NOVEL NEXT Part 2
Simon was having a bad day. It had started innocuously enough, with just a bit of spilt coffee causing a mild burn. Then there had been the scorpion in his shoe, no doubt placed there by an over-ambitious junior researcher, or possibly some pranksome student. Then his research notes had caught fire, but since the topic of his research was spontaneous combustion, that was acceptable. Then the building had exploded, which wasn't, and had spoilt his schedule for the whole day. And now he found himself standing before a Creature of the Void, an Eldritch Horror, an Incarnation of Chaos and Death, and, even worse, a girl.
"Hi. Will you be my friend?"
Simon took a moment to process the request and decided he had insufficient information. Research would have to be conducted before he could give a definitive answer. He started with the obvious. "Why are you naked?"
The Creature looked down and inspected her body. "Hmm, yes, that brain I ate did contain something about nakedness being socially unacceptable."
The Creature was suddenly wearing an exact clone of Simon's research robes. Given that they were fitted for a male, and that Simon was quite slender to begin with, this resulted in considerable tightness across the chest, in a way that somehow emphasised its presence even more than the nakedness. Simon found certain passions that he thought he had long put behind him suddenly inflamed, but even so, they still needed to take a back seat to further research. For example, the next obvious question. "You ate someone's brain?!"
"Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. But now I'm getting the impression that eating brains is not socially acceptable either. Why is making friends so hard?"
Simon considered the brief glimpse he'd had of an eel made of eels in the middle of the explosion, and put two and two together. However, he'd been brought up to be polite, and a mere eldritch horror standing in front of him wasn't going to destroy decades of ingrained behaviour. "I'm very sorry, my lady, but I don't believe I can be your friend."
Social niceties respected, he could now get on with what he really wanted to do. Simon turned and fled, screaming his head off.
The Creature huffed, an action that was far more satisfying now that she had lungs, as well as an atmosphere to utilise them in. At least that human had been nice about it, and she'd managed to hold the whole conversation without accidentally killing anyone. That was progress, of a sort. She decided to work through the rest of the memories she'd obtained before making another attempt, to avoid a future misstep, such as her nakedness. Alas, as has already been mentioned, insanity was practically a requirement for working at the III, making the local brain supply unsuited for this task. Taking in the conflicting and nonsensical information, the only conclusion she could make was that perhaps her friend making attempts would be more fruitful elsewhere.
Grant the gate guard muttered under his breath. This job was usually easy; no-one outside wanted to enter and no-one inside wanted to leave, so all he needed to do was stand there looking official, and hope to high heavens that he wasn't struck with the need to piss halfway through his shift. Today would be different. There would be builders and materials entering all day to aid in reconstruction, and probably mages wanting to head out to visit the nearby taverns now that their own internal facilities had been flattened again. His supervisor had already supplied him with the day's list of excuses as to why those taverns, while open to the mages if they really wanted to visit, would nevertheless be an inferior option to remaining inside the wall. Gentle persuasion was the key; it was important to keep the mages thinking that not leaving was their own choice.
There was a knock from the inside of the gate. Grant sighed, and settled on answer number three to deal with this one; pointing out that the barmaids outside the wall were, well, maids. Females were not something these mages were used to dealing with, and their presence tended to be off-putting. He slid open the window panel and peered at the would-be escapee.
Well, option three was out. This resident was obviously very intimately acquainted with females indeed, being one herself. Maybe option two?
"Hi. Would you mind opening the gate, please? I want to make some friends, but everyone in here keeps screaming at me and running away, so I thought maybe I should try outside."
Not option two either, then. There were dozens of prepared responses for a mage wanting to obtain alcohol, buzz, schmuck, or any one of a number of other mind-altering substances, but he wasn't aware of any for someone wanting to obtain friends. That was a new one. His mind spun desperately, but regulations were quite clear. The mages weren't prisoners, and given the failure of the prepared excuses, he had to let them out. And then immediately report the event to the captain, who would quietly make Arrangements. Grant hadn't been told what those Arrangements would entail, and after seeing the capitalisation he had decided he didn't want to know, but the important thing was that it would no longer be his problem.
The gate ground open, and the Creature stepped out, with Grant having no clue at all about what he had just unleashed upon the city. Not that he should feel any guilt even if he did; it wasn't as if Grant's permission was required for the Creature to step through the gate. Or jump over the wall. Or erase the wall. She had merely worked out that jumping over ten metre walls or destroying things was socially unacceptable, and may impact her ability to make friends, so she'd decided to try and be polite first. She looked at Grant, noting that his armour looked quite different from the robes favoured on the inside of the gate. "Do you want to be my friend?"
"Sorry, but I'm working. I need to go and see my captain now."
"Aww."
The Creature wandered along a street, taking in the expansive shopfronts, the perfectly laid cobblestones and the exquisitely dressed pedestrians. This was all so... colourful. She wasn't used to colour. Seeing the world through eyes was so different from her usual perception. Such small, squishy, delicate things, and yet capable of such beauty. Unfortunately, her admiration of the general existence of reality was disrupted by an arrow piercing her back. Not unfortunate for her, as such, just unfortunate in general. Even the complete destruction of her physical body wouldn't phase her, so an arrow stood no chance. She didn't even notice the deadly poison it had been smeared with.
She sighed, an action that turned out to be quite difficult with an arrow running through her lung, so it came out as more of a gurgle. She looked down at the arrowhead poking out of her chest, grabbed it and pulled it the rest of the way through, then undid the damage. Then sighed again, happy that this attempt went better. This was the third time in the last half hour this had happened. How come everyone back in that big circular wall screamed at her so much when she wasn't even doing anything, but they would walk down a street that seemed to rain arrows at random without so much as batting an eyelid?
It occurred to the Creature that all three had struck her, while none had fallen elsewhere. Perhaps they weren't random? This required investigation.
Grant and Simon had thought they were having bad days. They may even have been correct, objectively speaking, but compared to the assassin tasked with taking out the III escapee, their days were very mild indeed. He certainly had a name, but since he's obviously not going to be living much longer, there will be no point in learning it. The Creature lashed out with a tendril, grasping his ankle and yanking him from his hiding place on the rooftop. He ended up upside-down right in front of her face. She glared at him, such as someone may glare at a naughty dog who has just diddled on their carpet. "That was dangerous! You could kill someone!"
The assassin blinked in astonishment. Yes, of course he could kill someone. That was kind of the point. On the other hand, he felt that saying that out loud to the apparently invulnerable women in the too small robes would be a terminally bad idea. Bereft of other ideas, he decided to play along. "Sorry, I didn't see you there. It won't happen again, so could you please put me down?"
The Creature pondered. It would have been a plausible excuse had it been just the one arrow, but three times was pushing it. "I think you're lying," she frowned. "I think you did it deliberately."
The assassin cursed to himself. Here he was, held prisoner by apparently the most naive and gullible target imaginable, and yet he could tell from the strength in the tendril that bound him that she would need barely a thought to snap him clean in two. Why hadn't he just run away after the first couple of shots failed? Why did he think a third type of poison would have any more effect? Well, she had almost believed the 'it was an accident' excuse, so he'd have to go all in on that. "I was testing a new type of arrow, but they're attracted by large sources of magic," he lied. "Apparently you kept sucking them in."
The Creature looked at the arrow that was still in her hand. It didn't seem to be magical in any way, but she had to admit she wasn't an expert, despite her cerebral lunch. Ah well, it would be easy enough to check. "I'm going to see if you're telling the truth. Please stay still, or I might accidentally break you."
The assassin whimpered as tendrils invaded his ears and nose, while the Creature cutely tilted her head. "You liar! You were trying to kill me! That wasn't very friendly!"
The lifeless corpse of the assassin dropped to the ground, his skull now rather emptier than a few seconds prior. Something else that was emptier was the street. The Creature looked around, wondering where everyone had gone. Come to think of it, there had been quite a lot of screaming going on while she was dealing with the naughty arrow man. Damn it. How hard was it to just talk to someone?
Taking a few more steps down the street, she took in a large sign on a store-front advertising itself as the Marketplace of Affection. The shock was enough that she almost lost control of her form. She could buy friends? After a quick probe of her latest meal to find out how money worked, she deprived the assassin's corpse of its coins and valuables, on the basis that he didn't need them any more, and joyfully bounded towards the store. If only she had probed a bit further, she would have found out that the assassin had been a regular visitor to the establishment in question himself, and it wasn't quite
the place that the Creature thought it was."Excuse me, master."
Having his servant turn up behind him was bad enough when he had summoned him himself. When he popped up on his own like that... The mayor jerked violently and fell out of his seat, a painful bang sounding out at around the halfway point. "Ouch, my knee! How many times do I have to tell you to stop doing that?! You'll give me a heart attack one of these days!"
"Sorry, master. I came bearing news of this morning's incident. Regretfully, it was worse than first believed."
The mayor rubbed his knee as he climbed back onto his chair. He knew it was useless; however many apologies he received, the servant would never change. At least he never popped up on his own like that unless something was actually important. Of course, the corollary to that was that whatever had happened at the III was actually important. That was bad, in a way that wouldn't be measured in something as trivial as the casualty count. "Go ahead. What disaster are we facing this time?"
"Apparently a disgruntled mage summoned a Creature from the Void."
"Again? Well, that explains the giant eel. At least this one went back quickly. So what's the emergency?"
"That's the thing, master. It didn't go back. It assumed human form, and then, umm..."
The mayor froze. His servant had just ummed. He never ummed, or showed any sign of uncertainty.
"Umm... It... left, master."
"Left? You just said it didn't go home."
"Indeed, it did not. It left the III. It knocked on the gate, waited for the guard to open it, and then walked out. It said it was going to make friends. There have already been a number of casualties."
The mayor maintained his silence. The words all there, and they fitted together nicely into a comprehensible and semantically correct sentence, but the whole concept made less sense than a chocolate teapot. A Creature of the Void wanted to make friends? In his city? He opened his mouth, but lacking the words to convey the utter absurdity of the situation, he was forced to close it again.
"Would you like to give the order to evacuate the city, master?"
"Where to?" he snapped. "It's not as if we have a spare continent!"