He Who Fights with Monsters: Book Twelve (He Who Fights with Monsters, #12)

by Shirtaloon

Apparently, Rufus’ family runs a school, and Lindy went to teach there.

“You may have reshaped the cosmos, Asano, but do not consider yourself so grand as to own tribalism, greed and prejudice. People are responsible for their own actions, and ignorance will take any excuse it can get. I shouldn’t need to tell you that.”

“Yes, ma’am. And, if I may say, the world already has changed.” “I suppose so. Everyone on Earth who’s hit puberty just got a taste of magic.” “It’s more fundamental than that, ma’am. This System will change the way whole sections of societies operate. As an example, the ability to accurately assess one’s own condition will change the face of medicine. A number of online diagnostic websites and alternative health organisations are assembling a class action suit against the Asano clan.”

“The most powerful vampires on Earth got that way by consuming blood infused with power stolen from reality cores.” “I am aware.” “The power of those cores is the kind I need to make an avatar. And, while I didn’t use it much, I’ve always had the ability to strip it right out of the vampires. That’s what I’m going to do.” “They aren’t going to enjoy that, are they?” “No, Grandmother. They are not.” “Good.”

“This, the gawking tourist outfit, is aspirational. Casual. Fun. A little dorky. It’s who I want to be. But this…”

Part of leadership is about setting a culture, and I want them to be better than me.”

The resentment comes from two sides, each presenting their own challenges.” “One being external, I assume? People asking that if you’re refusing access to the gods, what are you hiding? Are the dark gods taking root here, far from the light?” “Exactly. Even if the church officials and our diplomatic contacts understand, some people will believe what they want, regardless of the truth. Anger is easy to stoke, and those who would undermine our autonomy to exploit us are not shy about doing so.” “That’s not unique. I come from a whole other universe and the same thing happens.” “What do you do about it there?” “Mostly give rich people everything they want and then claim that we didn’t.” “How does that help?” “It doesn’t.”

“I’ve been watching you for years, and you’re a good leader. I am not. I have more power than any one person should, but not the knowledge, experience and wisdom to use it well. If I start instituting simple solutions to complex problems, I’ll do more harm than good. But I can’t just do nothing with it either. When I act, it has to be with caution. I need to rely on those with the knowledge and experience I lack. People like you. Even then, I’m going to stumble, and I won’t be the one suffering from the consequences of my missteps.”

“Repugnant indeed. I would like some measure of where you see the line, however. There is no escaping the fact that you are the ultimate authority here.” Jason nodded, staying silent for a moment as he thought about it. “Here’s an example,” he said. “I detest slavery. That’s far from a unique position when even the meagrest scrap of empathy or decency will get you there. It’s a core value from the society I was raised in, and one that didn’t waver for me when so many others did. Many societies on the surface use an indenture system that is little more than slavery with a coat of paint. Rife with corruption and abuse and absent of consequence. The usual exploitation of the powerless. If your ruling council wanted to institute that system here, I would argue against it, repeatedly and loudly. I would not, however, stop you. It is not for me to tell your people how to conduct themselves. To a point.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Colin said. “I just happen to have a primal hunger that the ladies respond to.” “Are you getting interested in women?” “Ick, no. Wait, do I get to eat them?” “No!” “Then definitely not.” “Please don’t go around eating women.” “You’re saying that I can eat men?” “Absolutely not.” “Okay.” “Okay?” “I said okay,” Colin insisted while Jason stared at him with suspicion. “Colin.” “Yes?” “You can’t eat gender fluid and non-binary people either.” “Oh, come on. It’s like you don’t want me to eat anyone.” “You can eat monsters.” “What about people who attack us? You want me to not help in fights until I make sure they aren’t on the list of things I’m not allowed to eat?” “Look, if it comes to a fight, you can… nibble.” “Nibble?” “Yeah. Nibble.” “So, I can eat bits of people?” “Bad people. In a fight.” “That sounds like a double standard.”

But while he had no shame in his chuuni ways, spending all his time in a cloak made of darkness was too edgelord, even for him.

“How many of the clan members are essence-users?” “Almost all. Basic essences are inexpensive enough, and there are many excellent yet affordable combinations. A few people hold out, saving up for more expensive essences. Some don’t like the idea of changing themselves with magic and avoid essences altogether, but they are very much a minority.” “Health, long life and no longer needing the bathroom are strong motivators.” “Indeed they are. Still, some refuse, whatever you tell them. Especially now that the combinations are becoming less reliable.”

“That former priest was right, wasn’t he? I’m not just some guy. I can’t be anymore.” “Not when they know who you are. But you don’t have to let them. I wander around all the time and no one has a clue.” “I don’t suppose you have some tips on hiding all that power? I can do it well enough when I concentrate, but it’s like trying to hold in a poo. The moment things get exciting, it’s going to pop out, whether I like it or not.” “I can help you with that.”

For all the joy of old friends coming together, Jason couldn’t help but feel an undercurrent of melancholy. This wasn’t the first reunion after events had dragged him away from his friends for years. This time, he had missed more in their lives than before, and it would take time to learn who his friends were now.

“Forget that guy,” Jason said. “Just bunk off to another universe with me.” “Deal,” Valdis said, then looked slightly shifty. “If the wife says yes.”

Munsen blamed his parents, mostly for calling him Munsen. Yes, he understood that an adventurer saved them while his mother was pregnant, but Munsen was no name for an elf. It was a name for someone stuck in a room watching magical readings not change.

“Why do they only show him fighting and roaring, like some savage warrior?” she asked as Jason stood next to her. “This isn’t him. Statues are about what people need, not the people they show, and these people needed heroes. Fighters. The man he was—who he really was—isn’t for the people visiting this park to remember. It’s for us, the people who loved him. We’re his true memorial, not a statue in a park or a plaque on a wall.”

“Not to pressure you or anything, but there’s some iced tea up here as well. It’s peach.” “Are you attempting to bribe me into immortality with a light lunch?”

“I told you about this,” Jason said. “Most of the work was done when a proto-astral space closed with us inside. It spat us back out, with him most of the way dead. I just finished him off.” “How did you survive?” the Cloudweaver asked. “Oh, I was all the way dead. But coming back from the dead is⁠—” “Kind of your thing,” Clive said. “Yes, we know.” “I remember that,” Travis said. “You’re talking about Makassar, right? The footage was all over the news. Am I remembering you turning into a giant bird made of stars?” “The star phoenix, yes.” “Can you still do that?” Travis asked. “This avatar can, yes.” “That was sweet. Taika can turn into a big magic bird too. Maybe I should build a jetpack with wings, like General Hawk.” “From G.I. Joe?” Jason asked. “Are you people utterly incapable of staying on topic?” the Cloudweaver asked. “Yeah, pretty much,” Jason agreed as Clive and Travis nodded their agreement.

The populace had evacuated to bunkers while the defensive barrier still held, but there were always those who were too stubborn, too old, or too sick to move.

The path is long and strange, and many lose sight of duty as they walk it.

“Exports,” Neil said. “Agricultural products from the Dragon Lands are the second-largest trade that passes through the Greenstone port, after low-rank spirit coins. They use proxies outside their own lands, though, and aren’t very welcoming to strangers.” “Their goods are heavily tariffed by most nations due to political issues,” Zara explained. “That makes it even more expensive than high-rank produce normally is. The quality is what gets people buying it anyway, but obviously, that falls under the luxury food market.”

Tariffs in 2025...

As Navise looked around the circle, all now staring at her, she realised she had made a mistake. “We are inconsequential?” one of the others asked. Anything resembling humility was not the thinking of an orthodox messenger. A wave of power flooded from Navise, slamming the others into the wall as she bolted for the hole in the ceiling.

“So,” Sophie began, “there was this draconian prince. Not much of a prince. One of those eighty-seventh-in-line-for-the-throne types. He decided that Zara was going to be his fourth wife, and didn’t see much point in consulting Zara on that decision.” “What happened to the prince?” Jason asked. “When things happen to princes, it tends to get around. I can’t tell if not having heard anything is good or bad. Is this what it’s like running around with me?” Sophie and Belinda nodded in unison.

“Well,” Belinda said, “I wanted to disappear the guy, but Stella thought killing him was a bad idea.” “I’m very confident it was.” “I don’t know. Leaving him alive might be worse, after Zara’s response to his proposal. I didn’t even know you could put storm magic inside someone’s⁠—” “No need to talk about that,” Zara said, sticking her head out of a cabin door. “Humphrey doesn’t need to hear anything about it.” She retreated into the room, only for her head to immediately shoot back out. “Neither does my father.” Jason sighed.

I'm guessing large intestine...

Gold-rankers were figures of legend in a low-magic town like Greenstone, making Emir’s visit all those years ago a real event. Jason remembered his cloud ship sailing up to the private Adventure Society dock in grandiose fashion. But he had also known that Emir had been in the city for days before, in secret. Jason followed this model, quietly reaching the city with several of his friends days before his official arrival. His goal was to reacquaint himself with the city, indulging in the nostalgia of his early days as an adventurer. Jason, Belinda and Estella Warnock portalled to an old spirit coin transport waystation, not too far from the city. It had been abandoned years ago, after the local Magic Society director and a local crime boss had an adventurer tortured in the storeroom.

I.E. Jason Asano...

Emerging from the portal, the trio immediately staggered. “It’s like trying to breathe when the air’s too thin,” Belinda gasped. “What’s happening?” You have entered a region of low magical density. High-ranking individuals will suffer deleterious effects without supplemental magic. Stamina recovery reduced by 50%. Health recovery reduced by 75%. Mana recovery reduced by 99%. Consuming a spirit coin of your rank or ten spirit coins of one rank lower will restore your recovery rates to normal for eight hours. This duration is reduced by using active magic abilities. Rituals and summoning abilities require spirit coins to enact, in addition to any spirit coin cost they already have. Rituals will be unable to function without artificially enhancing the density of local ambient magic. Summoned familiars will need to consume a spirit coin of their rank or ten coins of one rank lower to sustain their vessels. Consumption of spirit coins will allow them to maintain their vessels outside of the summoner for one day before requiring additional coins. This duration is reduced by using active magic abilities.

“It’s fine, Lindy. Sometimes we need scars to remind us that we can heal. Yes, the worst experience of my life happened in this room. But a lot of who I am, good and bad, began right here. If I can’t face that, I’ll be stuck in this room my whole life.

“I think you just like hearing yourself talk.” “What are you talking about? Everyone loves hearing me talk.”

“And that’s your real problem. Hidden powers moving in secret to manipulate one or more grassroots movements. The movements themselves aren’t aware that they are slowly but surely being twisted to serve the very forces they believe they stand against. This happens in my world across the political spectrum.” “What do we do about it?” “I don’t know.” “How do they deal with this issue on Earth?” “Mostly with sensationalist journalism and calling each other Hitler on the internet.” “What?” “We don’t, Director, and that’s your problem. If we knew how to stop it, we would.”

That will stop whatever agenda they have, but that doesn’t solve your larger issue.” “Which is?” “Whoever you’re after didn’t invent these groups. They came in and made use of what was already there. You delete the person behind the scenes, the groups themselves won’t even notice. They’re going to keep winning hearts and minds in all these small towns and villages. The places where people with power and money only visit if they absolutely have to. Those groups rose up for a reason. You’re going to be dealing with them until the reasons they formed in the first place get addressed.”

“Yes, it is. You think these people don’t have power because they can’t throw lightning or breathe fire. They can’t rise up in violence, but they can put down tools in protest. What happens if all the quarry workers and spirit coin farmers stop working?”

“I paid charismatic people with folksy charm and no morals to convince people to do what I want. I may have also accidentally invented country music here.” “The good kind? I love me some Dolly Parton or Johnny Cash.” “No. The kind that panders to the audience with iconic rural imagery to mask an underlying political agenda.” “Maybe I should hand you over to the Adventure Society. You’re a monster.”

Power comes with the responsibility to avoid hurting the people around you. To safeguard them.

“I know you’re a good man, Jason, but I also know that you’re a great man. And as you said yourself, people like that are dangerous to be around. When they make a statue of a someone, they don’t sculpt in all the dead folk around them.”

Rufus Remore told me what an adventurer was, and I’ve realised all over again that he was right. Strip away everything else, and an adventurer is someone who puts themselves between the bad things and those who need protection from them. Everything else is just embellishment or a distraction.”

The way Belinda’s Force Tether power worked was to drag every tethered creature towards it. It inflicted little damage to those that allowed themselves to be dragged, inflicting escalating damage to those that resisted. In this instance, the suction points from Sophie’s mirage power did the resisting for them, yanking the gorillas away from the tether rod. The gorillas were physically powerful enough to resist both effects, but the disorienting illusion from Sophie’s power made it hard to get their feet under them.

Jason and Farrah ended up screening people. As even an outworlder aura signature could be faked, their screening process had to be more creative. “Best Mad Max movie?” Farrah asked. “Fury Road,” the man in front of her said. “Incorrect.” “What do you mean, incorrect?” “The correct answer is Beyond Thunderdome.” “The one with Tina Turner? She was terrible in that movie!” Jason rushed to restrain Farrah, who was jabbing a finger at the man as she yelled at him. “You shut your filthy mouth! You’re never getting back to Earth, you hear me? The planet’s better off without you!”

“People with undue influence stepping in to stop other people with undue influence isn’t the process working, Hils. It’s the process being so broken that the corruption is folding in on itself.”

Just like our politics.

“Something about a spider and responsibility and his uncle, I think? It didn’t make a lot of sense.”

Uncle Ben.

“Surely he understands that he can’t do this?” “Do what, Jace? Take away something he gave everyone for nothing? The System was always his to give, and his to take away. All that’s changed is that now people realise it. They’re probably about to start worrying about how much of their information he can tap into.”

“Koa,” Jason said grimly. “Just so you know, I’ve been in contact with Earth for a little while now. Before we head back, there are some things you need to know about what happened to New Zealand. I want to prepare you for it now so it isn’t as much of a shock when we arrive.” “What happened?” Koa asked. Jason leaned forward in his chair, eyes filled with sympathy. “New Zealand… got real bad at rugby.” “What?” “I know. There’s so many white dudes on the national team, they had to change the name from the All Blacks to the Semi-Blacks.” Koa gave Jason a flat look. “I heard a lot of things about you, over the years. No one ever mentioned you were a giant prick.” “You can’t have heard that much, then,” Neil muttered as Jason laughed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haka

“It’s not about you,” she said, keeping her eyes on the moon instead of looking back. “You know that what you did won’t make anyone change, right?” “I do. You can’t impose real change, especially as an outsider. People have to want it. Be ready for it. Best case for me is that I inspire someone who can actually accomplish something.”

“I’m just saying.” “Well, don’t. I’m already going to be accused of trying to end slavery as the first step in dissolving the legal standing of noble titles. Doesn’t matter if it’s true. Those who gain money and power through exploitation aren’t shy about lying and cheating to keep that power.”

“Exactly. But the point is, we always had a focus on helping people. Zara Nareen saw a world that Zara Rimaros had always been shielded from. We’ve fought against outright slavery, and undermined indenture programs where the people were being exploited. Lindy and Stella got very good at that. But, satisfying as they were, those actions never brought real change. If anything, they only reinforced the same oppressive systems. We’d gotten rid of the bad apples, so people said everything would be fine now.” “I’m familiar with that particular brand of context blindness.”

SOMEONE GOT SUCKED OFF

There's something strange about these chapter titles...

“What’s this?” Travis asked. “It was back in Greenstone,” Jason explained. “Sorry, this is really a story about your wife’s ex, if you don’t mind.” “Oh, not at all,” Travis said. “I have no problem standing in comparison to a guy who is basically Superman but with ethnically ambiguous sensuality and an adorable magic puppy.” “Really?” Jason asked. “Sensuality?” “Oh yeah,” Travis said as Gabrielle nodded her enthusiastic agreement. “He’s all upright, but passionate. He has a whole ‘I’ll do the right thing on the battlefield and in the bedroom’ situation going on. Once we get back to Earth, he’s going to get internet creeped-on hard. Hard. But what was this about a dance?”

“What we’re talking about,” Darius said, “is inviting Darth Vader into Cloud City and hoping he doesn’t change the deal on us.” Michael turned to look at him. “Really, Darius?” “Oh, because your farming metaphors were such classic diplomatic language.” Asano chuckled, drawing their attention. “Whoever picked you two did their research,” he said. “They clearly understood that I would respond better to you than someone more caught up in formality.”

“We start by categorising everyone. Who is part of the formal structure you’re putting together? Myself, Mrs Tilden, the structure of your clan. That’s the easy part. Who are allies, like Boris? What can you expect from them, and what do they expect from you? Then there’s all the people coming with us. You might be treating them as tourists, but you’ve put yourself in charge of an adventurer expedition to another world. One of the most powerful expeditions ever staged, I’ll add. Multiple teams, a royal diplomatic delegation. What level of authority do you have over them? What do you expect from each other?” Jason let out another groan. “I’m about to have an incredibly tedious day, aren’t I?”

Suck it up, buttercup...

“The Cabal has had essence-users this whole time?” “Not anymore. The incoming British Network people attacked them on sight, so the indigenous people left the proto spaces to them. Without the resources to make new essence-users, those in the Cabal eventually died of old age. The same story played out everywhere the Europeans decided the locals needed the light of civilisation.” “Civilisation meaning disease, exploitation, pillage and slavery.”