Slumrat Rising

Truth wasn’t sure if he had lost yet another gear, or was integrating a new one. “The whole planet hates humanity and wants us to suffer.”

“That is how I see things, yes. Although, fair to say, the hatred has been intensifying rapidly over the last few hundred years.” The Abbot’s antlers swished through the air as they nodded.

“The whole world. All the rocks and things-”

“Benefactor, what do you think this world is? A big ball of rock with a thin skin of water and trees and air over the top?”

“Well… yes?”

The deer headed demon chuckled indulgently.

“And the Sun is just a big ball of fire.” The Abbot shook his head gently. “Benefactor, did you think Stellar Eminences just referred to stars? It’s a limit of human naming conventions, like not having a separate word for the denizens of Hell and those of us “demons” who have lived on this world since the beginning. Every heavenly body is an emanation of some vast, higher dimensional being. This world. The moon. The other planets dancing in worship of the great Solar Eminence. All of them.”

Truth could only blink. It had never occurred to him to even wonder.

“And while it would be a terrible mistake to ascribe human emotions to such beings, let alone human logic, they do possess emotions and rationality.” The Abbot sounded quite matter of fact about everything.

“The planet is aware of us.” Truth searched for a reasonable profanity and drew a blank. “I may need new swears.”

“I can recommend some books.”

“Really?”

The Abbot nodded seriously. “Oh yes. The words themselves are merely a tool to convey the emotion. You want to focus on certain sounds and work from there. The field has been well developed for some time.”

Truth started nodding, then forced himself back on track. “How does something like mining not trigger immediate retaliation?”

“Who says it hasn’t? But more generally, I think you are severely underestimating the size of the world. All the off-world exports amount to a microscopic fraction of a single percent of the planet’s mass. As for everything that remains on the world… it may change its form, but that’s perfectly normal for a planet. Give it a few moments, and it will be like humanity was never there.”

“A few moments?” Truth was groping for some kind of anchor, some firm place to stand and orient himself.

“Mmm. Say a million years or so. No time at all, if you are a planet.” The Abbot waived gently. “A million is a thousand thousand. A very, very long time for a Demon. Unimaginably long for a human with a bare century to look forward to. But barely a blink for a being that measures time in the thousands of millions.”

Truth stared at the floor. No wonder the Eminence's grasp on human emotion and logic was so iffy. What could endure so much time?

“The planet, this… unbelievably ancient thing, hates the humans who have been on this world barely long enough to register on its consciousness?”

“Ah, you are assuming that just because they are ancient, they are also slow to notice things. But there is no evidence of that. All we can know is that they are used to working and thinking over impossibly long time frames. That does not prevent them from moving comparatively quickly.” The abbot waved a finger reprovingly.

“But… Why, then? If angels prepared this world for humanity’s coming, then our being here must be, to some extent, God’s will.”

“Yes. So?”

There was a pause.

“Pardon, Abbot?”

“Your being here is God’s will. So what?”

The pause resumed. Truth grasped for a reason, with limited results.

“Because ‘God’s will’ seems to end a lot of arguments when dealing with angels? All of them, actually?”

“Who said they were an angel? I suspect you know that many of those stellar eminences are demons. Why should planets be any different?”

“The planet hates us because we are bad for other demons?”

“Maybe? It hasn’t told me. I’m just guessing based on what I’m seeing.” The deer's head grinned. It wasn’t pleasant to look at.

Truth tried to imagine it. A world that despised humanity. Slowly increasing the pressure on it. Creating conditions for the humans to torture themselves. Using its strength to bully summoned angels, demons, and off world visitors, to keep the truth of cultivation from humanity. Not just failing to struggle against the loss of cosmic energy, but directly leaning into it. Collapsing faster than the simple loss of spiritually dense materials should allow.

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“The coming magical apocalypse?” Truth asked

“What magical apocalypse? At most it will last a few tens of thousands of years. Barely a blink. Barely enough time to start blinking.”

It was beyond comprehension. So much of his life was focused on the next minute, the next hour, the next day. Maybe the next year. Short-term goals, because if you didn’t hit them, there would be no long-term anything. Thinking that far in advance, treating the extermination of a species as a mere fit of irritation? What could do that?

A higher class of being, apparently.

“So your theory is that angels came and adjusted the planet. Whether that was enough to irritate the planetary eminence or if it was the actual presence of humans, who knows. But something did. So that eminence limited our ability to cultivate out of the initiates’ realm, and blocked our ability to imagine a world free of those artificial sources of stress we talked about.” Truth started. The Abbot nodded.

“Remember what happened to my mountain? I saw entire forests flattened and turned to farmland. Other forests had trees replaced with ones that grew fruit and nuts humans can eat, or provided useful building materials. The angels wanted to make it easy for humans to live here. Not a cursed struggle. And while I am guessing about the direct interference, it’s hard to imagine something else that can operate at that scale, over that long a period, with that degree of subtlety.”

“Then, after humanity was well established, Starbrite turns up.”

“Yes, I’m not actually sure when. I think he was here for a while before he made himself known, but that’s a guess based on the way that company of his seemed to spring out of nowhere.”

“Starbrite starts making all those sources of stress worse, while also speeding up the export of minerals and monopolizing cultivation resources.”

“Benefactor is most observant. But you should know that the decline in cosmic ray absorption has been going on for a lot longer than most think. It just has been very, very gradual. A few fractions of a percent less each year. Not much, but spread out over the billions of humans, it adds up very quickly. How many lives were shortened? How many failed to reach their potential?” The Abbot shook their head.

“Which, of course, encouraged people to try and extract more resources more quickly. Using elixirs and spiritually dense materials to make up for the change in climate.”

“Accelerating the vicious cycle.” The Abbot nodded.

“Accelerating the stress, which encouraged people to worry less about the future and more about their immediate needs. Needs like, picking an example completely at random, a potion or elixir for their Level One breakthrough.”

“Did you know it used to be considered shameful to use a potion for a breakthrough? It was seen as proof that you had not cultivated well.” The Abbot grinned.

“Figures.” Truth let himself collapse and fell on his back. “That just about figures. Yeah, I can see it now. Do you think the planet is actively… I don’t know, deflecting the cosmic rays?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps? It would certainly be more capable of reaching the ear of God than some random human or demon. Though it would be one of billions in its own right.” The demon shrugged.

“There are that many planets?” Truth wondered.

“There are that many stars. The universe is so great, young one. The universe is so wide and wondrous. And we see just the barest, shallowest depths of it. We can barely see a cupful of the ocean.”

Truth lay on the floor, just breathing. How do you deal with something like that? How do you face that? More than God’s indifference, the active hate of the world you were born on? How do you confront that? How do you overcome it? How could you even accept it was real?”

He didn’t want to accept it was real. But it felt right. Felt real.

“It all feels too much, doesn't it? But here is the thing. You can’t see, or touch, or really even affect any of that. So much of it is just my speculation. Plausible speculation, based on my observations over tens of thousands of years. But still speculation. And you can’t hold speculation.”

The Abbot’s voice was smooth. Truth had gotten used to the growling basso. He could see why people would listen to him give a sermon. It was a great voice for that.

“What can you hold, Benefactor? Right now, in this place, at this time, what can you grasp in your own two hands? Beyond that, how can you change yourself? If this enormity is crashing down on you, how can you change to survive it? Or to accept it with peace and grace? What, right now, can you do to make your situation better?”

Truth tried to think. It was hard. All the stress making him not want to think, just run and hide. Turning him into a rat. What could he do? What did he need to do?

He needed to get off world. Sorry Etenesh, we aren’t staying in Siphios. By all means, keep the Goodhood plan going. Happy to come back here someday. But for now, they needed to be off world. Which meant finding the Shattervoid girl and killing Starbrite. No more games. No more drawing out this or that. Time to go for the throat.

Merkovah might not like it, but that was fine. He didn’t imagine the old exorcist liked many things these days. While they still had some degree of their old strength. Before Starbrite could convert all those newly mutilated souls into power. It was time to strike. For him to strike. But the prince was dead and he refused to play the pig any longer. Who should he be?

Truth Medici had been a lot of things and a lot of people over the course of his short life. So who did he want to be now?

God’s Assassin? He would need to find some black paint and a bedroom first. And just not true. Incisive would have nothing to work with.

A disgruntled employee? A concerned citizen? Sure, but so generic they were worthless.

A Spellblade on errentry? Tempting. Very tempting, actually, but again, no. He wasn’t here for heroics or to inspire people.

“Hey Abbot?”

“Yes, Benefactor?”

“Who am I?”

“Beyond ‘Sailor?’”

“Yes. Invent a story for me. A person for me to be.”

The Abbot thought about it for a moment. “Is that what you really want?”

Truth thought about it a bit longer. “I can’t figure it out. I just… can’t seem to figure it out. Who do I have to be to see the end of this? To reach that happy place where humans live?”

“Then let that be your identity. You are the Fool.”

“Pardon?!”

“You are the Fool. Not a fool, The Fool. You wander through dangerous places, asking dangerous questions and contesting against things infinitely beyond you, all for the sake of… what, exactly? Nothing that will last beyond a few centuries at best, I expect. But people need that sort of fool. Call them a hero, or a holy child. You will forsake the trappings of this world, living in a way that most sensible rats will call foolish. Your journey may kill you. But you will walk it as a human being. Beyond the judgment of rats.”

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