Mage Tank

Chapter 241: Liquor and Stolen Goods

Hysteria’s manipulations of Joma’s soul would encourage her sense of injustice, her outrage at inequity. There was a simmering disgust at organized religion that had been set to boil over, alongside a powerful thread of anarchist rage at the abuse of power structures.

However, what stood out most was that there was one set of relationships that didn’t embolden itself with the past trauma. In fact, it was a bastion of solace against it. That nexus was centered around Felgar, the Hyrachon I’d lovingly nicknamed Buster, who’d sacrificed himself to summon a fucked up blood god.

He’d been Joma’s party leader, although I knew the Yeti had been recruited as a mercenary. From what I could see, her emotions towards the paladin had been a reprieve from her normal mental state, which seemed to be about as calm as a recently dropkicked nest of wasps. All of that was manufactured, of course.

These insights came to me much easier than they had with my party members. Both finding Hysteria’s influence and the granularity of my soul reading had been substantially improved by our recent ordeals.

I pulled back from Joma’s soul to find that she and Etja had moved from tea and sandwiches to sweets and hard liquor. Joma pounded back a small glass filled with something dark brown and smoking, then placed the glass upside down on the coffee table next to a half dozen other empties.

“Ayaf!” said Etja, downing the same type of drink. She had her own line of glasses, one longer than the Yeti’s. “Wait, was it your turn?”

“No,” said Joma. “Your dad’s worse.” The Yeti leaned heavily over the arm of her chair, looking intently at Etja. She held out a furry hand, which Etja took in her own. “I’m sorry. Dads are muck. Our dads are seal muck. Your dad’s double seal muck.”

Etja shook her head a bit too hard, her hair whipping into her face. “It’s snot a competition,” she said.

Joma blinked, then waved her free hand at the table covered in dirty glasses and a few different bottles. “Is lit’rally a competishion,” she said. “Tha’s the point.”

“How long was I under?” I asked. Joma’s head shot up and she squinted at me.

“Oh, urm…” She let go of Etja’s hand and sat back, sliding into her chair until she was practically laying down. “Somewhere between an hour and seventeen drinks.”

“Ah. Well, atypical timekeeping systems aside, I did find some evidence of Hysteria’s fuckery.”

“Muck,” said Joma. “Whale muck.”

“Is it gone?” asked Etja. She reached to pour another drink, getting about half of it in her glass. She paused and looked at the amber liquid like it was a mountain she was about to climb. “I mean, is it going away?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I can encourage that along, but I didn’t want to do anything without asking.” I scratched my jaw. “We can wait until you’re sober to make any decisions.”

Joma slid out of her chair, fell to the ground, and rolled over to me. She stood and grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt, then pulled me down close to her face. She smelled like chocolate, cinnamon, and pure-grain alcohol.

“Get it out of me,” she said. “I don’ want it.”

I patted her paw-like hand. “Maybe we should grab Xim for a Cleanse, then we can–”

“It’s a disease,” Joma hissed. “It’s not a muckin’ tattoo. Get. It. Out.”

I found myself unbalanced by the woman’s shift in attitude. First, she was afraid of me, then she didn’t trust me, then I’m pretty sure she was getting mad at me for even suggesting the soul thing until she suddenly wanted to do the soul thing, and now she was convinced that what we were doing would help her.

I gently extracted myself from her grip and shot a questioning glance to Etja. The mage gave me a sloppy wink and downed her shot. I briefly wondered how her body processed alcohol without any blood, and then I remembered the majority of the inebriation was from Nuralie’s additives. It was magic shenanigans.

I took Etja’s wink as some kind of affirmation and went back into Joma’s soul. I found I could purge the lingering energy with a thought, feeling it scatter and sink down past the bounds of the universe an instant after I willed it. I pulled back to find Joma lying on the ground, staring up at the ceiling. A trio of Gekkogs were staring down at her. One of them raised a meaty hand and gave her a wave. The Delve monsters seemed more intelligent than I remembered.

“Hysteria was inflaming your hatred for government, religion, and the ‘establishment’, generally,” I said, refocusing on Joma. “They were also focusing your attention on Felgar, making him seem like a calming presence. Someone you could trust, or that you’d really enjoy being around.”

Joma kept staring at the ceiling. She raised her arm and stared at the back of her hand.

“Just another person controlling my life,” she said morosely.

Etja came over to sit next to Joma. She began running her fingers through the fur on the Yeti’s scalp. “Not anymore,” she whispered.

Joma let out a long, ragged, and slightly wet-sounding sigh. Her arm dropped and she closed her eyes. “Now what?”

“It seems like you were being conditioned to be on board for Hysteria’s mission,” I said. “Your internal justifications for kidnapping the king of Hiward and the Zenithar were built on something that happened in your past, but your emotions were distorted beyond reason. Felgar also probably had a lot more influence over your decisions that he should have. I’m willing to believe that, if it weren’t for Hysteria missing with your soul, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Maybe,” said Joma. “I’m not a good person, you know?”

“You need some time to heal the soul damage,” I said. “The corruption is gone, but it will take a little while for things to get back to normal. You’ll probably feel like shit for a while.”

“He’s trying to say not to be too hard on yourself,” said Etja. “But if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

“Just give yourself at least a week before making any life-altering decisions,” I said.

“Can I?” asked Joma.

“Can you what?”

“Make life-altering decisions? Are you letting me go?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Once you’re all healed up. I feel like it would be irresponsible to let a drunk Mittan with lingering soul damage out into the wild.”

Joma thought this over for a minute as Etja continued to stroke her hair. “Where should I go?” she asked.

“Wherever you want.”

“I don’t think that’s anywhere,” she said. I frowned and looked at Etja, who was giving me a version of her puppy dog eyes. I was confused about that at first, but glanced over at Nottagator, who still watched us with her big orange eyes from the water. I looked up to see that a couple more Gekkogs were staring down at Joma.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“We’ve got plenty of room in here,” I said. “If you want to stick around, you can. We can give you citizenship and hire you, or something. I’d understand if that doesn’t seem like a great offer, given that we ‘dispatched’ several of your party members.”

Joma waved a hand. “It was a job,” she said. “I din’ know any of them that well.” She squinted in thought. “And they were assholes.”

“I see. Either way, let’s revisit the topic once you’re feeling better.”

Joma blinked and grunted, then snuggled closer to Etja. She closed her eyes, and a minute later, she was fast asleep.

Etja stayed to watch over her, while I went to hear what Grotto had learned about our loot from the Zng armory.

*****

“How’s Joma?” Xim asked when I walked into our new armory. Grotto had been more enthusiastic about prioritizing this space, so it was fairly well-equipped. Rows of Zng armor and weapons sat on shiny new racks and stands, with a few other items mixed in from our conquests. Whatever hadn’t been destroyed or sold.

“Recovering from being mind-fucked,” I said. “She drank her feelings away and curled up for a nap with Etja.”

“That sounds adorable,” said Nuralie. Pause. “The cuddling, not the depression.” She had a set of armor disassembled in front of her, cutting into some thick fabric beneath its outer shell. She extracted what looked like a thick ceramic plate. It was connected to a pair of wires with a small amount of mana running through them.

[She has been doing quite well here,

“I’m surprised she had any slots left,” said Xim. “She’s Level 20.”

[One or two of her skills were still quite low. I was able to extract them with the System’s assistance.]

“Didn’t realize that was an option,” I said.

[Nor did I. The System seems to have taken an interest in Joma, although that is not much of a surprise. Her connection to our Atrocidile Titan and the other Delve creatures is profound.]

Grotto hovered over to me and placed one of the Zng rifles in my hands. He rubbed at his chin. He was still wearing his little man disguise since he hadn’t had time to scrounge up any c’thon flesh to remake his octo body.

[She is also a princess of Mittak. A disgraced one, but her title has not been formally stripped. Perhaps she has some influence we are unaware of.]

“Excuse me?” I said.

“She is a princess?” asked Nuralie, looking up from her work.

Xim chuckled. “Arlo has a princess in his dungeon.” She gave me a suspicious look. “What other manner of dastardly deeds are you planning that we don’t know about?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, drawing out the words. “All hail Dark Lord Arlo.”

[I will change your title on our stationery and notify the heralds.]

“Mmmm, I prefer ‘Dark Lord’ over ‘Master’, I think.”

“Is this part of your obsession with dragons?” asked Nuralie.

“Princess-napping is an excellent pastime, I’ll have you know,” I said. “And imitation is the highest form of flattery. It’ll be a conversation starter.”

Xim leaned forward in her chair and brought the ribbing to an end. “How in the hells did a Mittan princess end up on a Wastelander mercenary team?”

[She did not elucidate.]

{He didn’t even ask!} Throne added. The little Delve Core had been suspiciously silent throughout our chat. I wondered if that had anything to do with her conversation with Sam’lia. She’d been fairly subdued since returning from the Third.

“I’ve heard rumors of a princess fleeing Mittak,” said Varrin. “Although it would have taken place when I was very young.” The big guy was oiling an unfamiliar sword. It may have been Zng, but I couldn’t tell at a glance. He may have lost interest in the ancient weaponry since none of it was made for slicing and dicing. “The escape was bloody, from what I remember. I do not know the details. I can ask my family about it if we are concerned.”

“It’s probably a good idea,” I said, thinking of the mess of trauma in the Yeti’s past. “But I’d rather wait and let her tell that story in her own time.” I glanced down at the weapon I was holding, which I had mostly forgotten about until that moment. “So what have we learned about these?”

[They are wands.]

“Wands?” I asked, turning the Zng rifle over. The weapon was just over three feet long, with subtly organic curves along its matte black exterior. “Isn’t it kind of big to be a wand?”

[They are somewhere between a wand and a staff for size. However, they contain only a single spell form and their mana storage is not as robust as I would expect from a well-made staff.] The Core shrugged. [They do not properly fall under either category, but for my purposes I am treating them as wands.]

“It has a grip and two triggers,” I said. “That’s not very wand-like.”

“Is that what those are?” asked Xim.

I looked more closely at the device. The part that I was identifying as a ‘grip’ was round, with subtle grooves that looked like they’d been engineered for narrow fingers. On either side was a curved metal guard protecting a trigger mechanism. The Zng had six fingers arrayed evenly around their center palm, and the design looked like it would fit.

“I think so?” I said, sighting down the weapon. It was unwieldy. My fingers were too short and wide, and there wasn’t any way to activate both triggers with a single human hand. I couldn’t get a comfortable hold on the forestock either, since the spot where it was meant to be held was too far down the weapon’s body.

[Yes, the trigger mechanism is a somewhat controversial design choice.]

{It is?} asked Throne.

“No,” said Vaulty. “It has never been controversial.” The golem spoke in accented Hiwardian while doing an excellent job looming just behind Grotto. He’d spent most of his time in the Closet teaching himself the language while avoiding Throne. I was happy to see that Vaulty and Throne could now be in the same room together, although I hadn’t yet observed the two of them interact. Baby steps and all that.

Grotto turned to glare at the pair, then continued his explanation.

[The Zng bypassed the need for having a wielder with an appropriate attunement by creating an artificial mana matrix, which accounts for a significant portion of the weapon’s size. However, this process prevents the normal mana connection one would form with a wand. Thus, the triggers are necessary to activate the spell.]

I noted that Grotto did not explain why this would be a controversy. I suspected that he took personal offense to the design, but was willing to admit it had some uses.

“Uh, how do the triggers accomplish that?” I asked. “Does the spell activate due to some mechanical action?” If the rifle was actually a wand, there wouldn’t be a hammer or striking mechanism inside.

[One trigger temporarily completes a circuit between the spell form and the synthetic mana matrix. The other trigger is a safety which blocks the action of the former.]

“Oh, it’s a fancy button,” I said. “So anyone could use one of these? I could hand this off to a random farmer and they could pop somebody with a spell?”

[Yes. They would be unable to charge it, however. Significant use also might result in low-grade mana toxicity, and the safety requires a mana signature.]

I set the rifle back on the table, careful to never point it at anyone. It was definitely charged up, making it a loaded weapon, but no one in the room was really at risk of lethal injury from the device. Even Throne could take a few hits.

I thought about the implications of this technology. If we could replicate it, we might be able to create a line of magical weapons usable by anyone, not just Delvers. We’d have to solve the mana toxicity and charging problems, but I was pretty confident we had the skills to do so.

I also knew that the power disparity between Delvers and mundane society was deeply oppressive in some places. I wasn’t naive. Having something that could level the playing field, even a little bit, could end up being pretty disruptive.

However, I didn’t have much interest in leading any kind of social revolution. We were too busy trying to protect the world from more apocalyptic threats. Even so, if Closetland was to become independent, we wouldn’t only have Delvers for citizens.

I imagined an army of regular soldiers capable of handling significant threats. There were plenty of aggressive mana monsters out there, more than could be handled by the small population of Delvers in Arzia. There was also an army of Davahns somewhere, with each soldier having power on par with at least a low-level Delver.

Plus, if anyone tried to fuck with us, they’d be in for a real surprise.

“Okay,” I said, mind still turning over the possibilities. “Tell me what the imbued spell does.”