“Get ‘em lady! Go for the, er, softer metal bits.”
“I’m trying! I’m — trying to not let it get — ow — near my vital arteries!” I nearly dropped the thing on my head when it pinched me at the base of my thumb. My gloves were uncuttable, but that didn’t mean whacking them with a thin blade didn’t hurt as all heck.
I turned, twisted, and finally tossed it off. A laser from my Toothpick exploded it into gas and gory giblets. That was all it took, one shot. Conversely, one cut to my arteries and I could say bye-bye to all of my blood. Which was bad. I needed that blood.
“There y’go. A real trooper, are yah? Attagirl, show them aliens who’s boss! ”
I spat out a glob of acidic blood. Tasted like a liquid tire fire, and it freaking stung. After spraying the insides of my mouth with instacleaner, I was left tasting the absence of anything at all. It wasn’t much of an improvement.
“You could’ve helped me, you old lug,” I said to the old man, seconds before recognizing the scruffy white beard, captain’s hat, and pipe in his mouth immediately. “Old man Morgan? It is you! You helped me find the right terrarium for Hobbes, remember? It’s me, the tarantula girl.”
He paused to stare at my extra arms for a moment. “You sure are. Now git, go away. It’s dangerous. And don’t come inside.”
“What? Why?” Morgan was a kind, grandfatherly guy, not rude and gruff and antisocial. I looked down at myself, panting heavily. “Is it because I have four arms? I’m a Custodian, a magical girl — wait, you probably don’t know what either of those are. I guess I’m a sort of super hero?”
“Don’t look very super to me. And it’s fer yer own good. Nothin’ pretty past this door here.” He sighed wistfully, crossing his arms on the windowsill of his animal shelter. I noticed that his wrists were clipping through the building ever so slightly.
He was a ghost. Old man Morgan was dead.
“Oh. Oh, I am so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, sorry’s not gonna fix beein’ dead as a doorknob. So unless you know a good necromancer, I’ll decline. And if you do, I’ll stop you right there.” He scoffed and lit a ghostly cigarette. “Figured the smoking would do me in, not some mongrel… thing. I would say I’d do better in round two, but life only gives you one lemon, not a dozen and — hey. Hey, I told you not to come in here.”
“It’s my duty to clear Creektin of these invasive critters,” I said, mustering all the false bravado I could find as I stepped right towards the racket of dozens of animals screeching, barking, and meowing all at once.
Panting, bruised, and with a cut-up face, I found mister Morgan’s body three steps into the animal shelter. The signs of struggle were evident. His fight with one or more mimics looked to have devolved into a tangle of limbs and stabs, a single one of which had nicked his femoral artery. Low blood pressure from a wound like that led to unconsciousness within seconds. There was no saving him, not when his ghost was standing right there giving me a side eye.
Emotionally it was… hard not to look away. Mister Morgan had always indulged me whenever I had a new cool insect to hyperfixate on, no judgment, no complaints. He was also the one who helped me figure out Hobbes’ dietary plan. We settled on the same crickets he fed his smaller snakes since Mom would have a fit if I got a mouse.
And now he was just lying there. His hands and neck were shredded. The pool of blood was as dark as the dread bubbling in my heart. He must have died right at the onset of the convergence event.
“Aww man, a-aww… Fuck.”
I gasped, feeling nauseous and short of breath.
I’m too late. I couldn’t do a thing. Useless. Look at what all your yabbering got you — wasted time, wasted lives.
He was just a normal guy after all. What did he have to defend himself against a shapeshifting creature he couldn’t even look at without getting a migraine?
I wasn’t that far removed from normal yet either. Without my sleeve-gloves and tights, my arms would’ve looked like his. There was no doubt that my throat wouldn’t fare much better; I only had a handful of Body to increase my toughness, and the uncuttable sleeves didn’t reach that far up.
“Told you it wouldn’t be pretty,” his ghost said. “Now git, before it gets you too.”
His body’s throat twitched and for a moment I hoped that he was alright, that he was somehow back from the dead despite his head barely hanging on by a thread. But a blade-limbed, four-legged shape of a tiny mimic squeezed its way out of his esophagus, and that was that.
I aimed, took the shot, then whirled around to catch the second mimic trying to latch onto my head from behind. It was an obvious move, because a different pair had tried the exact same tactic not five minutes before.
I didn’t even shoot it. My left arms grabbed it out of the air before smashing it into the counter, fists pummeling it again and again.
“How dare you? You stupid friggin’—”
[Congratulations! You’ve reached level 6]
[+1 Body, +1 Free stat point]
[Anger conversion efficiency: 2%]
[Warning: Mixing undesirable—]
I cast my spell anyways, if only because it was already almost fully charged. It made me want to punch the mimic even more, beyond what was reasonable. My four hands ached, but at least they were only trembling half as much as when I miscast with fear. Probably due to the poor efficiency. I could be angry all day and barely charge a thing with 2% conversion efficiency.
Finally, I dropped the mimic’s mangled body. My hands hurt. My chest hurt. Everything hurt. Morgan just sat on his stool, smoking his pipe while staring at me with pity.
[Sadness conversion efficiency: 13%]
“Shut up, system. Please.” I turned to mister Morgan and forced a smile onto my face. “There. Squashed the bug that got you.”
“Mhm.” Morgan said, “Sure did. Now what?”
“Now? Now…”
“Can you put me back in there?”
I slumped back together. “No. I don’t know how. I’m not… sure if I even have the means. I’m not a necromancer. I’m not good at magic.”
“Looks like I’m meeting the lord after all. Not sure why I’m not in front of the pearly gates yet.”
I stared at the dead mimic in silence. “I can make that part go faster at least.”
“You can? Well, if there ever was a time to cut in line, it’d be now. If you wouldn’t mind, of course.”
I turned to stare at him. “You want to die?”
“Not so much that I want to, more that I feel ready to move on to whatever’s after.” He chewed his pipe, gaze roving across the animal shelter. “Would be a shame about all the critters, though.”
The animal shelter was a riot in a bad way, molotov and teargas style. Every animal that could bark, meow, or otherwise make their dissatisfaction known was doing so.
I swallowed heavily.
What was I supposed to do, free them of their cages? Half of the animals here couldn’t survive outside because they were bred to be pets, and a fourth couldn’t handle the climate. Feeding them would just prolong their suffering until they starved eventually as well, or a mimic got to them first.
No, it was better to deny any responsibility and leave them be, even if that meant most of them wouldn’t make it. There were people out there that needed help too, that I actually could save.
I tried to call Lily, Dad, and Mom again. No luck this time either. It was time to leave, but I kept on looking back at the broken animal shelter.
What would Lily think about me if she knew I walked away from a helpless gerbil?
I groaned. I railed at fate. I turned back.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked Morgan.
“Whatever you can. That’ll be enough.”
Whatever I can…
I vaulted the front desk, looking for and finding keys in one of the drawers.
So, who do I free first? Cats probably. Cats can definitely deal with danger by just running away. They can get their own food as well. Same with dogs. Probably shouldn’t release them at the same time though.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Next, snakes. Global warming means some of the Mediterranean ones can survive this far up north. Hopefully their venom works against mimics. And if it doesn’t, well, they’re good at staying hidden.
Birds? Oh hell yeah, birds can just fly and eat nuts and stuff.
I fell into a zen-like state as I categorically freed those animals that had a chance of survival before making sure the other ones were topped up on water and food. Entire sacks of animal feed went into the enclosures. The guinea pigs were wheeking with joy as it rained carrots and salad.
“Is that all of them?” Morgan asked. “You work fast.”
“I do?” I wiped some sweat off my brow. For once, my arms had cooperated, though they immediately returned to their twitchy, fiddly disquiet. “Sorry that I couldn’t do more.”
“It’s enough.” Morgan’s ghost smiled. I didn’t even get to give him a hug. He disappeared just like that, and I was left with the tingling aftermath of a good deed.
Hey, I can charge my spell off that.
Doing a good thing should have been its own reward, but as long as I was enjoying it, I was of course getting bonus accolades. It didn’t defeat the point of doing good, but if other people knew that I was charging my friggin’ magic off of it they might think me a selfish people-pleaser, and that would be bad because wow, just thinking about that was making me nervous. Nervousness meant fear, and fear meant…
[Spell charged - 92% Joy, 8% Fear]
… that my spell was going to get muddied by unwanted emotions, especially fear, since I was so dang good at channeling that all the time. Great. This was probably what the system meant when it said that I wasn’t trained in the ways of the Custodian.
Magical girling all day was exhausting on an emotional level. And it was barely noon.
But no, cheer up Sam. The day was just getting started.
I got up from where I was leaning against the counter with a sigh and spotted a gnome carrying a guinea pig in a tiny gnome-sized child-carrier.
The guinea pig looked at me. I looked at the gnome. The gnome looked at the guinea pig, then back at me.
“You!” I said, pointing at him with three separate hands. “Put that down. Now.”
The gnome hesitated. He was already one foot out the door.
He chose to run.
“Goddammit!” Stopping thieves and looters was definitely the kind of task any self-respecting magical girl couldn’t ignore. I ran after him as he bolted across the asphalt and down the street.
He was fast. Damn fast. Like, too fast to be physically possible given his stubby gnome build. But I had longer legs, bigger strides; I was faster.
So he ducked behind a potted plant and began weaving through well-kept backyards, slipping through holes in the fences and juking from left to right like a frightened hare.
“Why are you doing this?” I cried. “Guinea pigs aren’t useful for anything but being pets. Unless we’re talking south america where—” I gasped in shock. “Are you going to eat it?”
The gnome picked up his pace.
I activated [Arms & Arms proficiency], feeling a shiver run through me that didn’t quite stop as I set four arms atop a gate and hefted myself over it. With four arms I vaulted too hard, practically launching myself up and over, catching myself on all six limbs with a bit of a stumble.
Spider-parkour powers unlocked! Now get. That. Gnome.
We were well past the first few houses when finally, finally, he tripped up. I cornered him, a wooden wall six feet tall on one side, the ancient brick and stone of a Victorian-era house on the other. We were both panting heavily. The guinea pig seemed alright, if a bit in shock.
“Gotcha.” I grinned.
Another gnome popped out of a drainage pipe right next to him, a pipe that was maybe wide enough to fit a hamster, not a one-foot gnome, nor his stupid little hat.
Another one squeezed his way out from under a shut window.
“What.”
I turned around. The entire garden was full of gnomes. There were dozens, way more than the horde that had visited my home. And I was entirely out of snacks.
“... I come in peace?”
They grabbed onto my sneakers and hauled me into the in-between world of cracks and crevices.
+++
Traveling through a wall was how you imagined it was like, but also not at all. I felt the wood part around my face as I was tugged along the inside of where a beam met the wall. The crack in the ceiling was a highway that allowed for a shortcut straight through the room and into the electrical outlet. From there, the world opened up immensely. I saw rooms, so many rooms, as well as gnome-sized cutouts of the real world, some familiar, some alien.
We passed a grove of bonzai oaks and willows, a garden bursting with pumpkins and yams, a village filled with tiny houses somehow arranged exactly the way Creektin was, a beach complete with a smoothie bar, a zen-cave, a buddhist temple at the top of a snow-topped peak (it was thirty feet tall), and a room filled with beans.
It was a bit freaking much. Since I was busy screaming, I decided now was not a good time to refill my spell’s reserves of joy.
What would happen if the gnomes decided to let me go? Would I pop back into reality like a video game character as reality realized that two things shouldn't be able to occupy the same space? Or would I turn into a Spider-Sam pancake, crushed in between wood and a hard place?
Suddenly, the journey ended, and I was spat out of an electrical socket, rolling in a pile of limbs until my back hit a slanted roof.
Everything was spinning. There were gnomes gathered about, but it was hard to concentrate on any one of them. I was in an attic and it smelled of old musty things, of wood and dirt, and of blood.
Blood. Danger.
I whipped up to my feet, Toothpick in hand. There was no sign of anyone eating guinea pigs here, nor any sign that this was the gnomes’ secret abattoir. It looked like a remarkably normal attic, old human-sized furniture stacked on cardboard boxes filled with old memorabilia and unused electric appliances.
There, at the far end of the room, the gnomes were clustered around one of their own. The little guy was lying against the wall, breathing and sweating heavily. His right hand was drenched in rainbow-colored blood where he was pressing it against his torso. He was injured.
Old man Morgan’s body flashed in front of my inner eye as I approached.
“Did the mimics get to you, lil’ guy? Are you in pain? Where? Any other wounds?”
He shook his head with some effort. The tip of his red pointy hat was bent at an angle. I watched him grimace as I slowly lifted his hand up to inspect the wound. It was a stab, deep and deadly, likely reaching organs. The kind of stuff that would leave a flesh wound on someone like me could easily kill this little guy. Every one of the smallest mimics to them must have been like the huge one that killed me earlier today.
One stab, and the little guy was now scheduled to die within the hour.
“Lets not think about worst cases,” I muttered, the rough treatment of getting me here all but forgotten. Me-to-gnome communication wasn’t straightforward, so they’d resorted to a more direct method. So what if they practically abducted me? They just wanted help. “You want help. My help?”
The gnomes nodded. The guy needed a doctor and instead he got me — a failed medical student, a failing magical girl, a failed friend.
Stop just standing there dammit. Do something!
I opened the shop. There were as many options for treating wounds as there were for causing them. Mundane bandages and gauze were there, but that wouldn’t be enough. I needed something magical or something highly advanced, something that would work.
[Pain Killas: Kills the pain, all the pain, everywhere, all at once. Still feel something? That means we didn’t kill it good enough. Money back guarantee! *Works on all biological creatures, injectors sold separately. Price: 7 Soulcoins]
No.
[Fleshbound piercing: Bind the bodies of up to seven creatures together and let them share wounds taken afterwards. The wound severity is divided up between all participants. May slowly poison biologicals with lead. Price: 550 Soulcoins/pair]
No.
[Ricin rice: He who eats poison tempers his body—]
No. Empathetically no. What the hell is up with this shop; do they just let literally anyone sell anything?
I blinked at the screen.
If it does, can I just type in something hyper specific and bet that something out there fits the bill to a T?
Turns out, it was just that easy.
[Ellie Clockmistress presents: The TIME BANDAID. Locks the injuries beneath the bandaid in time, preventing them from aggravating, preventing blood loss, and dulling pain. Blood continues to flow as if the wound wasn’t there, but restrictions from injuries persist, paralyzing nearby tissue. The wound DOES NOT HEAL while the bandage is in place. Seeking a licensed medical professional is recommended before it peels off. Price: 30 Soulcoins]
They were these big patches that had various famous cartoon and anime characters plastered onto them. There was no way this wasn’t an infraction against copyright law, but then again, maybe a company like Disney couldn’t smite them with the power of lawyers and fuck-you money because they didn’t know this secret society shop even existed.
And cripes that was expensive. I only had sixteen soulcoins to my name. But there was an option to chat with the owner, who was also the main supplier and producer if I read this right.
I opened a chat window and after a moment struggling to type with my eyes, I used the voice-transcription instead.
“Hello, sorry, I need a bandage asap.”
The answer came back almost immediately.
<
<
<
Great start. The person selling bandages was perfectly willing to gouge people who were probably bleeding out right that moment.
“I need a single bandage, only one, gnome sized, about three inches in diameter.” But that of course wasn’t enough to convince them.“You do rush jobs? Private commissions?”
<
>
<
[Soulcoins: 16]
I bit my lip. It was the best I could do. Hopefully the little guy would pull through.
“Ten minutes. Not a second later.” I turned to the gnome, who had a look on his face like he knew that this was the end. Another gnome had arrived with a little bible (or some other book of comfort) and was babbling sweet nothing to comfort the dying gnome.
“Sorry,” I said, nearly shoving him aside. “Sorry, apologies. Let me try something.”
I made a quick pressure-bandage out of one of my sleeve-gloves and a spent piddle-pistol magazine.
“Keep the pressure up, like that. Nice and easy.”
What followed were the longest ten minutes in my entire life. The shaking in my arms only got worse as my spell wore off. God, I was nervous. Here was a chance to finally save someone who wasn’t already a ghost. I couldn’t fuck this up. Please, god, let it be enough.
The bandage arrived three seconds early and I immediately got to applying it.
The gnome, bless his brave little heart, grimaced for a second. Then his eyes fluttered open, wide awake. He stood up, twisting his body left and right. He did a little hop, and by then the other gnomes realized that he was out of mortal danger.
“Wuppi!” they cried in unison.
“Hell yeah! Wuppi!” I cried back as the gnomes ran up to hug me, cuddle my leg, and overall do adorable little magical creature stuff.
It was nice. Pleasant, even.
I had about ten seconds to celebrate when suddenly the attic hatch opened up and all the gnomes froze. A sleepy-eyed, frazzled-looking girl stared up at me from in between her blonde curls.
“Sam? What the heck are you doing in my attic?”
It was Clem. My bestie. And her presence just made everything ten times more complicated.
Because her house was full of gnomes, and she did not look one bit surprised.