WarbyPicus

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 86 Loyalty Goes Both Ways

Truth’s immediate thought was to smash up the room. If the ritual space was destroyed, then there could be no ritual, and no danger from the ritual. This thought was followed almost immediately by the thought of what two Tier Eights (or possibly Tier Nines) could accomplish in an environment where they supremely did not care about taking prisoners. This smoothly transitioned his first thought into sabotage, somehow reversing the spell so it landed on the casters, but he had no idea how he c...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 85 Harmony

The room Harmony was in looked like it was cut out of a roadside motel and dropped straight into the base. Not some mom and pop operation. A big, national chain, where all the furniture was standardized and had to be bought from the head company. Pale pinewood furniture, gray curtains over an enchanted picture window, gray blanket lying over crisp white sheets. All neatly cleaned and made by the built in housekeeping enchantments on the bed. Safe, inoffensive art on the wall. A small scryball...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 84 Very Safe, Very Normal

Truth’s hand slammed backwards before the door could close. Incisive was being very insistent. The more the door closed, the more danger he was in. Which was a hell of a take about an empty, concrete stairwell. The stairs were even designed to be no-slip, with a sensible, sturdy handrail. It was well lit, and there was even an illuminated EXIT sign above the door. Sensible safety innovation right there. This was a ten out of ten stairwell. And he was quite sure he would die if he closed the...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 83 Eyes Open and Laying Down The Law

The sky was as blue as it ever was. But it wasn’t. The sky was clear as night, filled with a billion billion billion stars. But it wasn’t. The sky was red, the color of cold flames and hot blood, filled with screaming ghosts and raging demons. But it wasn’t. Beautiful blue sky today.

The Green Sea was warm as a mother’s love, or as cold as a mother’s contempt. It was hydrogen, oxygen, sodium and other trace minerals. It was one of the four elements, mixed, as all ma...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 82 The Realist

The rock was not cooperative. In addition to being invisible, it kept trying to slip out of his memory. As a result, he found himself struggling to keep his balance. Truth could have balanced on a razor’s edge, balanced on another razor’s edge, on the edge of a monofilament wire, in a moderate windstorm. So being unable to keep balanced on a roughly foot sized rock in calm seas inspired a lively hate in him. 

He fell off. Twice. Truth had already decided to murder an...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 81 Wet Milage

I don’t think I can be blamed for being happy. Anyone would be happy. This is huge. Nobody else managed to do this.

Truth indulged in a little self pity. He ordered the Fire Bird to start sweeping up and down the coastline, to keep the base from figuring out they had been spotted. Except, of course, they hadn’t been spotted. They had just been inferred with a high degree of probability. But even that wasn’t the source of his misery.

It was the ...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 80 Living Your Path

Truth slowly opened his eyes. He was staring at the smudged interior of the luggage compartment. The packs weren’t very comfortable. How strange. When he crawled in here before, it was like falling asleep on angel feathers and lullabies. Could it have been the crippling exhaustion?

He contemplated the myriad mysteries concealed in the scrapes on the ceiling. No. No, it had to be evil wizards that cursed the packs into lumpy unpleasantness. He could recognize the work of his...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 79 What's It all For?

“Glad to see you are staying hydrated.” The Prophet observed, carefully skipping back.

Truth shook the last few droplets off and tucked himself back in. “Are you mad? What does “Hydrated” mean?”

“Drinking enough.”

“Ah, I am that.”

“Philosophy is all piss?”

“No, pissing is necessary. Useful. Pleasurable, so long as you don’t have the stone.” Truth’s voice was severe. “Philosop...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 78 A Pint At The Crossroads

The world unfolded for Truth at the junction of St. Veertigrid’s Omni-Benevolent Hospital and Pisnngos #11347, a rest stop two hundred kilometers north of St. Veertigrid’s. As rest stops went, it was a decent one. The Pisnngos franchise prioritized cleanliness, good lighting and a variety of easily consumable snacks and drinks for sale at just four times their usual prices. 

For two wen, your screamingly bored child could hop on a pretend fire bird and rock back and ...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 77 What Mountaintop?

Frobisher blinked. “Pardon?”

Truth clarified. He kicked off the rock, moving so fast he wasn’t even a blur to the people around him. The Tongue of One Who Speaks For God whipped off his shoulder, up, then down again, aiming for the thinner armor around Frobisher’s neck. The blade nearly reached the neck. Nearly.

The counter-spell exploded outward. The armor glowed with golden calligraphy as an explosive wave blasted away the sword, and Truth along wit...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 76 Bribes, Threats and Other Theology

The angel was pissed off. Truth understood that. Respected that, even. He had been called in to do a job, wasn’t able to do the job, and now he was pinned under rubble next to one of God’s little whoopsies. Also known as a human. Truth internally shook his head. He was being unfair. The angel probably couldn’t even conceive of criticizing anything God did. 

Truth hadn’t worked with angels nearly as much as he had worked with demons. Demons you could cut a deal wi...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 75 Getting An Angel The Hard Way

Truth fell over. He had only stepped about a centimeter, and crossed thirty meters in the process. Straight up. Through the ceiling. Which, unfortunately, put him half a meter above the floor. Which floor, he didn’t know. The way the sealed concrete smashed his nose didn’t inspire fondness or a desire for deeper understanding. 

Everything hurt. Everything. He had been getting better, but this felt like being slapped over every millimeter of his body. Eyeballs and ear...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 74 Washed Clean

Truth kept moving deeper into the room, eyes darting. Large plastic bins with little wheels underneath, filled with bed linens. Should be the laundry. Usually that was a job for big talisman machines, but he wasn’t seeing them. Did they send the laundry out to a big commercial operation for cleaning? He vaguely remembered hearing that some places did that. For a brief, delusional, moment, he thought about hiding in one of the bins and smuggling himself out with the rest of the laundry.

Slumrat will publish on time, but a quick dog update

He's doing just fine. We induced vomiting (per vet's instructions), got his body flushed out with an IV, then brought him home. He felt very sorry for himself, but at least he got some over-boiled rice and plain yoghurt for dinner. This morning, we chased each other around on the grass and I watched him run through a field of blooming clover.

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 73 Sneaking The Hard Way

Truth tried to think quickly. He could more or less guess where the old doctor’s hate was coming from. He would hate him too, if the situation was reversed. “I was in a bodybag on the way in. Would your hatred extend to giving me directions out?”

“Yes.” Dr. Sun had a wonderful set of teeth, Truth noticed. His ‘smile’ was displaying almost all of them.

“Fantastic. Well. This has been…” Truth groped for a word, failed to find one, and decide...

Today's chapter of Slumrat is going to be late

Woke up to my dog eating something he shouldn't. One round of induced vomiting later, and we are off to the vet. I'm still expecting to get the chapter up today. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 72 Hypocritic Oath

“Boy you are even crazier than I thought. And I thought you were batshit. The hell did they do to you?”

“Who?”

“Them. Those people. The ones who put all the worms in your brain.”

Truth raised a finger to rebut, remembered the System, and in a sudden burst of overwhelming guilt, turned his eye inward, trying to find that spot of nothingness that supposedly was the System. He had never really seen it before, but…

...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 71 Veterinary Practice

Truth wasn’t quite sure how to process that. Other than- “Go Rats?”

Dr. Sun laughed bitterly. “Don’t give yourself too much credit. You were just the final wet fart that knocked over the tower of bullshit. Things hadn’t been adding up since long before you were born.”

Truth nodded. Then shook his head. “Look, before we get into all of that, I have to ask- are you actually a doctor? Because when we fought, you came off like some kind of sadisti...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chapters 1&2 (not going in a collection for now, as it is definately a rough draft)

Chapter 1- The Hero Receives His Just Reward

I stood on the wall in the still burning Floating Quarter, savoring my victory. Coming to terms with the fact that, when put to the test, I could man up and make a mess. The monster’s black blood coated me. His severed head had been booted off the wall by the latest beauty to volunteer to my service. Volunteer-ish. Not going to dwell right now. At this moment, I stand, gloriously, above all. 

It's a bit toxi...

Two Chaps of Weeaboo #2 in next post. In this one, a dive into why I'm binning the third chapter

The newsletter thing kind of fell off, but I thought I would revive it for a moment to give you a little more insight into how I write things... and why breaks are good.

The first chapter I wrote of Vol. 2 started in in the middle of a conversation. Liam was sorting out the gains from the battle of the Floating Quarter with assorted NPC's, and generally lamenting that they wanted to spend his hard earned loot on practical things, instead of comforting weeb things. It was silly, but cont...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 70 Rat Doctor

The morgue was not nearly as quiet as Truth had hoped. He had never stuck around the bodies he made. He had certainly never paid attention to the noises they made once they were dead. It wasn’t so much that it was creepy. It was that it was inexplicably creepy. Why was it noisy in here?

There was a boom he could hear all the way in his drawer, as well as a tangible shake. Bombardment, terrorism, something like that. Sure sounded like a civil war was breaking out. I...

Slumrat Rising Vol. 5 Chap. 69 Desirable Man

There was a long silence, as both sides tried to determine if the other was bluffing. In a situation where any tear in their suits might be fatal, talking things out was definitely the better choice. Of course, there was only one “Secondary Anomaly,” which meant that somebody’s boss was going to be pissed.

I wonder if they are literally attacking each other within the government yet. Seems like bad timing, what with a major war on. Also, somebody needs to shoot whoe...