Slumrat Rising

Truth was back in the armory, fixing up the talismans and fetishes. He was working with another guy, doing what he usually did, letting them chatter and then asking questions. It was one of the strategies he learned for talking to people, and amazingly, it worked. You ask someone about something they are interested in, and then they wouldn’t shut up. They looked so happy. For him, every conversation was a grueling ordeal, littered with potential mines and pit traps. He was pretty sure he was saying the wrong thing all the time.

Talismans, he understood. For talisman maintenance, you need a good memory and a steady hand. That was it. You don’t need to be a genius. You just needed to memorize a lot of stuff. Various holy names. Sigils. Runes. Geometric forms connecting the various incantations on the talisman.

It seemed impossibly complicated the first time you looked at, say, a communication altar or a spellcarriage. Slowly, over years of classes, you memorized what you needed to know. Then it all became straightforward. This sigil had to be at the Alkaid position on the talisman because if you put that sigil widdershins of Alkaid, setting the first sigil anywhere other than the Alkaid spot would brick the whole thing.

The logic became obvious. You didn’t have to invent anything. You just had to make it work the way its creators intended, and they reused the same ideas all the time. You just had to figure out how it should have been, then fix it until it looked that way again. Since talismans were usually small and complicated, you needed a steady hand to fix them. It was a technical, skilled job, but for Truth, a satisfying one. He took pride in his work.

Unless it was working on fetishes. The huge, oversized, ugly things. Goddamn monkey with a rock could fix a fetish. You could, in Truth’s very public opinion, put a fetish in a cement mixer with a sack of gravel, and it would come out better than new.

Were fetishes just talismans scaled up? Yes. Would Truth wash the city in blood to defend the superiority of talismans? Also yes. A talisman maintenance tech was a craftsman, a skilled trade. What kind of skill did you need to fix a goddamn one hundred twenty-two centimeter stick with rocks sticking out of it?

Sergeant Murthey stuck his head in. “Truth, got some jobs come up. Captain wants you to take a look.”

Truth looked at the Sergeant suspiciously. “I just got back from the delivery gig.” He was sure he still smelled like holy oil. The sergeant flipped him the bird.

“And a very trying day of sitting around it was. And it was a week ago. Come on. These actually pay worth a damn.” Truth couldn’t argue with that, so he didn’t. The magic word was "pay."

“Read ‘em first, then tell me what you think.”

Truth read through them. They were all very straightforward. All two or three-person jobs in the city of Chil Perdermo. “Where’s Chil Perdermo?”

“Good first question. It’s in Oaxace. Lovely country. White sand beaches, beautiful scenery, if you like good food, it’s a paradise. While the women are high maintenance, financially and emotionally, they are also staggeringly beautiful. Second only to the men in both maintenance costs and beauty, I’m told by those with such interests.”

“Ok…” Truth said in a disbelieving tone. The Sargent waved him back to the files. He quickly spotted the same rat that the Captain had.

“They are trying to cheese the op? Break it up into small, cheap jobs to hide the fact that it is one big, dangerous, expensive one?”

“Exactly. Note that none of the jobs will be activated until all of them have been accepted.”

“Kind of what gave the game away for me, yeah. So why hasn’t the Captain told them to get fucked?”

“Because, one, for jobs this small, it’s my job and not hers. Second, if they pay properly, this could be a very profitable op for our branch. And third, it’s a career development thing for you. You got a lot of very high-up eyes on you, Truth. Time to start showing you are more than a thug with a spell.”

“You… want me to negotiate this contract? I wouldn’t know where to begin.” Sergeant Murthey rolled his eyes at that.

“I want you to ride along with me and learn the ropes. On occasion, I will kick you in the ankle under the table. You are to glare at the person speaking like they stole your dinner.”

Truth could vividly remember people stealing his food. A week later, the whole platoon was on deployment.

“I was promised beautiful, white sand beaches, Sarge.” Truth said as they set up on a blazing rooftop. “These are not beaches. These are mountains.”

“You suddenly become a whiner, Corporal?”

“No, Sargent! Never!” Truth swore halfheartedly.

He was doing the fiddly bit where they had to line up the formation array with both cardinal directions AND the directions overseen by various stellar demons who would be providing the cosmic rays powering the whole thing. Or so the manual said. He didn’t know enough about formation arrays to have a useful opinion on the subject.

“Good.” Sergeant Murthey was sweating like a cold beer in the 35-degree heat as he set up firing positions. “Because, yes, we are currently in the mountains, but if you look at the map, we are a two-hour drive from the beach. Where we will be doing serious R&R after the Op. So no bitching.”

Truth checked the mission. It hadn’t changed.

MISSION- Recover the delivery of magically significant materials from local forces who intercepted the shipment. Use of any means necessary has been permitted. Local authorities have declared the thieves as “Outlaws” and, therefore, no longer under their nation’s legal protection. Damage to anyone or anything other than the outlaws is not permitted.

REWARD- Operational fee will go to South East Regional Branch, Jeon Division, Starbrite PMC. Personal Reward- 15,000 credits, 600 performance points, four portions of Gold and Jade incense.

The incense was the real killer. It wasn’t even listed in the Treasure Pavilion. Just not enough of it was publicly available. Not that it was staggeringly powerful. It was a level two supplement. There was a limit to how potent it could be. But as level two supplements went, it was a doozy and, apparently, a complete pain in the ass to make. He was prepared to treasure it. He tried to focus on that as they worked through the blazing afternoon sun.

Chil Perdermo was a pretty ok little city, Truth decided. Most buildings were less than four stories, with whitewashed walls and trees covered in orange flowers that popped up like roadside grass. He had wondered why everything looked so worn when they flew in but soon got his answer.

The day transitioned seamlessly from “Baking, blazing, scorching sun. Sun as the embodiment of wrath. Sun as the Great Father cleansing the world of corruption.” directly to “Monsoons. Deluges. The life-giving waters descending from the Mother Goddess, drowning the lesser beings that came before humanity.” For a solid two hours.

Then, like a switch was thrown, it was straight back into the eye-searing sun. Truth looked at the crumbling paint and knew precisely how it felt. The humidity kicked in as all that rain evaporated, and Truth didn’t have the energy to care about anyone else anymore.

Aside from the heat, the biggest challenge was the smell. There were food stands everywhere, and the smells were fantastic. Bright citrus and roasting meat and little flatbreads toasted on griddles and just… everything. It smelled like all the delicious flavors cooking at once. And the PMC soldiers had to get by on food bars to not blow op sec. Truth was ready to kill by mission start time.

The platoon deployed in pairs and singles, scattering to their posts on rooftops or in the streets. The target was a small warehouse, two stories tall, with a flat roof and no windows. Surveillance showed that the place was heavily fortified on the inside, with the outlaws constantly moving in and out. Victims of human trafficking were locked in cages in the warehouse space. More were circulating through the building, serving the outlaws as needed.

It was the victims that were the real problem. It required the platoon to breach and clear the building themselves rather than go in with gas or plague spirits. But that was fine. This is why they got paid the big money. The platoon silently reformed into squads, ready to make the assault.

Truth was up on the sheet metal roof with his squad. Everyone was armored up, everyone wearing full-cover facemasks under their helmets. Everyone signaled readiness. The Sergeant nodded sharply at one of them. The mercenary silently stepped forward and slapped down an innertube filled with alchemical solvents. She carefully added a drop of a catalyst and stepped back sharply as the innertube turned into a ring of harsh white flame. It melted a manhole-sized breach in the roof. Two squaddies tossed strobes and howlers in and waited for the show.

You could hear the sudden, shattering, piercing noise blocks away. The light punched out through the hole in the roof like a divine searchlight, as bright as the noise was loud. As soon as the flashes stopped, the squad dropped in. Truth led the way.

The warehouse was split into two floors- the bottom floor was storage, and the upper (a sort of half attic) was the workspace. Truth landed in the middle of screaming people running left and right as he tried to spot the outlaws. Operating on the basis that anyone with a weapon was a villain and anyone with an iron collar around their neck was a slave, he started killing villains.

“Load Silence. Load Shockwave.” A man staggered towards him, waving a machete dripping acid. Truth put a needle in his throat. What remained of his face and neck was attached to the body with bare strands of spinal nerves. Truth didn’t know if those were bomb collars or if the slaves could be compelled to attack and didn’t care to find out.

He could feel the rest of the squad touching down behind him. Once they were all down, they started sweeping the floor, clearing targets as fast as they could line them up. Surprise, Speed, and aggression were the keys to forcible entry. Surprise and aggression were no problem. Speed, however, was proving to be an issue.

The slaves weren’t trying to be in the way, but they were. And every time it looked like one of them might get shot, the system blared a warning in his ear, telling him he was about to break his oath. Truth cursed and slapped people out of the way, screaming at them to “GET DOWN! DOWN!”

They weren’t fast enough. Truth watched as the collars started popping off the slaves. Their eyes blazed with green fire. Unearthly choirs rose in terrible cacophonies, praising the defilement of the world. One turned towards Truth and vomited a column of inky, sticky, corrupting black bile towards him. He dodged, but some splashed on his armor. He could smell the fibers and advanced ceramics rotting, hear the sizzling of the armor as it disintegrated under the concentrated malice of the demon.

“GOETIA, GOETIA! GOETIA!” Truth screamed. He could hear everyone else screaming it too. He desperately tried to keep dodging, unable to fire on the possessed until the order was given. And the scumbag outlaws started to shoot back, not caring if they hit the possessed slaves. Looking at the two, it was harder to say which was more twisted with hate and rage.

URGENT MISSION UPDATE: GOETIA PANDEMONIUM CONFIRMED. WEAPONS FREE. ALL SPELL COSTS WILL BE ASSUMED BY CODE BLUE SCALE LAMP. REPEAT- WEAPONS FREE. LEAVE NOTHING ALIVE.

“Load Pierce. Load Moshe’s Sword.”

Time to clean house.

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