Slumrat Rising

It took a bit of arranging. Truth tied a half dozen chunks of meat to a log, then roped it to a particularly thick tree. Then quadruple lashed the tree to a protruding rock. He then launched small hunks of meat (he was running very low at this point and had to make do) tied to fist sized rocks, using the same banking shot he had relied on before.

The hope was that the meat would lure the blob to the bigger log, which would then resist harvesting for a moment. This would, theoretically, hopefully, give Truth time to get into the tunnel and… take steps. Which would be determined based on what he found in the tunnel.

As he set everything up, he kept coming back to the same thought. If it was him, there would be a second blob monster in the tunnel. But he didn’t have a better idea, and everything was going to wind up blowing up soon anyway, so he would just have to deal.

He had brought some supplies, but he hadn’t the faintest hope that he brought “blowing up a secret volcano research base” quantities. Improvisation, suddenly, violently and all over the place- that was the order of the day.

The enemy was smart, careful and prepared. Time to play the fool, and see if he couldn’t persuade the most powerful people in the world to play along.

The blob horror lurched back into existence. Dumb it might be, but it smelled a larger than average rat regardless. Nightmare eyes at the end of slug-like stalks boiled by the dozens out of the muddy darkness of the thing, waving and stretching in the suddenly cold air. Truth could feel their attention pressing down on the world around him. Truth stayed well back, trying to hide behind a tree. Hoping the thing was more interested in the meat than how it got there.

Truth was used to tolerating the pressure of eyes searching for him. Hungry human hunters, talismans, those strange eyeless watcher things. This was different. This was something utterly alien. Not imperious, or hungry, or mechanical. This was something alien. Cold in a way he had trouble putting into words. Like an Angel without God.

The pressure slid over Truth, slid around him, coating the air and ground like a film of oil. It spread and pooled and moved in slithering streams up trees and amongst the leaves. Truth crouched behind a tree, doing his best to not exist. There was a moment, perhaps minutes long, where he didn’t know which way this was going to go.

There was a susurrus of something huge moving over stone. Was it coming towards him? Was it hunting him? His neck muscles wanted to spasm. To turn and look. Truth didn’t indulge his nerves. He stayed low, and was the best air temperature stone he could be.

The noise moved away. Down the mountain slope. He risked a peek. The nightmare thing was moving by means of rolling and rippling contractions in its surface. It was alarmingly quick, and apparently heavy. It certainly smashed through any trees that impeded it.

The garden of eyeballs it had sprouted were looking in every direction, including, regrettably directly back the way it came. Didn’t matter- it was out of position. It would have to be good enough. Truth ran from behind the tree, legs churning, flexing, exploding him forward. Trying to be as stealthy as he could, as fast as he could. Incisive was running as hard as he could push it.

The tunnel mouth was just ahead. The jagged exterior gave way to smooth polished stone, almost slick from diligent rubbing and scraping. Truth could feel the press of recording talismans and detection spells squeezing down on him. Nets for all sorts and sizes of fish were set in the hall. Truth evaded what he could and brute forced his way past the others, pouring power into the Blessing of the Silent Forest.

The strongest defenses were all keyed to go off when they detected people who were leveled six and above. He would have smiled at that, but the ground was crawling with wards, curses and banishments. Protections that cared nothing for his level, installed by people that knew their job well and cared about doing it right.

He felt the spells trip and spark around him. Alarms would be going off inside the base. He grinned horribly. Yes, that’s right. The bad guy is here. Everyone come and do something about him. There was a door up ahead. It looked… armored. Heavy. Like a vault door.

Truth recognized the sort- it was almost a meter thick and sealed in place. There was no lock to pick, as the whole door fused into a solid mass of metal. To open it, you had to cast a unique spell built into the talisman array built into the structure. The metal would liquify and shrink inward, letting the door float out of the way on a cloud of powerful magic. Expensive didn’t begin to describe it.

Wouldn’t it be a shame if some complete bastard broke it?

Truth’s lips pulled back into a death’s head grin. Obliteration loaded and deployed in far less than a second, slapping into the door. It took a surprising amount of effort to overcome the wards and protections built into the door, but Obliteration was built for this. It broke. There wasn’t a door any more. The end of the cave was sealed with a meter thick block of tempered steel layered with adamantium.

Truth spun on the ball of his foot and ran for the mouth of the cave as fast as he could. Concealment be damned. He practically flew to the mouth of the cave. A vast net greeted him. The endless glassy filaments of the creature had extended out at extreme range as the blob furiously rolled back up the hill.

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The Tongue of One Who Speaks For God was called into Truth’s hands, the Angelic blade screaming in outrage at the foulness before it. Incisive, Obliteration, every scrap of power in his body, the bane in the sword, the Blessing of the Brass Sea all combined and cut. Whatever the horror was, it wasn’t immune to all that. The glass threads resisted, snagged on the magic, snagged on the blade. For a fraction of a second, it seemed like it would hold.

Then they split and Truth was through, heading down the mountain and accelerating.

Abner’s Amble replaced Obliteration, and Truth focused exclusively on funneling power into only it and the Blessing of the Silent Forest. He could hear the monstrous thing crashing through the woods behind him. He could feel the base stirring itself in anger. All those high levels ready to come pouring out to discover what rat dared make a mess in their place.

Good. Let them be mad. Let them burst out in their fury.

He had run for almost a full minute when he heard the thrumm. What it was he couldn’t say, but it happened again, then a third time. There was a sudden press of light and heat coming from behind him. Seems they opted to cut their way out. It was just as well he didn’t try and rig any booby traps.

He started angling for the cliffs he had avoided on the way up. Nobody involved in this chase was remotely normal, not at this point. Truth got as much of an assist as gravity could give him, running faster and faster as he ran down near vertical slopes. The horror still chased. Whip tendrils smashed around wildly. None quite reached him, but Truth didn't know if that was a question of range, or the monster not clearly perceiving him.

Didn’t matter. Not getting caught- that mattered. He squeezed every scrap of speed from his body he could. Spells were going off above him. Summons, he would guess. Then there was a ring like a tuning fork.

Truth kept running. He was almost a kilometer away before he realized the abomination had stopped. There was a screaming noise from the top of the hill. Something summoned was clearly unhappy about its instructions. Truth didn’t wait around to find out what was going on.

At a guess, cooler heads prevailed. Rather than a full blood hunt by the entire security staff, more discreet and speedy hunters had been loosed. The terrible thing had been recalled to block off the entrance once more. They would need something to stop up the tunnel, the door would be obliterated.

It certainly looked like someone trying to lure the tiger from the mountain. They wouldn’t leave the base undefended. They certainly wouldn’t let themselves be drawn into an ambush. Because who would rush their front door, melt the lock, and run away, if it wasn’t the first move in an assault? No, they weren’t that dumb. The old monsters would doubtless grin mirthlessly and mutter about how it was “A thousand years too early for you to think you can deceive this Grandfather.”

Truth sprinted all the way to the city. He lost himself in the crowd of factory workers coming off shift in the carriage production plant, then again in market after market, bus depot after train station.

Eventually, he leapt onto an intercity train, slipping into the carriage just after the ticket collector passed through. He would jump off again before they got too far, but his legs were about dead. He might as well rest and let the train do the running.

He had been in constant motion for six hours. Much of it moving at speeds reserved for vehicles and summoned beasts. He was utterly starving, and thirsty beyond words. Literally beyond words, his mouth was so dry, talking would be an unpleasant challenge.

Was there a dining car on this train? He had no idea. He really, really didn’t feel like walking around and finding out. He just sat and tried to relax. He tried to perform a round of cultivation, but he just couldn’t get his head right. He needed more than a minute to compose himself.

He had banged on the door. Gotten their attention. Made them angry. Next step? Do the same thing again, but from the other side- attack the Caldera. Then find some other way to be annoying. Maybe start sending out press releases about “Secret Starbrite bases in the Great White Mountain.” It would sound like an unhinged conspiracy theory, but it would make people in Security unhappy.

Spread the tension. Make them angry. These were the strongest mages in the world, and some of the smartest. They had made ample preparations against assault. The only way to win was if they made a mistake, and you couldn’t count on that just happening. He would have to make it happen.

A woman pushed a cart down the aisle between the rows of seats. Apparently, boxed lunches and beverages were available for sale. Truth had neglected to steal any money, so he just helped himself.

The box was nicely packaged. It tickled his mind in a vague sort of way. He had done all that running, all that hiding, faced and unspeakable horror from who knows what Hell, and now- “Here you go, stranger, a train lunch in a pretty paper box. Please enjoy the fancy pictures of mountains we painstakingly printed all over it.”

He also snagged a big bottle of water and a can of fruit juice. He slammed those back in a hurry. Tired, tired, tired. He wolfed down the food without really tasting it. He was going to guess some kind of potato dish, with peas and rice and sides of pickles. It was nice, probably.

He was still starving, but the cart had left the carriage and he really didn’t want to get up. Truth closed his eyes and tried to cultivate again. This time, he was a bit more successful. He squeezed in a single round before giving up. Usually cultivation energized him, but now? It was exhausting.

He dug out his now battered road atlas. He traced his finger from roughly where he was all the way back to Happori village. It was not a short distance. Truth smiled blissfully. For once, some other bastard would have to haul themselves across mountains.

He was wrung out by the solo act, and it limited his options. Time to summon reinforcements.

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