Dark Fate, Chapter 46 (Patreon)

Chapter 46 – Broken Dolls

To his credit, Nixon didn’t bother arguing. He just started texting the team. Looking back to the woman behind the counter, I could already tell this was going to be a pain.

Elsie King

Human   Female

Level   1 Puppet

Market   Value: $200

She was fairly pretty in the conventional sense. The Apocalypse made it hard to tell, but I’d say she was in her thirties. But that wasn’t why I summoned the rest of the team. No, that was because of what I saw in her eyes. Or rather, what I didn’t see.

Her eyes were glassy, soulless. It matched the vapid look on her face well enough. If someone else was seeing this, they’d start thinking she was on drugs of some kind. She had that look.

But anyone as familiar with magic as I was would be able to see that wasn’t the case. Those signs were not of drug abuse, but of certain forms of mind control. This woman may as well have been a puppet on strings, for all the free will she had.

“How can I help you?”

The brainless bimbo drone smiled vacantly as she spoke. It annoyed me, for all kinds of reasons. But I had a role to play still.

So, I kept up the act. “Yes, I want to get a storage unit. Climate controlled, and preferably one of the larger units.” As I spoke, I used my Blood Magic to cast the [Mystic Eye] spell. The only indication that I had cast a spell was that my eyes now burned blue. As I expected, she didn’t react in the slightest.

Mystic Eye

With this   spell the flows of magic become visible to you. This allows you to see active   magical items, auras, and effects, and gain a sense of their purpose. The   information gained is affected by your knowledge.

Cost: 100   MP and 100 HP initially, 1 MP and 1 HP per second to maintain

Target:   Self

Duration:   Maintained

See   magical items and effects, and identify their uses.

Immediately, I could see a magical sigil on the woman’s forehead. If I was a normal person, I would have thought that the symbol was some means of control, like my [Slave Brand]. Unfortunately, it was something far worse. After all, even though a [Slave Brand] gave me control over my pets, there was still an actual person there to be controlled.

“I’m sorry, we don’t have any available units right now. Please check back later.”

The almost robotic tone of the woman’s voice made it clear that the lights were on, but no one was home. What she had wasn’t a [Slave Brand] but a [Puppet Brand]. As one could guess from the name, they were related magics, from related abilities. However, they were very different in their scope.

The [Slave Brand] gained from the Slave Master profession bound a creature’s body, and forced them to follow the commands of their master. However, it did not touch their mind. The person they were before was still there, and could still think their own thoughts, even if they might not be allowed to act on them. This had obvious advantages and disadvantages, naturally. For instance, it allowed slaves to use their own skills and abilities, and react to things naturally, but it also allowed them to think of ways to resist, and to bring down their master, if they were clever enough to pull it off without disobeying their orders. Willful slaves required far more attention to detail when giving them their orders because of this.

On the other hand, the [Puppet Brand] from the Puppet Master class worked by completely breaking down and suppressing the victim’s will, essentially turning them into a robot or automaton. They could be given simple orders, but they were incapable of figuring out what the orders meant, or reacting to things not in the orders. It was basically the GIGO principle from computer programming brought to life. Garbage In, Garbage Out.

The real problem was that, unlike a [Slave Brand], the [Puppet Brand]’s effects grew worse over time. The longer someone was under the effects of the [Puppet Brand], the worse things got if it were to be removed. Unless the [Brand] was very recent (less than a week, typically), then removing it would basically leave the victim in a semi-catatonic state. The closest parallel to it would be certain parts of the autism spectrum.

Someone who had been caught by a [Slave Brand] could be freed, either by their master, or by someone who knew the proper spells. After a month with a [Puppet Brand], the person they were before was essentially dead. There were magics and abilities that could ‘implant’ a new personality in their head, once the [Brand] was gone, and allow them to function as a person, but it wouldn’t be them. The only hope for actually getting those people back was some healing magics that people couldn’t reliably cast before Tier 2.

They actually got access to the spells earlier, but there was a chance of failure that was basically (75-level) percent. A Tier 2 Level 1 healer would still have the spell fail one time in four. At this level? It wasn’t quite winning the lottery in odds, but it definitely wasn’t good odds. Worse, there was a flat 20% chance that something would go horribly wrong if the spell failed, so just spamming the spell over and over until it worked was a godawful idea.

The door opened, and the rest of the team spilled into the business office, making it quite a bit more crowded. A normal person would be concerned at the sudden change. The mindless flesh automaton simply looked at them, and said, “How can I help you?”

Detective Austin looked at her, and then at me. My appraisal of him rose a few points. He only needed a quick look to tell that there was definitely something wrong with her. “What is going on, Greene?”

“She’s under a kind of curse called a [Puppet Brand]. Whoever this lady was before, she’s basically dead, now, and her meat suit is just a robot taking orders. My advice would be to treat this like someone displaying a corpse in the office, like Weekend at Bernie’s. That ought to be ‘probable cause’ enough to allow us to search, right?”

Austin didn’t hesitate. “When we’re done, you’re going to need to tell me exactly how this brand thing works. Recommendations for this girl, and those like her?”

“I can trace the [Brand] to the one controlling her. Then we can find them, and have a ‘discussion’ about why lobotomizing people is a bad idea. In fact—”

A flash of movement caught my eye. On reflex, I raised my hand to deflect the incoming object that was heading for my face. As the point hit my open palm and stopped cold on my shadow armor, I realized that it was a knife, and that the flesh robot had apparently been switched from ‘secretary’ to ‘stabby’.

Thankfully, the woman was nowhere near strong enough to penetrate my defenses. With a flash, I grabbed her wrist, pulling forward to overextend her, and then brought my other hand up, striking as hard as I could with an effective 102 Strength. Her forearm snapped, causing the knife to fall from her hand, but the woman’s face did not change, still having that same plastered-on smile and dead inside eyes. Her good arm started reaching for a stapler, no doubt to try and hit me with it.

I ended the threat by yanking her broken arm, pulling the unfortunate woman off-balance. Grabbing her head in my hands, I twisted sharply, snapping her neck. When I let go, she fell limply to the ground, her strings cut.

“What the hell?”

I looked over at Officer Rose. “They’re like living zombies. They don’t feel pain. They don’t know fear. Cuff one to a pipe and they’ll rip their own arm off to continue following their orders. And the guy in charge just told them to kill us. We need to find him, and put an end to him.”

Detective Austin nodded. “I don’t like it, but I’m approving lethal force if we can’t contain them. We should have at least five more of these… puppets to deal with. The owner wasn’t listed as missing, because people still saw her at work. There may be additional victims that weren’t reported to the police.”

As we stepped out of the office, I had to curse under my breath. The demon had sent his servants, all right, but there were more than just five. Looked like there were at least thirty shabbily dressed individuals, shambling towards us, all armed with weapons ranging from knives, to pipes, and even one man armed with a board with a nail in it.

“Great, the bastard went and recruited the homeless population as guards,” Clark muttered.

I stepped out front. “Girls, ensure that any of them that get past me don’t reach the officers.” My pets answered with a chorus of ‘yes’, so I turned my attention to the shambling lot in front of me, pulling my scythe from my inventory as I did so.

I didn’t have to look back to know that the police officers were unsure of how to deal with the situation. After all, their job was ‘protect and serve’, not ‘slaughter them all’. While it was easy enough to say that the shambling forms were mindless drones, they still looked like they were alive, which would make people hesitate. “Detectives, let me handle this.”

“Do it,” Austin said, his voice filled with a mixture of resignation and disgust. It was a bad job, but someone had to do it. Hesitating in front of the horde would lead to death. At least for the officers.

None of the puppets were over level 5, and they were incapable of complex tactics or martial techniques. The only thing they had going for them was the fact that their bodies would keep on moving no matter how much damage they took until they died. But I had just fought my way through a dungeon full of actual zombies the other day, so these fake zombies weren’t even a challenge.

I still had the Mystic Eye spell going, and I could see the spell-trails from each of the puppets, as their master guided their actions. Each time one of the puppets fell, the string was cut, and the remaining strings became stronger, as the puppet master focused more and more on the remaining puppets. As that happened, their moves got less jerky, more natural.

It didn’t help, of course, since my magic scythe, bolstered by the [Spellblade] spell, carved a swath through their ranks like, well, like a scythe mowing down wheat. Before long, only a single puppet was left standing, and even that one was now missing its arms. A moment later, and it was missing its head, as well.

I took a breath as I cast another spell, and the blood that had spilled began gathering in an orb. The spell had the lovely side-effect of cleaning my clothes, but that isn’t why I cast it. Slowly, the blood took shape, and then solidified.

Craft Basic Homunculus

The   most common use of blood magic, outside of casting spells which one might not   possess the qualifications for, is in the use of Homunculi, or Blood Puppets.   This spell crafts a simple homunculus to serve you. The caster shapes the   homunculus according to their will. The size, toughness, and duration of the   homunculus depend on the amount of blood and mana used in its creation. The Basic   Homunculus is mindless, but capable of following basic orders.

Cost:   Varies

Duration:   1 minute per 32 ounces of blood used in its creation.

The   Basic Homunculus is created with 1 HP per ounce of blood used, and has STR   and DEX attributes equal to 1/100 of the total ounces of blood used. The   Basic Homunculus is created with ablative armor, allowing it to take damage   up to 25% of its initial HP before taking HP damage.

Looking back to the shocked officers, I explained, simply, “The demon is hiding below. He will almost certainly have set traps. My construct, here, will allow us to deal with most of them safely.”

Detective Austin nodded. “Then let’s get to it. I want this bastard caught before he can put those puppet things on anyone else.”