Slumrat Rising

Chapter 76: Time on Tools

Truth started to cast the universal spell, then hesitated. Hey System. First of all, we will have a real good talk about my self-esteem issues soon. A real, real good talk. Second, what do you actually call your Universal Spell?

You grew up in a shit heap, eating shit, drinking shit, surrounded by shit people, and learning shit things from your shit school. Not my fault you came out thicker than a cement milkshake. And “Tool” will do fine. It’s a spell for using tools, and so long as I know what you are thinking of, it's all good.

For some reason, I don’t believe you. Tool.

Truth drew the sword and instantly felt the difference. He knew exactly where every inch of the sword was in space. He knew precisely how the force would be distributed along the blade, depending on where in his swing he made contact. He knew where it needed sharpening and where it just needed honing. He could instinctively align the edge with the direction of the cut, ensuring no miscuts. And then he found the enchantments.

“For the Glory of God!” he and the sword cried in unison. Then Truth dropped the blade like he was bitten by a snake.

“What the fuck was that?!”

“Young man, you have dropped your sword! You must never drop this sword! It is very precious, a holy relic in all but name!”

“Teacher Merkovah, I didn’t mean to say that. The sword pushed those words on me. I have a pretty justifiable thing about mind control spells. Is it going to do that every time?”

Merkovah looked conflicted, then shook his head. “It doesn’t have to, no. It still behaves as it did with its previous owner, a godly, pious woman. It will adjust to you.”

Truth gingerly picked up the sword again, furiously willing it to shut up. He felt the impulse, but it was weak. Ignorable. The enchantments were fascinating. Some basic, common sense ones, like the fact it would passively collect cosmic energy within itself to power its enchantments up to a minor point. Enchantments like improving its durability, repairing the edge, and resisting corrosion or damage from any number of magical ills. It relied on its wielder for most of its capability.

The biggest single part of the enchantment was a seemingly mutable lump of magic writhing like a ball of snakes. It felt not evil but ruthless. It felt unpitying. What it cut, it would kill. It had some ideas on how to do that, but it would let its wielder manage things.

“Is that… some kind of bane spell? I’ve never seen it before.” Truth asked.

“You may never see it’s like again. Yes, that is a bane spell and an unusually complex one.” Merkovah agreed. “Ready to try it out?”

“Sure. It will be fun to experiment.”

“Tommy, just to be clear, you know this spell will unleash an unending stream of demons, spirits, and monsters into an enclosed space with you.” Etenesh reminded him.

“Until you switch it off. And Teacher is right there. It’s all good.”

Etenesh shrugged, and she and Jember started empowering the formation. Lines of gold and red wove together, opening tiny holes in the air. Things came through those holes. Things without defined forms. Things without any obedience to the laws of nature that rule the shapes of things. Their sole commonality was that they hungered for warmth. For flesh.

The first to reach Truth was an air demon, an imp like Thrush. It screamed, and he was alone, legless, homeless, helplessly addicted as the bathtub chemicals rotted what little of him remained, and the sword blazed with outrage, and he cut that evil thing out of the damn sky!

GOD, he hated air demons! The sword burned with holy flames, no longer flying away in great sheets but bound tightly to the blade. He could control it, restricting the energy it used and intensifying it. Then it was a fire demon hanging back and firing jets of flame at him. It might not like the holiness, but it could laugh at the heat. That wouldn’t do.

Truth flashed through everything he knew about fire demons. It wasn’t as simple as just reaching for an opposing element. Their very nature was inherently chaotic, making dispersing them difficult. Depending on the spell, water magic could empower a fire demon as the water evaporated. Ice, on the other hand, could still the chaos.

The blade didn’t suddenly grow ice crystals. It just got colder. And colder. Impossibly cold. So cold the blade should shatter on contact. But then, that’s what the reinforcement spells were for. Truth ran over with explosive steps, slapping the flames to the side when he couldn’t dodge. With a short leap and a sharp stab, the fire demon was down. A second stab and it was dead.

Then it was a spirit he didn’t recognize, some kind of angry beast soul that had changed and grown into something altogether more terrifying. Something with the wrong number of legs and paws bent like nothing with bones should. It didn’t appear to have an obvious counter, so he lunged at it. The beast recoiled, almost folding back on itself. Then it kept moving back and up until it was taller than Truth and came crashing down with heavy paws. He slid left and brought the sword up in a two-handed slash.

This time he caught a piece of the beast. The sword slid the information through his hands and into his mind, coming almost as an instinct. The spirit had no particular weakness. It could only be killed with brute violence. Truth grinned. He could work with that.

The blade was still icy cold, so he used that to his advantage. It would cut in, and the semi-solid flesh would get stiffer. It took a few seconds longer to slow the beast enough for more damaging blows. A few seconds later, he ripped it open like a candy bar.

Truth snarled. He wasn’t happy about the sword constantly feeding things into his mind, but he did appreciate the intel.

He looked around for the next opponent but didn’t see anything. He looked questioningly over at Merkovah, who looked back at him with yet another perplexed look.

“Mr. Wells?”

“Yes, Teacher?”

“The next time someone calls you dumb, stab them.”

“Alright?”

“It seems that in less than five minutes, you have learned the basics of the enchantments on the sword. Not including the camouflage on the blade, but that was added later. The core functions are within your grasp.”

“Well… it’s a sword that lets you modify it with spells, basically. I’m pretty used to that basic idea. It even tells you what spells to use.”

“I’m going to just pretend I didn’t hear that,” Jember muttered. Merkovah waived him quiet.

“Let’s pursue that line of thinking, Mr. Wells. Describe how you think the sword works.”

Truth looked confused. “You either know what you need to counter something and trigger that part of the bane, or you stab the thing, the sword suggests something, and you either use the bane or use whatever plus violence. It’s all built-in, so that’s good. Modest draw on my cosmic energy, too, so that’s even better.”

“Believe me, energy consumption will increase massively once you learn Incisive.” Merkovah’s voice was bone dry. “There is one part I want to really dig into, however. You say the bane tells you what to use, or if you already know, you “trigger that part of the bane.”

“Yes? Still not sure what the problem is here?”

“Mr. Wells, would you care to guess why I am so confident you have never seen a Bane spell like that before and may never again?”

“No idea.”

“The sword in your hand is a reforged piece of what was once a much, much larger weapon. Its creator took what was essentially a splinter and hammered it into the right shape, welded on a tang, mounted the cross guard and the hilt.”

Merkovah spoke quite calmly, but Truth could feel a mounting tension in the man.

“The splinter itself is the source of the enchantments, other than the camouflage spell. And the source of the splinter, Mr. Wells, was the Third Treasury of the Palace of God. An ancient prophet was bodily transported before God, received the divine Word, and was permitted to see the palace on his way back. He was able to talk the angel guarding the treasury to part with, essentially, a bit of trash.”

He fixed Truth with a look. “You are making intuitive and near-instant use of a broken bit of a vastly larger spell designed for angels to use in combat against the Infernal Host without any decrease in your ability to understand and react to the battle situation around you. So yes, Mr. Wells. I think I speak for everyone here; if someone calls you stupid, kindly stab them. Not for your sake. To make us feel better.”

There was an awkward silence. Truth had no idea what to say to that. Eventually, Merkovah waved it away. “I’m going to chalk it up as another mystery of your existence, Mr. Wells. Any other mysteries you can think of?”

“I have an irrational dislike of farmers and farming?”

“Pardon?!”

“Absolutely no reason for it that I can think of. It came completely out of the blue while I was driving through the Free State. I like farm products. I am fine with gardeners and gardening. I can recognize their necessity. But I have an irrational hatred of farms, farmers, and farming. Sort of a disappointed feeling that turns nasty.”

“Did you grow up on a farm or something?” Etenesh asked.

“Nope, big city kid. Never even saw a farm until I was an adult. Totally irrational, like I said.”

Her lips twitched. “Complicated.”

“Sorry. But yes.”

“Alright, we know you can cut through the chaff like, well, grass. But how do you do squaring up against larger threats?” Merkovah asked.

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“How often have you fought anything on your level of power or higher one-on-one?”

“Never. That’s a terrible idea! What kind of loon would do that?” Truth was scandalized.

“Heroes?” Jember asked. He was grinning with mischief.

“Absolutely not. Gang up and beat them down is a great wisdom.” Truth was vehement on this point.

“Well, you aren’t wrong, exactly, but there are times when you need to fight alone,” Merkovah said.

“Sure. Against those much weaker than myself. Fairness has absolutely nothing to do with it.”

“So if a plague demon was approaching an innocent village-“ Jember asked.

“Hope you have enough wagons to evacuate; otherwise, make peace with God and kill each other before it gets there.” Truth remembered the victims of the body huskers. Better a clean death.

Etenesh’s expression told Truth he had just lost several points in a game he didn’t know was being played. “Not the heroic type, are you?”

Truth looked at her and quietly said- “I have been fighting people stronger than me since I was five. I got the shit kicked out of me ninety-nine times out of a hundred. I had to change what “winning” meant. Not beating the other person but achieving something. Getting away with the food. Distracting them from… weaker people. Making sure they couldn’t steal my stuff. Violence is a tool, Etenesh. I take satisfaction in being good at using it. But it’s never fair, and I’ve never met a hero.”

Etenesh looked like she wished she hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Truth shrugged, suddenly tired. “Nothing to be sorry for.” He spun the sword in his hands, letting his wrists to get loose. It was always just… necessity. To Truth, the word “hero” had the weight of charity and vanity. Sacrificing yourself for some noble cause or principle. He could never afford such a thing. The sibs were counting on him.

They still counted on him, even if they didn’t know it. So he would never play the hero.