Omar looked at Jimothy War Magerson III with a shock and a scowl, and then he looked down to the corpse by his feet, and he did a double take.
"Oh, holy fucking shit, I know this guy. He's a member of the Order!" said Omar with his jaw so wide that a thousand gnats would've flown into it, if he hadn't already slaughtered them all with his flaming arm of power.
Glathalia walked over to glance at the body, and bent and snapped over to look at it. "By the gods, you're right."
It was Hauff, the tall, lanky hot dog stand owner who also happened to be good friends with the Mayor and Omar. There he laid, but a corpse on the floor of the inner sanctum of the Order of Ahw Gizer's local Gifflenberg chapter. The living wood on his face looked rotted and decayed, and the glow of his eyes had completely faded away. It was a chilling thing to behold, that was for certain.
"Hauff, buddy," Omar sounded close to tears as he knelt beside his fallen friend. He started to sob as he deactivated his flaming arm and cradled Hauff's body. "You can't be dead! This can't be! We had so many plans! So many stogies unsmoked, Hauff, so many stogies! So many stogies you were going to give me for free! And there were so many seminefarious schemes reminiscent of cronyism we had talked about concocting! And now you're dead. Gods, oh gods, why? How the hell could you do this to me?"
Gottfried the undead skeleton walked over to Omar and patted him on the shoulder with a skeletal sigh that rattled his bones like a xylophone. "Oh, mar. What a sad situation this is, old chap. What say I cheer us up with a fresh pot of tea?"
Omar looked up to the skeleton with a glowering glare and sniffed up a teary bead of snot up into the living wood covering his olfactory system. "Wh-what?"
"How's about we have us some tea, my good lad?"
"What the fuck is this undead skeleton babbling about?" Omar turned to Glathalia with frustration, working diligently not to admire her figure in the process. "Seriously, tea? I don't see any fucking tea, and even if I did, why in the fuck would I want tea right now? Hauff hated tea! He said it made people pleasant. Hauff hated pleasantries! Hauff was a tauman's tauman, I tell you, damnit!" Omar broke out in sobs again.
"Did he not know about the break room behind the statue of Theseosus?" Gottfried asked Glathalia. She only shrugged in response. "There's an excellent selection of breakfast teas... chais... all very pleasant, I must say..."
It was in this awkward semi-silence that Jimothy War Magerson III decided to inject himself uncomfortably into the conversation by clearing his throat a few times, which resulted in a number of belabored glares. Once this attention was established, Mothy went on the explain to everyone present and willing to listen his plight, his frustration with the loss of his father, and his hatred of the insurgent.
"Insurgent, you say?" Omar asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes, yes, insurgent! She humiliated my father by failing to be killed by him! And he's the greatest war mage in the last five centuries!" replied Mothy with vitrol in his voice. He rubbed his right eye, which was notably larger than his left, and constantly leaked with pus. "Ugh, sorry about this, but does anyone have a moist towellette?"
Glathalia whipped one out from the underside of her left stiletto and walked over to Mothy. "You can keep it."
He took the towellette and wiped off his disgusting eye with a humble whisper of thanks. Then, he continued on with his blabbering.
"My father seemed convinced that the insurgent was dead, but honestly, I doubt it. Anyone who didn't immediately die on impact of an attack from my father has to be harder to kill than a mountain, for whatever reason. I'm not exaggerating, either, I've literally seen him level mountains. Regardless, she committed that most vile of crimes - grand theft canoe! Is this ringing anyone's bells? Do you understand the economic effect of thievery on a macro scale, especially something like canoes that can me used to transport between regions? Canoes without paperwork? Hell, the insurgent could be anywhere stealing anything from anyone! Thieves cannot be tolerated, they must be stopped, they must be crushed! What will happen to Gifflenberg if we allow people to steal canoes? What will they steal next? Horse and buggies? Homes? People's identities? I know it sounds absurd, identity theft - how would that even work, right - but I must tell you all here today, canoe thievery is a slippery slope! One minute, an insurgent is stealing a canoe and escaping from authorities, the next day, everyone is getting their faces ripped off in the night and sold to the highest bidder! And sure, you might say that this example is heinous - and normally, I'd be inclined to agree with you. However, think for a moment about what all has befallen Gifflenberg at this moment in time. I have seen a meteor destroy our city. I have seen buildings, leveled, out of nowhere! And I don't mean their levels increasing, of course, I mean buildings brought to the ground by unseen forces! I have seen skeletal beasts-" he cleared his throat and whispered a quiet apology to Gottfried, mentioning that not all undead skeletal creatures were beasts, "-and I have seen, and you will find this exceptionally hard to believe, but I have seen what appears to be people infected with Curr itself. The very thing that has been at bay for the better part of five centuries, back and ready to destroy us. Now, are we in for a second Currdling? I know not the answer to that, for I am no scientist, but what I do know is what I saw. And I saw a man, his face disappearing bit by bit, instant by instant, the living wood on his face crackling away into nothing but thoughts... And what were those thoughts? Equations, proofs, mathematical theorems and strategems! I say, by the gods, this insurgent must be stopped!"
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Glathalia gasped. Omar sighed. Glathalia gasped at Omar.
"Why do you look so... Unsurprised, Omar?" asked Glathalia with suspicion.
"Well... I guess I'll tell you all what I know," said Omar as he cracked his neck and stood up, leaving Hauff's corpse there lying on the cold, marble sanctum floor.
"What you know? Omar, what in the flying fuck is going on?!" said Galthalia with vitriol. "First you march in here, consumer in tow, with a stranger by your side. I can't even begin to get in to the number of Order policies you have trampled over and spit on with your absurd behavior, but know that I am aware of your insolence, and I truly don't appreciate it. Next, this... This young son of a war mage comes in here, talking about doomsdays of all differing degrees, and you all but stand up ready to corroborate his findings? What in the hell have you been up to in the past three days? What are you even doing with yourself? Last I knew, all you did was smoke cigars and use your flaming arm to burn duplicates of historical documents!"
Omar smiled uncomfortably. He had to remind himself that Glathalia couldn't read minds, and that she didn't have any real idea of Kahli's doomsday scroll, or of the fact that he'd activated it by incineration. He'd have to, despite his inclinations, play it cool. Plus, he had plenty of other interesting things to tell her about. "Yes, well, the whole bit with the Curr is definitely true."
Glathalia spat out her mug of tea. "You've got to be shitting me."
Omar just chuckled. "Wow, Glathalia, you're starting to talk like me or something. But, heh, yes. Curr is back, but it's... different. the way we currently understand it, is that it's a permutation of what already exists - that is to say, it's New Curr. It's Curr, but it interacts with a different aspect of dimensionality, it permutates on some other axis, and it uses that to infect people innoculated against regular Curr. In essence, it somehow distills the living that has been converted to impenetrable by Curr and identifies that innoculated living aura as something to be consumed and... mathematicized."
Glathalia gasped.
"Now, where this came from, I cannot be entirely certain," said Omar. "However, I have a very strong educated guess." He weighed his options in his head. Or, he tried to, but then, they showed up.
They were the miniature angel and demon that perched on either side of Omar's shoulders whenever he had trouble making a big decision. He'd gotten them as a result of one of his [skills], a [skill] called [Moral Compass] that he was always debating disabling. One positive thing was that he was the only one who could see or hear these characters of his moral compass. This was also a negative, as if he responded to them verbally, he'd seem like a crazy person.
The angel was always on his left shoulder, and was a miniature version of Omar wearing a white, frilly nightgown with flowers embroidered all over it. The demon was always on his right shoulder, and was a miniature version of Omar wearing nothing at all, which was demonic in its own right, but along with that the little cretin had a sizeable pair of horns, bat wings, and a forked tail.
Presently, the angel and demon were bickering with each other about what all Omar should divulge. The focal point of the argument was the fact that, unwittingly or not, divulging that Omar knew the source of the New Curr would also partially risk divulging the fact that it was partially his fault. After a good deal of squabbling, his dueling perspectives came to agreeance that Omar ought to lie and make up some other reason for New Curr coming into existence.
"See, what I think it is, is that there are witches, demon worshippers, somewhere in this fucking city," said Omar, hopeful that swearing a little bit would make it seem like he was being honest. "And I bet you, they are the ones that are also summoning all the skeletal beasts popping up around everywhere."
Everyone seemed to agree that Omar's point made perfect sense, regardless of the fact that he'd pulled it entirely out of his ass. They quickly began to make plans to organize a witch hunt, only for Omar to stop them.
"Now, one moment," said Omar. "We never decided what to do with my buddy's body!" He gestured to Hauff's corpse, lying there on the floor.
"Ah, yes, that," said Glathalia. "Well, I figured that you could use it as bait for the Consumer that you've unwittingly taught Order secrets to. I'm sure Hauff was quite overpowered, was he not? He definitely seemed like it when I initiated him into the Order." She smiled with her hands on her hips. She seemed to be thinking about something a little different than normal initiation rituals. "Once you've caught him, you and your undead skeleton friend can bring him back here for examination. Remember, this is a rare opportunity for the Order to learn something thart F.I.S.T. knows, but we don't. It is of vital importance. Also, remember that I outrank you, and disobeying me is futile."
"B-but," Omar stammered, "How the fuck am I supposed to fight the Consumer? It'll freeze me and eat me! Plus, what about the witches, Galthalia?"
"I'll work with Jimothy here to look into this witchery," she said with a grin. "Meanwhile, you can take this. It's my necklace of resistance to paralysis [skills]. It should protect you." Glathalia tossed Omar a slender [enchanted] necklace made of pure silver, with a glimmering emerald pendant.
Omar equipped the necklace and sighed. "This thing is a little garish, but it'll have to do."
"Stop complaining and get to it, Omar," said Glathalia. "That Consumer moves quickly. If you aren't careful, he'll have absorbed half the downtown before you've left the room."
Omar rolled his eyes. "Fuck off, Glathalia."
She only smiled and shook her head at Omar. "Fuck on, Omar. Fuck on and go catch the Order a Consumer. Or, optionally, I'll decaptitate you have your head stuck on a pike. The decision is yours."