestial bodies (e.g. from Golarion to its moon or back), and that a stronger spell was needed; as I recall, that caveat was introduced alongside the interplanetary spell itself. Contrast this with AD&D 2nd Edition, where the closest equivalent you'll find to being able to instantaneously travel from one crystal sphere to another is probably the worldwalk spell (which is essentially a gate that doesn't have a calling effect, but can connect to the same plane, rather than having to go to a different plane of existence).
Well, for a pony 4th level is probably quite exceptional.
Well this is gonna be fun.
9221645 Hopefully it's an unneeded precaution...