Chapter 8: Wild Improvisation (Patreon)

***Kol Rejan, level 58 Courier***

Kol came to a halt in front of an ornate building in the wealthy district of Solmnath. He’d never had someone stop him between districts while he was wearing his courier garb, a fact that had allowed him to literally get away with murder more than once.

The building was classic keegan architecture, with open air windows to let the refreshing heat of the desert in, and carefully tended plants to baffle the wind. The entire building seemed to be cut from a single slab of stone.

Everything was boilerplate rich-man…except for the giant bowl tilted on its side on the roof. That was unusual.

From the outside, Kol could make out movement, although it was largely obscured by the desert plants. He strode up the broad steps and rapped on the door.

“Yes?” A melas servant asked, opening the door. The man had carefully groomed horns that had been trained with metal braces to grow with an artistic flourish.

“I’ve got a delivery for Mr. Vex.” Kol said, patting his satchel.

“Down two flights of stairs in the back, then through the Scary Door.” He said, moving out of the way.

Kol nodded, and took a step into the building, before stopping to regard the servant with a frown.

“The Scary Door?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “The scary one.”

Kol shrugged, it probably just had blood or spooky runes on it to ward away ignorant would-be burglars.

He strode by several rooms that seemed to have people talking in them. Kol heard several clicks and clacks, along with strange harsh noises that sounded something like the hissing of a veek.

Can’t afford to get distracted. Kol was primarily concerned with not getting killed as soon as his task was complete. Only the gods knew if the sindio would see fit to keep him alive after he’d served his purpose.

What was my other option? Run? Kol almost scoffed at the absurdity of running from someone with unlimited time and resources.

Kol found the back of the building and followed the carved hardwood rails down the spiralling staircase until it ended two floors down. There was a door at the end, and Kol went through, frowning.

That didn’t really seem all that scar- OH BY ALL THE GODS!

Upon entering the next room, Kol was faced with two doors, each of them carved of plain hardwood and generally identical.

The one on the right though…It would be the death of him. Kol knew it. Every nerve in his body was screaming at him that the moment he touched it, would be the moment he ceased to exist.

The door was death incarnate. Its sinister grain must house some spectacular evil, some eldritch abomination that snatched up souls and locked them in an endless abyss of despair.

Despite being outwardly identical, Kol could feel the evil that had inhabited the doorknob. The thing was steeped in it. Molded by it.

Maybe I can go through the other door instead, Kol thought, shying away from the door on the right as it radiated mind-numbing fear.

Kol’s back was against the wall as he aimed for the leftmost door, scooting along step by careful step, sidling closer to the safe door.

Finally he was close enough to reach out and touch the safe door when he paused, his arm extended, a single rational thought penetrating the haze of mind-numbing fear.

The servant said to go through the scary door. Kol glanced at the door on the right, then quickly looked away. It was like staring up at the executioner’s blade. If he stared at it too long, Kol was sure it would detach from the wall and come after him.

He started toward the left-hand door again before pausing, hand inches away from the safe doorknob.

What happens to me if I go through the wrong door?

With an effort of will, Kol pulled his hand away from the ‘safe’ door.

This is one of the sindio’s sick games, isn’t it?

Kol looked up at the scary door and looked away again before his nerve failed him. He squeezed his eyes shut and began shuffling across the room, forcing his legs to bring him to his death.

He could feel waves of terror radiating off the horrible thing, pressing against his skin as he approached, but it was nowhere near as bad as looking at it directly.

Kol glanced up once to make sure he was on target, and just about lost control of his bladder. Yep, it’s right there.

Kol extended his trembling fingers, hyperventilating with his eyes squeezed shut as he willingly killed himself.

You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to die.

You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to die.

YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!

Kol flinched as his fingers came into contact with cold metal. Cautiously, he peered through one eye.

The door was just a door, the knob just a knob. Kol opened the other eye, frowning. Regular door, no surprises in store.

He made the mistake of taking his hand off the knob.

The fear came back in an all-encompassing wave, forcing Kol’s legs to give out, and this time, Kol did lose control of his bladder, just a bit.

It’s a trick, fight through it! Kol thought, forcing himself back to his feet and lunging toward the door.

Deathdeathdeathdeath –

once again, touching the handle shut off the fear instantly. Panting and crying a little, Kol turned the knob and opened the door.

Vex sat beyond the doorway in the center of a well-lit room that smelled of oiled steel. He was perched on a stool, wearing a jeweler’s lens over one eye, and pouring over a strange wooden box filled with odd wires and bulbs. The sindio glanced up upon hearing the door open.

“Congratulations, Kol, the first time is always the hardest with the Scary Door. I don’t begrudge you a little urine in the pants. Have you got my delivery?”

Kol nodded, getting his breathing under control before he opened the satchel, placing both of the human bombs on the sindio’s desk. The mechanism keeping them shrunk placed upward.

“Thank you, Kol, what was your price, two hundred bulbs for delivery? In my day you could hire a professional killer for a single bulb, but that’s inflation for you, I suppose. Your money is on the table,” he said, pointing.

There, just to Kol’s left were five cases full of Bulbs, a hefty sum, both literally and figuratively.

“Can I ask why the Scary Door?” Kol asked.

“Oh, it passively funnels intruders into touching the Kill-door. Good thing you passed the test.”

Kol’s skin went cold. “I agree.”

The sindio turned his attention back to the strange box, picking up a strange chisel-like object and pressing it to one of the bulbs. There was a tiny puff of smoke, then the sindio took it away and nodded to himself.

Is it some kind of doomsday weapon? Kol couldn’t imagine what kind of horrible reality warping device the creature was working on.

“It’s a ham radio.” Vex said, answering the unasked question as he rolled his stool to the side, where a strange book with human print far too fine for any natural mechanism displayed…wavey lines.

Kol frowned.

“Human technology advanced to an absurd degree in the absence of Myst simply by taking advantage of the other natural forces of the universe, in ways that never even occurred to us because they were oftentimes less efficient than Myst.”

The sindio took a bit of metal out from beneath his teeth and poked it with the chisel again, seemingly melting it in place into the jumble of wires.

“They got to the moon and back without magic…did you know that?” He asked, glancing up at Kol.

Kol shook his head.

“Well, it’s an arms race, now. The humans are racing to understand wizardry from the viewpoint of scientists, and we are racing to understand science from the standpoint of wizards. I wonder who will unify the two disciplines first?”

“What does it do? The ham radio?”

“In theory? It uses something called radio waves to transmit signals across large distances. A wizard could use it to transmit clear signals to magical constructs nearly instantly without relying on Myst relays, which are spotty at best.”

“Like so,” Vex said, flicking a switch. A bulb in the center of the box flared to life, creating a yellow glow that added to the bright mage-lights in the room.

“…Did it work?” Kol asked.

“If it did, we should read about it in the news.”

Vex pushed himself away from the box and spun to eye Kol.

“You have any trouble on the job?”

“No, sir, but…nevermind.”

“Go ahead, you can tell me.” Vex said, motioning for Kol to speak.

“I saw someone at the base I failed to kill once. A stain on my record. I took a little extra time to take another shot, but he survived it. Again.”

“It didn’t interfere with my work,” Kol hastily followed up his words.

“Right. Well, if he was at Nellis Air Force Base, he’s probably not going to be alive much longer. Those people didn’t bargain in good faith.”

Vex shrugged.

***Jeb, with a gun in his mouth***

Nine millimeter. “AI-I-I-ER,” Jeb said around the barrel. Jeb could make out the glint of metal in the dim light of the barracks. Just enough to make out the fact that he had the barrel of a nine-millimeter nestled between his teeth. He tried to say so, but he spoke only in vowels.

“Shut up!” Terry hissed, and Jeb felt a bunch of hands drag him out of bed and twist his arms behind his back. They took the gun out of his mouth, which was a relief, but then they replaced it with a dirty sock then duct-taped it in, which was less of a relief.

Jeb felt the cold, Myst-sucking collar placed around his neck, and the sound of duct tape being unspooled as they hobo-fixed the two severed halves as needed.

I’m sure there’s an explanation, Jeb tried to say around the rag, but he was pretty sure the jig was up.

They hauled him outside and shoved him down on his knees. Terry ground the barrel into the back of his skull to remind him it was there before taking a step back, presumably holding the gun on him. The sun was still down, so it must be sometime before five o’clock in the morning.

The scar tissue on Jeb’s amygdala diminished the effect of the sudden threat on his life somewhat. Sure, Jeb was afraid, but it wasn’t quite as bad as sleeping under a roof with a crack on it.

In front of him, General Meyers stood, wearing a somewhat singed flight suit.

“So I just crashed a B-2,” General Meyers said, tugging off her gloves and helmet. “A pretty expensive piece of hardware, especially considering that they’re not making them any more.”

“AI-UU-E-U-E-I.” Jeb said. I guess they would be priceless now.

“Thankfully I insisted on doing a test run before we loaded one with live nukes.”

Cool, we didn’t blow up, Jeb grunted through the gag.

“You told me you can make triggers for your traps based on code phrases, so forgive me if I don’t take out your gag. We only need yes or no answers from you anyway.”

Jeb shrugged.

“You seem awfully calm for someone about to die.”

Jeb shrugged again.

She reached into her vest pocket and pulled out Jeb’s ring.

“Bestowed upon Jebediah Trapper by Nixus as a reward for outstanding performance during the Impossible tutorial.  Its true power is only known to its wielder.”

“You’re a tougher son of a bitch than even I thought, aren’t you?”

Jeb wasn’t really sure how to answer that, given that he wasn’t actually a son of a bitch. His mom had been a little dumpy, but she was no dog. He shrugged.

“Bring the thing,” she said, and a moment later, a black drone was dropped in between them. Legolas laid unmoving on the asphalt, his rotors bent and his casing dented.

“Imagine my surprise when a drone the size of a mailbox shot down a B-2. You recognize it?”

Jeb nodded.

“Did you bring this?”

Yes or no questions! My only weakness!

Jeb nodded.

“Did you make it?”

Jeb shook his head, sizing up his enemies. He was pretty sure things were about to turn violent. His hope that the general exploded with the bomber was looking pretty slim right now. It was looking like he was going to have to fight his way out. Jeb did a head-count.

Meyers was standing directly in front of him, Cecil to Jeb’s left, Stevens to his right, Terry behind him. There were a few more red-shirts holding Jeb’s arms, but he figured they were probably Body-specced, given how firm their grips were.

Beside General Meyers was her clumsy secretary man, who had a fifty-fifty chance of being either his Enforcer boss in disguise, or just a guy who liked vivid descriptions of boobs. Schrodinger’s Vresh.

To her left was a rather narrow-looking fellow with sunken features and tiny, dinged up glasses. He had the pencil-pusher look that Jeb associated with the guys who made everyone’s life a living hell by enforcing stupid-ass policy decisions.

Let’s see, eight people, one is 50% allied with me, and Legolas is possibly playing dead. Or just dead.

Between maybe Vresh and maybe Legolas, Jeb figured he had a seventy-five percent chance of getting unexpected assistance, and a twenty-five percent chance of dying pretty quickly.

The only trigger Jeb had available at the moment was his Room Full of Charlies alt. trigger.

It would probably buy him enough time to put up a fight, and if it really was Vresh, she’d probably live through it.

Jeb wasn’t super enthused about possibly killing Legolas, but Eddie could rebuild him. He had the technology.

“Is the one who made it in Solmnath?”

Fuck. Meyers knew good craftsmanship when she saw it and something told him Eddie would be just as happy building death-bots for her as he was for Jeb. The man wasn’t picky. Jeb slumped over so they couldn’t see his face.

Room full of Charlies alternate trigger.

Three winks on the right….wink, wink, wink.

Three winks on the left….wink, wink, wink.

“I’ll take your silence as a-“

Meyers was cut off when telekinetic blades erupted out from Jeb in every possible direction. The two guys holding onto his arms were turned into hamburger. Cecil caught a blade to the stomach and went down, while Terry was able to dodge in time. Corporal Stevens hid behind his gun and made it out unscathed, his Browning less so.

The glasses guy next to Meyers lost his head, Legolas absorbed the Myst somehow, and Maybe-Vresh slapped the three blades coming his way out of the air with contemptuous ease.

70-30 in favor of Vresh, now.

Meyers didn’t notice her secretary’s strength. She was too busy being pissed at Jeb. A wall of Silver Myst blocked his blades, then reached out and bitch-slapped him at sonic speeds.

The pressure wave picked Jeb up and flung him across the concrete parking lot, giving him a light seasoning of road-rash before he smacked into the side of the building with a groan.

Jeb tried to scramble to his feet, but he left his right one next to his bed. Jeb flopped to the ground for a heartbeat then picked himself up and hauled his ass out of the way of another blast.

He reached up and tore the remains of the Myst suppressing collar off his neck, snapping the duct tape with a mighty tug while hopping on one foot and breathing around a dirty sock.

Look at it this way: Objectively it’s probably hilarious. I’m sure I’ll look back on this and laugh, and laugh…

Jeb was hopping towards a window when Corporal Stevens hit him like a line-backer. For a brief instant, Jeb thought his spine had finally given up on him.

The kid was younger, bigger, in better shape, angrier and spent more of his levels on Body. He was a walking engine of destruction and Jeb was not. He had every physical advantage…but Jeb was meaner.

Jeb poked him in the eyes and sucker-punched him with an elbow to the nose when he flinched.

While the kid was grabbing his face, Jeb squirmed out from under him, aiming for the window. If he could get some cover, he could make this fight more cat and mouse, and less dogpile. It was the only chance Jeb had to survive longer than a couple sec-

“Hey Jeb,” Terry said.

“Uh?” Jeb grunted through the sock, turning to look at Terry.

“Did I tell you about the time I went fishing with my dad?” Terry said, green Myst pulsing out of his mouth in time with his words.

No, and I don’t care, Jeb thought, aiming for the window. Well, trying to aim for the window. Jeb felt like he’d suddenly been dipped in molasses. Everything was sticky and hard to move in.

Son of a bitch, this is Terry’s Myst! Jeb thought glaring at the jerk who seemed just a bit too smug, going on the same fishing story for the umpteenth time.

Two can play at that game. Jeb inhaled, drew in Myst and flared the sun inside him, tearing himself out of Terry’s annoyance magic with ease.

How do you like them apples, Ter –

Jeb got smacked with another shockwave, sending him through the window at breakneck speeds. He felt his armor triggers flare as something nearly perforated him, coming to a rolling stop up against a heavy desk.

I would really like to take a nap right about now, but that’s probably the internal bleeding.

Jeb opened his eyes, elbowing himself into a seated position before he could decide resting was a good idea. The heavy gunner jumped through the window.

Low Myst. He’s a good candidate for a meat-shield. Jeb snaked out a thread of Myst and picked the kid up, using his struggling body as the window’s new shade while he tore the sock out of his mouth and peeked outside.

Terry was waiting for this, and he took a shot at Jeb’s exposed eyeballs with his nine millimeter. Jeb wasn’t immune to bullets yet, so his FMO shields picked up the slack. It took three of them to stop the dollop of lead’s momentum then return it to sender. At this range it was pretty accurate too, because the gun blew up in Terry’s hand.

“Fuck!” Terry howled, clutching his bleeding hands.

“Let me down you prick!” Corporal Stevens growled, ineffectively reaching for Jeb’s face.

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” their leader called to him from outside. “How about we negotiate a cease-fire?” The old woman was stalking around the side of the building, slowly moving out of Jeb’s field of view.

“I might be tempted if you hadn’t broken our earlier Deal.” Jeb called back. “You tried to kill me.”

“Love taps. If I’d been trying to kill you, you would know.”

“They don’t feel like fuckin’ love taps.” Jeb shot back. “Since you broke our Deal and tried to kill me, I’ll have to collect alternate payment. You have a firstborn child I could have?”

“What are you, Rumplestiltskin?”

Jeb thought about it for a second.

“Eh,” Jeb waggled his hand in the window. “Probably learned from the same people.”

“I got him!” Jeb heard Cecil shout, sending a cold jolt down his spine. Jeb tried to lunge away from the window, but Cecil’s black strands were faster and stronger, erupting from the wall and floor and stapling him down tight.

“Cover your eyes, corporal!” General Meyers shouted from the side of the building.

Jeb dropped the heavy gunner and closed his eyes, desperately redirecting his Myst to wrap his body in a tight shell of telekinetic force.

The world went white and Jeb felt a blast of heat across his face through the shield. The telekinetic shell ruptured and Jeb’s remaining FMO shields popped in rapid succession, keeping Jeb relatively shrapnel-free. Relatively.

She blew up a propane tank on the side of the building! That crazy bitch!

Jeb tried to move, but the black threads were holding him down tight.

“He’s still moving!” Jeb heard Cecil’s voice from outside the building.

Goddamnit, they’re gonna get another free shot at me! Jeb thought, his mind spinning its wheels fruitlessly. The jeeps around the other side of the building. It’s not facing anyone at the moment, so the Heisenberg maneuver won’t work. Blowing it up wouldn’t help much because even if it distracted them, I can’t see them to take advantage of it! I’m screwed!

Whomp. There was the telltale golf-ball through a tube sound of annihilation myst, and the black strands evaporated like so much cotton candy in the rain.

Jeb lunged forward and scrambled out from behind the windowsill, glancing over his shoulder as he went. He caught a glimpse of Cecil falling over with a huge hole in his forehead. Legolas was up and in the air again, rapidly gaining altitude.

Oh, thank Jebus.

A few handgun rounds pinged off the drone’s lightweight armor and it spun off out of Jeb’s line of sight. Jeb took Terry’s momentary distraction to dive behind a sturdy-looking desk. Jeb’s FMO shields were dry, so bullets and shrapnel were back on the list of things to watch out for.

“Where is he!?” Jeb heard Corporal Stevens shout.

Okay, what are my options?

Jeb’s twenty-two Nerve pulled up his mental list of triggers in a flash of insight.

Finger-gun clips: ‘ack’ x10 ☑ ‘pip’ x10 ☑ ‘kip’ x10 ☑ ‘Alpha Strike’ ☒

Full auto: ‘Demogorgon’ ☑ Unladen Swallow’ ☑ ‘little friend’(foot) ☑

Shield: x4 ☑

Looped Armor: head ☑ torso ☑ legs ☑ upper arms ☑ lower arms ☑

FMO shield x50 ☒

Safety Phrases: restraints ‘3W’ ☒ ‘Scarabs’ ☑ ‘Plitskin’ ☑ ‘No homo’ ☑ ‘Room full of Charlies’ ☒

Grenades ‘go boom’: ‘’ ☑ ‘glove’ ☑ ‘knife’ ☑ ‘foot’ ☑

Saw ‘go fast’:  ‘Yellow’ ☑ ‘red’ ☑ ‘green’ ☑ ‘blue’ ☑

Things ‘love daddy’: ‘Glove’ ☑ ‘foot’ ☑ ‘cane’ ☑ ‘pants’ ☑ ‘shirt’ ☑ ‘knife’ ☑

‘too tight’: Collar ☑ wrists ☑ fingers ☑ arms ☑ chest ☑ head ☑ legs ☑ ankle ☑ feet ☑

Bandage traps : ☑

I’m only a street away from the barracks, so the ‘love daddy’ commands should work.

Jeb peeked out and spotted Corporal Stevens trotting back from the armory with a really big gun. In about five seconds, the corporal would rip through Jeb’s hidey hole like it was made of tissue paper.

No time like the present. He’s almost directly between me and the barracks.

“Glove love daddy.” Jeb said quietly into the floor before pushing himself up.

“Wait!” Jeb said, holding out both his splayed hands to deploy two manual shield triggers.

“Don’t you want to know about the traitor in your midst?” Jeb asked. Corporal Stevens frowned at him for a moment before his finger came off the guard, settling on the trigger. It seemed as though the corporal was beyond the point of talking.

“Behind you!”  Terry shouted, hitting the deck as a pair of gloves swooped up behind Corporal Stevens, aiming for Jeb. The corporal glanced over his shoulder.

“Glove go boom.” Jeb said.

The gloves released the Myst hidden inside them, creating a burst of telekinetic shrapnel in every direction, including the heavy gunner’s back.

The big guy was ragdolled forward by the explosion, his bleeding form bursting halfway through the window sill.

Jeb’s shields absorbed a few of the blades, then some of Terry’s return fire before shattering. A piece of lead whizzed by Jeb’s ear before he dropped to the ground again, taking shelter behind the heavy oak desk.

The nameplate on the floor beside him claimed it belonged to the base commander.

Interesting. That explains the nice carpet. I could probably put this in the orphanage’s rec-room for the older kids. Too bad it’s covered in glass.

“You guys sure you wanna keep going? because I’m doing pretty good so far!” Jeb shouted over the desk.

“Jesse, get off your ass and pick up the corporal’s weapon and flush him out!”

So, I guess now we get to see if this ‘Jesse’ is Vresh or not. Taking all bets.

‘Jesse’ peeked out from behind a lacerated truck and scrambled forward, picking up the heavy gun and charging forward. He tried to leap over the windowsill, but his foot caught the edge and he spilled into the room in a tumble of limbs and heavy weaponry.

“No, don’t go i- Agh!” General Meyers gave a frustrated groan as ‘Jesse’ disappeared into the lion’s den.

‘Jesse’ stood up, razor sharp glass falling off him harmlessly. He gave Jeb a deliberate glance before he began firing at the wall beyond him while trotting forward.

The young man stooped and slid behind the desk, joining Jeb.

“You’re probably confused, I’m actually –“

“Vresh undercover right?”

“-erk,” the apparent young man paled. “How did you know?”

“You’re clumsy.” Jeb shrugged.

“Oh. The boob thing.” She said, eyes narrowing in realization. “I knew you weren’t that skeevy.”

Jeb glanced off to the side. He actually was that skeevy, he just usually kept it on a tight leash out of professionalism.

“Jesse! Are you alive in there!? Goddamnit!”

“Point where I point,” Jeb whispered, motioning to her gun and raising his own finger.

Vresh nodded silently, hefting the heavy machine gun easily.

Where are you, General Ma’am?

“Ring love daddy.” Jeb heard a grunt from the window as the woman presumably tried to hold onto the slippery little ring. Then Jeb’s ring appeared from the top right of the windowsill and flew towards Jeb, slipping itself onto his finger.

The ‘loves daddy’ trigger sought out the path of least resistance, and when possible it preferred straight lines, so the ring must have slipped out of her pocket, then fingers, and that edge of the window was the closest point to where the general had been standing.

Jeb created an imaginary line along the roof the ring had likely followed to get to the windowsill.

“Demogorgon.” Jeb muttered, and his finger opened fire, walking the shots back along the imaginary line, each telekinetic bullet puncturing a thumb-sized hole through the roof.

Vresh did the same, following the path of Jeb’s shots with her own machine gun. She didn’t have a skill to enhance its bullets like Corporal Stevens, but it was made to punch through buildings anyway.

“Motherfucker!” Jeb heard General Meyers grunt in pain. They must’ve grazed her.

“Scoot, scoot,” Jeb muttered, tapping Vresh on the shoulder and crawling along toward the door off its hinges leading out of the Base Commander’s office and deeper into the building.

Any minute they were going to start tossing in grenades, and Jeb wanted more walls between him and them.

“Terry, go get backup, I’ll keep him bottled up.”

“Are you sure ma’am? We’ve already lost-“

“We are not letting this piece of shit stop us from getting our country back! Don’t forget what’s at stake here.”

Goddamnit. Jeb had wanted to keep as many of these people alive as possible. He also wanted to keep breathing throughout this exchange. Backup threw a wrench in both those goals.

“Wait a minute…Do you hear that sound?” Terry’s voice sounded from beyond the window.

“What!?” Meyer’s voice barked. “Just go get backup!”

“Sounds like a…song?”

Jeb’s head jerked up in alarm, ice running down the back of his neck. A song? A SONG?

Jeb rose off his bleeding knees and took the risk of peering out the window, spotting Terry the Blabbermouth out on the asphalt, staring into the distance with a dopey, spaced out look on his face.

What the hell is wrong with him? I really hope it’s not what I think it is..

Jeb suspicions were proven correct when Terry started laughing. At first it sounded like a chuckle, like someone had just told a somewhat amusing joke, Then it became more forced, measured.

“Hah. Hah. Hah.”

Then the gusts of air coming out of his mouth became strained, like a cat coughing up a hairball.

“Huuh. Huuuh. Huuh.”

Terry no longer looked amused. Tears were streaming down his face as his whole body seemed to swell to accommodate something inside him. His jaw began to distend like a snake’s, popping audibly as it disconnected from his skull.

When a set of fingers found purchase on Terry’s upper jaw and began heaving themselves out of his mouth, into the scintillating light of the sky above them, Jeb knew The Roil had arrived.