Vol. 3 Chap. 138 Alone In The House
There really should be a word for when you know you have never been soplace before, but when you go there, it all feels eerily familiar.
Truth walked silently down the long corridors. Brightly lit, clean, with enchanted windows showing views from various Starbrite resorts from around the world. Look out one, and it was a tropical beach. Look out the next, and you were watching laughing kids learn how to ski. It felt like half the offices he had visited on the job. Even so of the private hos looked like this.
It was pretty nice. Which felt horrible. He couldnt hear the violence going on above. There was a literal mountain in between him and the pounding explosions. To say nothing of all the magical wards. It was warm but not hot, the air tasted fresh, it was clean, well lit and cheery from all the windows. It didnt have that Dood Bunker feel that he had been expecting.
He felt cheated. Truth walked a little further down the hall, making way for staff making their way to the bathroom. They didnt see him. At Level Two, they would have a better chance of jumping to the moon. He examined the cheated feeling a bit more. It wasnt so much cheated as feeling wronged. He wanted them scared. Hurting. They deserved to be scared!
Sooooo. You and Tommy?
Oh God. Look, right now, there is no and Tommy, okay?
Uhuh. You gave him a look at breakfast.
I did not.
You did. I had to pretend to look away for, like, ten seconds. It was an intense look.
Oh god. Seriously. There is no us. We are just
Figuring things out? Friends with benefits? In a situationship?
I dont even know. Hes coming off that thing with Ling, and I dont want to be the rebound chick, but at the sa ti-
You have wanted him for a year now, and are one hundred percent ready to be there for him in his emotionally vulnerable, exploitable, mont of need.
I hate you. And its not like that!
Uhuh. He a cuddler?
Truth sped up. Why was he the one suffering here? Why? They had a secret volcano lair where they were keeping a girl prisoner for di-magic experintation and who knows what else! Look stressed, you bastards!
Could it be the System keeping them calm? It wouldnt be out of the question, right? Truth flat out refused to believe there was anyone in this Volcano who didnt have the System, with the possible exception of the Shattervoid girl.
He really didnt know. The System had been training him like a dog. Maybe it did the sa to these people. Keep them content, keep them productive.
Incisive gave him a little warning. He launched himself up to the ceiling and pressed himself into the corner, trying to be as invisible as possible. A pair of PMC soldiers walked down the hall, Security armband on display. They kept their eyes moving around, making sure everything was as it should be. They didnt spot him.
The sa thing happened when a handler with a pack of spell hounds went past, but Incisive was a lot more insistent the third ti. He followed so staffers into a store room. Just as it was closing behind him, he thought he caught a whiff of a troll.
This was going to be exhausting. And slow. He had no idea what the base even looked like, and he was mortally certain that there wasnt going to be a handy wall map anywhere.
Any idea what the alarm was about earlier?
Nah. I an, I assu soone broke in.
Well, yeah, obviously, but how?
I dunno. Usual way?
Which is?
I dunno. The staffer appeared to be inventorying a shelf of parts. Truth would not have appreciated soone talking to him while he was trying to count, but apparently the staffer was made of sterner stuff.
But, like, why even break in here? The other staffer was also inventorying parts. Based on the conversion so far, Truth was amazed his intellect could handle the strain.
My guy. We are sitting on insane amount of highly stealable, highly saleable parts here. Never mind industrial espionage or whatever.
I an, how much is any of this stuff really worth though? He was counting tal brackets. Truth understood his point.
Those brackets? Look em up in the shop.
There was a pause. Worthless. I can get a whole box for a credit.
Ask for the price in Wen.
There was another pause.
FUCKING TWENTY THOUSAND WEN?!
Truth nodded. The price in the store bore no relation to outside prices. It was presented as a discount, but he had quickly discovered that there were things in the shop that you simply couldn't buy in the outside world at any price. At least the cultivation aids he poured his money into couldnt be bought retail.
If you co across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Like I said. Thieves, industrial spies. The usual.
Twenty thousand wen!
Special alloy, they use em in the Prototype Lab, I think.
Its a damn bracket. Bent tal with holes in it.
Mmm. Special alloy though. What shelf are you on?
Seven.
Think you are going to get your side done by dinner?
Should do.
They nattered on while Truth eavesdropped, hoping they would co back to the Prototype Lab. Sounded relevant. They did not.
He sighed and made his way out. The very frequent patrols made the going slow, and their irregular timing suggested soone was keeping very focused. Nothing more frustrating to an attacker than a complete absence of regular patrol tis. And Truth was getting very, very frustrated.
It was a simple, and simply enraging, system. It was all based on the System. Every door was locked. There were no signs for anything, anywhere. Was this the windowless door to the Top Secret Room With The Top Secret Project, or the linen closet? The system knows. And if you needed to know, you would. Every door you needed to open would be unlocked for you.
Truth got uncomfortably used to drifting in behind people when they opened and closed doors. He also got very used to quickly peeking inside, then walking straight past. So many generic looking offices. So many.
In one particular office, he was montarily distracted by a conversation about a certain young lady, occasionally referred to as Princess who was chained up sowhere. There could be no greater proof of his developnt of character, Truth felt, no greater proof of his tolerance for his fellow rats, than the fact he didnt slap the bastard dead when it beca clear the man was talking about his dog.
His distraction resulted in him missing the door closing behind him. Truth was now trapped in here with the nattering office workers, discussing their pampered pooches. The other man, not the princess chainer, was a grooming enthusiast. He apparently stressed the need to start grooming them when they were young. That way the dog got used to the combs, shampoos and hair dryers.
He had bought his primped up poodle a nicer apartnt than Truth lived in, even when he was working for the PMC. Apparently a Starbrite subsidiary made luxury dog houses, and this gentleman invested. As he had apparently invested in quality coffee. That was an awfully big mug he was drinking.
You know, coffee just runs right through you. Delicious, but it seems like its only minutes until you are dying for a piss. Yeah, you both raced to the bottom of your drinks, but now? Now you really, really need the toilet. Look at you squirm. You must be seconds from pissing yourselves.
Were there other ways to get out of the room? Yes. He chose this one. A little whispered poison, a lot of private enjoynt, and his exploration continued.
He almost missed it. The glance through the door showed a scene so prosaic, his mind almost deleted it without comprehending it. His hand made a hissing noise as it caught the door just before it closed. Sotis it was fun to remind himself just how fast he could move.
He found the stairs.
What do you need in an era of unreliable magic? Stairs. Wide, well lit, with glow in the dark rubberized grips for feet and, Truth was happy to see, glow in the dark floor numbers, all in case the lights went out. Which, of course, they would if the magic went out.
No idea how the glow in the dark stuff worked without magic, but hell, the Anti-Thiests had figured sothing out, and they were operating out of a gift shop. This was an authentic volcano lair. A higher standard could be expected. He was apparently on floor number two. And the stairs went both up and down from here.
Desperate to set so kind of scope on his search, he raced upwards. As advertised- there was only one floor above him. Delighted, he raced in the opposite direction. Three more below. A total of five floors. Sizable floors too, if the second floor was anything to go by. He was a long way from having searched the whole thing. But at least he had so sense of scope, now. Had so sense of the size of the problem in front of him.
Five floors. He didnt know if the top or bottom floor was the most likely one to hold the Shattervoid girl. Arguably directly in the middle was the most secure, but, equally arguably, so was the bottom floor. Anything capable of tunneling through that much rock and magma wasnt going to be kid friendly.
She must be what Eleven by now? Twelve? Truth vaguely rembered soone yelling that she was a six year old girl.
>
Truth nodded. Still. Five, almost six, years. Thats got to be a big chunk of life for her. It would be a big chunk of life for , and I dont even want to guess what my natural lifespan would be at this point. Certainly more than a hundred and fifty. Maybe even closing in on two hundred. For a Level Five? Not crazy with the body cultivation.
>
Truth got to the bottom door and waited. And waited. Soone must be coming through at so point, right?
>
Truth laughed a little at that. I have all the ti in the world. Months, even.
The little light above the door started flashing red. There was no alarm, just a red flash.
You know, it suddenly occurs to that there is absolutely nowhere to hide in this stairwell.
Truth did the only thing he could think of and flattened himself against the wall. The door swung into the stairwell, so hopefully-
The door smashed open. Truth grabbed the handle just before it would smack into his gut. The noise must have satisfied whoever was on the other side, because boots ca pounding through without any further investigation.
Go! Go go go!
Sargeants, check charm loadouts! Everyone check their potion kits! THERE WILL BE NO FATALITIES ON THIS OP, AM I CLEAR?!
SIR, YES SIR!
>
Fingers crossed.
Truth waited until they were a couple flights up before peering around the door. More anonymous looking hallways. Fantastic. He squinted, then crouched down.
There were rubber marks on the floor. Quite a few of them. One might almost guess. A place where a lot of people wearing boots went running past. Truth grinned and followed the trail. Where there were soldiers, there was equipnt. Where there were guards, there were things that needed protecting from villains like him.
Reviews
All reviews (0)