694 - No Good Deed
“OOF!”
“Oh, for the Sun King’s sake…” sighed Valor, trudging over to where Mystaria had fallen muzzle-first into the snow. “Mysty, you can’t keep doing this.”
“It’s fine,” muttered Mystaria as she picked herself up. From her place at the back of the group, she could see that everyone had stopped walking and was looking back at her. Shadow and Spinner, who along with Valor were closest to her, were both shaking their heads in exasperation as they hefted the collection of spears that Shadow had gathered last night.
Ahead of them, Lex was scowling while Thermal Draft was giving her a sympathetic look. Even their prisoner – who was being forced to march at the head of their procession, pulling the rickety sled with his dead companion’s body on it – had glanced back in curiosity, Woodheart still striding alongside him just like she’d been ever since they left the cave, Littleknight riding on her back.
Her cheeks burning in embarrassment, Mystaria was sure that Solvei would have been looking at her too if Lex hadn’t sent her to scout ahead.
Brushing the snow from her face, she moved to gather up her spellbook and the assorted notes that she’d been glancing between, not worried about the snow having soaked either of them thanks to the cantrip she’d used when they’d set out. “I just got distracted. It won’t happen again.”
“This is already the third time since we set out,” huffed Valor, reaching out to snatch the spellbook and papers before Mystaria could retrieve them. “I’m sorry, but you can’t keep trying to read while we’re walking.”
“Hey!” Lunging forward, Mystaria tried to grab her possessions back, only for Valor to rear up on her hind legs and hold the assorted writings aloft, her greater height letting her easily hoist them up out of Mystaria’s reach. “Gimme those back!”
Valor shook her head. “You can have them back when we make camp again, and not before.”
Mystaria knew that the disappointed moan that escaped her lips then made her sound like a child, and that she should have been mortified by how she was acting, but she couldn’t help it.
After all, she was still trying to get a proper handle on all of the magical insights that Lex had imparted to her last night.
While he’d only deconstructed a half-dozen of the spells in her spellbook, which was a comparatively large number since she’d only inscribed a grand total of just under three dozen arcane spells so far, in each case Lex had identified some aspect that could be modified, adjusted, revised, or otherwise altered. While only one of his changes had been an outright improvement on the basic spell design – that being her spell to temporarily enlarge someone; apparently, when compared to the magical growth that Solvei possessed, her spell “overcorrected for the ratio between size and mass” – in each case Lex had been able to point out potential scenarios for where a variation on the underlying composition would serve better.
The result was that she now had the notes for a nearly a dozen new spells to inscribe into her spellbook.
True, all of them were adaptations of existing spells rather than anything genuinely new, but he’d still increased her magical versatility – at least insofar as her arcane spellcasting went – by an incredible amount.
Her “jump” spell, for instance. Shadow had nicked a scroll Mystaria had made of that in order to help Valor escape from the yetis they’d been fighting. It had worked, but there had been any number of potential scenarios where the spell’s function – which imbued the recipient’s leg muscles with the ability to generate brief bursts of vigor – wouldn’t have helped. Lex had easily come up with variations where the spell instead allowed for less staggered releases of that energy. While that was no good for jumping, strenuous activities that required constant exertion, such as climbing or swimming, would instead benefit.
It had been like that for each and every one of the spells that Lex had examined. None of the alterations he’d made had been powerful, but they’d all been inspired. As it was, he’d stopped only because Shadow and Valor had returned from their expedition to retrieve the dead adlet’s body. Mystaria felt sure that, if he’d had the time to do so, Lex would have been able to come up with some new twist on almost all of the spells she’d recorded.
Which, she decided as they all got moving again, makes his behavior that much stranger.
That Lex was a wizard-priest, like herself, seemed fairly certain at this point. While he was still a huge pile of mysteries – such as his having greater blessing that was supposed to be unique to the head of the Night Mare’s church back in Viljatown, or the altogether unfamiliar magic that let him turn into a shadow, summon black crystals, and apparently lay curses on people, all without any somatic or verbal components – she’d seen him cast traditional spells enough to know that he was versed in both disciplines.
And yet, while his clerical magic seemed fairly rote, the massive amount of high-quality food he’d created back in the village notwithstanding, she couldn’t get a handle on his arcane spellcasting. He didn’t study any sort of spellbook that she’d seen, nor did Solvei seem to act as a living repository of spells for him the way some witches used their familiars. His weird, glowing eyes and strange shadow might have been indicative of being a sorcerer – that was the term used for people who came into arcane magic naturally, usually by way of some sort of unnatural lineage that often manifested in physical twisting as their bodies struggled to properly contain their burgeoning eldritch powers – but she had a hard time believing that she’d never come across any mention of a bloodline with such conspicuous identifiers.
Most mysterious of all, however, was that Lex seemed to be going out of his way to conserve his arcane spellcasting.
That was just a theory, of course. After how she’d almost jumped to conclusions about his having had his mentality altered by wielding Severance – a hypothesis that she’d set aside, but not discarded, for the moment – she was wary of getting ahead of herself. But it was still notable how Lex seemed to be highly reluctant to use his non-divine spells.
Last night had been what had clued her in. For all that Lex had been able to theorize new spells so easily, he had shown no real excitement over having done so. Nor had he made any effort to prepare them, let alone put them through any sort of practical testing. In fact, he had barely even finished properly making them, simply outlining their thaumaturgical structure and design before moving on to the next one. It had been the magical equivalent of excavating a gold mine, finding the richest veins it contained, and then abandoning the entire enterprise. It made no sense.
Moreover, it had gotten Mystaria thinking about when he had put his arcane spellcasting to use, which upon review had only left her more confused.
He’d only used it as a last resort when defending Thermal Draft during his disastrous introduction to Fail Forward, for instance, electing to use – of all things – physical attacks first, then relying on his magic items and whatever that shadow-form was. He’d only resorted to arcane spells when the fight had begun to drag out.
The same could be said for his fight with Grisela. While he’d quickly shifted to using what seemed like his strongest magic once it became clear just how tough the winter hag was, he’d still opened with a series of ineffectual punches. Or at least, that’s what her friends had told her after the fact, since she’d been blind at the time.
Even against the adlets, Lex had made casting proper spells his last resort, opening the fight with the deadly power of his mask. Then he’d – in a truly bizarre turn of events – simply tried to tell three of them to stop, not using any sort of magic that she’d been able to feel, and had been sliced up for his efforts. That’s what it had taken for him to cast a deadlier version of the pit-creating spell he’d used on them back in town.
It had been the same last night, after Valor and Shadow had come back with the adlet’s body. Lex had used a “gentle repose” spell to preserve it, but only after trying to instruct Thermal Draft in how that worked, and her shamefacedly admitting that it was too hard a spell for her to construct.
Of course, the pegasus’ magic was unusual as well, but at least it was something Mystaria could understand…even if she couldn’t fathom why someone would want to learn such an ineffective method of spellcasting. Saying that out loud would be incredibly rude, of course, and as a priestess of Luminace it went without saying that she respected all methods of harnessing magic.
But even so, for all the flexibility that Thermal Draft’s build-it-as-you-go style afforded her – at least before all of that effort overtaxed her ability to keep shaping local energy – it not only took much longer than thaumaturgical spellcasting, it required her to keep all of the pieces in place until she’d finished constructing the entire thing, which meant that she’d never be able to put together anything truly powerful. Stronger spells required more components than she’d be able to maintain before unleashing the finished product.
And yet it almost seemed like Lex was training her up so that he could have her do the spellwork that he seemed oddly reluctant to do. Well, her and Solvei; Mystaria hadn’t had much of a chance to speak with the winter wolf, but she was apparently some sort of ice elementalist. Although she’d also displayed a number of other powers that weren’t cold-themed – like that black crystal armor she’d used while fighting the yetis – presumably as a result of Lex having taken her as a familiar thanks to his apparently having the Night Mare’s favor.
All of which means…what? That he has some sort of taboo against secular spellcasting? Mystaria turned that over for a minute before discarding the idea. No. Whatever that magic is that’s letting him lay down curses and raise black crystals, it doesn’t seem divine in nature, and he’s fine with using that. Maybe he needs a spellbook the way I do, but lost his?
A moment’s thought showed that theory was flawed as well. If that were the case, he would have copied everything in mine as soon as he got his hooves on it. I don’t have many in there, but it’s still better than nothing. Does he just not know very many spells to begin with?
No, in light of how easily he’d created new versions of what was in her spellbook, that idea was impossible to take seriously. Besides, Spinner said that Thermal Draft told her that Lex had used all sorts of spells during the adventures they’d been on before now. Even if she was exaggerating, that’s still more than we’ve seen him use so far. So why is he holding back so much now?
To call that behavior unusual was an understatement. Other than spells which required expensive material components, one of the single largest advantages of thaumaturgical spellcasting was that it was an easily-renewable resource. Regardless of how many spells you used over the course of a day, an hour’s worth of preparation the next morning would replenish them all. As such, while wise wizards made sure not to expend all of their magic before they reached the end of the day – and had a safe place to rest and relax so they could renew their magic later on – there was no reason to hold back as much as Lex was.
…unless, for some reason, he had to.
It’s almost like he needs something other than a spellbook to renew his arcane spells, and he doesn’t have access to it now, decided Mystaria. At least, that fits best with how he’s acting. But if it’s not a spellbook, what does he need?
After several minutes of pondering that question in silence, Mystaria gave up. Her understanding of Lex – and, for that matter, Solvei and Drafty – was disjointed and incomplete. They, or rather, the two ponies, apparently came from a foreign kingdom, and their unusual styles of magic suggested that the spellcasting traditions were different there. Without more information, there was no way to guess what it was that Lex needed, but didn’t currently have, in order to replenish his spells.
Which means I’ll just have to ask him, Mystaria decided with a nod.
After all, what better way to help build trust and strengthen bonds of friendship than by helping him fix what had to be a terrible problem? Given that he was clearly desperate to protect Thermal Draft, and they were headed toward a village of adlets who were likely to be hostile, seeking help to find a lost temple that likely housed a winter hag whom they knew was hostile, having his arcane spellcasting crippled like that had to be stressing him out in a bad way. And who knows? Whether or not he’s had his personality altered by Severance, this might actually help him relax a little!
Satisfied that she was well on her way to making the dour unicorn into a friend, Mystaria reached for her holy symbol. While she couldn’t be sure, Lex seemed like he was probably keeping his limitation a secret from Thermal Draft, likely to keep her from worrying. In that case, I can just ask him what I can do to help telepathically so that his secret won’t get out.
Taking a deep breath, she called upon the gift that Luminace had graced her with. She could only communicate telepathically with someone for a short while, and only if they were relatively close, but it was a power that had proven itself useful again and again over the course of her adventures with her friends. And it would prove its worth again now, she knew, as she reached out to touch Lex’s mind-
Only for the link to be terminated before it could connect, ending with a sudden, nauseating spike of…of…
Rejection. That was the best way she could think to describe the sensation. It had been the psychic equivalent of trying to say something, only for someone to slam their hoof over her mouth before she could get a single word out, shutting down any attempt to open a line of dialogue.
Except it wasn’t “someone,” Mystaria corrected herself shakily, mildly stunned by just how immediately, and how viscerally, she’d been rebuffed. It was Lex. But how…?
She didn’t have any more time to wonder about that, however, as the stallion in question had come to an immediate halt as soon as she’d tried – and failed – to reach his mind. Now, he was looking back and forth wildly, his eyes glowing flaring green and purple.
“Lex?” Up ahead, Drafty reached out to put a hoof on his shoulder. “Is everything alr-”
“Something just tried to attack my mind!” he snapped, still scanning the area around them. “All of you, prepare for battle! There’s a hostile presence-”
“No!” blurted Mystaria, realizing that she’d just made a blunder, hoping that she hadn’t just wiped out the goodwill she’d only earned with Lex yesterday. “It wasn’t an attack! I was just trying to talk to you privately!”
Lex’s eyes settled on her then, and the intensity of his gaze was so heavy it was almost physically painful. “Explain.”
Although his demand was only a single word, the tenor of his voice was thick with the threat of violence if she didn’t comply. On the edges of her vision, Mystaria could see the rest of her friends shifting in place, knowing that they were getting ready if a fight broke out, and she cringed internally. How did I mess up this badly?!
Knowing that there’d be time to berate herself later, she sat down in the snow – Solvei had already enchanted them against the cold before they’d left – and raised one hoof to her holy symbol, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. “I told you before that Luminace has given me the power to speak to my friends telepathically, remember? Like you can with Solvei. That’s all I was trying to do now; talk to you mind-to-mind. It wasn’t an attack, I swear it on the goddess’s name.”
Slowly, never taking his eyes off of her, Lex stalked toward her. “How is it,” he hissed, his voice thick with a rising tide of anger, “that a servant of a goddess who champions the responsible use of magic doesn’t realize that casting a spell on someone without their express permission IS, IN FACT, AN ATTACK?!”
He bellowed that last part, continuing to close the distance between them, only for Valor and Shadow to move in front of him. “You need to calm down,” demanded the former.
“And get over yourself,” spat Shadow. “Do you really think that Mystaria, of all ponies-”
“Stand aside, both of you,” interrupted Mystaria, knowing that if they got in Lex’s face things would likely get worse in a hurry. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but please move.”
“Mysty, you can’t be serious!” Although it was hard to make out her expression behind her mask, the disbelief in Shadow’s voice was impossible to miss. “This nutcase-”
“Let’s go.” Valor didn’t give Shadow a chance to finish her objection, instead pushing the masked mare out of the way as she moved aside.
Which didn’t mean that Shadow went quietly. “Valor! What are you doing?!”
“The same thing I said I was doing last night,” answered the larger mare without hesitation. “Trusting Mysty’s judgment.”
Pausing just long enough to flash her friend a grateful smile, Mystaria turned her full attention back to Lex a moment later, the unicorn still staring at her balefully. “You’re right,” she admitted, falling back on the same tactic that had led to her managing to reach an accord with Lex the previous evening. “I should have asked for permission before trying to contact you magically the way I did. I’m deeply sorry for having upset you; I only did it because I didn’t want everyone else to overhear the topic I wanted to discuss with you.”
“And now,” rumbled Lex, “they’ll all overhear it, because you’re going to tell me precisely what you thought was so important that you’d dare impinge on my mental autonomy.”
Mystaria blinked, unprepared for him to make that particular demand. “What? That’s…no. I mean, you don’t want me to do that!”
“I can assure you,” growled Lex, “I do. And it wasn’t a request.”
“Lex, please!” pleaded Mystaria. “It’s about you, about how I could try and pay you back for all those spells you developed and shared with me last night! That’s all!”
The glow in his eyes grew brighter then, and a purple aura sprang to life around his horn. “This is your last chance!” he snarled. “State specifically what you tried to contact me about, or the curse I put on you will make you spend the rest of your life wishing that you had!”
“Not gonna happen!” snapped Shadow, drawing her dagger, and this time Valor didn’t hold her back, readying her shield instead. Nor were they the only ones getting ready, as Mystaria could see Spinner bringing her lute around, with Woodheart throwing her robe off as Littleknight jumped off her back and bounded toward them.
Knowing that she had no choice now, Mystaria squeezed her eyes shut even as she raised her voice.
“I was going to say that I wanted to help you fix whatever it is that’s keeping you from replenishing your arcane magic!”
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Well, it was inevitable that this would happen but I did not expect it to occur so soon after mending bridges and over such a admittedly mundane and yet important matter. Still, with her suspicions about Lex's weakness revealed, well. It's a tossup on what will happen. Even if the situation deescalates, the information would be something Shadow along with the others will keep in mind, especially if the divide between the group continues to grow.
Heck, I could almost imagine Lex just cutting ties and cursing the lot of them to ensure his weakness is kept a secret from anyone seeking to undermine him. Almost.
Hasn't Lex cast spells on people without asking before? Or tried to? His Sending spell for example which is essentially the same as what she was trying to use.
Lex slides even deeper down the pit of self loathing as he realises he isnt anylyzing the enemy fast and deep enough to keep up, thereby exposing faults and weaknesses yet again.
11176721 Lex's use of sending in this story requires some clarification on my end. The popular interpretation of it is that it's a mind-to-mind effect that auto-translates whatever the message in question is between the recipients, an interpretation largely based around it not having the [language-dependent] descriptor (similar to telepathic bond).
However, I've never liked that explanation, simply because the telepathic, bypasses-all-language-barriers aspect of it seems to fly in the face of a basic reading of the spell, which makes no mention of any of those things (the closest you get is the line about how "a creature with an Intelligence score as low as 1 can understand the sending," something I took to mean that they simply received the message clearly, rather than the spell had some sort of effect that made it inherently comprehensible. (Plus, the material component for the spell is one that suggested audio communication, albeit in a joking way...which, on a minor tangent, is something a lot of material and focus components do.)
To that end, every single instance of sending in this story has been audible in nature, rather than telepathic. You can see an example of that in action in Chapter 658 - Twenty-Five and Nothing, when Coat Tail's ability to respond within twenty-five words is foiled because he spends part of his answer talking to Tranquila, who overheard Lex's message to Coat Tail and is interrupting the bald stallion while he's trying to answer.
Since Lex is accomplished at creating variant spells to suit his needs, shown as recently as the previous chapter, we can chalk this up to his having invented a version of sending that's 99% the same, but has the [language-dependent] descriptor to demonstrate that it's audible in nature.
More broadly, Lex has used magic on people without their permission, but doing so falls within any of the several exceptions that he's developed as part of the ethical framework that governs his personal conduct. You don't need someone's permission to cast spells on them when you're engaged in an open conflict against that person, for example. You also don't need to do so when the authority (i.e. Lex himself) is meting out punishment for misdeeds. And of course, since Lex has designated himself as being the highest authority in Equestria, he has the other exceptions that he can make use of which justify his conduct in his own eyes, exceptions which other ponies can't claim.
That might sound unfair, but Lex isn't really interested in fair. He's interested in what's orderly, what's understandable, and what's just (under his interpretation of the term).
11176720 For all his caution about keeping this particular limitation hidden, Lex tipped his hoof to Mystaria, with the ease with which he was able to deconstruct her spells and yet not bothering to add them to his own repertoire that she could see being the tipping point.
In this case, I suspect that Lex might have been overlooking some obvious warning signs. Mystaria is no Twilight Sparkle, in terms of raw intelligence, but she's been using thaumaturgical spellcasting - both divine and arcane - for a lot longer than Twilight has, and is more familiar with the hallmarks that go into thought-based magic. To that end, with her having observed Lex through several fights now, she was quickly able to realize that a lot of what he's doing doesn't make sense, and that the strongest suggestion insofar as his arcane magic goes is that he's conserving it because he can't easily replenish it.
That's not something someone used to Equestrian magic would figure out so easily, but the more familiar they are with thaumaturgy, well...Twilight almost figured it out on her own after a single duel with Lex. It's not really a surprise that another thaumaturgical spellcaster would after seeing him in action several times in quick succession.
As for what Lex does now that his greatest limitation is out in the open...that remains to be seen, but I'm guessing it won't be pretty.
11176807 Certainly, this won't make his disposition better than it has been up until now. It's no accident that Lex's natural magic (in terms of Equestrian magic) is focused around isolation. Having the weakness that he's worked so hard to keep hidden being openly exposed, and in front of a group of ponies whom he doesn't really trust, probably won't produce any good reactions on his part.
well Lex one of your secrets is out. and you are the reason agene.
interesting as i have a feeling that Mystaria would be a huge help.
11176918 It's possible that she could, but at this point that possibility seems like it will be purely theoretical, as it's hard to imagine Lex taking what she just said well at all. Particularly since, as you noted, the reason she said it out loud for everyone to hear was because he pressed her.
Lex really need Sonata, at this point I am sure he must get negative wisdom and charisma every time he press a subject.
11176963 His Wisdom is actually pretty high (albeit nowhere near his Intelligence), but his Charisma is low enough that it confers a penalty rather than a bonus. Throw in that he has a few other penalties to most social interaction skills (though not Intimidate, unsurprisingly enough), and it's no surprise that without Sonata's natural sociability and guileless demeanor there to smooth things over, Lex tends to make things worse when he tries to relate to other people (albeit with the odd exception happening every now and then).