Slumrat Rising

Truth awoke in a minor panic, feeling smothered by the plastic and the gravel. For a horrible second, he thought he had died in his sleep. For a horrible second, he thought he was back in that well of nothing, feeling the pressure growing. He kicked his way up and out in a hurry.

“How long did I sleep?”

“Five hours, Great One. This stupid worm is quite slow, and we passed nothing and no one of any note.” Truth looked around at the crummy one-lane road jammed between the railroad track and the looming mountains. It was empty. Looking the other way, there were more mountains with a few patches of trees on them. Presumably, some manner of animals, insects, and demons lived in those woods, but he had a hard time believing it. He believed the demon instead- this part of the country was empty because it sucked.

Truth kicked the pea gravel into the rough shape of a seat and sat in it, watching the nothing go past as he got to work on his assassination plot. The information crystal provided by Siphios had been destroyed as a security precaution, but he remembered it well enough. Merkovah knew his man- no plan had been provided, just a target.

The researcher was Constan Borges, M.Thaum, Ph.D., D.Thaum, D.Theo, and with a string of honorary degrees so long that they must be quite tiring to write out in one sitting. Truth was a little vague on what he had actually done that made him so blasted important to Starbrite and, apparently, the world. The dossier used words like “revolutionized” and “pioneered” but connected them to terms of art he had never come across before. He had a sneaking suspicion that this was his terrible education coming back to bite him in the ass again, but it could be that the researcher’s work was just that advanced.

The dossier was blessedly specific on where the good doctor lived and worked. He lived in a surprisingly reasonable home in the tiny flyspeck village of Happori, way the hell up in the mountains. He also worked in the tiny flyspeck village of Happori because Starbrite built him his own research base there. A three-hundred-meter tall twisting vine, holding up a flower a kilometer in diameter. The research station was built on top of it.

Access was strictly controlled. One had to be vetted at a base station and then ride up on the butterflies that fed upon the flower. Thousands upon thousands of butterflies, whose combined bodies and wings formed a platform strong enough to lift both researchers and equipment. Apparently, it all worked thanks to some of the discoveries made by Dr. Borges.

Why build the research station that way? Because when one of the greatest minds of his generation, and one of your most successful drones, wants a fancy toy, you give it to him. Especially if the toy is intended for your benefit. It will inspire others to work harder. And it was quite pretty. Most of the staff lived up there, and Dr. Borges seemed to spend virtually all his time there as well.

Reading between the lines, the home in the village was more a place to keep his wife, his dogs, and, should he ever decide he wanted them, his children. The dossier had specifically instructed to avoid attempts to use the wife, as she was a product of the Lovers tab in the System Store. She could no more harm Borges than she could fail to laugh at his jokes. She was a modified human, though just how much she was modified beyond the merely cosmetic was uncertain.

Considerably more concerning was the security. There was an awful, awful lot of security. Those observer-creatures were there in bulk, naturally. The PMC kept a full platoon of Level Three veterans on site 24/7, with rotating squads of Level Twos to man the base station. The list of surveillance golems, security golems, trap demons, and floating curses ran onto a second page, and it was repeatedly emphasized that this was only what could be observed. There were unquestionably hidden experts on site, too. Level five, at a bare minimum, Level Six or Seven would be more likely, given their protectee was Level Six.

So. A frontal assault was probably out, and infiltration would be a… real challenge. Supplies came in and out via the base station, brought in by spell birds or extraordinary spirit beasts. There was a regular supply shipment, but if Truth were in charge of the base station, the guards there would know that “delivery day” was also “Surprise Inspection Day” by the senior officers, making sure that nobody got bored with the routine work. An idea he got directly from Sergeant Murthey, now that he thought about it.

Truth lay back on the gravel and lightly closed his eyes. He was stronger now than he was when he went into the well. But was he more dangerous? He played out the fights in his mind. As a Level Four, with intensive body cultivation, he was far faster, more durable, and almost immune to low-level spells. He had extraordinary blessings, a holy sword, and his spells synergized fairly well together. He was still trying to figure out how Knife and Cup worked, but the System gave him at least a bit of flexibility in how he approached problems. Mobility, range, stopping power, healing, he was incredibly capable by any standards… except those of the Starbrite Private Military Company.

He ran the fight in his mind- Level Four PMC officer versus him. Assume they had armor, defensive charms, and the standard issue needler.

Assume there was no ambush and he was running right at them. The officer would be much slower due to the, at best, limited body cultivation available. If Truth could close to sword range, the fight would be over very quickly. The physical advantages and the power of Incisive to guide him through a fight were nearly insurmountable at the same level. If Truth could close. But what if he couldn’t?

He ran the fight again, charging forward. The op saw him coming and dropped a shield directly in Truth’s path. Truth cut it away, but as he did so, the op caused the earth below him to slam upwards mightily, launching him into the air. The PMC soldier switched to their needler and started firing rapidly. Auto fire, using Graeme’s Arrow, Enlarge, Sharp, and Plutonian Chains so that in the event that this somehow didn’t kill Truth, he wouldn’t be running anywhere afterward. This fight, too, ended quite quickly. He might be spell-resistant, but he wasn’t “big chunk of pointy metal hitting you repeatedly in the face and chest at very high speeds” resistant.

He ran it again and again in a variety of scenarios. He could shrug off lower-level spells. He could endure standard needler rounds without too much trouble. But that was the thing about the System. Sooner or later, the PMC soldier would find the right combination of spells to take you down. It might not be as fast as they wished it was. Truth had certainly seen plenty of his former comrades die. But it was never one on one. They always fell to a volume of fire.

Take the sword out of the equation and switch to the heavy needler. Truth played it out, and things were… odd. The Level Four’s ability to combine four spells on the fly let them do some downright alarming things at long range. He didn’t have the energy for it at Level Two, but it occurred to him that it would be possible to replicate mortar fire with a needler and spells, making cover irrelevant. And if the range was long enough, spotting, tracking, and targeting spells could be layered onto the needles. Again, things Truth had never bothered with given the limitations of level and mission requirements, but you absolutely could do it.

Balanced against that was the simplified nature of the spells. No single spell had the utility of Incisive or Cup and Knife. Or, for that matter, The Meditations of Valentinian. If anyone kept an active effect like Incisive’s foreknowledge going at all times, he never heard about it. So, if he was sniping, he could clear the field very fast. Until the real experts came out.

With intense reluctance, he added Obliteration to the mix. It wasn’t quite as decisive a weapon as he might have wished- it did nothing to blunt the enemies’ offense. But the damage it did was horrifying. Even a glancing blow was crippling, as the cosmic energy within a person just evaporated or boiled away. He couldn’t really imagine the damage it did to the magical system inside a person, but it had to be awful. It also negated any magical armor or charms, of course.

Would it negate foresight? He didn’t know. He had never heard of the Anti-Thiests before fighting them, but they had apparently been around forever and existed off-world. It would be insane to think that Starbrite didn’t know about them and hadn’t taken some precautions.

He briefly imagined cutting down the vine and causing the whole research station to fall out of the sky, but that was just silly. It wasn’t the stalk holding up the station. And a single casting of Obliteration would most assuredly not drop it from the sky. Any ritual that could empty the cosmic energy around it would be so slow to take effect that everyone could evacuate before it finished.

Truth puzzled at it for another hour, then set it aside. It didn’t occur to him that he had spent the whole time visualizing, something he used to struggle mightily with. Missing that growth spurt.

They were slowly, painfully slowly, approaching the town of Rhemv, which his atlas swore was a decent size and likely to have at least one restaurant. Time to get off the train and pick up the pace. Dr. Borges wasn’t going to kill himself, after all.

A walk, stretch, and trip to the bathroom later, Truth acquired a box of fried chicken and the bus schedule. Both were disappointing. The bus ran rarely and didn’t head anywhere near Happori. Which was fair enough, in a way, because Happori was deep into the mountains, and there was no reason for a stranger to go there. The fried chicken had no excuse. Lousy batter, under-seasoned, and the cost was outrageous. If someone had told him six months ago that he would ever, under any circumstances, pay thirty wen for a four-piece box, he would have had them exorcized.

He looked around Rhemv. Another tiny, gray mountain town, equal parts misery and meth. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Literally could not, trying to find a stealable vehicle was frustrating. They were all in use. Nobody walked more than a few hundred meters. Further than that- carriage. Ancient wreckers, all of them. It felt unsafe just standing near them. But this would be a very long trip indeed if he had to run all the way to Happori.

He briefly imagined hiring a local to drive him around but quickly gave it up. The idea was to leave fewer traces, not more. He hunted about the town, breaking into garages and exploring backyards. At this point, he would take anything with four wheels, effective brakes, and a functioning demon. He was lucky to get even one out of three. He didn’t know what sort of terrible crime the people of Rhemv had committed to be punished with such a comprehensive curse. It must have been spectacular.

“I give up. Thrush, find me a treasure- a functional or near functional vehicle in this pisshole town that is not in use. It cannot require more than minor repairs to be fully functional. That includes a complete absence of rodents fucking and shitting in it.”

Thrush ducked its head briefly but hesitated before flying off. “What about other animals? There is a carriage with a foxes’ den dug into the back seat that otherwise meets your needs.”

“No.”

“As you command.” Thrush managed to sound like a vizier indulging a particularly cruel young prince. A few minutes later, he came back.

“I found a vehicle that I believe meets all your requirements.”

“Lead on.”

“I caution you that it is… unconventional.”

“Sounds like my life. Let’s do it.”

“Very unconventional.”

“Just show me already.”

“Here, behind the hovel.”

“Hovel” was a fair description of the house, as it was for all the houses in Rhemv. The backyard was a heap of scrap, hauled over and dumped for reasons known only to the dumper. Buried under bits of houses, boats, and household trash was… something.

“Thrush, what am I looking at?”

“I believe, Dread Master, that it is a moderately broken, single-person, demon-assist spellbird. With some effort, you may yet rise above this rabble.”

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