Rule 19

Rob the Dead & Use Lures

Statement: Enough of morality for a moment, and back to the puzzle that is this new world. Let’s also—for a moment—assume I simply accepted having new powers. How does one apply any sort of deductive reasoning to new abilities without the fear of blowing themselves sky high? Make no mistake, I preferred logical situations, but found myself rapidly turning into a creature who operated less on logic and more on instinct.

Here are some examples. I used the explosive spell out of habit and it made me want to blow up more stuff. I used knives without pause to slice into monsters. I felt my sexual drive increase from what I learned to be a “Nymph’s” power. I started to take it for granted that people would simply ignore my presence, as they did Little Shade’s. These became part of my actions, far faster than they should have.

There were prizes inside the depths of this place. I knew, with certainty, that the hydra guarded more than its life. I wanted to kill it for those special items. Fulfilling Coach Big Balls’s request and having a “safe base” was part of the equation. Having been forced to listen to the ladies next door for hours had sparked certain ideas in the back of my mind. Namely, were I of the right mind, could I make them sound a bit more natural. That however, was the nymph spell talking.

First, I had a boss monster, of sorts, to kill.

Post Note: A small part of me believed that the worst outcome, death, might actually be a blessing. Don’t mistake this for the desire to quit or give up—I wanted to live and succeed.

I stood, grinning madly with dagger in hand. Little Shade had vanished somewhere. I didn’t care and proceeded to poke around the area, sticking to walls while moving carefully.

The creature’s inner lair smelled rancid. Multiple something’s had died inside. There were bits of mini-orcs, ones which hadn’t collapsed into energy orbs. Humans were also turned into meals. I stifled a gag. My free hand plugged both nostrils.

One of the rear doors was locked. I rattled the handle and wondered why none of my skills included lock picking. It might be possible to blow up the doorway but there was no telling what sort of problems that would cause. Explosions were loud and attracted monsters.

Such thoughts distracted me from the rank surroundings. Someone had managed to make a smell infinitely worse than an open outhouse, piles of moldy leftovers, and lodged it firmly up my nose. I could taste the heavy air and each blink of eyelids caused water to cascade down.

It was hard to believe this fire station had been so large inside. It held at least three huge rooms of unless refuse. There was nothing of note inside. I sniffed and the smell twisted my innards. My stomach heaved again and I dashed toward the exit.

All that exploration didn’t give me any secret ideas on how to kill the monster. I could leave a bomb in its room and fire another from a distance, which I’d thought of before. That ability was only one of the many I’d been given.

The main problem is this creature could probably heal. I vaguely remembered a story about a hydra from school years ago, during a Greek course in high school. Fire had been a weakness, used by a hero fighting “the hydra” but I was no hero and didn’t have fire.

Maybe I could sit somewhere far away and generate an endless wave of explosives. Throwing them using the knife as a vehicle would work, but required me to be too close.

Somewhere between dry heaving and rubbing gross snot out of my nose using another shirt, I had an idea. We were sneaks. Little Shade could walk right by mini-orcs without notice. I really could use half of that plan, generating explosives, and maybe Little Shade could walk them in while I created another one.

It was still night. There were few fires in the distance. Some houses were lit up with small torches.

“Little Shade?”

I barfed a third, or fourth time right into a burned out car husk.

She’d said I was a sneak, and mentioned the card which stated [Runed Rogue]. Runed made sense, it had to do with the spells I cast. They formed patterns with five main points. I wondered if some spells might use four fingers, or six. A dozen more ideas flooded my mind and were dismissed quickly.

Post Note: Yes, the card really said that. It still does, complete with brackets. I had, and continue to have, no idea what that means.

Rogue must have been tied to the stealth abilities. I had never played role playing games and only knew about them from other people talking. I inferred that games let people use abilities to be invisible to enemies, which was in line with our current situation.

Now, the possibilities for two rogues were fairly open ended on normal-sized creatures. We could probably eliminate an army of mini-orcs while laughing madly. But a giant monster had defenses simply based on its size.

“Little Shade?”

I felt sick. Days of compartmentalizing my problems had made this latest round of gross that much ickier. I sucked in a lungful of air and fought conflicting thoughts. Calmly dissecting methods to kill a monster made me wonder exactly what had changed in my life. I couldn’t be that detached, not while heaving up my nearly empty stomach.

“Little Shade.” A groan escaped. I fell to the ground and stared at the fire station’s front doors.

“Little Lance, you sick? You went inside didn’t you? Gross in there, it is. Went in once. It’s the smell, init. Can’t get it out of your head for days after. Got so bad once, shoved soap up my nose. Stole it from a posh lady who lived in a penthouse of the Shelton, downtown. You know the place? Swanky as fuck. Well… it was.”

She plopped down without an ounce of regard for the puddle of barf a whiff away.

“Want some? I keep a small bit of it. In case I find places like this. Beats the perfume. Monsters like perfume. Love it. Sent some of those gobbys into fits. Start putting their grubby bits into every hole on the street. Used it once on a playground. Can’t get the image, of their little butts porking away at the seesaw, out of my head. No I can’t.”

Now I couldn’t escape it either. No amount of giggling, from voice in the back in my brain, could drown out a bunch of pint-sized creatures in dirty children’s clothes going at it. I resolved to never unleash perfume of any sort on anyone.

“Cologne too. That man perfume fellas lie to themselves about by calling it another name. And some shampoos. In case you were interested. You seem like the kind who might care, you do.”

I took a deep breath and pushed past the ill-formed images.

“We can use it as a lure, we could. But the hydra doesn’t give two shits about the little cock goblins, not her. At best they’re a distraction. Maybe. If we use enough. You know, I’ve never tried a boatload of the stuff, might work.”

There was an idea in her rambling. Admittedly, she’d spouted all sorts of useful tips. It was mixed with a wall of nonsense so separating the two was difficult.

“To use monsters against monsters?” I asked.

“Sure, ain’t new. I tried once. That I did. Was a lady, back during the first week or two I landed here. She’d mesmerize them or something. Said she bought a voice box from a siren. Didn’t matter. She died. No use to power if monsters find you while you sleep. No there init.”

My shoulders loosened and I almost managed a real smile. She simply babbled a mile a minute but it was oddly comforting. Having anyone to talk to, or who talked at me, was slightly better than being alone for three days with only a growling houseguest.

That was a weird shift to realize. I looked over at her. There wasn’t any expression to judge by but she sounded worried. Her hands rubbed along bare skin. I sat close enough to know she was in a sleeveless shirt, or a dress. It was either hole-riddled, or had a series of strips that let skin peek through.

“How far away can those monsters smell from?” I asked.

“Mile or so. Depends on the wind. If you can find a wind ‘round here. Clouds, they come and go but wind? Ain’t a drop of it half the time. Makes a body wonder how them clouds blow in and out, it does.”

“Can it reach more than mile if we use enough?”

“Maybe. Prolly. Drop half an ocean’s worth and we could lure monsters from all over. Prolly still wouldn’t be enough to kill the big hydra.” Little Shade’s head bobbed up and down making the hat scrape against the burned out car.

“You’ve been thinking about this.” I nodded. The air was easier to breathe but I could still smell that foul scent of decaying bodies. It was like meat from a trash can four days later, but with the knowledge that it had been a person.

“Sure I have. She’s worth a whole heap of money I’m sure. Plus them little orbs. Maybe get an evol outta her. I mean, loaded, she must be, what with being so tough to kill and all. But I ain’t got the juice to finish her. None of the boys are the right kind of tough.”

“What about Toymaker?”

“His stuff doesn’t last more than a day or two. Plus he never leaves. Coach Big Balls won’t let him. Says he’s too valuable an ass to let go free. He is.”

“Then we’ll use a lure, and harass her with explosives.”

Little Shade’s head tilted and the shadow moved enough to reveal a pale shoulder. Once again I wondered why I could see in the dark so easily. “Yah?”

I giggled and stifled the laugh with both hands. They stayed cupped, and slow steady breaths evened me out.

“Gonna need more, we will. Unless your book of spells gots more power in it. Anything you holding back? Well? Is you?”

I wasn’t sure what method to use to increase our odds. The lure, explosives, reusable knives for throwing, two stealth type people—we had a lot. My second rune—spell, or whatever—turned me into the brown-skinned form resembling a piece of nature. The wife from before had commanded me with her voice. It might be possible to use the same command on the mini-orcs once they were here.

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Ain’t that a shit question. Course I can. Why? You got a secret? Maybe we can trade each other for the good ones. My secret, I think Coach Big Balls is a twit, that’s what my momma would have called him. Bonafide royal twittery.”

Secrets. The stewardesses had been all about that word. They were obsessive. I could still hear their words in my head. “A secret only two know is dangerously delicious to keep.”

Little Shade laughed loudly. “Ain’t that the truth. Been talking to those whacko clones, yeah? Bet a secret started all this. I’ll find out one day, that I will. Just need enough funds and supplies, then away I go. Away from Coach Big Balls and this shit city. Off to find the big secrets.”

The money we gathered had to be spent somewhere, or else our cards wouldn’t keep track of a dollar amount still. I worried about the debt card term, and had a nagging feeling that those stewardesses hadn’t been misspeaking when they used the word.

“Think the hydra will give you enough?”

“That’s the dream. So we go shopping, then kill her. Then we go shopping again. Like a girl’s wet dream, it is.”

That sounded like a better plan than I’d started with. Spending all my time drunk on moonshine, sleeping, and figuring out new powers hadn’t given me much room to learn monster murdering techniques.

Shopping was easy enough. It turned out to be reallocating resources from unoccupied homes. An uncouth man might call it robbing the dead, which was technically accurate. Little Shade babbled away during our entire spree. She knew details about every house in the neighborhood. How, or why, was beyond me.

We ended up with two backpacks full of bottles.

“So what was it ‘bout that secret? Eh? You going to show me your lance, Lance? Because you need a rinse and a shave before we do anything.”

“Right.” I wanted to change forms to the brown-skinned one used with Hawthorn. It would be weird, I was sure, to change in front of another person. “I’ll need a moment.”

“Keep it in your pants, yah? We got things to do, we do.” She flipped her hand over and pointed at a door.

I stepped through the door into an abandoned room. The bedroom was dull and dust lined everything. A computer sat in a corner. Dresser drawers had been pulled out, I grabbed a change of clothes and tore off the dirty ones. It was weird to toss my old clothes in a pile, knowing they’d be abandoned.

It didn’t matter. I set out my spell book and flipped through the pages. Their smooth mirror surfaces taunted me. Four of the pages were empty, and maybe, if we killed the hydra, I’d get a new ability.

I flipped back to page two and stared at the brown coloring. It was the same tint as the nymph’s skin. Her face flashed through my mind. Need, anger, frustration, a hint of so many emotions wrapped together in those final moments.

Last time I used this spell, I’d been drunk out of my mind and woken up a different person. This time the change took more effort. My fingers curled into a pattern that resembled a messed up okay symbol. The brown spell clicked into position and made my toes curl and a gasp of air escaped that was closer to a moan.

I huffed from the edge of an orgasm that hadn’t been there a moment ago. The feeling spread as my body and mind funneled into a single point upon my hand. A lungful of air later and my edged release doubled in intensity and popped.

My hand had automatically found its way under the worn shirt. I pressed my fingers against my chest and sensed the rush of narrow-minded energy travel to my chest and spread with pleasant warmth. My body drooped and a wave of dizziness threatened to make me sleep.

My eyelids fluttered. Once I felt normal, aside from the low buzz centered around my groin and lewd thoughts, I stepped out of the room.

Little Shade ran her gaze up and down the length of my body. Or at least, I assumed she did. Her shadow casting hat, which reminded me of a reverse lampshade, tilted. “Ain’t that a kick in the pants.”

I smiled, it came easier. My body felt lighter and smoother. An arm lifted with a grace that hadn’t been present a few minutes before. I wondered, briefly, if it were possible to cast the spell upon someone else like the explosive rune.

“So, let’s blow her to kingdom come before I get distracted, yah?”

“Okay,” I responded.

Little Shade might be closer to my age then I’d thought. I closed my eyes and smiled to relax. My body responded easily but my mind wondered if her skin was pale all over. There was a roughness to her voice and based on her constant babbling she’d probably be extra vocal during sex.

I found myself railing off again and stuck a hand into my book to start the black spell. I curled fingers and summoned the blade in a smooth pull. Before it registered, I’d cut my pointer finger with the blade’s edge. The pain barely muted my thoughts.

“Hustle it. Else we’re going to be here all day. I don’t know bout you but that bed back there was the sweetest thing I’d seen all day. Mostly, it was. Maybe a few things better.”

Post Note: You could imagine exactly what sort of thoughts her musing put into my brain. If you’re reading this, then simply apply your high school earned dirty mind to the thought of a bed, and knowing my libido was going into overdrive. Sure, I moved like a graceful cat, on the prowl for…other cats in need.

She continued her line of babble as we “sneaked” back to the hydra’s lair. The bag was heavy as heck and pulled at my shoulders. We couldn’t move fast because most of the items we’d taken were glass bottles. We walked, carefully, back to the fire station. I worried that we’d crack one of the bottles and end up being swarmed like Little Shade had said.

We stopped outside the fire station and Little Shade shoved a long rope into my hands. I rolled it over and realized it was a sort of nylon or plastic.

“What’s this for?”

“Rope, useful for lots of stuff. Hanging yourself, hanging other people. Bondage positions. Tying up bad guys. You into that autoerotic self-throttling thing? Good for that too, it is. Not like a tie though.”

I shook my head slowly and fought back a fresh wave of images.

“Or, since your little constructs fade, maybe you copy this, make one of those fancy versions, then we can hang all these bags above where the hydra naps. Like a time bomb, yah?”

Post Note: I wasn’t thinking straight at the time, or this might have set off alarm bells. I was still thinking heavily on the bondage positions idea. Which was weird, it wasn’t, isn’t, my type of thing—but something about this form makes anything remotely erotic turn overwhelming.

I caught up to the timed trap idea. “That’s brilliant.”

It would be too, if the rope could be stored in my palm. There was no telling when I’d need to be able to summon rope. It was an amazingly useful item.

It worked. Apparently the storing magic didn’t care about size of an object. Feeding the rope into my palm was weird, but I stayed busy prepping it while Little Shade got the bags ready for maximum crashing.

We, that is, Little Shade, picked the spot, took my rope, and hefted the large bag quickly. Watching a moving blob of shadow pull on a rope made of starlight was almost beautiful. It was distracting enough to drown out the foul smell.

“Good, yah? Hear it? Coming back now.”

My eyes were closed. The rope would last for at least ten minutes, like the rune did. It should fall apart after that, based on the last day of testing.

“Almost dawn. We need to move, yah?”

I was not thinking about moving at all. At least, not out of this small room. My thoughts were squarely back on that bed and the nearest female. We both wore entirely too many clothes and she was clearly old enough.

Post Note: All in my head, I’m fairly sure. As mentioned, I still know very little about Little Shade herself—she talks, talked, about everything but herself.

“You there, Little Lance?”

“Yes. You are correct. We should go.” I shook off the distraction.

It felt like we’d taken forever to get ready. The sun was indeed coming up, and in the distance loud roars could be heard; the same noise as the creature that chased Coach’s truck.

We found a corner outside and I took in the fresh air. Our escape was barely in time. Three large heads loomed over the wall of cars. The monster grunted, shoved one of the cars to the side, and backed up slowly. Two heads sniffed the air and glanced around. The third pushed the car back into place, forming a poor fence door.

Little Shade had vanished, again. There were no signs of her shadowed form anywhere in the hydra’s yard. I stood in the far corner, in a spot of darkness cast by the rising sun.

I held my breath and stuck my hand into the spell book, ready to peel off an explosive rune or summon a dagger.

The hydra walked into the large garage, straight through the broken doors, and sniffed. I worried the creature would notice the hanging bag from ceiling, but apparently it didn’t care or simply never looked up. I held my breath and slid a hand across the explosive rune, pooling red onto fingertips.

I could see clearly into the large hole. The hydra sat with all three heads facing the doorway. Above its head was the rope. My breath stilled as seconds stretched into minutes.

Then the rope crumbled into stardust, or whatever it was constructed of. The bag Little Shade had hoisted fell. I flinched as the sound of cracking glass made it across the street to where I hid.

The hydra’s three heads lifted. It snorted, coughed, and wheezed at the same time, each head performing a different action. Then there was a noise, a low keening whine as the creature’s huge hind legs kicked into the wall.

And I heard the first mini-orc. Their simplistic rhyming words patterns were hard to mistake. “Treat?” it said, from far closer than I’d suspected one to be. The darned creatures were everywhere.

The boss’s large heads shook and coughed. It managed to focus one watering head toward the mini-orc who poked out through two cars. Its hand wiggled as it squeezed through a crack.

“Treat!” it shouted. More voices echoed. “Eat! Eat! Defeat!”

Mini-orcs poured into the walled off street in droves. My stomach tightened and once again I wondered at the wisdom of this forming chaos. There were two with shotguns, because apparently they grew on trees and worked in the hands of the quickly mobbing creatures.

I waited another minute as they appeared from every possible crack of the yard. They swarmed straight toward the hydra, which had been settling for a nap in its pigsty lair.

A reedy voice belonging to one of the lantern wielding mini-orcs shouted from directly above me. I tensed and realized the creature wasn’t even looking at me, but staring at the main hall.

“Defeat big meat!” the fire-wielder responded.

“Eat! Eat! Beat!” the mob responded. More crawled out. I grabbed one and jabbed a knife in its neck without a second thought. The creature’s eyes glazed over. None of the others stopped to care as they ran for the sickeningly sweet smelling monster.

The fight was on.