Vol. 3 Chap. 134 Nature and Nurture

Vol. 3 Chap. 134 Nature and Nurture

On the way to the town of Boxiliu, a town of no particular importance to anyone outside the commercial slate production industry, Truth made a marvelous discovery. In addition to producing a rare reddish colored slate, Boxiliu had a zoo.

The zoo was a small, sad affair. A few dispirited looking monkeys, tropical birds wishing they werent in the northern mountains, snakes, lizards, an insect hall, a few comatose looking foxes, and pride of place- a Husband and Wife pair of tigers. Truth was rather charmed by them. They werent doing much, just lying around. Still. For all the talk of the Tiger of Jeon, he hadnt seen them before.

He could see why they had fascinated people for so long. Those big round eyes in that big head. Even lying flopped on the ground, you got a feeling of power from them. And, honestly, they were kind of cute too.

I dont suppose you can learn how to speak tiger, could you?

>

Wait, really? Thats awesome!

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Could have just said No. Im allowed to have fun.

>

Happy diversion aside, he did have more serious business to attend to in Boxiliu. The slate industry was not a particularly large or lucrative one, on an international scale, but on a local scale, it was a sizable employer and the owner a wealthy man. And, as was the rule in Onis, very connected to local politics. He was in Major Tsus files as both an important resource (for surveillance of his employees, social control, and funding) and a priority target for supervision (same reasons.)

Truth jogged into town and was struck by nothing much. Lots of industrial looking buildings. He didnt know why there were so many tall structures and conveyor belts coming off a slate quarry, but there were. He ran over to the quarry, on the off chance that there would be someone or something useful there. Heavy industrial equipment could be used in all sorts of ways, after all.

This ambition was immediately frustrated. First by the sheer size of the operation, and second, by how the actual work was done. The quarries were a strange combination of painful backwardness and state of the art production processes.

The quarrying was done by men with long iron fetishes. They would punch long holes into the stone, crack, crack, crack, bashed into place with iron sledges. Then they would activate the spell and split off an enormous slab of stone. The stone would then be collected by demon-pulled carts, loaded onto talisman rail carts and transported to a fabrication yard.

At the yard, the large stone would be tagged and delivered to a team of men to be split into layers. This was done with a hammer and chisel. Crack, crack, crack. Stone fragments and dust flying everywhere. Those layers were then tagged and put into baskets.

The baskets were transported by a flying talisman to workers sitting in the dirt, a rag tied around their face to keep the dust out of their lungs. It didnt look like the rags helped much. The workers would take slabs of slate and line them up on a small, thin anvil. They would take an iron hammer and bash off the rough edges. Smashing it into a useful shape. Crack, crack, crack.

They would then put the finished slates into a basket to be collected by another flying talisman, and taken to the next point in the production line. Soon they would be shipped to a rail station, and from there, to builders' depots.

Truth watched the workers sitting in the stone dust, smashing away with their iron hammers. Crack, crack, crack. Breathing in the fruits of their labors. Each day their breath comes just that little bit shorter. He could rush in there. He could kill the supervisors, kill the bosses and tell them- you dont have to live like this. You dont have to kill yourself so your boss has a mansion and someone on the other side of the world has a roof just the right purple-red color.

They would look right back at him and say So what? Are you going to feed my family? Because this is feeding my family. And then someone would throw a stone. Crack, crack, crack.

Truth sighed and got to work. Out of a macabre sense of fun, he arranged the dead guards in their police carriages. He even buckled their seatbelts. The owner and the chief cop he dumped in the trunk of the fanciest carriage and drove off.

Back to the zoo.

They were awake and noisy by the time he got there.

Shhh. Dont worry. Im not here to blackmail you, or extort you, or force you to tell me anything. He explained. He was in a weird mood. It was all getting to be too much, and there wasnt a soothing pet cafe in sight.

You work for Starbrite! The cop snarled.

Yes. Truth nodded. It was a lie, but the Identity of Starbrite PMC Sergeant Truth Medici was very easy to wear, and terribly believable. He wasnt planning on leaving any evidence, but just in case.

Do you really think you can defeat Onis? You are mad. MAD! The quarry owner yelled. Hoping for help, Truth assumed, though that was also a childish wish. The one underpaid zookeeper was currently stuck in a closet with a chair jammed under the doorknob on the other side.

I dont think so, no. That seemed to confuse them, but the cop figured it out first.

You think your master will become a god. The King of the world.

Did this cop have some kind of recording talisman built into him? Or some kind of deadman switch on his soul to pass back information? He had never heard of something like that before, but both he and Major Tsu had completely failed to beg for their lives, which confused him. Maybe their families would suffer if they did? He really didnt know.

Yes, exactly. Honestly, Im as mad as you. I wanted to be at the ascension site, to witness his elevation. But no. Im out here slapping around future untouchables. If Im still out here by the end of the week and miss it, fuck it, your whole capital dies in a fire. Assuming you still have a capital, then.

Bah, what could you accomplish in a week with your petty strength?!

Wow, this guy was bad at sounding natural. Guess it had been a long time since he was on the wrong end of a beating.

Me? Quite a lot. The CEO? A whole lot more. And you have it wrong. There is nothing left to do. No shipments to be intercepted, no key natural philosophers to kill. The planet turns, the stars align, and the hour comes round at last. A king shall rise, and a God shall descend on this world. At long last. But before it does, you and I have a little business to attend to.

Truth fished out a rock. Not local slate, but it will do. He broke their ankles and wrists, then threw them into the tiger enclosure.

The tigers were well fed, and more or less habituated to humans. It wasnt safe in there, but it wasnt that dangerous either. Normally.

Truth looked at the tigers and imposed his will on the world. They were TIGERS. Kings of the mountains. Mighty. Terrible. The embodiment of nature, red in tooth and claw. Monkeys like these had offended their dignity for too long. And were they really going to turn down a free meal?

The tigers snarled, then roared. There were screams, then silence.

Alright. That ought to light a fire under their ass. Truth muttered. He was feeling lightheaded. I think I need a break. Back to the mountain, then just camp out and wait for the show to start. Should be real soon.