Slumrat Rising

Meeting People

“Range is clear! Magus, are you ready? Go!” The bell rang and Truth’s hand blurred. The flame lance fetish had shit range and penetration, so he took out the targets closest to him with shots to the face. The spell mannequins shrieked and seemed to melt, running backwards and knocking other mannequins out of cover.

“Change!” He dropped the flame lance fetish and caught the bolter thrown from behind him. Bolter was a little more tricky, as you needed to have better aim. On the other hand, the long steel spikes had good range and penetration, so he used it to pick off the long range targets. These he could be a little less cute with, punching through hearts as well as heads.

“Change!” Some kind of acid-ball projector? Not one he was familiar with. Treat it the same as the flame lance- damage over time, and go for the head. He also tried to line up his shots so that some of it splashed on the armored mannequins. He wasn’t going for them right this second, but he was curious to see if he could stack damage and not have it count against his score.

“Change!” Needler, this time. Basic Army “Higher Volume of Fire = More Hits = Greater Combat Effectiveness” needler. Magazine of five hundred needles operating with the most childishly basic spell launcher imaginable. And for all the shit he talked about it, the design was so robust, it hadn’t really changed in fifty years. He low-key loved it.

Truth snapped through the targets seemingly without needing to aim, hitting the head, neck or heart each time. It was an illusion, of course. It’s just that, once the sight picture is lined up, how long were you going to hang around before casting?

Longer than Truth, apparently.

“Change!” The voice behind him sounded slightly hysterical as they tossed an odd looking fetish that launched circular saw blades down range. Welp. Only so many ways you can use this. Glad these are spell mannequins or cleaning up those limbs and torsos would be a job.

“Change!” Truth ran through the thirty or so weapons. He was familiar with most of them, but there were some oddball ones, and a couple that looked downright homemade. One was held together by hair. He wondered if it had been made in the slums. It was a fun challenge, trying to use a new weapon to best effect within a second of laying hands on it, while also setting up future weapons, despite not knowing what those weapons would be. Trying to line up splash damage, using needler fire to pick off already wounded mannequins, using downed mannequins to funnel moving mannequins into tighter groups, making them easier to hit with splash damage… It was a really fun start to a new job.

“TIME! Talisman down! Show dispel.” Truth put down the talisman and wiped away any lingering cosmic energy before stepping away. He looked over at the squad. The expressions ranged from stunned to disbelieving, with a couple faintly nauseous. Sergeant Murthey was part of the “stunned” group. Eventually he shook himself and checked the score. Then checked it again. Then looked at the range, looked at the fetishes and talismans, looked at Truth, then back at the score. He started to throw the wax tablet against the wall, but stopped himself. He then coughed, pretended like he had never done what he did, and turned to the squad.

“On a thirty weapon challenge, average time with a weapon was five seconds, average hit rate was… according to the system, one hundred and seventeen percent…

“What? Bullshit!” A squaddie yelled.

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“Shut up! And yes, it’s kind of bullshit but also not. Splash damage, remember? The system isn’t really set up to calculate that, because, Private Truth, those were all designed to be single target weapons.”

“Really Sergeant? Even the acid ball?”

“Yes, Private, even the Berrendi Arms XF-A Defoliation Device. Legally, we are only supposed to use it for clearing obstructions.”

Truth looked out at the melting puddles of simulated humans. “Sure. Makes sense.”

“Uhuh. So, in two minutes thirty seconds you killed one hundred and seventy four targets. That is less than a second per kill. I want to say that’s impressive, but damn, son, that’s just alarming.”

“This, and talisman maintenance are literally the only things I am good at, Sarge. I have it on excellent authority.”

Truth’s system chimed.

Tutorial Mission #5 complete! Reward- Performance Points. Bonus Reward for exceeding goals- 10% discount on Emerald Pool Cultivation Enhancement Incense. Exceed goals nine more times to earn up to a 100% discount!

Wait, the system could do that? Of course it could. Truth grinned. He didn’t recall exactly how much Emerald Pool incense was, but it couldn’t be less than two thousand credits. Because that was the cheapest incense he found in the Treasure Pavilion. Incense was damn expensive, because the whole family could use it. He was motivated.

Tutorial Mission #6- Examine and maintain twenty talismans, fetishes or other equipment in the PMC Armory. Reward: Performance Points, Pizza In The Breakroom.

“Alright. Well, unless we need to exterminate all life in a city or something, I think it’s your other skills that we need. Come over to the armory. Let’s see how you are on maintenance.”

They trooped over, trailed by a very curious squad. Truth just ignored the noise and got to work cleaning the fetishes, making sure all the spell channels were clear and properly smooth on the talismans, refreshing ink or reagents where needed. Usual maintenance stuff. He could hear them whispering.

“Look. Completely normal speed!”

“Right? I’m pretty sure that’s how the manual says you are supposed to do it. But look at how visible his hands are.”

“Incredible, just incredible. I don’t think I have ever seen such an average maintenance job by a new recruit before.”

“Guys, is anybody else getting chills watching this totally ordinary level of skill? I am. And I’m not ashamed to admit, I’m a little horny too.”

“Oh man, I am so glad to hear I’m not the only one with a maintenance fetish.”

“What? No. It’s just been a dry spell.”

Truth kept at it, until Murthey clapped twice. “Alright, you can finish this up later. So when you say that talisman maintenance is your only other skill, you mean it’s the only other non-combat related job you are qualified to do?”

Truth nodded. “Yes Sarge. I was originally going to be a maintenance tech.”

“Huh. Well. Guess we are getting some help in the armory then. Let me give you the scoop on what kinds of jobs you will actually be doing around here…”

Truth didn’t go off shift until he had maintained twenty five talismans, and got that next discount.

It turned out that, much like the Army, most of the work was very boring. Truth was OK with boring. It paid indecently well, and kept him in Harban City with the sibs. When he wasn’t on assignment, he was assigned to the armory, doing maintenance. There were training days scheduled. Vacation days were scheduled (not that he had accumulated any, but theoretically.) It was all very… corporate. It felt like a lukewarm shower on a cold day- not exactly what he wanted, but he really didn’t want to get out of it either.

Captain Clavegaugh was wrong about one thing; Truth wasn’t bothered by the pointless courier work. It turned out that he didn’t really know Harban City well, and he didn’t know the suburbs around it at all. The only place he knew was the slums. Now, he got to look around almost everywhere. The really high end districts were still off limits, but what was he going to see there, anyway? Nice houses?

Standing guard at checkpoints was boring, but not terrible. Sometimes you got posted with someone else, and you just shoot the shit for eight hours. One time it looked like a fight would break out, but a glare and a shouted “Hey!” and the two suits decided that they would rather settle things like gentlemen. Talking trash about each other behind their back and seething with suppressed resentment.

And so time trickled past, one day after another. Dull, repetitive work. Truth tried to slip in a little cultivation time on shift where he could, just to keep interested. He also tried to read books, just to learn about… everything, really. It didn’t go very well. His eyes seemed to slide off the page. Generally he understood all the individual words, but the way they were put together just made no sense. And they were boring too.

Eventually, he fell back on “trash.” Mystery novels and thrillers, even the odd romance novel. Things you could pick up in a grocery store, or find in the common “library” in the apartment building’s community room. Sometimes he would find himself carefully reading through old bird spotting books, or books on gardening. He had seen suburban gardens on some of the delivery jobs. He could sort of see the appeal of the hobby, but it wasn’t for him. On the other hand, the words were mostly quite ordinary, the directions explicit, and there were lots of pictures. That worked for him. The only reason he could stick with it at all was that reading books earned him discounts on cultivation aids. So other than his boring personality and… challenging… face, he was doing great! He would cheer himself up in the mirror. Flex mightily. Then he would sigh, cultivate more and read more.

…

Truth rode through the village with the still-somewhat-exiled philosopher. His case was pending, apparently, and he needed a guard. He was, or had been, tutor to the evil Prince, as well as a scattering of other nobles and royalists in exile. All of whom now wanted to kill him. Truth looked over the burned out homes, the bones of their former owners long since picked over by dogs and crows.

“Evidence for or against your thesis?” He asked.

“Oh for, for! It is the inspiration of the whole work.” The philosopher waved his hands around. “Look at this misery! This is the product of chaos. The product of political disorder. They didn’t have anyone to protect them, and so they died.”

“A king, perhaps?” Truth said, in a barbed voice.

The philosopher might have been a coward, but on this point he would stand against all comers. “Yes, a king. An absolute monarch, imbued with all the natural rights of the people to exercise sovereignty. It is only with supreme authority that he can demand supreme obedience, and impose peace and security for the people.”

“The last king we had-”

“He’s still alive!”

“Broadstreet will see him hung. Cooke is demolishing him on the stand. For example, pointing out that this… divine monarch ordered his soldiers to boil their bullets in poison before shooting them at his subjects. For example, me.”

“He did, yes. And it was a terrible, wicked thing he did.” The philosopher waved his hands at the ruins. “It’s the final question I struggle to answer. If the monarch, the leviathan formed from the sovereignty of the people, can no longer protect the people, do they have the right to rebel?”

“Well, you know where I stand on that one.”

“Yes, and you are wrong. The sovereign has power because his subjects give him power. Should he turn that power against his subjects, then it is the subjects who harm themselves. They therefore have no right to complain or accuse him, because how is it possible to injure oneself?”

Truth pointed at a decapitated skeleton, arms roughly hacked off above the elbows. “Ah, a suicide! Shall we pray for her?”

The philosopher made no reply.