They could not be that oblivious or uncaring about those around them.
Then they truly would be monsters.
No transformations needed.
I shook my head.
Enough.
If these people did not have the good sense to be glum and fearful in the face of monstrous affliction, then so be it. I had more important business to take care of now. I needed to determine which random object would lead to a warehouse of use to my investigation. I did not need to ponder why some people lacked the good sense to protect themselves.
I continued scanning my surroundings for likely objects.
In the Center City, almost anything could be a gateway to a building.
If I hadn’t been so stubbornly self-reliant, I would just have asked an Aspect for help.
But I need to make mistakes on my own first.
That’s just my nature.
Off through the trees to my left, another contented couple was sitting on a blanket, enjoying a nice picnic meal. There was a heaping basket of breads and other treats I could not quite make out from a distance. They both had plates piled high with steaming foods. The male, a dwarf with his long braided beard tucked into his trousers, was pouring a bottle of something interesting into a glass held by the woman, another dwarf who was wearing her beard tucked in smartly into her blouse.
They were the epitome of everything wrong in the Center City today.
Or so I felt.
Lounging in the park with their perfect lives, it was like the couple were somehow living a lie when people across the city were turning into monsters.
At least until the man screamed like a banshee after his girlfriend had downed her glass in a single gulp in true dwarven spirit, his voice sounding disturbingly like that of an old woman keening in dismay.
I supposed that if my girlfriend had just transformed into a slavering mass of teeth and tentacles, I might have a similar reaction.
I couldn’t be certain, however.
It had been an awfully long time since I had had a girlfriend.
Maybe if I had had a girlfriend, I would have been in a better mood.
Like that dwarf.
That is, until his girlfriend turned into a monster.
Then I would probably be as upset as him.
But I would not scream like that.
It might get my girlfriend upset.
Then she would eat me.
That would be a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.
Especially my girlfriend.
As sour and disagreeable as I was, I would probably taste like a heady stew of old gym socks and composting fish brewed in decaying ichor and bar vomit.
Eating me might get her really upset. She would then be liable to eat quite a few more people just to clean the taste of me out of her mouth. Then more people would become as disagreeable as me, and the cycle of upset and eating would continue ad nauseam.
I couldn’t have that on my conscience.
Not wishing to see this cycle of nausea and emotional decay wrought upon the city, I charged through the trees, aiming my headlong dash toward the writhing tentacle beast.
Eating the picnic had done little to curb her appetite.
I could see the dwarf was next.
I sprinted faster.
“Halt, Citizens!” A voice like thunder smacked me silly, leaving me dazed and confused, which, in all honesty, was really no different than normal.
Before I could halt or clear my head, a gout of liquid froth enveloped the tentacular horror. This tumult of snot-like liquid solidified into a massive, hardened blob of mucous that even a dragon would be proud to call its own.
Judging by the look on his face, the male dwarf had never been so happy or surprised to see a giant booger.
Within moments, a massive incandescent crystal, one of the city’s Sentinels, landed next to the encased monster. Although I could not hear what it said, I knew the Sentinel was communicating with the dwarf.
After a minute or so of silent discussion, the dwarf nodded and quickly gathered up the scattered picnic items in the blanket. When he had finished, the Sentinel flew off through the air toward Alyon with both the dwarf and his immobilized ex-girlfriend in tow.
Maybe the Citizens of Center City weren’t all that crazy.
Maybe they used their happiness like a shield to help protect them from random craziness like loved ones turning into horrific beasts.
Maybe they weren’t so bad after all.
Maybe it was me who was wrong.
Maybe I was the monster.
I shrugged.
I had a warehouse to find and a case to solve.
Pointing out my all-too-obvious faults wasn’t going to help with either.
I found the differences in responses to the monstrous outbreaks in the Undercity compared to those of the Center City quite interesting.
In the Undercity, we generally took care of the transformations ourselves, often before the Home Guard arrived on the scene, often killing the afflicted Citizens before outside help arrived. In contrast, in the Center City, the Home Guard and the Sentinels tended to be the first responders to the outbreaks.
As a result, the response in the Center City was far kinder and gentler.
I was not surprised in the least.
We were, after all, monsters.
And sometimes monsters act monstrously.
Sadly, this confirmed something I had already known. In a city of wonders, miracles, and humanity’s highest ideals, we of the Undercity were, generally speaking, second-class citizens, both in how we were treated and how we acted.
In truth, however, reality was not so grim.
Much of our situation in the Undercity had been brought on by our own choices. Alyon tolerated much in us that probably should not have been allowed, much less forgiven.
All in all, the situation in the Undercity was far brighter and more positive than anyone should have reason to expect.
After all, what could one reasonably expect from a city of monsters?
All told, I think we were doing pretty well.
I raised my hand to knock on the surface of the giant shimmering water droplet that was the nearest building.
My hand passed right through the building’s reflective exterior, leaving my arm only partially visible from the outside. On the silvery surface, I appeared squatter and greener than normal, a twisted, un-funhouse reflection of myself that would scare away even the most desperate of carnival goers. Meeting no resistance, and having received no response to my failed knock, I stepped inside.
There was absolutely nothing to see within, for I took up must of the space inside. Looking back outside, I viewed the world through an underwater lens that sharpened and scattered light at various angles depending on the building’s surface while causing lines to waver and distort.
“Anyone here?” I asked.
“No one,” was the ready reply.
“No one, could you let me in?” I asked in my most civil, un-orclike tones.
“No one can let you in,” was the answer.
I could almost hear the snicker.
“No one, would you let me in?” I was losing my patience, and my tone was becoming decidedly more orcish.
“No.”
“Why not?” I growled.
“You have not filled out the appropriate visitor access request form.” The voice was high and taunting. Or that was how I interpreted it. But anger offers a cloudy lens on the world, so I could not be certain.
“And which form is that?”
“IDIOT.”
“What did you call me?” I barked.
“I have not called you. You called me,” came the reply.
This guy was definitely playing with me.
“What form?” I yelled.
“IDIOT.”
“When I get my hands on you, I am going to wring your neck!”
A sea of rage opened before me. My mind welcomed its seething possibilitie
s. Fury was a limitless well I could dive into and lose myself.
Wrath is a wellspring of power for an orc.
Taking a deep breath, I resisted.
Going berserk was not going to get me inside the warehouse.
Although I would enjoy it.
“No,” came the calm reply. Was it slightly mocking? As an orc, especially an angry one, I do not always get the subtler nuances of sentient emotion and meaning.
Smashing faces is often so much easier.
The disembodied voice continued, ignoring my internal tirade. “You are going to complete the Internal Destination Inclusion Order Transcript and return it to me. Then, upon satisfactory review, you may be let inside.
“Or not.”
I did my best to ignore this last comment. I imagined the procedure would be welcomingly similar at any number of other warehouses.
Annoying deterrence is an excellent form of security.
“And how long will this take?” I managed through gritted teeth as I imagined biting the speaker’s face off with my fearsome orcish canines.
“However long it takes you to secure, complete, return, and allow us to review the forms,” came the oh-so-helpful answer.
I stepped outside the nightmarish water droplet before I could start trying to punch thin air.
I could not wait to use my License to Beat Down on that smug little günda.
I took a few deep breaths, letting my rage settle, before I could act rashly, lashing out and decapitating one of the nearby strollers.
There was a Sentinel about a hundred paces away, down a nearby trail.
I would go ask it about IDIOTs.
Although I already knew one.
I cursed as I walked over.
Stupid gnomes and their overly complicated acronyms for everything.
In retrospect, I was clearly talking to a gnome.
Almost any other sane race would have just said, “You need to complete a form first,” or, “Here. Fill this out.” Only a gnome would make up an acronym for something using terminology no one else used, much less understood, and then expect others to know what the acronym meant.
That gnome was the IDIOT.
I took another deep breath.
Letting that little twerp get me upset meant he was controlling me, that he was winning.
I had to let go of my fiery instincts and focus on what needed to get done.
Namely, do what I needed to do to earn a free lifetime supply of alcohol.
If faces needed to be smashed in the process, then so be it.
The Sentinel was a shimmering crystal set tastefully amidst the greenery of the park. To give a sense of scale, it was about twice my height and about equally broad. The Sentinel was probably about a billion carats. It looked like the envy of every thief’s wildest dreams—except that anyone who tried to steal one would be fried by a variable array of archmage-level magical deterrence.
Like the Sentinels floating above protecting the city, Sentinels on the ground had an unlimited License to Beat Down and were not afraid to use it.
I had a License to Beat Down granted by my long-standing service to the city.
That’s what I call it, anyway.
Really, it’s called the Right to Protect and Serve. The RPS is more like a chivalrous code of honor and principles the city’s protectors pledge to uphold.
But it does confer certain privileges, like the right to beat down.
Under certain circumstances.
Sentinels have this right from the moment of creation and have to answer far fewer questions from Alyon’s ruling Council and law enforcement agencies than I ever have.
In a macroverse where rampaging monsters, soul-devouring demons, and world-swallowing plagues were common, a strong defense is more than necessary.
“Good day, Sentinel,” I said in my most officious, I am on the case tone. “I need an IDIOT.”
I cringed a little inside just saying this.
“Good day, Citizen Grak. There are no idiots here.”
“No, no,” I clarified. “I need an IDIOT…to gain access to the nearest warehouse over there. I am working on a case.”
“An idiot will not help you gain access to the warehouse, Grak.”
Was the Sentinel’s Abstract playing with me?
Was everyone playing with me today?
“No. Not an idiot. A permission form to be reviewed for potential access to the warehouse.”
“Oh. You need a permission slip,” said the Sentinel.
Yeah, who was the idiot here?
I suppressed a groan.
Stupid gnomes.
“Yes, a permission slip, please.”
A virtual representation of a piece of paper materialized in the air before me.
As I reached for the form, the Sentinel said, “Tell Arcwhistle Tangleknot that if he gives you any more trouble, I will blast him to atoms and harvest the resultant energetic cascade to blast him further.”
I took the form.
It was already completed and approved by the Sentinel.
I reviewed the form quickly to make sure everything looked to be in order.
It was.
“Thank you, Number 17639XKN.2738,” I said, reading the Sentinel’s name from the bottom of the form.
“You are very welcome, Grak.” The virtual form disappeared as the Sentinel continued, “I have forwarded the permission slip on your behalf. Please try to avoid smashing Arcwhistle’s face, no matter how much he may deserve it.”
“I will do my best,” I said, unsurprised that the Sentinel knew my inner urges and feelings. Then I returned grudgingly to the shimmering water droplet.
At least not everyone was an idiot around here.
Myself excluded.
8
Arcwhistle was a little more welcoming the second time I came knocking at his overblown water droplet.
I think the part of the IDIOT form where 17639XKN.2738 had written, “Let Grak in and treat him civilly or I will let him smash your face,” really encouraged Arcwhistle to roll out the welcome mat.
But I still had to offer him a gentle reminder and tell him where the mat was first.
The warehouse’s exterior shimmered around me as I stepped through, dancing across the surface of my skin as though I was passing through a chill cascade of water.
The sensation was refreshing, almost as much so as the anticipation I felt for the change in attitude to come.
“You should have my permission slip, Arcwhistle.” The urge to substitute idiot was strong, but I restrained myself. Little good comes from taunting, especially when someone who has been defeated or shown to be wrong later needs to work with you. Such relationships generally start on ground that is shaky enough. Taunting just makes things worse and positive outcomes less likely.
“Everything looks good, idiot,” came the snarky reply.
I could see that Arcwhistle shared my sentiments.
I like to play nice.
Honestly, I do.
That is a major reason I left my people in the first place.
The word ‘nice’ is a synonym for weakness in the orcish tongue.
I don’t share this sentiment.
But I did not leave my people to put up with small-minded imbeciles who thrive on putting others down in the vain attempt to lift themselves up.
I was more than happy to embody the very definition of mean.
And you guessed it: ‘mean’ is a synonym for strength, ferocity, vitality, and power in the orcish language.
If it was a language lesson he wanted, then I was his orc.
Sometimes, nails that keep popping up have to be hammered down.
“Do you know, Arcwhistle”—I said his name lightly, like it was the beginning of one of my favorite questions—“what the difference is between me and you?”
This was an open-ended question, one he could answer any number of ways, from snidely to philosophically.
I wasn’t going to let him answer
at all.
Just as he started to phrase whatever ill-conceived response was about to clamber rudely off his tongue, I spoke over him firmly, with authority. “Unlike you, I have a License to Beat Down.
“If you don’t let me in and start behaving civilly, I’m going to show you how it’s used, in all its nuances and subtleties.
“I will paint this picture for you all over your mind, body, and spirit...with my fists.
“Now, let me in, and I will pretend all this never happened.
“Believe me when I say this, and understand that that Sentinel over there, your very own 17639XKN.2738, is hearing our every word.”
Arcwhistle cleared his throat and recalibrated his approach. “Come right in, Mr. Grak! I’ll give you the executive tour!”
As smart as Arcwhistle might be, he did not understand that being problematic not only made things harder for himself, it also drew all the wrong kinds of attention.
Like mine.
9
The interior of the warehouse was as mind-bogglingly confusing and unexpected as its exterior.
If this had been an orcish warehouse, piles of goods would be stored or heaped haphazardly, organized only by random chance and left forgotten to find their way to wherever the goods were needed only when someone came screaming for them.
Obviously, no orcs worked here.
There were gnomes, though. Lots of gnomes.
I could tell not only because I saw more eyebrow hair in one place than facial hair at a dwarven beard convention, but because the space—and it was vast, stretching incredibly beyond the limits of my vision— was filled with completely indecipherable Paratechnological machinery.
In fact, almost all that I saw was obscure machinery.
There were almost no goods stored here.
What I did see were items popping into and out of existence. Objects appeared from thin air and disappeared almost as quickly after moving from one random station to another.
The frenzied motion was like watching a whole warehouse full of popcorn popping.
Except the popcorn kernels popped into and out of view without starting as kernels and before going into my mouth.
I assumed most of the visible machinery were transport devices that routed goods wherever they were going in a seamless wave of gnomish organizational expertise.
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