Slumrat Rising

The few survivors were shattered, exhausted. Confused. Hurting. Their energy had been spent to the last drop, keeping themselves alive any way they could. They were very smart, possessed of abundant magical power, and surrounded by the best talismans and personal protections money could buy on this planet. Empowered by a System that gave them access to a bewildering number of spells in an instant. For most of the people on the sky lily, it hadn’t been nearly enough to survive the explosive collapse. For those lucky, smart, strong few that did survive, there was nothing left that would save them from Truth.

Truth moved through the smoke and darkness, letting the light of their burning homes blind his prey. They would see what lived in the darkness and the shadow soon enough. The Tongue struck, snuffing a life, then returned to his soul until it was needed again. Without noise, without light, it destroyed mortal lives. The sword had no qualms about this. Angels had always despised humans, especially those who had strayed from the appointed path. Truth was just glad the Tongue tolerated him.

He kept Incisive active. Who knew what modifications these researchers had made to themselves? What spells they still had available to them? He moved quickly, letting himself fade into the background, and if someone managed to see him? They would see a Starbrite Man, a strong brother in the PMC, rushing to do his duty.

He didn’t keep count. If it mattered, the recording talisman would keep track. He just tried to capture the faces for identification later. It was just the job. He had been paid in advance and paid richly. Besides, he just plain didn’t like what they were doing here. So he did the job and killed everyone he found. Not that they all went quietly. The PMC had a large presence on the sky lily, and they kept their heads in a fight.

He found a squad of Level Two mercenaries led by a Level Three lieutenant. They were wearing the BDUs and combat boots Truth remembered, but in addition to the usual needlers, they carried bronze spears and had on face-covering bronze helmets. He could see the sparking remnants of spells and talismans still lighting up around them. No idea where the second squad or the sergeant was.

The lieutenant seemed to be trusting his instincts, looking hard at the shadows, jabbing at them with his spear. Truth just casually stepped to the side and avoided it. As soon as the lieutenant looked away, Truth stepped sharply forward, calling the Tongue to his hand and beheading the officer in an effortless blow. He should have been able to exterminate the Level Two soldiers before they understood what had happened.

“Uqbar! Uqbar!” Truth was suddenly faced with four squaddies jabbing spears… roughly where he was. They were far, far too slow to hit him, and they clearly weren’t seeing him, but somehow, they had reacted more quickly than they should. The end was the same- their heads rolling next to their lieutenants, but the experience shook Truth.

He was on the clock, but… he poked at one of the heads, helmet still attached, with a bit of wood. The helmet looked like normal bronze. It didn’t even look particularly enchanted.

>

Truth did, then stood. The helmets were fused to the faces of the soldiers. Whatever had been done to them, it was intended to be permanent. A lot to pick apart there, just not now. He grabbed one of the spears and looked it over. No obvious enchantments but the edge was wickedly sharp. He smashed it into a bit of fallen concrete, then examined the spearhead again. Damage, but less than he would have expected. Hmm. He tossed it away, then had his attention yanked back to it.

His handprints were etched into the wood. He picked it up again. The steam boiled up, seemingly melting or eroding away the wood. It seems that whatever they were, they were really unorthodox. He took a few seconds to obliterate them with Incisive and the Tongue. Investigators would know this was not an accident immediately, but there was no reason to give them any easy clues.

The hunt continued. He didn’t know how much longer he had- not long, he was sure of that. Orbital drop wasn’t possible thanks to the Shattervoid, but you could move something through the air in a big damn hurry if you had the magic and the money. Starbrite had both, and Jeon wasn’t all that big. Someone alarmingly high level was in the air and on their way, right this second.

He moved as quickly as he could, trying to listen for anyone moving through the rubble, voices crying out for help or to help. Silencing them. At this point, it wasn’t important who he was killing. Each one would hurt Starbrite badly. He didn’t see any loot worth grabbing, but then, would he even recognize it if he saw it?

Truth knew perfectly well that he didn’t understand hardly anything he had seen here. How was he going to find the Top-Secret-Explain-Everything-Simply-File in the rubble? Besides, anything really good would be stored by the System. That much he was sure of.

There was a sizable noise deep in the ruin. Huge chunks of flower and rubble were flying around. Some kind of powerhouse or powerful golem was at the center of it. Truth moved quickly. If it were the former, he would see if he could manage a kill. If the latter, he’d see if he could turn the busted thing on everyone else.

“Have you found the library yet?”

“No, and frankly, it doesn’t matter right now. This was an attack. We need to get you out of here, Director.”

“The hell with that! The library is the key to everything. Without it-”

“Director? I have a mission now, and I’m pretty sure you do too. Without the library, we have you. We can make more books with you, but no amount of books can make you. Please.”

There was a pause. Truth got a lot quieter. He was lucky, in one sense. He had found his prey. Unlucky in another sense- his prey was still alive, had two levels on him, had the System, and a Starbrite-issue bodyguard. His senior. He didn’t know quite how he felt about that.

Borges and his bodyguard were at the bottom of a small pit, digging for something. A “library,” presumably. Borges was thin, older-looking, and not particularly handsome. An impressive degree of asceticism, given his wealth and class in Jeon. Or perhaps he relied on illusions, and the charms broke. His left arm was torn off at the shoulder, but he didn’t seem to mind- a green field covered the wound, stopping the flow of blood. He was a mage. He didn’t need his arms to be strong. He could fling one-tonne rocks with a word and a thought.

His bodyguard was in considerably worse shape. His limbs were attached, but he had several bowl sized holes clean through his chest and belly, eating away at him with some corrosive force. He was trying to keep them neutralized with his own healing spells, but it was not going well. It seemed that Borges had finally noticed that fact, too.

“How are you holding up, Tae?”

“Not great, Director. I will hold together for long enough. If we go. Now.”

The director looked bitterly around the ruins. “This was to be the first flower, you know. I was going to build an entire pond full of lilies, then sever their earthly roots and let them drift through the sea of clouds. Shedding the light of Uqbar on the world. Blessing its people with prosperity and hope, in the era of dead magic.”

“You still can, Director. You still can.”

“Oh I know. It’s just the stupidity of it all, the cruel barbarity. Whoever did this had no conception of what we were making here. They just destroyed it for the sake of destroying it. It’s important to Starbrite, and that’s reason enough. The logic of babies. Animals.”

Tae nodded gently. “Plenty of time to prove them wrong. Possibly when they are strapped to the altar.”

“I look forward to it. Hah. Well, I can’t do much, but I think I can stop the corrosion, at least.” Borges closed his eyes. Truth could feel the world starting to twist, ever so gently. The steam started rising off him faster and faster. No more time to watch. He started to charge in, when he had a nasty idea. Since it worked once…

Truth timed it carefully. Just when Borges started raising his hand to do… whatever he was going to do, Truth cast Cup and Knife, cutting around the two. The results were anti-climactic, from his perspective. Nothing happened. The two in the pit, however, saw it differently.

“Tae, I can’t reach Uqbar. I can see it, feel it, but I can’t reach it.”

Tae went white and dropped to one knee. “It’s leaving us. Me. Director, run! I can’t hold out. RUN!”

“Damnit, I’ve lost too many people today! Come on, Tae. This time, it’s me carrying you.” Borges rushed over and threw his good arm around his bodyguard, lifting him to his feet. “We have this. I’ve enough strength left to clear us a path. Someone will have a sprit beast they can summon. We’ll get out of here, and get you to a hospital.”

Truth moved silently behind them. Some instinct must have alerted Tae, some bone-deep pride as a bodyguard, because he tried to look over his shoulder. Tried to put his body between Truth and Borges. Truth didn’t give him time to react. It all worked in concert- the Meditations, Tool, Incisive, and even Cup and Knife. They all stacked on top of the Blessings of the Silent Forest and of the Brass Sea. And those, in turn, built on the instinct for violence he was born with. The Tongue of One Who Speaks For God spoke powerfully and established Truth’s Orthodoxy. These two were not allowed to live.

There was barely any resistance. A brief spike of energy as the bane in the sword made sure there was no hope of recovery. And then two heads landed in the dirt.

Truth immediately cast Cup and Knife again. The souls of these people were mutilated and wrong. Evil. They should be shredded to their most basic essence and returned to eternity. The spell struggled with that one, but he could feel it drawing on his dwindling power. Eventually, it stopped. Hopefully, that did enough. Two fewer souls for the System Astrologica, and less information for it to work with. He cast Obliterate on the bodies, just to be sure, and stabbed them in the brain and heart, just to be very sure. He double-checked that the recording talisman caught both faces. Then he turned and ran from the ruins. The heavy needler was a pile of scrap somewhere, he wouldn’t worry about it. He just needed to run. Fast.

He made it to the tree line when the sky in the south started to glow. It looked like a swarm of shooting stars approaching, getting larger, turning into comets with long fiery tails rushing towards him. As they came closer still, he saw they were firebirds, being driven to their limits, then faster still with heavy enchantments. Riding on their backs were mages. PMC hitters and off-the-books specialists in upsetting fields. If there was a soul up there below Level Four, they were hiding damn well. But of course there wasn’t any. He’d bet the peak of Level Four was the minimum required cultivation to stand with these powerhouses.

Starbrite had arrived in force, and they were bound and determined to make sure somebody paid for all this. Truth suddenly wished he had been born with four legs. No matter how much he cultivated, he couldn’t seem to run fast enough.

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