Chapter 71 - My SI Stash #71 - The World Waits on Evil by LoserThree (OC World "Lich") (2/2)

It occurred to me then, I think, that it was odd that the demon had not come through a keyhole, or a gap between the door and the floor, or a gap between the beams of the floor, instead of breaking through the door. I was just beginning to consider what it might mean for the room to be somehow, some way protected against intrusion like that when a new figure came through the door .

The new arrival was a dark human in black armor. I thought the armor might be enameled. He had red eyes that didn't just glow, they burned. In one hand he easily, casually carried a huge sword that was clearly made to be wielded with two hands. The way his body moved slightly in counter-force to the motion of the sword, and the way the sword hesitated to change directions gave credence to its weight and accompanying leverage-force.

I saw satisfaction and then contempt flicker across his face as he came in, before he schooled his face into an expression of awe.

Then I considered how odd it was that I lacked a word for the force of leverage, realized I was no longer thinking in my native tongue, and slipped into discomposure again while the new figure looked around the large room before turning to me.

”Dread leader,” he said reverently as he knelt on one knee. ”You defeated of the demon king! Your power awes me anew. Surely this is a new sign of your greatness!”

I held my composure of thought this time, though, and realized that he was a vampire, that he was a vampire who addressed me as ”Dread Leader,” and just what that implied.

For a moment, my mind seemed empty except for an exclamation: ”Oh, love-like-striking.”

Chapter 2

”My Leader?” the (probable) vampire asked as he rose from kneeling. ”The demon king, did you defeat him?” His awed facial expression started to give way to concern as, I guessed, he considered what else might have happened before he got to the room, and he imagined events and series of events I did not know enough to imagine him imagining.

I thought fast. That is, I chose the first idea that occurred to me and might have been workable: I told a version of the truth.

”The demon king is gone and I do not expect he will return.” I said, ”I am still here. Obviously I have been victorious.” The reverent difference with which the warrior had regarded me led me to feel like that kind of arrogance would be expected. I guessed maybe that kind of behavior is not arrogant when it really is appropriate to your station.

The armored vampire bowed before responding again, which hid his face from me. ”Are you hurt, My Dread Leader?”

People do not seem to get to positions of power without being opportunists. Additionally, the person questioning me was prepared for violence, and was a vampire. I wondered if he would kill me if he thought me weak. I wondered if it would help if he were loyal to the 'Dread Leader' position I held, without regard to the manner in which I obtained it. I wondered if people ever really were loyal to positions without regard for the person occupying it. I wondered how that could ever work for long.

But that flicker of disgust crossed his face again when he looked back up at me. It was odd to watch happen, unfamiliar and yet it reminded me of some fact I could not quite recall.

I concluded it was probable that the vampire did not like me, did not trust me, or did not want to be close to me. But from the way he tried to hide it, he was probably there to work with me anyway.

If I was right about that then that would be fine. I'd worked with people who did not want to work with me. I had management experience, even worse.

If I was wrong, then I probably could not make matters much worse. I mean, the vampire already disliked me.

”I am fine for now,” I answered him after pausing to think furiously, desperately searching through what I had learned in the past few moments. ”I will tell you more in a moment. First, tell me how our defenses hold. Tell me how we fare against the remainder of the Forces of Perdition.”

In the life I remember, I counted myself lucky to be free of that fear of assessments, standardized and otherwise, that plagued so much of my generation. I'd had the good fortune, the privilege even, of doing well at them at a young age and so never had to fight my own distress while also fighting the assessment. Instead, I could freely build assessment taking skills.

One of those skills is to find ways to draw information from some questions in order to better answer others. This tool even works when understanding of the underlying concepts is unavailable. In fact, that might have been the first, simplest assessment taking skill. Or at least second only skipping questions to later return to.

”I fell back to the inner walls at the first breach of the outer,” the vampire answered. ”I was in the inner yard when the keep was breached. I chased the demon king as best I could, but lesser demons blocked my way and, as you know, they are no easy opponent.”

Oddly, that had the feel of recitation, as though he had practiced it in his head. Or not so odd, really. It fit into a convenient and perilous narrative of the sort one would prepare if one were planning to commit deception. So worrying, not odd.

”Go look after our defenses.” I told him. ”I recognize your concern, but it does little good if demons exploit our vulnerability. Go.” I gestured toward the door.

He hesitated only a moment, then rushed out the shattered doorway with inhuman speed, which should not have worked the way it did.

Top human speeds, back in the life I remember as the 'Real World' are limited by the pull-of-the-world, but not in the way one might first think. Short run speeds would, in fact, be faster with greater pull-of-the-world because it would allow the runner a better grip on the ground, like shoes with spikes that bite the road-for-running.

The vampire moved so fast that, it seemed, his feet should have slipped out from under him, rather than propel him forward. But the vampire's feet stuck where he put them and his speed quickly grew as he left. I thought to myself that anyone who could do that should also be able to walk on walls and ceilings, which was fitting enough.

Then I was alone with the skeletons in a room with one ruined doorway and a little time to plan. And time to experiment with skeletons.

They were arranged in concentric circles around me. Skeletons on the same circle alternated facing inward and outward. So I attempted to wave one over while I began to consider my options and their possible consequences.

I was ignored. I attempted to snap my fingers, and found my hands responded sluggishly, as though unfamiliar with the gesture. I struggled with my bony hands for a moment before giving up.

I called, ”You, there.” at a skeleton and it did not react.

I walked up to one particular skeleton and waved my hand at its face. No reaction. I shoved it, it swayed and kept its balance. I shoved harder and it stumbled back but returned to its position. I put my hands to either side of its head and turned it. It turned, and when released it turned back. But there was no response other than that. In frustration I drew my arms back and brought my hands together violently on either side of its head, which was protected by a leather helmet.

And, in so doing, I broke its skull between my hands into pieces that fell to the floor.

”I regret that,” I said. And I did, while noticing that I again lacked a word. The now shorter skeleton did not respond but was still standing and, when given a shove, still kept its balance.

”Are you well?” I asked. Still no response. I wondered it it would have needed a mouth to talk before realizing that neither it nor I actually had mouths. Like so many other paths of thought, I set that one aside for later.

None of the other skeletons reacted to any of this.

So that was informative: I learned I was quite strong and that a skeleton does not necessarily need its skull to function, or at least to continue standing there. And based on the behavior of the others in the room, I learned that skeletons are either mindless, mute (or terrified into silence), brutally loyal and disciplined, or just not inclined to be overly judgmental of someone breaking their heads off.

I realized, then, that I had distracted myself from the more weighty issue of what I could tell the vampire. So I busied my hands with picking up the pieces of the skull and putting them back together to see if the skeleton could reincorporate it. And I returned my thoughts to my problem.

One option was to tell all. That would be placing complete trust in a vampire who did not seem to like me. I thought that I probably should not hold his vampirism against him, at least with regard to how I should expect him to behave toward me. I figured that my lack of blood would take me off his list of favored victims.

Then again, I considered, was it safe to conclude that his pointy teeth, red eyes, and superhuman abilities mean he drinks blood? I was pretty sure there were stories about vampires that behaved differently.

More importantly, I thought, vampires, skeletons, and demons were fictions. If they did not exist in the life that I remembered except in stories, did that mean I was in a story? Could I expect narrative causality instead of consistent laws of nature? Should I expect to awaken from fantasy as a bed-ridden weakling?

I tried to fly in the way that had always worked in my dreams. Short, silly hops were all that happened and that was enough to confirm my experiences were not a dream, for the moment. The rest could be ignored until applicable... probably.

Meanwhile, I had found that the largest piece of the shattered skull, which included its base, would fall off again if I set it on top of the skeleton's neck. If it could be reincorporated, some other steps were apparently necessary. I had broken an object almost immediately after arriving in a new world, taking a new position, and meeting new people. That was so very much my way.

Trusting someone else with my problems always tempted me. There was often little to lose, in the life I remembered, but that was a very different world. There were no demons in the 'Real World' and I did not face the threats a 'Dread Leader' would in the relatively privileged life I remembered living.

The mechanics of reciprocation pressure meant that my urge to entrust others with truths I might have kept secret caused others to feel the urge to share their secrets with me. I had lived more than a third of the life I could reasonably have expected to before I learned my easy openness was why people told me so much about themselves.

Still, trusting the vampire was a foolish idea, and was rejected.

Likewise, hiding all and keeping an act up of complete control was rejected because I had no good reason to believe I could pull it off. I have never had the necessary dramatic stamina.

I would have to build the lie on what I already knew and what I could not hide.

In the meantime, I had started investigating the skull-less skeleton more closely. I could take its bent, stained, and handguard-less short sword from it. I could take armor off it. It did not object or even react, except to accommodate its new balance.

I crushed the last digit on its right and smallest finger between my index finger and thumb and broke it into multiple pieces. It still did not react.

I began to crush the joints of its spine, starting at the top of the protruding neck. This required only the force of my thumb and any two fingers against my palm. It seemed likely that I was considerably stronger than I had been.

My mind was briefly diverted from planning deception to consider spinal joints and another missing word.

When I had destroyed the top spinal joint to which ribs attached, those ribs remained attached to the b_r_e_a_s_tbone. When I crushed its right collarbone, its right shoulder blade and arm fell away and into separate pieces. When I crushed not one, but both bones of its left forearm, its wrist and hand fell away and went to pieces.

I was only a few spinal joints past the top of the rib cage when the vampire returned. I noticed that the skeletons moved out of his way and realized they must also have moved out of his way when he left.

”Dread Leader,” he said as he knelt on one knee again. ”There are no demons to be found. It is as if your defeat of the demon king has unmade them all. We are repairing the breaches and keeping watch on the walls, but the camps of Forces of Perdition look abandoned.

”I have sent scouts to search the encircling camps. Now, if it pleases you, tell me if you are hurt and how you defeated the demon king?”