Slumrat Rising

Chapter 73: On the Road to Answers

There was a notable increase in people fiddling discreetly with charms at the table, but fewer people slipped away than the Head seemed to expect. Pleased, he suggested an extra round of Nerik to accompany the flan that was tonight’s dessert. This was met with warm approval and quiet cheers by the faculty.

What the hell is Nerik? For that matter, what’s flan? I’ve heard of it, but what actually is it? Truth wondered.

Nerik appeared to be a sort of wine or liquor served in small glasses. It had a syrupy viscosity, clinging to the sides of the glass when swirled. The aroma coming from the glasses was quite pleasant but also puzzling.

Truth’s new body could pick apart smells with incredible accuracy, but he needed something to compare things to. “Fruit” didn’t explain much. The smell was warm, with fruity and spicy dancing around each other in the glass. Like peaches, maybe? Or raisins? As the Nerik warmed up in the drinker’s hands, the aroma of ethanol started to spread. That was a smell he could place. It lived in Dad’s armchair and the empty bottle of Beefheart on the floor.

He didn’t really need to try Nerik. He would walk the foodie's path, not the drinker's path.

The flan was another puzzle but a more welcome one. The servants brought in trollies loaded with covered trays. The covers were removed with great pomp, revealing little flat-bottomed bowls. The servants would approach a guest from the side, put a plate over the flat-bottomed bowl, then invert the bowl onto the plate. When the bowl was lifted away, there was a little wobbly pale yellow thing covered in brown sauce, a solo act on a white porcelain stage.

It jiggled. Truth gently tapped the plate. It jiggled again. This was concerning. Food, in Truth’s experience, did not jiggle. He watched the other diners. They scooped up bites with a spoon in seeming pleasure. Merkovah looked indecently pleased with it, savoring each little bite and practically licking the spoon after. Truth tentatively tried a scoop.

The flan was nice. Not amazing, not life-changing, but nice. A little eggy, the texture was weird as hell, and the watery brown sauce seemed to be some kind of syrup. Cool going down the throat. Kind of a metallic aftertaste, though he couldn’t think why that was. Maybe they messed up cooking it? But everyone else looked happy. He could eat the flan happily enough, but he had eaten better food than this.

But everyone else seemed to love it. Was this a poverty-food thing? Flan was fancy food for classy people? Was he having a poor person fuck up?

Truth made as sincere a smile as he could manage and tried to look like this was the best flan ever. Who knows? Maybe it was.

Merkovah corralled his team after dinner. “Tommy, this will be our base for a little while. Take some time get to know the campus. There isn’t much to the rest of the town, but the coffee here is phenomenal.”

“May I use the library here?” Truth asked.

“Certainly. Ah, feeding your intelligent spirit?”

“Yes, and reading is one of my two hobbies.”

“Commendable.” Merkovah nodded. “Can you two show him around?”

“Given the whole “once” times we have been here before? No problem!” Jember laughed.

Truth did not understand how they could be so casual with the old monster. He was already at the limits of his comfort, as his behavior would already be considered career-dooming insubordination back in Jeon. Although even that wasn’t strictly correct. On the off chance he was in the same room with a Level Seven, he would have kept his mouth shut and his face pointed at the floor. And he would have been ignored unless he fucked up. The only reason he was acting so casually now was that Merkovah practically demanded it.

“Come on, the library’s this way.” Etenesh lightly touched his shoulder; this time, he couldn’t control the flinch. She jerked her hand back and looked at him, surprised. And a little hurt.

“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” Truth babbled. He suddenly needed to explain everything but didn’t know where to begin or what he could say. But even though he didn’t want to make her feel bad, he didn’t want to be touched without permission!

Her eyes softened, reading his face. “Complicated, huh?”

Truth took a deep breath. “Yes. Very. Sorry. I’m ok with you standing near me.” He liked it, actually. “But please ask if you want to touch me.”

“Alright, I can do that.” She nodded. “You two have anything to say?” Merkovah and Jember had been watching with open curiosity.

“No, that seems fair.” Merkovah nodded.

“If you ever want to talk about it, I’m a good listener.” Jember nodded along with Merkovah. Etenesh tisked at them and led the way to the Library.

Truth felt really awkward. What do you even say when you freak out at a pretty girl who had the nerve to lightly touch your shoulder? “Sorry, I am usually a very normal, safe, sane individual?”

He would get struck by lightning for telling lies that big, right?

The campus was a lot more boring than the one in Shomburuti. The corridors were clean, with industrial gray carpeting and high gloss white paint over concrete. Posters were hung, explaining various minutia that Truth had no context for. Pictures and plaques recording the faces and achievements of the worthy. A lot of the time, he could hardly even guess their field of study.

“What’s this- “Pioneer of adaptive bio-resonance in tropical agronomy?

Jember and Etenesh peered at the picture of the old expert and read the blurb. “Not really my field, but it looks like she was able to prove that the tiny microbes in the soil and the big plants used in farming follow the “as above, so below” paradigm and form a mutually beneficial relationship in how they interact with each other, predators and cosmic rays.” Jember guessed.

Truth didn’t get most of that. In fact, he didn’t recognize most of the words. He hoped they would explain what he asked, not give him more things to look up. He internally sighed. More things to study.

“Thanks. I’m still learning the language.”

“Not a university kid, huh?” Jember smiled.

“How could you tell?” Truth said, with some irony.

“Your eyes adapt, and you stop seeing these plaques and things. They are everywhere.”

“So, how did you get into bodyguarding?” Etenesh asked.

“Oh, well. I trained to be a talisman maintenance tech, but during my national service, it turned out that I had a gift for fighting. I was recruited into a PMC after I was… sorry, I don’t know the right word. Let go from the Army but on good terms?”

“Honorable discharge,” Jember suggested.

“Sure, that. Anyway, I did things like very important standing around, taking packages from place to place safely, that kind of thing. Eventually, I got promoted to bodyguard. I… did not enjoy the work.”

“Had to be better than standing around, right?” Jember joked.

“It was standing around with extra crazy. Seriously, it is not recommended. Do other things.” Truth said urgently. The cousins cracked up.

“I bet it was crazy! The dads had to figure a Desrin strict on his Muq like you would be safe around their daughters.” Etenesh laughed. Then smacked her forehead. “I still can’t believe you aren't Desrin!”

“My god. How many sixteen-year-old heiresses did you leave knocked up? No wonder you had to flee to the Free State. Where else could you hide?” Jember said in wonder.

“Mr. Wells, how could you! I truly thought better of you.” Etenesh’s eyes seemed to brim with tears.

“I didn't! I didn’t sleep with anyone! I was specially trained by experts to not sleep with anyone’s sixteen-year-old daughters! Or sons! No sleeping with the protectee’s family generally, and sleeping with the client was heavily discouraged. And never happened.”

The cousins gave him a flat, disbelieving look. “Suuuuuurrrrrreeeeee.” They chorused.

“I mean, look at me. Do you really think I’m fighting them off with a stick?”

Disbelief turned to confusion. “Yes?” Said Jember.

The library was painfully dull and yet, a place of wonder. Dull because the anti-chromatic decoration scheme from the hallway extended right up to the stacks. A place of wonder because it was a university library in the sticks. They had all kinds of weird stuff.

“So, Tommy. Absentee father of seven. Do you have a particular subject you are interested in? Family planning, perhaps?” Jember asked.

Truth hesitated. There were just too many mysteries he wanted to solve.

MISSION: Let the System read their entire section on spiritual possession. REWARD: I get out of you faster. One Hour Treasure Finder, Library Edition.

“Spiritual possession.”

“Huh.” Etenesh looked surprised. “Would not have picked that as your type of book.”

“You guys have spirits helping you out, right?” The cousins exchanged a look and nodded. “Well, I do too. A spirit of intellect. Part of my “complicated” is it’s trapped in me. It wants out. I want it out. Merkovah says he doesn’t know how to get it out. So we need to read up.”

“Not the strangest thing I have heard. Up there, but not the actual strangest.” Jember gave a halfhearted shrug.

They showed Truth where to find everything, then pushed on with the tour. They were surprised again when Truth was interested in the weight room but not the martial arts clubs.

“Don’t sword masters need to practice for thousands of hours?” Etenesh asked.

“Maybe? Seems high? There are only so many ways you can swing a sharp, pointy bit of metal.”

“How long did you take to learn how to use a sword?” Jember asked.

“Um, including machete training? About ten minutes? Less? It’s a sharp metal stick. That’s how you use it.”

The cousins thought they could hear the endless millennia of swords masters simultaneously rise up in outrage.

“I get that I’m the strange one here, but… pretty much every weapon system I see just feels really intuitive. If anything, it’s like I learned it a long time ago and just need to shake the rust off.”

“Wait, what?” Etenesh slowly grinned. “You were remembering how to swordfight when you were getting loose this morning?”

“Well, that’s how it feels. Obviously, not what’s really happening. Needler Talisman was always my weapon of choice.”

Truth started flipping through the pages of the books. He was used to the process now. Fully open flat, but then immediately open the next page. Repeat as quickly as possible.

“How about you guys? Do you stay camped out in the wards? Not a criticism, by the way. A very sensible place to be, in my professional opinion.”

“Most of the time, yes. Neither of us are fighters, really.” Etenesh nodded.

“Speak for yourself, missy!” Jember looked fierce.

“I am very sorry. Why don’t you square up with Tommy here and prove what a badass you are?”

“I respectfully decline.”

Truth silently laughed at their bickering. Cousins like siblings. His mood dropped suddenly, but he forced himself to keep the pages turning.

“By the way, does this library have any good books on the Ghūl?”

“The what?” Jember looked happy to change the topic.

“Ghūl. Creepy not-dead-enough things that hate the light but love making complicated religious art out of the screaming remains of humans?” Truth paused, recalled a particularly unpleasant memory, and amended himself. “Mostly screaming.”

They looked at him in horror. “What the hell is that!” Etenesh almost yelled. “No, absolutely not. They do not exist, at least not here in Siphios!”

“Seriously? I thought they were everywhere. I know there is a big nest of them in Shorumbuti.”

“Those… things are real? They are a real thing that really exists.” Etenesh demanded.

“Yes? I used to watch them through my window when I was a kid.”

This met with stunned silence.

“Tommy… I know you aren’t local, but where exactly are you from?” Jember asked slowly.

Truth just grinned.