Vol. 3 Chap. 2 Choices, Choices

The boats were working in a zigzag pattern, their lights sweeping the water for the drugs floating in the polluted waters. Truth was wedged uncomfortably in the prow of one of the reeking fishing skiffs. On the other hand, given his organs seemed to be held together with spit and good wishes, wedged in a semi-reclined position wasn’t too bad.

<<Leaving aside your more homicidal impulses for a moment, we should consider your next spell. It’s long past time.>>

I have been looking forward to it. Though I do want to focus on finishing the initial mastery of Incisive. I have a feeling about that. The total package is going to be something special.

<<Agreed. Let's run through your loadout. It makes sense to keep one spell slot open, so you can swap between Tool and Obliteration. Obliteration isn’t too complicated, it’s just deeply weird, and its growth potential is not the best. Looks like there was a lot of R&D still to be done.>>

Well, Merkovah did say it was basically a prototype.

<<Got to put it in context. The half-dozen spells we memorized on our way out are legit as Hell, and they do have awesome growth potential. On the same tier as Incisive? I can’t say. But some really hot stuff. So you need to make a choice here.>>

What’s the inventory?

<<Obliteration, obviously. And The Sword of Moshe, which you can forget my ever casting for you. Oh, wait! Haven’t done this in AGES.>>

The letters scrolled across Truth’s vision in stately majesty.

SPELL MENU- PICK ONE. COST PAID BY CODE BEIGE-SHITTY-CARRAIGE

1. Obliteration- A magic-based attempt to recreate the anti-magic of the anti-theists. Likely very effective, but also an instant death sentence if you are ever caught using it. Every use of it directly hastens the end of the world. Not a lot, but some.

2. Sword of Moshe- A staggering toolbox of angelic magic. Contains everything from “love” spells to finding buried treasure, to killing someone, to changing the weather… you name it, and the spell has a way to make an angel do it. Or it did. No promises on getting an angel’s attention these days. A problem that will only get worse as we get closer to the end. Also, the learning curve makes Incisive look like a goddamn cakewalk.

3. Tool- You know what it is and aren’t learning it.

4. Graeme’s Arrow- The real version this time. It's a bit limited, though I can see how it would be really, REALLY useful with some creative thinking. It’s on the list because you badly need more ranged options. A shorter learning curve, and it actually scales impressively with Level. Lets you shoot things that are far away with a very fast bolt of energy, very accurately. Does one thing very well. The spell compiler concluded the synopsis of the spell with “There are even hints that the spell holds deeper secrets,” and left it at that. Clear bait.

5. The Hazel Wand- The healing spell I have been using on you. Except it isn’t a healing spell, really. Or not only that. Another stellar demon special, this time from Buer. Basically, it covers healing, animal taming, some demon summoning, and even teaches you about the world and philosophy. As demons go, it’s actually pretty benign. Not safe, but not a murder-spell either. The learning curve is hard to guess.

6. Cup and Knife- Angelic magic again, though the spell was a little shifty about the specific angel. Sounded like it expected the reader to know already. More healing, less philosophy teaching. The basic concept is to “heal” yourself and the world by means of spiritual medicine and, when necessary, surgery. It’s almost fifty-fifty healing and anti-spiritual combat magics. It looks very robust and is comparatively straightforward to learn. This spell should be studied regardless of your choice.

7. Abner’s Amble- Modern magic, not really derived from any particular stellar power. High speed travel. It dosen’t let you move faster, strictly speaking, you just cover more distance with each movement. It’s not teleportation, the magic just moves you through the air further than you would normally go. So each step covers ten meters (or whatever) instead of however long your pace is. Great for transversal, great for running away. A really useful utility spell at your current level, though how useful it would be at higher levels is unclear.

Truth smiled faintly. This awful little boat suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

Truth happily contemplated his spell choices. The first three- Obliteration, Tool and Sword of Moshe, were all out. The first two should be handled by the System if at all possible, and the latter was just too damn hard and unreliable under the present circumstances.

He chuckled quietly to himself. His organs were still hurting like crazy, he was bobbing in the sea in a smelly, lousy fishing boat, and he was surrounded by what might as well be ghosts for all their unreality. Ghosts might actually be more real than the fishermen. Not the most promising of “present circumstances.”

That left Graeme’s Arrow, The Hazel Wand, Cup and Knife, and Abner’s Amble.  The Hazel Wand was… kind of appealing, honestly. Botis had been a real positive influence on his life these last few months, and Buer sounded like a more chill, more positive demon. There was a lot to like there. On the other hand, he didn’t really care about animal taming or demon summoning, and he was apparently not to be trusted with philosophy. Learning a whole spell just for the healing didn’t seem sensible.

Graeme’s Arrow got put on the “maybe” pile. It was a monotasker, but the lack of ranged attack spells was really painful at this point, and Graeme’s simplicity was also a major strength. As you leveled up, the spell went faster, hit harder, and had a longer range. In Truth’s professional opinion, “Kill them before they can reach you” was always a useful capability, regardless of level.

Abner’s Amble was also a “maybe.” Never going to hurt to be able to run away faster or to run someone down faster, for that matter. But if it didn’t really speed you up all that much, its combat applications were kind of limited. You would set yourself up for some really nasty counters, potentially. Mmm. A utility spell, then, like Tool.

System, tell me more about Cup and Knife.

<<It’s… odd. Not bad odd, just coming from things from a weird angle. A little context- this is from one of those fifty-centimeter thick books of Merkovah’s, one of the reference texts. It was sorted alphabetically by spell name, not by subject matter. Make of that what you will.>>

Not some hidden volume of doomsday magic or something.

<<No. Merkovah was trying to persuade you to learn Obliteration. The whole “opening his library to you” thing was just him being dramatic.>>

Yeah, noticed that. Figures. Anyway, we don’t know who the patron or inventor of the spell is?

<<No. The book just kind of waved away the whole question, like you should recognize the style of the spell. Which I don’t, at all, so safe to say it’s deeply out of fashion, whatever it is.>>

Fun. So why do you think I should study it, regardless of whether or not I wind up learning it?

<<Because it is so damn weird. Most healing spells start from a place of “You should look like this, and your various wet, poisonous, microbe-ridden systems should work like that.”>>

Alright?

<<And Cup and Knife doesn’t. It assumes that you are wrong. On every level, there is something terribly wrong about you that must be fixed. The physical level is the very least of it. The spell tries to “correct” you. I obviously agree, but it’s odd to see a spell for humans share that wisdom.>>

Sounds worrying.

<<I agree, which is why I used Hazel Wand to heal you. I didn’t want to fuck around and find out what the spell’s author figured the “correct” answer to the Truth Problem was. notthatIdon’thavesomesuggestions.>>

What?

<<What?>>

There a bit of a pause, then Truth pressed on.

So why study it?

<<Because it’s so damn weird, like I said. It’s how it runs it’s combat spells too- error correction.>>

How does that work?

<<I really don’t know.>>

There was another pause, as the waves slapped the boat around. The shock was ignorable for Truth, even in his injured state. The fishermen seemed used to it too. It wasn’t a bad day on the water. Not a bad night, now.

System, I say this with “love,” what the fuck?

<<Look, smartass, you did a whole big rant a while back about how all kinds of shit was wrong, and we both know that whatever-the-fuck Starbrite did to us was pretty goddamn wrong, and we know that your soul’s little… whatevers, are trying to “correct” you, so grabbing the spell that focused on “correcting errors” is damn useful.>>

Truth thought on that. The pink had faded from the clouds, and the darkness came hard and fast.

A spell to fix the world.

<<Exactly. Figure out why the author thought this was the way to do things. They clearly didn’t persuade many other people, but it wasn’t completely obscure and a serious academic thought it was important enough to include in a reference book. So… yeah.>>

Huh. Can you elaborate at all on the spiritual combat thing?

<<A bit. It seems to operate sort of like a curse. You identify a problem, for example, a demon, and the spell attempts to correct the problem.>>

Correcting a demon.

<<Right. Whatever that means. It looks like whoever put the spell in the book didn’t really get it either. Apparently, it just SHREDS demons, spirits and the like. Returns them to the essence at high speed. It’s a lot less effective on material stuff, as it tries to “correct” matter right out of existence. Since matter does want to exist, it’s a more than minor challenge.>>

It occurs to me that you could basically obliterate someone’s soul with this spell.

<<That is one of the use models, yes. Though it apparently dosen’t work very well due to the body and soul being tangled together.>>

I’m going to pass on this spell, I think.

<<Might be best. But we should study it. It’s doing some pretty interesting things. And I for one would like to know what the creator thought was such an urgent problem that they needed to invent a whole spell to tackle it.>>

The fishing boats eventually stopped their search and sailed into a little fishing village- corrugated metal shacks, crumbling concrete, everything a jumble of two thirds gone coats of paint. Thin dogs trotted up and down the shore, looking for anything edible.

The fishermen and women looked like their village- thin, worn, covered in the multicolored remnants of faded clothes. Most of the adults were Level One. Only “most.”

Your identity was synonymous with your job and your spell for the working folk of Jeon. Adulthood and reaching Level One were practically synonymous. Most people stayed there too- unable to afford the time and elixirs needed to support their advancement. They would have only one spell their entire life.

You were your job, you were your spell, you were your usefulness to your boss. But seeing them, Truth realized something. You could be defined by your spells, but your spells could also be how you defined the world. Right now, he was defining the world by the Meditations, Incisive, and his own questionable instincts. So… what else did he want to add to his personality? What was the next step in how he confronted the world, and forced the world to acknowledge him?

How would he define reality, the reality that had beaten these hungry ghosts?

A middle aged man was waiting on the dock. He had a couple of big sores on his arms, underlined by the bright “gold” bracelets on his wrists. Truth noticed that, other than a couple of pregnant women, he was the only person in sight who’s bellybutton stretched past their belt.

“You get it all?” He yelled.

“Yes, Chief!” The boat driver yelled back.

“Fifty packages! There should be fifty packages!”

“I got twenty, Rao got thirty. We also fished up a few other things, might be something useful. We haven’t torn them open yet.”

“Good. Lukka is coming by in the morning to collect.”

“As long as he’s got the supplies.”

“You let me worry about that.” The Chief narrowed his eyes at the boat driver. Truth couldn’t call the Chief fat. Just a little more fed than the rest of the village. Level One, but that was expected. Normal. Or it should be normal.

“Yes, Chief.”

Truth hopped off the boat and onto the dock. Looks like he would be missing another meal. He hated missing meals. Truth had returned to Jeon, still hungry. He walked through the ghosts, not even seeing how they parted before him.