Slumrat Rising

Acid started raining down over the front of the garage, hissing and spitting as it burned holes in the dirt. He could hear villagers yelling and metal clanking, somewhere between a chime and a drum. It started grumbling and rolling. The acid came down harder, eroding the edge of the building. Truth didn’t dare imagine the roof.

He started racking his mind for countermeasures. His only ranged weapon was too short-ranged to be useful. The garage had a back door, but that made things worse, not better. He needed a way to retaliate, not keep running. The damn demons shouldn’t have so much range… unless they were fueled by some damned enormous sacrifice. And whoever those people were, they were slaughtering a good chunk of a small city. So presumably, they had the capability. Dammit all.

“Alright, Thrush, you are my eyes. Maximum stealth, slip out and see what’s going on.”

“At once, Master.” The bird-shaped demon transformed into mist and slipped out under the back door. Truth took a second to do a blindingly fast touch-up of the worst damaged cosmic ray channels covering the two-wheeler. He was sure he was missing problems, but in a situation where he couldn’t do much… he could get ready to run again.

The chained spirit was almost catatonic from overwork. Truth knew they didn’t experience burnout like humans, but they could be worn down into almost nothing if abused. And he had been abusing it terribly. Was there anything he could do to help it recover? Maybe.

Truth gave a quick once over to the garage. It was almost empty, and many of the tools were things like “convenient log and rock” or “multi-function chisel and mallet” Still, even the most wretched garage must have… YES! He dove on the little metal bottle with indecent relief. It may be pissing acid outside. The locals may be making worrying noises that are getting louder and louder. But there absolutely would be a cheap bottle of Oil of Belladonna in any garage.

Synthetic, obviously. But he’d gratefully take it. He had the oddest intruding memory of a sergeant in the depot during his conscription, explaining why sometimes synthetic is better for the spirits. He desperately hoped that the sarge was right.

Popping the little cap off the tip, he squeezed a thin stream of oil directly into the array holding the spirit. It hissed and steamed, then seemed to relax. His old shop teacher back in high school would have ripped his ass in half for running a stunt like this. This was not how you maintained your chained spirit. His training sergeants back at Basic would have stitched those halves back together so they could rip them in half a second time. The belladonna would let the spirit push a little further and a little longer, but this wasn’t the same as a proper rest with stripdown and herbal soak. This was taking the edge off the symptoms without treating the disease.

Bright flashes of electric blue and green started flashing from outside. The metal drumming was now so loud it hurt. So loud pebbles and dirt were vibrating across the floor. Thrush drilled back under the door and streamed directly into its control talisman. Truth heard the demon’s voice in his mind.

“Master, the local demon hunters have organized the village. They are performing a sacrificial ritual and will likely slaughter those poor slaves above in just a few moments.”

“Good!” Truth paused for a moment. “Any chance of all of us humans talking peacefully, being mad at the people who sent the demons, and having a, you know, good time together?”

There was conspicuous silence from both Thrush and the System.

“I didn’t think so either.” Truth sighed and got the iron horse ready to go. There was an almighty CLANG and a brilliant blue-white flash of light. Truth got the wheels spinning while holding the brake. Once they were up to speed, he launched!

He bolted through the garage door, the last drops of acid burning his skin. He kept accelerating down the dirt path, avoiding angry villagers. Some had hoes out, trying to hook him. Others were running over with chains. Truth stretched his inhuman reflexes to their limit, dodging around them as best he could while clawing toward the main road. The red dust was flying everywhere, wheels kicking up sand and rocks as he spun around outraged locals. He finally got to the main straight and really let the pony run. He didn’t aim to hang around and find out what the local shaman could do if pressed.

A few kilometers outside the village, he slowed the iron horse to a gentle, almost jogging pace. It would keep them moving and give the spirit a chance to recover a bit.

“So I think we can all agree this has been a catastrophically shit day,” Truth thought. “I’ve had worse, to be sure. But it really, really draws a fucking line under the limits of the Meditations. No ranged attack. No disguise. It's just not useful for anything other than body refinement. And it fucking says something that the standard issue weapon in this country is an Acid Bolt fetish. Short range, no need for much accuracy, and no need for ammunition. Can’t lay a spell over it worth a damn, but if you figure virtually all of your army will be Level Zero, why not? Needlers require actual ammunition, cheap though it is.”

System Hint: You have an outstanding mission to acquire a spell. HINT: Why would your vastly smarter-than-you System suggest such a thing? Mmm? HINT. HINT.

“Oh, get bent. Your brilliant scheme was to knock over rich people’s houses until we found what? A safe with the family spell etched on a conveniently pocket-sized crystal? Because I can see that going really well.”

The System did not deign to reply. Truth looked back at his packs. Some of the acid had burnt through cloth, but things didn’t look too bad. He would find out tonight, he supposed.

“Thrush, how far is the border?” The sun was edging toward the horizon. On the one hand, camping in the desert was free. On the other hand, driving on a dirt road through the desert was… not the best time. He was exhausted.

“A little over a hundred kilometers from here, I believe. We drive through more desert, slowly rising into some small mountains. There is a good-sized town or small city at the pass where the two countries join. It straddles the border. This does lead me to a rather delicate question Master- do you have a passport?”

“Ah… no.” It took Truth a moment to recall what a passport was. He had never needed one. The lapel pin was all he ever needed to travel the world.

Thrush cocked its head to the side. “I cannot imagine the border is well enforced here. Something to consider, perhaps.”

Truth tried to remember how much cash he had left. Not… a ton, probably. Between the books and the repairs to the two-wheeler, much of his available budget was gone. On the other hand, he really didn’t want to sleep outside. He wanted a bed. He wanted a goddamn pet café. And a cold drink. Food. A flushing toilet. Not waking up to Mr. Scorpion, even if he was really a harmless fellow.

Fuck it, hotel it is. He pulled over and dug into the guidebook.

Truth rolled into Moyle slowly. The city? Large town? Whatever it was, it was squeezed into a valley between two low mountains. The whole city gave a sort of cramped feeling. It also made Truth twitchy.

He was looking in all directions. Checking what he saw against his memories. Had he seen that exact shop before? Because Moyle looked exactly like every other city in the Free State. He squinted and really focused. He flat-out refused to believe that, even with his “tourist’s” eyes, there were no differences between the cities.

There was a change in hats. The people in Moyle seemed to favor a round, brimless hat that covered the entire top of the head, usually in white. There was more hat diversity in the rest of the country. So. That was one difference. There may even be a second. He kept looking.

The streets were more narrow- another difference. Plenty of fruit, plenty of little stores. Paved streets, which were welcome after a high-speed sprint through the desert. Little cafes barely the size of a long booth, seemingly only serving tea and a snack. But the overall sense of beige-brownness remained. It was little explosions of color against brown and gray buildings, not a glorious riot.

There was something he was missing; he could feel it. A subtle difference, even at the edge of the city. Something so ordinary his mind was skipping over it. He slowly went mad as he negotiated the claustrophobic streets, eventually coming to a halt as a donkey cart blocked the intersection. This was very convenient for the goats who had decided to wander the streets, bleating at innocent strangers.

The nearby construction workers paid no mind and kept their worm demons chewing up rock and laying cement. Trailing behind the demon would be someone working a talisman, curing the cement, and then a second worm demon would lay the second layer, and a second worker with a talisman would cure that, and round and round they went. All that was automated in Jeon, of course. They have infinitely better demon-binding spells.

Wait. Wait just one goddamn minute. His head ratcheted around to look back at the construction workers. One of them was spectacularly picking his nose while using the ring-shaped talisman to direct the worm along the foundation. That… was not a talisman a Level Zero could use. Just not enough stellar energy in them to compel the demon to action. It was also a lot more technical than it looked because the demons were not inclined to be consistent about the ratio of ingredients when they made cement, nor were they inclined to be tidy and level in their construction. Unless compelled by someone who really knew what they were doing. And had the magic to back them up.

Truth started grinning. They were using spells. Utility, non-combat spells. They weren’t richy-rich either. These were construction guys. So spells couldn’t be that hard to come by here. Tomorrow. He was too shattered today, but tomorrow. Tomorrow he would slip across the border and get himself some magic.

The hotel was fairly basic, but it did have a sturdy gate around its parking lot, and the guard demons looked competent. There was no swimming pool or hotel bar. There was a functional shower (“Only ten minutes of hot water a day, Honored Guest, and then we have to charge extra.”) a comfortable bed, and the sworn promise of the front desk clerk that his aunt would have Truth’s clothes washed, folded and waiting outside his door in the morning.

Truth tried to negotiate a coffee and a breakfast to go with the laundry, but the despairing helplessness on the clerk’s face quickly made him give up on that idea. However, the clerk would be only too happy to recommend one of several nearby cafes and restaurants for whatever the Honored Guest required. Truth drank a liter of clean, filtered water, ate a large fruit he couldn’t name and didn’t particularly care for, washed it down with most of a second liter of water, and gratefully passed out.

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