Chapter 23: Riding in cars with Aliens

This guy’s like a bad penny. Jeb thought, eyeballing the well-dressed keegan who’d tried to kill him off and on over the last year. Sometimes for hire, sometimes out of principle.

“Alright, let’s get this over with so we can never see each other again and I can get paid,” Kol said, holding up the letter and closing his eyes.

The skeletal figure’s brows furrowed for a moment before he opened them and pointed out toward the southwest.

“She’s that way.”

“How accurate is that?” Jeb asked.

“The Ability is more accurate the more accurate the address written on the letter is,” the Courier responded, holding up the paper so Jeb could see it.

Casey Thompson the third – De’naan Continent.

“That’s not a very accurate address, for our purposes.”

“I’ll be up to about about fifteen degrees off in either direction,” Kol said, making a wedge shape with his hands in the direction he’d pointed, indicating his margin of error.

“As we get closer, a fifteen-degree margin of error means less and less. I’ve tracked down plenty of people with the Continent header. It’s better than having the address be completely wrong.”

Jeb stopped and took stock of the situation as it rapidly spiraled out of control.

His main problem: either exploding or turning into a pile of radioactive sludge, was rapidly approaching, and he was stuck putting bandaids on a leaky dam.

Sooner or later it just wasn’t going to be enough.

Jeb had no idea how long he had left to live, either: Could be hours, could be days.

The problem was, help from the emperor would most certainly take more than a few days to manfest himself.

He was already screwed and locked into a Deal that forced him to spend his time tracking down thirteen – actually eleven now– utterly nasty creatures that cursed whoever managed to kill them, instead of finding a way to save his ass.

Not to mention the problem of Mab that he’d put on the backburner.

Her entire generation was about to bite the dust and turn into weird cancer-monsters.

Honestly, I’m not so sure that’s a major problem.

Sure it was a heartless thought, but Jeb hadn’t done it to them, and they were ancient. Jeb wasn’t gonna cry over spilt millenigenarians.

Except for the possibility of thousands of extremely powerful cancer-monsters rampaging out of the Deathwilds all at once.

Jeb pressed a hand to his temple, but the headache didn’t go away until a moment later, when he noticed his other hand was in his deep pockets, thumbnail casually slipped under the leading edge of the ominous blue scroll in his pocket. If felt as though his hand was being drawn magnetically toward the destructive artifact.

Jeb flinched his hand out of his pocket like he’d touched a hot stove.

Why do I even still have this? It’s obviously evil.

Just as obviously messing with his head, too. Still, Jeb couldn’t convince himself to throw it away.

“Something wrong?” Kol asked, taking in Jeb’s sudden jolt. “Human facial expressions are disgusting, and I don’t care to learn them.”

“I’d like my jeep, a pen and paper,” Jeb said, steadying his breathing. “And a high-ranking priest to un-curse me.”

“Didn’t the emperor say we didn’t have seconds to waste? I distinctly remember that you can fly. Carrying others, if necessary.”

“There’s haste, and there’s being hasty. I need to prepare,” Jeb said. “Priest. Now.”

***

Traps:

Finger-gun clips: ‘ack’ X10 þ ‘pip’x10 þ ‘kip’ X10 þ ‘Alpha Strike’ ☠ý

Full auto: ‘Juggernaut’ý ‘Mark of Cain’þ ‘little friend’ (foot) ý

Shield: x4 ý

Looped Armor: head ý torso þ legs ý upper arms þ lower arms þ

*Amended to veins and major organs after the shaving incident*

FMO shield x50 þ

Safety Phrases: restraints ‘3RW’ þ ‘Plitskin’ þ ‘Room full of Charlies’ (x2 alt winks)☠ý

Grenades ‘go boom’: pantsý shoeý ringý

Health: Internal bleedingþ external bleedingþ

‘too tight’: Collar þwrists þfingers þarms þchest þhead þlegs þankle þfeet þ

’21 buck salute’þ

Things ‘love daddy’ clothesþ sawý staff ýleg. ý

Jeep commands: ‘Ben Hur’ þ ‘Pick me up’ þ ‘Heisenburg maneuver’ þ‘Heavy ordinance’ X 50 þ  ‘Explosion dampening’ X 20 þ ‘Sleepyhead’ þ ‘That’s my car’ þ ‘Nitro’ þ ‘Viking Funeral’ þ

Jeb tapped his pen against the paper, scratching out the occasional obsolete entry as he studied his list of ‘traps’.

Ever since he got his Class in the tutorial, he’d been able to rig up simple spells to go off on command, exploiting the Ability the Mystic Trapsmith Class came with.

It had served him well. Now, though, his list was beginning to look a little lackluster.

Jeb had advanced enough to create complex logic for his trap’s behavior, discovered how to alter his Myst to other kinds, and figured out how to make semi-permanent effects.

I need to combine those things to create something a bit more nuanced. More suited to my situation.

A thought occurred to him, and Jeb’s eyes widened.

Even if he lost Myst, Nerve and Body every time he killed one of those undead vultures, that would have no effect on any of his pre-canned traps.

It could be a great way to save a wildcard for the last boss, Jeb thought, thumbing his chin as he pondered how to kill Pikaku’s dad, who was presumably stronger than any of his undead damsels.

And Jeb would be greatly diminished, if not dead by the time they fought.

Jeb was starting to get a feel for the extra dimensions of spellcasting.

It was both art and science, a mix of total exactness and intuition.

That was something that Eddie didn’t quite get, why he couldn’t figure out a mathematical formula for the ‘relationship’ axis of the four-dimensional spell scale, despite having a good idea of the rest.

That part was intuitive, objective, and not measurable… And Jeb was getting the hang of it.

So, how can I upgrade my arsenal? A lot of the traps are holdovers from half a year ago and need to be updated to my current Myst potency. Not to mention The ‘pip’ single fire shots are almost useless at this point and need to be replaced with something more powerful as well. I didn’t use them at all in the last fight. Didn’t need to waste the breath on a single shot when I can mentally backhand people with a lot more force.

I’m thinking some kind of self-sustaining attack spell that tracks and/or harries the target?

Eddie repeatedly warned Jeb against making self-replicating spells. No matter how cool they were, if he succeeded, he might cause an apocalypse. Self-sustaining was the limit.

To that end, Jeb began creating an imaginary woodsman friend named Raymond who was protective of Jeb. The man was talented at tracking and surviving the harshest of conditions, yet not unfamiliar with the urban jungle as well. Self-sustaining. Driven. Accurate. This would be the ‘relationship’ that would dictate the behavior of the spell.

Then he needed to apply the exact frequencies of Myst that would dictate the flavor of energy the Myst would be, create the seven loops of Myst that resonated against the primary channel, changing it from telekinetic to Heat-based.

This is gonna be kickass,Jeb thought as he slowly teased strands of myst into a new spell…

“Sorry about that priest,” Vresh said from beside him, her arm hanging out the window of the jostling jeep.

“N’gah?” Jeb grunted, dragged out of his intense focus by the lovely melas woman’s velvety voice.

Suddenly Jeb was aware of the jostling of the jeep, the wind from the open top, cut off to accommodate the taller aliens and those with horns, even the gritty sand along the passenger armrest digging into his skin.

And the heat of the woman sitting beside him in the bench seat.

Honestly, the seating arrangement in the cramped vehicle it was half the reason they had decided to let Kolusk drive. The other half was that the daredevil’s passives applied to vehicles he was driving, too.

And honestly, driving a car isn’t thathard.

The tires flew over a root, and if Jeb hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt, he might’ve been ejected from his seat to tumble in the rough terrain behind them.

“This is so much better than a carriage!” Kolusk shouted with glee as they barrelled through terrain no rational person would consider.

“A little to the left,” Kol said, holding the letter in one hand and pointing with the other.

They were going an absolutely insane fifty miles an hour while off-roading, which had to have been some combination of foolhardiness and System assistance from Kolusk’s Daredevil Class.

Despite all that, Jeb’s Body and Nerve were high enough to ignore the bumps, shouts of glee and whining of Piwaki.

Except when Vresh talked to him.

He filtered out the distractions and re-oriented on what she had said.

Sorry about the priest? Ah.

“Don’t worry about it, I was half expecting that response.” Jeb said, looking up into her yellow-green eyes.

The way the priest had explained it to him was this:

The priest doesn’t actually do the removing of a curse on your Impact. The gods do. They do this to incentivize the slaying of undead, who are a blight on the System, actively corroding it with their own form of communicable Impact disease.

Like conflicting viruses.

The priest’s role in all that is to contact the deity and inform them that so and so needs a cleanse, and the deity then removes the curse pro bono, as a reward for the good work of slaying the undead.

Things get a little more tricky when you’re at odds with the gods themselves.

Jeb’s free cleansing for services rendered was replaced with what amounted to a divine raspberry and a rude gesture.

‘We would be happy to remove this affliction as well as any others when Jebediah Trapper has fulfilled his duty to us.’

Duty? DUTY?

That word pissed him off more than the refusal itself.

Jeb didn’t owe them shit. It was just extortion, like he’d done to Eddie. They’d done nothing that earned his duty, instead acting entitled to it by his mere existence. Thank you sooo much for not killing me when I beat the Impossible Tutorial! How can I ever repay you!?

Still, Jeb had been in the army for long enough to get used to assholes and disappointment strong enough to cause you to taste blood.

The gods were actually a seven out of ten on the asshole scale.

Nate Silverman still held the prestigious honor of being the worst asshole Jeb had ever had as a C.O.

Jeb looked deep into Vresh’s eyes and condensed the long train of thought into a single sentence.

“I’ll get over it.”

Vresh smirked and relaxed back into the seat.

“You seem less disappointed than I’d thought you would be.”

“Eh, it’s life,” Jeb said with a shrug, attempting to keep his gaze on her face as the jeep bounced. “I think crushing disappointment as a child really prepared me for the real world.”

“I can hardly imagine you as a child.”

“About the same, but smaller.” Jeb said with a smile. “I’ve made comparatively little personal growth over my lifetime.”

“And the beard?” Vresh asked with a twinkle of amusement.

“I’d like to say it was there when I was young too, but sadly…”

Vresh chuckled.

“I know what you mean, my childhood was mostly good, but there were a few instances that…” Vresh trailed off and winced like she’d just touched a hot stove.

Yeah, I know that look, Jeb thought. That was the face made when touching those flashbulb memories that hurt even to revisit. They could be as stupid as throwing a tantrum when you weren’t allowed to light your own birthday cake, or as eviscerating as the death of a loved one.

There was no way to tell, and Jeb decided to simply leave the topic alone.

“I’ve always been…a bit strange compare to my peers.” Vresh said finally. “I don’t think I’ve ever taken the time to properly introspect.”

“Instrospection is good. Too few people do it.”

Jeb’s brow twitched with sudden realization. He’d been too focused on making an awesome spell to really figure out if he needed one for this situation or not. Consult the experts.

“What kind of ‘spell’, or Myst do you think would work well against undead?” Jeb asked. “These ones specifically. Is there anything you think I’m missing?”

Vresh shrugged. “Fire works well. There’s nothing wrong with what you’ve been using. It consumes and breaks down the miasma, stopping the animation of the body and the spread of the disease. As for a specific ‘spell’, I don’t think there’s a one-size fits all strategy for these undead damsels. They’ve each got a different Myst power, a different upbringing, and different levels of strength. You can’t expect one spell to destroy all of them.”

Jeb blinked.

“That’s a really good point.”

Jeb was looking at this like a modern idiot, trying to find a single gun that was equivalent to the task of taking down all of his targets, then stocking up on a ton of bullets for it and galavanting off to fight them. Jeb had been infected by the the creeping mundane assumption that all bodies and all people are basically on a level playing field and what will kill one will kill another.

Which, for the last thirty-six years of his life had been one hundred percent correct. You shoot someone in the head: they die. It was no wonder it had been a blind spot.

There was nothing wrong with Jeb’s idea to make a more effective Pip series, and he would probably still give Raymond his time to shine.

But what if he made a unique ‘trap’ or series of traps, each designed to kill a specific target, counter their Abilities and destroy them? That would work far better than a one-size fits all, and there was nothing stopping him from doing it.

Jeb shelved his Pip trigger redesign and turned to more fully take in the former enforcer sitting next to him.

“What do you know about each of the women in the emperor’s harem?” Jeb asked.

Vresh being a noble herself, was expected to know these things. With Nerve beyond the physical limitations of mere flesh and blood, she was able to recite with startling accuracy the Myst power and estimated Attributes of each of the undead Damsels.

Jeb prodded for more information as they drove, asking about their relationships, personalities, tactics they favored. Everything he could think of to personalize each individual undead’s ‘care package’.

In the process, Jeb flipped his sheet of paper out and began writing down the remaining target’s names, underlining them as a heading, then penciling in their potential weaknesses below them.

Damn, I wish I’d thought of this five hours ago.

To be fair, Jeb had been prodded into ‘go, go, go!’ mode by his Deal with the Emperor, and that had put blinders on to things like introspection and deep thought.

Next time we meet, I’m going to be a hell of a lot more prepared. Jeb thought, his brow furrowed as he began making notes for each of his eleven ‘custom’ death spells.

Kikipuki can shrink and fling herself about at insane speeds. I need something fast and accurate to nail her down. She also was a very jealous lover. I wonder if I can use the ‘relationship’ to make her more attracted to the spell itself. Working in reverse from the ‘wants hugs’ relationship. If it’s the willing target of her jealousy, then she could accidentally slip into the spell, basically spoofing her Impact into doing the homing work for the spell…

***Piwaki ***

Piwaki craned his neck to take in the human mumbling to himself, staring down at his piece of paper and jotting down notes, completely unaware of the world around them, or the close call with a low-hanging tree branch that whizzed by his scalp, nearly decapitating him.

“That’s an absurd amount of focus. You know that’s gotta be some kind of mental imbalance, right?”

The melas enforcer looking down at Jeb shrugged.

“I think it’s cute.”

***2 hours of jostling later***

“Okay, I’ve got a spell that I’m pretty sure will kill each and every single one of them,” Jeb said. “Of course the likelihood is that we won’t get one hundred percent kill rate, so your job is to mop up the stragglers.” Jeb said, double checking that he had reached the bottom of his to-do list.

“My job is to retrieve the child and nothing else.” Kol said from the front passenger seat.

“I’m not sure I have anything to offer, really.” Piwaki said from the other side of the bench.

Jeb glanced over at the oversized bird valet.

“What is he doing here, anyway?”

“Vresh busted into our dorm and said she needed someone to drive a ‘car’ so naturally I had to come.” Kolusk shouted from the front before narrowly avoiding a ditch that would have gotten them stuck.

“I couldn’t miss the opportunity to gain levels and get experience with how a real Enforcer works.” Jeresh said from behind Vresh. “It’s always been my dream to study under one.”

Piwaki snorted, shaking his head on his long neck.

“Yeah, but what is he doing here?” Jeb asked, pointing at the cosmetic surgeon-to-be.

“My ‘friends’ dragged me along.” Piwaki said with a sigh.

“Every battle needs pawns.” Vresh shrugged.

“Did you just refer to me as a pawn!?” Piwaki demanded. ‘I’m the emperor’s nephew! You can’t just –”

“If you don’t wanna be a pawn, don’t be a pawn,” Vresh said, giving the bird an icy stare.

“That’s-that’s fair.” Piwaki said, settling back into his seat.

“Alright Kolusk, I know you’ve had a great time,” Jeb said, “But it’s time for me to take it from here.”

“Aww…man,” Kolusk sulked, but only for a moment, the delight returned to his face as the Jeep rose into the air, buoyed by Jeb’s Myst.

“You guys ready for some real speed?” Jeb asked. Up until now they’d been barely keeping pace with the fleeing undead, who had a half-hour head start, but now it was time to fly.