Slumrat Rising

Chapter 110: A Night on the Town

Truth slipped out of Temple Nag Hamadi that night. He kept the sword and wore his new scarf but ditched the Zeph. Old Mek’elle’s gift just looked like a fashionable variation of a Brickies’ scarf. He blended. Nobody looked at him more than one and a half times. Without the zeph, he was just a handsome foreigner.

He didn’t have much money, hardly any, actually, but that was all right. He had a full belly, inexpensive vices, and there was nowhere in particular he wanted to go. He just wanted to see Xandre without the filter of Merkovah or the Cousins. The city was far too big to see in a night, but… he had the itch to move.

He pulled away from the blocky temple, his iron horse better maintained now, though he still worried about the chained spirit. There was no reason doing the herbal bath himself shouldn’t work as well as a pro doing it in the shop. He had been trained on how to do it in the Army. It just wasn’t something he did often, and he didn’t want something to suddenly go wrong.

What if he had to outrun more demons? Truth gently prodded the spirit and smoothly slid into the city traffic. There were no shortage of demons in Xandere, but they weren’t chasing him.

The streets of Xandere were narrow outside the main thoroughfares. Many single-lane streets, some so small he couldn’t imagine getting a wagon down them. They were crammed full of pedestrians, all swarming past each other. There was probably a logic there. Maybe he would figure it out by the end of his jaunt.

Beyond the narrow alleys and single-lane streets were the broader, two-lane roads. This was the land of the busses- the two-story wagons pulled by ghostly elephants daubed in white and ocher paint, with green blazing eyes and garlands of dream orchids hanging from their necks. Truth couldn’t tear his eyes away.

They had buses in Jeon. Of course they did! Who could afford their own Carriage? A sweet little chariot or your own flying cloud was strictly for the absurdly rich. For the slums, it was the subway and the bus.

The Jeon City bus was an empty box with wheels on the corners. Everyone crammed into the box. The chained demon inside the floor powered the enchantments that turned the wheels, and you hung on to the straps and prayed you didn’t fall over on someone or they didn’t fall on you. Passengers spent their commutes guessing who didn’t bother wiping. Guessing who didn’t bother taking off their pants before answering nature's call. Steaming in the rancid humidity of a hundred halitosis cases.

These buses had seats! And magic elephants! He had to imagine it was less efficient, but… you could start your day sitting high up, looking out over your beautiful city, in a bus pulled by a flower-bedecked tusker. Then, work done, tired, hungry, and ready for home, you could sit and watch everyone start wandering in and out of houses, bringing plates of food or bottles or music or just themselves and laughter and good company. Comforted by the knowledge that soon, you would have those things too.

He let the city push him around, drifting down the main thoroughfares and into the smaller side streets. He had the suspicion that the real action was in the alleys, but he was not about to leave his precious two-wheeler somewhere unguarded. Which was a funny thought. He literally stole a half-broken iron horse from a wretched little village in the Free State… and now it was genuinely precious to him. He conducted a quick personal inventory of Stuff He Actually Cared About:

His iron horse- unknown manufacturer and origin, probably made out of several different two-wheelers that someone kludged together into something that didn’t actually work until Truth got his hands on it. The seat was also from some unknown fourth-hand iron horse, installed alongside the improved luggage rack by the wonderful garage owner at Kwa Kabwere Garage. It had carried him for more than two thousand kilometers on the road at this point. He had grown addicted to the feeling of traveling without barriers between him and the world. The agility of it, the speed of it, all called to him.

Could he make it faster? Must investigate! After giving the spirit another bath.

His sword- The Tongue of One Who Speaks For God… was a good sword. Not that he had handled many swords. Any swords, actually. This was his first sword. And he really, really liked it. More than its angelic origins or the bane spell on it, he just liked how it felt in his hands. The slightly tacky wrapped cordage around the hilt meant that his grip would never slip. The cross guard didn’t provide much hand protection, but it did provide some, and that would more than do. If his hand got cut, he could only call it a skill issue.

Truth had never worried about skill issues when handling a weapon. The Tongue danced in his hands, light and lively, almost leaping into a cut and seeming to lengthen in the lunge. The sword moved with him, accompanying him in battle rather than being simply used. He loved it for that.

His scarf- Did it have a name? Maybe? Truth cast Tool and pointed the System at it. The System, which was, maybe, possibly, likely, a mutilated part of his soul. Not going to think about that for the moment. Any details on what the scarf is, exactly?

Credit to Old Mek’elle, it wasn’t being cheap. This is actually moderately good stuff. Probably as good as it could do, given you wanted to be gone from there ASAP. It doesn’t have a name- maybe call it the Freedom of the Terraces? It’s a more literal name than you might think.

Alright, tell me about it.

So, the obvious thing it does is transform slightly. It modifies itself just enough to look like the colors and logo of the home team in your general area. It also acts as an all-access pass. I guess that’s why all the stadiums came out and supported Old Mek’elle- you just got a free ticket to any Pitz match at any stadium in Siphios, forever.

That's nice and all, but how many games do you think we are really going to attend?

You know this, I know this, Old Mek’elle does not know this. What do you want from the guy? Anyway, free access to the Stadiums. Changes to make you look like a home fan. Interestingly, it has a small charm to make you less noticeable in a crowd. Literally just another home fan. It’s subtle. Someone who knows you will eventually spot you, but you could blend in really well.

Other than that, it has small charms to help you stay warm and bigger charms to help you stay cool. It won’t be easily lost and will come back to you eventually if you do lose it. It has a nice little air filtration function, not gas mask grade but good for dust and the like, as well as being extremely stain and damage resistant. Below Level One, anyway.

That… actually is pretty nice. Not life-changing, maybe, but nice.

Quite thoughtful of Old Mek’elle, I thought.

Iron horse, sword, scarf, hat? He still had the old Zeph, though he wasn’t really that attached to it. If he was being honest, he didn’t love the look. Didn’t dislike it either, but it was a bit… “Oh boy. A brimless round hat. Now with a tassel. Gosh.” On the other hand, it had become more than just a hat, hadn’t it?

Wearing the Zeph gave him a whole identity. Unwanted, often, but not always. There were clearly some very good things about the Desrin faith and people, things he quite agreed with. But he didn’t choose that. Didn’t choose them. He would have to think about that a bit more.

Anything else? Nothing leapt to mind. He navigated the two-wheeler into a little shopping neighborhood. Not a lot of smiling faces in the grocery store. None, in fact. The pickings on the outdoor shelves were very slim too. Either they had sold out for the day, had started taking stuff in for the night, or there was never much on there in the first place. The prices were in Birr, which he still didn’t have a very good handle on. And they were in the capital, so naturally, everything would be more expensive. Still, even given all that, he would bet those numbers were higher than they were a week ago. Some were even on chalkboards. Probably not a good sign.

There were kids out playing. Not really kids anymore, he supposed, teens. Messing around in a park, shooting sparklers at each other, blasting some music Truth didn’t recognize but kind of liked. Making out in the grass. They didn’t look worried much. Maybe he just couldn’t spot it at this distance. They seemed happy. Well fed, well taken care of.

Floating above them were little motes of warm light, guardian spirits watching over the park and the youth at play. A green wonderland lit by drifting stars. Truth suddenly wished Etenesh was here. He wanted to walk with her through the park at night.

There was a couple making out, the boy pressed his very willing girlfriend up against a tree and kissed her hard on the mouth. Looked like an awful lot of fun.

And he was allowed to have fun. He didn’t have to work all the time. He wasn’t being bad by giving himself some time. The last time he focused on work totally, he spent five or so years as a corpse in a well. He was allowed to rest. He was allowed a little fresh air.

Truth sighed and started working his way back to the Temple. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to see. A beautiful city with beautiful, content people, rapidly becoming less content. In danger.

Seemed like a big problem. Strange how the “heroes” weren’t leaping out to save the day. Instead, it was down to the powerful, the rich, and the connected. Who weren’t looking terribly powerful coming in and out of the conference room, were they? Alarming. What did it say when these “titans” didn’t have the clout to save the day? They were starting to get a little chippy and defensive about that fact too. Yes, this was not good at all. Something had to change. Something that affected the whole planet. The whole… system of the world? There must be a word for that.

Did he really want to fight Starbrite?

No. Nobody sane wanted to fight Starbrite. Did he believe that he had to fight Starbrite?

He sure wasn’t coming up with better options.

At some point, he would have to gamble. He would need to find, or make, some way to check up on the sibs. And then figure out what he could do to rescue them, assuming they needed rescuing. Which… if things looked like this in Xandre, one way or the other, the sibs needed rescuing. And then what?

Say he got them out of Jeon. Came back here. They all found jobs doing whatever. He got a mechanic job somewhere fixing talismans, enough to keep a roof over his head and maybe get something nice for Etenesh now and then.

And in, what? A couple of years tops? Society collapses, food riots, constant large scale warfare, the entire planet craters, and the ambient reality falls to, if not nothing, a long way from what they had now. Which meant that things like water talismans stop working, and millions die of thirst or poisoned water.

The heat and lights go off. Buildings collapse. Vehicles stop working. Spells stop working. Accelerating the rate of farms not making food and failing to get what food there is to the hungry people. They would literally be making things with sticks and scrap metal.

Truth had the sudden overwhelming urge to buy sacks of rice and steel knives. If nothing else, they would be good trade goods. He mentally added the crappy, basically unused machete and lightly used spear onto his list of important possessions.

Ok. He would have to fight. And he couldn’t fight alone. Not against Starbrite and the whole system of the world.

It was time to have that talk with Merkovah.