Slumrat Rising

On the way to the town of Boxiliu, a town of no particular importance to anyone outside the commercial slate production industry, Truth made a marvelous discovery. In addition to producing a rare reddish colored slate, Boxiliu had a zoo.

The zoo was a small, sad affair. A few dispirited looking monkeys, tropical birds wishing they weren’t in the northern mountains, snakes, lizards, an insect hall, a few comatose looking foxes, and pride of place- a “Husband and Wife” pair of tigers. Truth was rather charmed by them. They weren’t doing much, just lying around. Still. For all the talk of the “Tiger of Jeon,” he hadn’t seen them before.

He could see why they had fascinated people for so long. Those big round eyes in that big head. Even lying flopped on the ground, you got a feeling of power from them. And, honestly, they were kind of cute too.

I don’t suppose you can learn how to speak tiger, could you?

>

Wait, really? That’s awesome!

>

Could have just said “No.” I’m allowed to have fun.

>

Happy diversion aside, he did have more serious business to attend to in Boxiliu. The slate industry was not a particularly large or lucrative one, on an international scale, but on a local scale, it was a sizable employer and the owner a wealthy man. And, as was the rule in Onis, very connected to local politics. He was in Major Tsu’s files as both an important resource (for surveillance of his employees, social control, and funding) and a priority target for supervision (same reasons.)

Truth jogged into town and was struck by nothing much. Lots of industrial looking buildings. He didn’t know why there were so many tall structures and conveyor belts coming off a slate quarry, but there were. He ran over to the quarry, on the off chance that there would be someone or something useful there. Heavy industrial equipment could be used in all sorts of ways, after all.

This ambition was immediately frustrated. First by the sheer size of the operation, and second, by how the actual work was done. The quarries were a strange combination of painful backwardness and state of the art production processes.

The quarrying was done by men with long iron fetishes. They would punch long holes into the stone, crack, crack, crack, bashed into place with iron sledges. Then they would activate the spell and split off an enormous slab of stone. The stone would then be collected by demon-pulled carts, loaded onto talisman rail carts and transported to a fabrication yard.

At the yard, the large stone would be tagged and delivered to a team of men to be split into layers. This was done with a hammer and chisel. Crack, crack, crack. Stone fragments and dust flying everywhere. Those layers were then tagged and put into baskets.

The baskets were transported by a flying talisman to workers sitting in the dirt, a rag tied around their face to keep the dust out of their lungs. It didn’t look like the rags helped much. The workers would take slabs of slate and line them up on a small, thin anvil. They would take an iron hammer and bash off the rough edges. Smashing it into a useful shape. Crack, crack, crack.

They would then put the finished slates into a basket to be collected by another flying talisman, and taken to the next point in the production line. Soon they would be shipped to a rail station, and from there, to builders' depots.

Truth watched the workers sitting in the stone dust, smashing away with their iron hammers. Crack, crack, crack. Breathing in the fruits of their labors. Each day their breath comes just that little bit shorter. He could rush in there. He could kill the supervisors, kill the bosses and tell them- you don’t have to live like this. You don’t have to kill yourself so your boss has a mansion and someone on the other side of the world has a roof just the right purple-red color.

They would look right back at him and say “So what? Are you going to feed my family? Because this is feeding my family.” And then someone would throw a stone. Crack, crack, crack.

Truth knew he wasn’t a very sympathetic person. Not the sort to go out of his way to help others. Quite the opposite, really. But there was something about the quarry workers. The little iron hammers rising and falling. The jagged stone dust flying around. Breath after breath, shredding lungs with each life-sustaining gasp. Crack, crack, crack. For what he assumed was shit money. If it wasn’t shit money, they would have masks. Crack, crack, crack.

He had seen a lot worse than this. As an example of man’s inhumanity to man, it hardly rated. Didn’t even make the top twenty of horrible things he had seen this month. Probably got held up as a sign of industry and progress in an undeveloped region. Bringing jobs to the impoverished. Yeah. A real blessing. Crack, crack, crack.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“If I ever stand at the Godhead, I will break this curse. I swear I will break it. I will show you it doesn't have to be this way. They want you to kneel, to sit in the dirt? You put their damn teeth in the dirt! You are better than this. I swear I will make you see it! Because watching you be proud of living like this pisses me off! WAKE THE FUCK UP!”

Truth hissed his anger, then spun on his heel and left. There was a big-ass manor up on the side of the mountain, overlooking the town. No points for guessing who lived there.

Truth raced up the side of the mountain. There was a decent security detail at the manor. It seemed that not everyone was properly grateful for the blessings of economic development. There were also a few anonymous looking carriages that, to Truth’s jaded eye, screamed “plainclothes cop.” Had he underestimated the quarry workers?

He ghosted into the manor. The meeting seemed to be breaking up, as the cops were leaving the house, escorted by the owner and some servants.

“I will step up my efforts, naturally. You shall have my full cooperation.”

“That is good to hear, Mr. Mu. I must remind you that this matter has Central’s full attention.”

The owner snorted. “Kittens wearing a tiger’s skin, bearing their tiny fangs at a dragon!”

The senior cop shook his head slowly. “Jeon is a petty power. Starbrite is not. I am reminding you because of our many years relationship. Be careful, and be watchful.”

“I will, I will. I am much more worried about Senior Mo. I assume preparations are being made?”

“Naturally.” They reached the carriages. “Take care.”

“Don’t bother.” Truth had the Major’s cap perched jauntily on his head. All anyone could see of him was a blurry outline- and the cap. The guards reached for their needlers, spells springing into existence. They were slow as sleepy birds.

He was on them in a flash, and past them in a second. The guards collapsed before they even had their weapons drawn. The chief cop was unconscious and disarmed, the homeowner right there with him.

Literally one second. Truth flexed his hand slowly. Literally one second. For all his outrage at the state of the quarry workers, the difference in cultivation and spell qualities, the difference the blessings gave him, meant that trained, alert police officers of around Level Two and their Level Three boss couldn’t stand up to him for even one second.

Was the notion of a world without bosses childish? Was it even possible to live a dignified life in a world with cultivation? It would require a whole lot of humility on the part of the powerful. Words that did not generally go together.

Maybe that’s why he had to become God. You needed that outside, third party. Someone with ultimate power who could restrain the mighty and give the weak space to live and grow healthy.

Truth looked down at the unconscious and dead cops. Theoretically the state could do that too. That was the point of laws, right? But no, that really was too childish. The state served its masters and the masters were never the poor or weak.

Truth sighed and got to work. Out of a macabre sense of “fun,” he arranged the dead guards in their police carriages. He even buckled their seatbelts. The owner and the chief cop he dumped in the trunk of the fanciest carriage and drove off.

Back to the zoo.

They were awake and noisy by the time he got there.

“Shhh. Don’t worry. I’m not here to blackmail you, or extort you, or force you to tell me anything.” He explained. He was in a weird mood. It was all getting to be too much, and there wasn’t a soothing pet cafe in sight.

“You work for Starbrite!” The cop snarled.

“Yes.” Truth nodded. It was a lie, but the Identity of Starbrite PMC Sergeant Truth Medici was very easy to wear, and terribly believable. He wasn’t planning on leaving any evidence, but just in case.

“Do you really think you can defeat Onis? You are mad. MAD!” The quarry owner yelled. Hoping for help, Truth assumed, though that was also a childish wish. The one underpaid zookeeper was currently stuck in a closet with a chair jammed under the doorknob on the other side.

“I don’t think so, no.” That seemed to confuse them, but the cop figured it out first.

“You think your master will become a god. The King of the world.”

Did… this cop have some kind of recording talisman built into him? Or some kind of deadman switch on his soul to pass back information? He had never heard of something like that before, but both he and Major Tsu had completely failed to beg for their lives, which confused him. Maybe their families would suffer if they did? He really didn’t know.

“Yes, exactly. Honestly, I’m as mad as you. I wanted to be at the ascension site, to witness his elevation. But no. I’m out here slapping around future untouchables. If I’m still out here by the end of the week and miss it, fuck it, your whole capital dies in a fire. Assuming you still have a capital, then.”

“Bah, what could you accomplish in a week with your petty strength?!”

Wow, this guy was bad at sounding natural. Guess it had been a long time since he was on the wrong end of a beating.

“Me? Quite a lot. The CEO? A whole lot more. And you have it wrong. There is nothing left to do. No shipments to be intercepted, no key natural philosophers to kill. The planet turns, the stars align, and the hour comes ‘round at last. A king shall rise, and a God shall descend on this world. At long last. But before it does, you and I have a little business to attend to.”

Truth fished out a rock. “Not local slate, but it will do.” He broke their ankles and wrists, then threw them into the tiger enclosure.

The tigers were well fed, and more or less habituated to humans. It wasn’t safe in there, but it wasn’t that dangerous either. Normally.

Truth looked at the tigers and imposed his will on the world. They were TIGERS. Kings of the mountains. Mighty. Terrible. The embodiment of nature, red in tooth and claw. Monkeys like these had offended their dignity for too long. And were they really going to turn down a free meal?

The tigers snarled, then roared. There were screams, then silence.

“Alright. That ought to light a fire under their ass.” Truth muttered. He was feeling lightheaded. “I think I need a break. Back to the mountain, then just camp out and wait for the show to start. Should be… real soon.”

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