Slumrat Rising

Chapter 132: Nurturing an Ember

Chapter 132: Nurturing an Ember

“I have another contract job for you. Purely infiltration. I would usually frame this as a training mission and a test of your development, but I know you won’t move an uncompensated centimeter.” Merkovah looked torn between laughter and frustration.

“By the way, you do understand that the things you have been benefiting from since coming to Siphios are truly profound and incredibly rare treasures, right? Even at our peak, The Blessing of the Silent Forest would only be bestowed on young elites of the very best families. People who had sworn their life to the service of Temple and Throne.”

He flipped his thumb at the Tongue. “A genuine holy blade has always been a literally priceless treasure. A guided vision of the heavens by a Level Seven teacher. Daily tuition on the true and correct Incisive. Free room and board. And yet, you want me to pay you in cash for anything beyond basic bodyguard duty.”

Truth just stood there waiting. Merkovah sat there waiting. They both remained, waiting, each clearly expecting the other to say something. Merkovah finally groaned and buried his face in his hands.

“Mr. Wells, do you have any comment on all that?”

“Yes. I didn’t ask for any of it. You simply decided I needed it for a job I had yet to accept. They are not gifts, nor are they part of my fee. They are the necessary equipment and training needed to do the job.”

Truth was hard as a coffin nail on this point. He had long since decided that he would never again work for free or for less than his true worth. Never again a slave.

“Although I do wonder why you are trusting me with all of this employee development.”

“Divination. And I have gotten to know you on a level that you simply do not have context for. As much as I am still capable of trust, I trust you to behave in the ways I want you to behave. Given the correct motivation and conditions.”

“Divination. You tossed some coins in a tortoise shell-“

“Young man! Really young man! Do you take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks? Divination and necromancy, along with a few… other things… have been banned in Siphios since the founding because we were too good at it.”

“God forbade divination and necromancy because you were too good at it.”

“Well, it was dressed up by the Teachers of the time as “Going against God’s plan,” or “Blasphemously interfering with the souls of the honorable dead,” but basically, yes.”

Merkovah’s eyes were hard as he stroked his furious beard. “The spells and rituals were buried, of course. The location was deliberately forgotten for thousands of years.”

“You have them on your bookshelf as we speak, loaded with notes in the margins and plenty of bookmarks.”

“Correct. Though not here, obviously.”

“Starting to wonder if your wife is actually a book of necromancy.”

“She is a lovely young lady, and we have been happily married for longer than you have been alive.” Merkovah bellowed.

“I can see books. Haven’t seen the wife.”

Merkovah raised his hands, fingertips twitching and clenching. “Infiltration mission. Kill no one. Harm no one. Be seen by no one. Cause as little disturbance or destruction of property as possible. Obtain the relic from the safe. Details in the folder on the table. Fee is ten thousand Bir. Take the folder and go before I pop your head off your neck like a pimple.”

Truth collected the folder and got. Ten grand was good money.

_______________________________

Truth read the documents. A high-end home, a duplex penthouse in what was apparently a very exclusive apartment building. The homeowner’s name was listed, but details about them were not. Still, it was emphasized repeatedly that under no circumstances whatsoever were the residents of the home to be harmed.

Which was a change from his usual “I’ll take it from your cold, dead body” asset recovery missions. Hah. “Usual.” Been a minute since he had done one of those, even if you didn’t count Well Time. Maybe it would be a nice change. No mantra of “That’s not right, that’s fucked up.”

He figured out his route in, committed the plans to memory, and decided to scout the place this afternoon, with the burglary tentatively scheduled for tonight.

Before that, however, he was going to spend a bit of his accumulated pay and take Etenesh out for lunch. It was scary how much he was coming to think of her as someone he needed. It had always just been him and the sibs. Now, it was him, the sibs, and Etenesh.

She said she wanted him utterly fixated on her. He didn’t know about fixated, but he had to confess she had already left a toothbrush and a change of clothes in the messy apartment of his mind. He was considering getting her a copy of the key.

_______________________________

“You want me to get you a delivery man uniform.” Jember said, slowly.

“Well, clothes that kind of look like a delivery guy. Or maintenance or whatever.”

“Why?”

“Can’t tell you.”

Jember was faintly glowing now. All the time. He was almost impossible to look away from. The handsome, sporty man was now devastatingly beautiful and untouchable. To be admired, not acquired.

“Are you… going to do sex things with it?” Jember asked hopefully.

“Sadly no. Wait, is Etenesh into role-playing?”

“Not that I ever heard. And honestly, not really something I want to know about my cousin. Sorry, I really am doing my best to stay focused. You get into a kind of zone where it stops being as pressing. But now that we are in the end stage, the ritual is testing me. Pushing on me.”

“Wants to see if you are firm in your Muq.”

Jember barked a laugh. “Right idea, wrong religion. It’s about embodying an aspect, yeah, but it’s also about what you are willing to give up to be that aspect. Can I be a nurturing, purifying light for everyone I meet, not just those I love? Can I give up the physical gratification of sex to embody a higher form of love?”

“And? Can you?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying. It’s hard to accept the idea that you need to nurture those who hate you as much as those who love you. That loving is more important than being loved, depending on the circumstances. Obviously there is a lot of nuance.” Jember clearly was slipping off, then shook his head firmly. “Alright, I know some shops around here. Let’s get you kitted out.”

_______________________________

Truth walked into the Residences at Juniper and Olive dressed in an grey hat, trousers that looked like they had only barely scraped a win against years of dirt, and a clean check shirt. Second hand, total cost of wardrobe, twenty birr. Which Jember looked scandalized by, and the shopkeeper looked helpless. Not many people selling but a lot of people buying these days.

The shoes were extra. Comfortable workman’s boots, new, if carefully scuffed and dusted with stone powder. You only really appreciated good shoes when you have been without them for a long time.

He walked up to the security desk, putting down his bucket loaded with a dizzying collection of pipes, hoses, and plumbing supplies.

“Got a work order here. Apartment 75001.”

“Angelkin family?”

Truth looked at the blank sheet of paper. “Yeah. Fish tank repair.”

The security guard nodded. “That thing has problems all the time.”

“Leaking, apparently. Should be quick. I’m in the book. Name of Dagnaw, Cerulean Dreams Aquarium Solutions.”

The security guard checked his log, his eyes going vague as he looked where Truth’s finger was tapping.

“Yeah, we didn’t have your name, just “aquarium guy.” Got a business card?”

Faintly impressed by the level of professionalism displayed by what should be an F-Tier drone, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin.

“We use these fancy schmancy calling tokens. It’s got my name on it, company info on the back.”

“Oh god, they are still using these? I thought they went out of fashion years ago.”

“I dunno. Boss handed me a stack of 'em, told me to give them to clients.”

“Tell your boss it’s cards now. Nice little glowing illusions running over them. Maybe something with fish?” The guard’s eyes were pretty glassy at this point, drifting back to whatever he had hidden behind the counter. Truth figured it was either food or a book.

“Sounds good to me. So… do I get a temporary pass or what?”

“No pass, I just buzz you in. You want the third elevator bank on the right, and if you need to shift big stuff in or out, the freight elevator is all the way back on the left.” He buzzed him through the gate, the demons bowing and making way.

“Got it, thanks. Have a good night.”

“Night.” The guard wasn’t even looking in his direction anymore.

Truth started to walk away, the stopped. “Uh… not to be a dick, but… could you please make sure to get the time down next to my name? My boss is probably going to call later and check.”

“Already logged, don’t worry about it.” The guard lied. He was already visibly forgetting the brief flash of color in his boring shift, going back to watching the scry discreetly hidden behind his counter.

“Thanks.”

“Mmm.”

Truth got on the elevator, bucket in hand. There were innumerable little tricks to Incisive, but the strangest of them was just how little cosmic energy it required… most of the time.

You could very faintly have the foresight running, just enough to give you a fraction of a second’s warning, or a vague sense of danger. You could keep the scales up and running almost constantly, provided you were changing very, very little about your identity.

It was things like the Fangs, or using foresight a second or more into the future, or completely erasing your presence, those things ate power like crazy.

Truth Medici, certified talisman technician, was not a big step away from Tommy Wells, licensed Journeyman Plumber and Siphios Fish Fanciers Federation approved fish tank installation and repair technician (Salt Water, Tropical.) Not when he turned up looking like a plumber and going to an apartment with notoriously unreliable custom fish tanks.

Not that Truth gave a damn about the fish. Not even in the top hundred list of “Dumb/creepy/scary/morally wrong” things Truth had seen in wealthy apartments.

He reached the top floor. The family was home tonight, but it was two in the morning. And besides, he was more than just quiet.

The door was comparatively well defended. Very well defended for a private residence. Steel door, enchanted, and before you could even activate the unlocking enchantments, you had to get past the imp over the door. The imp wasn’t very smart, but it was more than smart enough to keep out anyone not on the approved list.

Oh, for the happy days when he would just blast through the wall next to the door, or run down the side of the building and cut through a window. Now he had to work to break into a home.

Tool. He murdered in his mind. The spell activated a talisman around his neck, temporarily stunning the imp. It would wake in about an hour, hopefully, none the wiser. Hopefully.

The door was fairly trivial to bypass as well- while the spell work was sophisticated, it was still a very standard lock. Which meant that a very standard lock bypass could get through it.

Truth examined the door closely, looking for hidden traps and alarms, but… no. Just a very nice version of the same kinds of locks and alarms you would find on homes almost everywhere.

Truth eased open the door and slipped in. The home was decorated with pictures, mostly. A lot of the same people, shaking hands and looking at the camera with a lot of other pictures. The owner of the apartment was in most of them, smiling fixedly. In one, he was getting a sash hung on him. In another, he was signing a paper with someone.

It… didn’t exactly look like a businessman’s wall of vanity. He didn’t know exactly what this was. He would figure it out. Or not. It didn’t really matter who they were. They had something he was hired to take. So he was going to take it. He was getting paid. It looked like a nice home, with presumably a nice family in it.

Truth breathed in and out steadily. His family ate first.