Chapter 296: Asking Politely
I immediately used Reveal to clue everyone else in on the soul threads. A series of psychic signals returned, letting me know that everyone got the memo.
[Blowing this man to smithereens is still an option, one that I continue to advocate for most strongly.]
“Making contact with the soul isn’t necessarily harmful,” I thought back while looking over the thin connections between the meat man and my party members. “Etja and I both have abilities that touch the souls of others. Reveal works that way.” I was trying to see if I could figure out whether the connections were hostile. The guy’s entire soul had me creeped out, and these were no exception.
[Yes, but when you or Etja use your soul-related abilities, you generally only do so on willing targets. The few times you have forced Reveal on someone who did not consent, you were using it as a weapon.]
I conceded that point just as Varrin joined in on the discussion. “It would be absurd to assume that this man is friendly. Anyone reasonable would view whatever this is as an attack. However, I believe we would benefit from knowing who this man is and why he is here in the first place before he’s dealt with.”
“Not worried about getting soul-fucked while we interview the guy?” I asked.
“No. Our experience with Hysteria left all of us with robust soul defenses. I sense nothing alarming with the connection, though I did not notice it until you pointed it out.”
I thought that Varrin’s confidence was a little reckless in this situation, but we did all get some kind of achievement, making it harder for us to fall victim to soul shenanigans. While the Hysteria debacle was a garbage-tier escapade, it had been profitable in a lot of ways.
I took another look at the threads, using my familiarity with the souls of my party members to check and see whether any mischief was happening. I couldn’t find anything. In fact, it didn’t look like the threads were connecting with their own souls at all. They flowed to a point near the base of their skulls, but were otherwise inert.
I also tried to get a better threat analysis for this guy. He wasn’t a Delver, and I didn’t detect any of the potency in his soul that I would find in a Delver or high-tier revelator. His soul seemed somewhat more powerful than a mundane person, but nothing near the level of what would be required to threaten us. The only thing making me question that was the sense of unease it evoked, but I mostly attributed that to how unnatural it felt, like the soul had been polluted by something. Identify brought back a big fat question mark, so even the System was unsure what to make of the man. That last part was the most unsettling, since the System had a lot of data to work with.Altogether, I was feeling jumpy, and the first hint of an evil monologue would seal the meat man’s fate.
“All right,” I said aloud, letting go of my shovel and crossing my arms. “I–” The shovel interrupted me as it tipped over and noisily clattered to the ground, drawing everyone’s attention, even the meat man’s. I hadn’t shoved it into the dirt as well as I’d thought I had. That earned me some looks, which I ignored. I cleared my throat before continuing. “I’m Arlo Xor’Drel, and you’re trespassing in my kingdom. Identify yourself.”
I gave the man my best mean mug, on a mission to earn back some of the gravitas the shovel had lost me.
“No,” said the meatwad.
Mission failed. “Excuse me?”
“I said no.” The man’s diction was excellent, despite his swollen and half-ruined tongue. He didn’t even do me the courtesy of looking me in my eye as he responded, choosing to gaze around the group instead. That was some hard disrespect.
He passed over Xim and Varrin with a dispassionate expression, but paused and smiled when he got to Etja. Not a weird, sinister smile, but a genuine grin like he’d just noticed that a buddy of his was in the audience. Etja dropped her hands from covering her mouth and nose and did her best to look friendly in return. Her best was pretty good. I could hardly tell she was on the verge of vomiting, and that’s saying something with the smell of this guy.
“What business do you have in Closetland?” I asked, doubling down on my glare.
“None of yours,” he answered. The man’s calculated apathy would have been the envy of many a teenager, assuming they’d care enough to notice.
“Are you just gonna refuse to answer any of my questions and hope we let you go?”
The man’s organs shifted as he shrugged. He still wasn’t making eye contact with me, now looking down at his half-buried body.
[You could always torture him.]
“I’d prefer to avoid any enhanced interrogation techniques this early into my rule.”
“Why were you hiding in the ground?” I asked.
“Reasons,” he answered.
“What reasons?”
“My own.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“No.”
“What nation do you belong to?”
He didn’t even bother to reply to that one, just silently looking down at his chest as though I wasn’t speaking to him at all. I sighed. My intimidating persona was crashing against the iceberg of his indifference, soon to be lost amidst the icy depths of his ‘nunya’ technique. Etja gave me a pat on the shoulder and took a step closer to the man.
“Hi!” she said, giving him a little wave, and he looked up with that silly smile again.
“Hi to you as well,” he said.
“Mind if I ask you some questions?”
“Please, go right ahead.”
“Great! So, uh, how about we start with your name?”
“I’m Charl,” he answered. “Whom do I have the pleasure of meeting today?”
“I’m Etja!” said Etja.
“Lovely to meet you, Etja.”
“Thank you,” she said with a little bow. “So, what are you doing here?”
The man chuckled like he’d just heard a clever joke. “Oh, I’ve been in Krimsim for some time, keeping an eye on everything and everyone.” He silently considered something, tilting his head from side to side. “I’m doing my best to serve Unifier’s will.”
I rubbed my brow and tried to process the unfairness of it all. “I just asked him those exact questions!” I thought to the group.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Xim was the one to reply. “Etja had that guy Mesmerized the second he looked at her. As far as he knows, the two of them are the best of friends right now.”
I looked at Charl’s stupid grin as he talked Etja’s ear off about how he’d been spying on everyone in the city. “Ah. I guess that’s kind of obvious in hindsight.”
“Being fair to you, Etja never uses her social control abilities this way. She limits it to keeping beasties from attacking her during fights. I don’t think she’s comfortable with messing around in people’s heads unless it’s life or death.”
“Probably a good rule to have.”
“Who’s Unifier?” Etja asked.
“The one who unifies,” said Charl with a cheeky grin, before his features grew more reverent. “Unifier brought us the Word, my dear Etja. He unites us with ourselves and the world around us, so that we no longer struggle against that which is already within us.” He took a deep breath and looked to the sky, organs rustling behind his onion-peel bones. “He is a mountainous man, in both stature and spirit, willing to speak out against the cruelties of fate this world writes for the feeble. But he is more than a messenger. He wields the power of Unity, which he offers to his congregation, granting comfort and hope with but a single wave of his mighty arm!”
As the man spoke, his eyes grew wide, and a look of adulation overtook his features.
“I think this guy’s a fanatic,” I thought to the group.
“Sounds like he’s talking about Brae’ach,” Xim added. “He’s Unity’s minion, trying to ‘Unite’ the world by feeding the entire thing to an avatar. The description fits.”
“Didn’t realize the guy had started a whole cult, but I reckon the doomsday vibe is on point for somebody trying to destroy the world through osmosis.”
“That is a terrible use of the word ‘osmosis,’” Nuralie interjected. “Please retract your statement.”
“Is this Unifier person named Brae’ach?” asked Etja, taking advantage of a breath in between the man’s proselytizing.
“You know his mortal name?” asked Charl, his wild eyes tearing down from above to stare intensely at Etja. “Have you had the good luck of meeting him?”
“Not personally.”
“I had the ‘good luck’ of him exploding my fuckin’ eyeballs,” I muttered. Charl frowned and sent a nasty look my way. Etja stepped between us.
“I’ve only heard about him,” she said. “What did he want with Krimsim?”
“I simply serve as the eyes and ears for Unifier within the city,” said Charl. A rain of dirt fell away as he freed his arms. One was barely more than bone, while the other could have belonged to a giant. It was kind of like the proportions of a professional arm-wrestler. Or a lonely man who predominantly exercises only one arm due to lifestyle or circumstance. “I know not what Unifier wishes of this place, deary.”
From “My dear” to “Deary” in the span of minutes. Etja’s mesmerization was so potent that it was turning the man into a grandma before our very eyes.
“Does–” She waved a hand up and down at him. “–all of this help with spying?”
“Oh, yes, quite a lot. You see, the divine granted me a great boon. I am aware of the world around my body for a short distance.” He waved his own hand at his mangled form. “Unifier helped me overcome a great malady that plagued me, uniting us in our purpose. In so doing, I became able to split myself and grow in many places at once.”
“And your awareness still works with all your little pieces?”
“Just so, dearest, just so.”
Now we were all the way to “dearest.” Etja was already at the pinnacle of the “dear” pyramid of affection.
“And when you say you were ‘United’, what does that mean, exactly?”
“‘You are separated by battle and strife,’” said Charl with the tone of a recited prayer. “‘Taught to believe you must fight each other for survival. You have the power to put aside your differences and work together, if only you had the strength.’
“That is what he said to me,” Charl continued. “It is what he’s said to many others, and the truth of it was absolute. My affliction began with a cough that could not be soothed, robbed me of my breath, and stole me from my labors. Each day, a pain grew in my chest, one that spread to my bones. By the time Unifier found me, my head was racked with pain and I was taken by spasms of the body with some frequency.
“He healed you?” asked Etja.
“He did, but not as you might think. He taught me that my body warred with itself, and the answer was not to tear the disease from my chest, but to find harmony with it. I was unified with the thing that haunted me, joined in body and soul. That day was the most joyous of my life, as I became one of Brae’ach’s United.”
The man’s story left a lingering silence in its wake.
“Is… he saying that he became one with lung cancer?” I thought to the group. “I– What does that even mean?”
“Kind of gross, but how does that allow him to divide?” asked Xim.
“Cancer is uncontrolled growth,”
Nuralie replied. “It is not uncommon in people. Perhaps he can grow in other places, such as throughout the city?”“In the sewers, if the smell is any hint,” Xim thought to us.
I gulped and retraced the soul threads leading into my party members. “Or maybe he can grow inside other people,” I added.
Another beat of silence, both sonic and psychic.
“Nope,” thought Xim. “Not having anyone grow inside me today.” She hit herself with a Cleanse, but the thread didn’t abate.
“Maybe this is a bit personal,” Etja said to Charl, “but how does all that leave you looking the way you do?”
“Worry not,” he said. “My form does not displease me, for how could it? It is who I am. As for why I am but half a man, I was once spread out, but the city’s population has declined rather drastically.” He hung his deformed head in defeat. “I was forced to begin reconstituting myself as my hosts departed.”
“Definitely growing inside of people,” I thought.
[Now will you murder him in self-defense?]
“Not sure that’ll solve anything. He can grow and divide. Maybe he can regenerate like I can.”
[Your restorative powers are an incredibly intricate magical process. Do not take that capability for granted, it is not something you will encounter in many other organisms.]
“Now, dearest,” said Charl. “I should take my leave, but I can no longer reach the other United.” He peered around. “I was afraid of this, but the dimensional space seems to have severed the connection.”
“Grotto, can we get some containment on this guy? We need to work up some kind of quarantine and screen people for… growths, I guess.”
[His Dimensional defense is low. Shall I teleport him into a confinement cube?]
Said cube was a box buried under a few hundred feet of rock with portal barriers on all sides. Grotto had a dozen of them, despite my arguments that having so many was overkill. If flesh face tried to leave, he’d continually be teleported back into its confines. Someone like me could escape, but deific teleports made me a perfect specimen of unimprisonable nonsense.
“You would find incredible peace by becoming a United, dearest,” said Charl, his eyes roaming over Etja. “I have seen you work your magicks. You are a powerful sorcerer. Imagine unifying with the very mana within yourself. What incredible power might that unlock?” Etja gave him a placating smile, but I could tell she wasn’t into the idea. He turned to look at Xim. “And a woman of the third layer might become one with mind and dream itself. You could transcend the physical form this layer forces upon you.”
His eyes darted to Varrin as he continued his sales pitch. “And you, why call upon the spirits of your ancestors when you could join with them?” He looked out into the shadows of the buildings around us. “I know the loson is here. Would she unify with the shadows? Perhaps the venoms she so covets?”
Finally, he turned to me with an expression of pure scorn. “But you are hopeless, Rejector.” I was taken aback by the resentment in his voice. “You unite only with yourself, pushing away all else within you. Your vanity is boundless, a house of mirrors with only your reflection to inhabit it.”
“Frankly,” I said, “that was a solid dig, and I respect that you went right for the weak spot without any hesitation. On the other hand, the fuck are you talking about?”
“Your body, Rejector. It is a blasphemous, self-serving amalgam.” He spat on the ground. Full-on spat. I’d never actually seen someone upset enough to do that before.
[I believe he is talking about the effect Body of Theseus is having on your anatomy.]
“Yeah. If that’s the opposite of whatever cancer man has going on, then I’m even prouder of my earlier choices. Good job, past Arlo.” I gave myself a pat on the back. “Anyway, get this guy out of here, please.”
“A cesspit of narcissism,” Charl continued. “An existence within a void, permeated only by the echoes of your own–”
And Charl disappeared in a blink of dimensional energy. Good riddance.
Hopefully, that dealt with all the cancer-causing soul threads.