Slumrat Rising

Truth looked at the box, with increasing confusion and excitement. He wasn’t a big believer in coincidence. There was simply no chance that this was placed here with the expectation of catching his attention- if he had no idea he was coming to Confen, how could anyone else know? What’s more, who would think his snake would get cozy on a warm spot behind the Jade Bamboo Restaurant as it stubbornly refused to hunt rats?

The only logical explanation was that this was something deliberately placed by the owners of the restaurant, which seemed unlikely, or this was part of something much, much bigger. Step one, of course, would be cracking it open and figuring out what was inside. Anything covered with this many privacy protections would certainly be rigged to self destruct rather than allow itself to be examined. Some delicacy would be required.

That was why he was using his most delicate chisel and mallet. Gently, right along the welded seam. It had already been badly degraded by the heat. It would be silly not to start where the work had already been half finished. Could he have used a spell and his fingers? Yes. But the maintenance tech wanted to honor the work that went into this thing. And he low-key found it hilarious.

“I mean, no vibration sensors? Are they for real with this thing? They have it warded against, if I am reading this right, against spiritual contagion, but not “bashing with a mallet?”

“Truly the foolishness of mortals is without bounds, Omniscient One.” Thrush said, ‘loyally.’

“True. Although, this being a Starbrite product, I can only assume there is, or was, something uncommonly nasty inside waiting for someone to break it open.”

“Ah, yes. That would seem to fit what you have said, and seen, of them.” The little bird was hopping around a bit, seemingly anxious.

“Got it cracked.” Truth tossed the tools back into the storage ring with a casual thought.

“DROP IT AT ONCE, MASTER!” Thrush yelled. Truth didn’t have to be told twice. Incisive wasn’t yelling with the former imp, but it was making it equally plain. What was in the box was bad news. He had retreated ten meters before the box hit the ground.

Truth reinforced the seals over his body with the Meditations, then ran the spell to try and destroy any poisons he might have inhaled. At the same time, he ran Cup and Knife over himself. He felt the spell trigger over something in him, destroying it rather than trying to shift it around. He couldn’t tell what it was- it had been microscopic and only in him for the barest fraction of a second.

Thrush was fluttering around the box, a whirlwind forming beneath it as it tried to absorb whatever was in the box.

“Anything you can do to help destroy this thing, Master, would be highly beneficial to you and the people of this city!”

Truth slammed Cup and Knife down towards the box, sweeping the air between them. Clearing out the… whatever it was. No problem casting the spell- apparently Manda felt this had no place in the world.

Truth kept the spell running even after it stopped registering a change. Just in case. “Thrush?”

“The foulness is gone, Dread Savior, or beyond my detection at least.”

Truth ran the spell over the box one more time, just to be sure. “Alright, keep a close eye on it. What was it, anyhow?”

“A most apposite question. I believe it was a plague.”

Ah. Right. Air demons loved eating filth, and were often employed as cleaners for that exact reason. Although… “You believe it was a plague?”

“Yes. Airborne diseases share certain… commonalities, let us say. In the way that while humans and horses are clearly different animals capable of different things, they both have hearts and lungs and limbs and suchlike.”

“With you so far. This didn’t much look like a horse?”

“Yes, continuing the analogy, imagine expecting a horse and finding an octopus doing a very persuasive horse impression.”

“A horse sized octopus.”

“If such an image alarms you, good. It should. Yes, a horse sized octopus, galloping with its millions of identical siblings… Master, more of them emerge from the box! I beg you, unless you wish this city destroyed, obliterate the box!”

Truth had already run Cup and Knife over it, so he hammered it with Obliteration instead. Once he felt the active spells die, he switched back to Cup and Knife. It had only been a few seconds gap, but he could feel there was already a substantial amount of sickness loose in the wind.

“Thrush, round up all of it!”

“As you command!”

Thrush exploded into a cloud of black gas once more, and stirred the winds in the alley. In a fraction of a second, a hurricane formed around him, drawing all the loose rubbish up off the ground and into himself. Within a minute, the alley was cleaner than it had ever been before. After five minutes, it was more free of disease than most hospital hallways.

“I believe that is all of it, your Grandness. However, if you have any means to check, I pray you do so.”

Truth leaned into Incisive. A plague might not be next-couple-of-seconds dangerous, but he should be able to pick up something. He hoped.

Nothing. He kept Cup and Knife going anyway, doing his best to tidy up the alley. Perks got a dose of cure too, though he seemed to have not been exposed.

“Horse sized octopus, eh?”

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“Indeed. A particularly malevolent one, accompanied by herds of its brood-mates.”

“Perks didn’t get any exposure.”

“No, nor did it spread far. Part of why I am convinced it is unnatural. I think it was deliberately hunting humans. They seemed attracted to you, possibly because some landed on you when you opened the box, but otherwise, they seemed to move as a group to find someone to infect.”

“Well. That’s horrifying.”

“It’s not unprecedented, of course. Many illnesses are a result of microscopic demons, not even capable of sentience, let alone sapience. They will frequently move as a group, infecting the same host and sacrificing the host’s health to summon more of their ilk into the world.”

“Sure, we covered that in Health Class. I take it these are a more aggressive breed than usual?”

“Very much so, Auspicious One. In addition to being far more aggressive, they seem more robust than most of their ilk. I suspect they would strongly resist banishment and cures, as well as harshly use their hosts in aid of summoning more of their kind.”

Truth crouched down to the box and carefully sliced it in half. The inside did, in fact, contain a number of explosive charms carved into the interior, but most of the box was, surprisingly, aimed at life support. There was a sheet of what looked like brownish jelly covering what was probably the bottom of the box, and beneath that, a summoning glyph.

Truth took a careful look at everything. Most of it was pretty standard- that gem was used in heat controllers everywhere, this cartouche supported vitality enhancing spells, and so on. Even most of the talismans were quite standard. The explosive talismans weren’t military grade. They were used in industrial applications, mining and building demolitions. With the right permits, you could buy as many as you liked.

The only things that he didn’t recognize was the summoning glyph and whatever the jelly was. And even the summoning glyph wasn’t that far off normal. He had just never seen a summoning glyph aimed at actually summoning a sickness demon before. At a guess, this is what one of those looked like.

Everything else in the box, in terms of talisman technology, was very ordinary. Controlled, in some cases. Certainly the divination blockers and privacy wards were very strictly controlled and usable only by the very wealthy. But they were all legal. Not this. Summoning sickness demons was a death penalty offense, execution via incineration in a specialized kiln. And that was in minor cases where the perpetrator confessed and apologized.

“Any idea what the jelly-stuff is?”

“None, Horrific Presence, though I feel a sort of inviting feeling from it. It does not so much inspire hunger as a sense of comfort.”

“Huh.” Truth mulled it over. He had destroyed whatever magic had been in that jelly, but his air demon still thought it looked comfy. He shivered compulsively. It wasn’t the evening air. Lovely night tonight.

“Could it be, or well, have been, some kind of medium for mutating the sickness demons?”

Thrush hopped around, not getting too close to the box.

“It’s certainly possible. I can imagine little sickness demons nestled in there, perhaps feeding on whatever it is made out of and summoning more of their ilk, while being mutated by, again, whatever is in there.”

One corner of the jelly was badly stiffened and scorched, only a fraction the thickness of the rest of the jelly. You could see where tendrils of heat had been reaching in, stiffening and damaging the rest of the block.

“Looks like it was pretty damaged before we cracked it open.”

“Indeed. I would say that it was slowly destroying itself. We only confronted a bare fraction of its intended contents.”

The metal had been cherry red, truth remembered. The fact that anything survived in a sealed metal box at that temperature was alarming. And telling.

He looked over at the explosive talismans. This particular model just summoned a large ball of air, compressed it down to a volume smaller than a grain of salt, and then released it. The expanding gas smashed apart anything they hit. Simple, effective, and comparatively safe. Best of all, as it was a summons, the yield was easily controllable with the paired activation gem.

Almost no heat generated, but an awful lot of force. He looked dubiously at the concrete, then back at the explosive talismans. No way to tell now, of course, but… that much explosive force? Ah, but it only needed to crack the concrete. As long as there was a gap, the sickness demons could find their way through. They were famous for it, in fact.

And it really wasn’t that hard to put a long crack in concrete. Not that hard at all.

“Have an earth demon do the searching, you said?”

“Yes, just have the moronic thing mark on your map where it finds places it cannot go. Use small words and many beatings. It’s the only language these creatures understand.”

Truth snorted and started carving a summoning circle in the concrete. He had summoned air and water imps before. An earth imp would be a first, but the basics didn’t change.

“You could put at least four additional bindings of suffering at the inverse cardinals, Supreme Wizard.”

“Oh? Why?”

“They would hurt it ever so much more.”

“Thought we were moving away from the whole “slave” thing?”

“That would only be relevant if they were being used to compel this idiot worm’s labor.”

“They aren’t?”

“No, I just want it to suffer because it dares to live in front of me. And it’s an earth demon.”

“You have no idea, none, who I am summoning.”

“As I said, an earth demon. That is reason enough.”

“It’s your co-worker. Your co-revolutionary in the happy war against Heaven!”

“And just as some humans are created superior to others of their kind, so too are demons. Some are born to lead, others to experience horrifying agony as they labor for their betters. A condition which shall persist for every second of their eternal existence, for no other reason than their suffering adds sweetness to the pleasures of the ones who bound them in servitude.”

“You know what? I’mma skip it.”

“Pity. I imagine the lumpen thing will be disappointed.”

“Wait, what?”

The summoning circle filled with a muddy light. A sickly, gray-green rock seemed to fade into existence, as though it were bleeding through the skin of reality.

“Fuck you. You goddamn weakass, punkass, bitchass, micro-cocked, inbred, dogfucking, horse fucked, pussy bitch excuse of a wizard. Give me your orders, you fucking clown, so I can go work for someone that didn’t try to jerk off with an oven door. Twice. You disgust me. You offend every single particle of my being. I am made lesser simply because you have summoned me. No matter how many eternities I exist for, no matter how high I ascend, I will always be tainted by the knowledge that I once served you. Fucking kill yourself, so we can fix you down in Hell. Consider that the only free advice you will get from me, shithead. It’s the best you ever had.”

Truth blinked. “Hey, check out this neat spell I learned in Siphios. Thrush, you are going to love it.”

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