Smoke Without Fire - SCP Foundation

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The wizard is a creature born of power. The magus has seeped long in it. The sorcerer, the witch, the conjurer, the shaman, the diviner, these cannot be revered without falling prey to a misconception most fundamental. It is not the role of weapons to wield themselves! 'But,' come misguided protests, 'these sages study in their towers for the benefit of humanity. To reduce them thus is a transgression against our patrons.'

Indeed, knowledge representing power is as banal an observation as any. But consider that which knowledge imbues. Does a sword not contain the smith's expertise? Does a cannon not represent untold hours of research? If so, what is a wizard if not the culmination of similar refinement? 'But,' come delusions again, 'we cannot forget how many sages live free from worldly considerations. They are bereft malice.'

This notion is false. This figure is false. I tell you now, there are no magi who harbor only innocent knowledge; these are seedbed minds, so fertile that weeds cannot help but sprout, and within that thicket lurks poison. Trust no protestations and harbor no sympathy for those who imperil their own freedoms. Pity not the wizard.

—Introduction to a notable Tellechian screed

Mealworm grabbed for TAPEWORM TANGIBLE before her feet left the ground. Although Mt. Perfidy continued groaning, noisier than ever for all its injuries, the soft tink of sword leaving scabbard buffeted her far worse. A disc of static rushed out—tracing thought-made paths before filtering into the black, throbbing mass that pawed within ribs. Whatever held her collar dissolved after first contact. Jamming the hilt back down, she managed to land upright before another blast of near-solid smog swept her over.

tink

Static pierced through this time, thin needles seeking whichever source hid behind a solidifying wall whose texture and patterns were ever-shifting as it swirled around her. Of those dozen, only the last couple earned a grunt from her assailant. Smog sputtered, faltering in its cohesion enough to permit torchlight's passage, and Mealworm sprinted for the thinnest spot despite a renewed throbbing asynchronous to her heartbeat. The ventilator beeped warnings as filters clogged and machinery corroded. Still, she burst out the other side, coming face-to-face with a rotund wizard who looked only mildly more presentable than he had at their last meeting.

tink

Gregor the Sonorous' off-white beard flowed in tendrils as smog swept Mealworm aside again. Sharp golden teeth clacked against each other before destructive noise whipped past, disturbing the floppy hat perched atop a head full of dangerous secrets; its brim continued fluttering in the artificial wind that now swirled throughout the half-crumbled chamber. She rolled hard, bouncing off a protruding pipe that leaked thick gray droplets. Such was his composure while conjuring projectiles from stray particulates that even lighting a noxious cigar didn't seem out of place. Between cutting the tip with those teeth and lighting it through their innate magic, nothing seemed to trouble the magus as soot-made stones pelted Mealworm's curled form.

tink

The deeper her draw, the more that mass purred. Kneading heart, nuzzling lungs, it expressed palpable glee as she nearly wrenched TAPEWORM TANGIBLE clear from its scabbard. This world lacked the underlying principles necessary to depict that blade—field theories misaligned, fundamental forces maladjusted—or perhaps none could express such facets while remaining comprehensible. Nevertheless, it was by her hand that a bulb of disruption bloomed into the chamber, washing outwards in pursuit of bound smog, and within her chest were its effects felt keenest. Even as stone dripped in droplets thicker than every pipe's output. Even when Gregor looked down at the tips of his fingers, where spellcraft had not staved off affliction.

"Bah, what an unkind welcome after I bestowed that key upon you." Another formless word set runes in his incisors aglow and drove flesh over exposed bone. From the scowl expressed mainly across eyebrows, it eased no pain, especially when fresh fingernails fell away of their own accord. "Fret not, little Mealworm, Gregor the Sonorous has not arrived to claim your head this eve."

She crawled to her feet as he puffed away without concern for the smog that increasingly suffused their surroundings. Gregor never expressed much worry on battlefields or in grottos, not even about matters that would drive most to fret about their future. As required for one whose loyalties flitted like moths around whatever flame burned brightest. No matter if any given player faltered or institution collapsed. Despite his ever-worsening reputation, there were always more plots, plans, and schemes requiring a conspirator of historic stature.

"I thought you agreed with me!" she said over beeping filters, each pulse more urgent than the last.

"Your goal, most certainly. I've long dreamed of seeing these upstarts flail where only proper magi can stride. But the means…" His slow exhalation spiraled upward to form a crown that rotated in place. "Her Majesty is more perceptive than you imagine. She's also royally disquieted—fucking outraged, rather—that one of her keys is in foreign hands."

"Why did you tell her who has it then? More importantly, why did you tell her it's missing!?"

"Better leverage. Promises whereby I might reclaim my seat in the Organ Towers from the wastrel currently polluting it, and where conquest will prove who understood correctly once and for all."

"The Founda–"

"Your foundation is unnecessary if every gap remains closed to outside interference." He gestured languidly with the cigar, its tip glowing bright as trace smog was pushed away from them, approximating the walls of a study in dark hues. What might have been bookshelves and display cabinets wavered, haziest where the gap's phosphorescent glow threatened to break through. "We retained much from those years before the Banner Burning, at least speaking in terms of knowledge and technology, with preparations already made for their use. I admired your plan to force cowardly hands into motion, but Her Majesty has shown me how she will accomplish the same."

Her hand fell to TAPEWORM TANGIBLE's pommel again, but even letting it rest there sent that mass writhing inside. Eager. Elated. To grow so much was surely thrilling, but she shifted the sword back instead. Pulling the mask off her face after the filters finally died offered a much needed reprieve as Gregor conjured a textured map of the continent—six seaside states bordering the ever-lush, ever-precious interior that none had been able to carve away at for several centuries.

"Might say your queen isn't necessary either," said Mealworm as she scratched her scalp through short, scruffy hair. "I'll hear out this plan if it's really that great though. Better than killing each other over nothing."

"Hoh. Have my plans ever failed to achieve what is promised? You forget who once advised her loyal generals."

"Only after you realized her disloyal generals were even less competent. Spare me the act of respecting anyone but yourself."

"Careful now, little Mealworm," he rumbled, though a grin surely lurked behind that wild beard. "Look here. Her Majesty has already moved three battalions into Cherinmark proper despite the pretender kings' petulant whining."

"Even more whoresons?"

"As you know full well. But this is no simple race to secure towns or terrain out from under them. The land rejects such maneuvers." Pieces moved across the immaterial board as Gregor spoke, their banners streaking over fertile grassland whose inundation consumed tires and treads, past shifting cities whose populations arranged themselves antithetical to royal thought, and without care for what resource-rich nodes the Foundation most desired. From there, larger detachments split, and split, and split again until their number was fully subsumed by Cherinmark's drizzle.

Mealworm switched to scratching her neck while considering that proposition. Allaingian battalions, divided so many times in so many directions… She had never been fully informed of any Foundation plans—cogs only needing to prove their interplay—but every document she retrieved from locked cabinets suggested that far larger forces were needed to hold territory there. Even the less honorable tactics she taught could only be effective for so long, causing only so much angst before being stomped out by aggravated boots.

"You aren't even planning to fight," she said as nails scraped through not only soot, but layers of skin beneath.

"Not in Cherinmark. The damned place has supped on too many lives already."

"But if other armies race ahead of their effective command chains to stop entrenchment… Bad ISR within the denial zone, bad weather in general, not to mention worries about silos and a peerless blade on the loose. Plenty of fighting could start that way."

"Bah, you speak as if they do not crave bloodshed already. I conjured this plan before those wretched tealboxes begin whispering, but even they agree that combat is certain within a week." Small puffs of smoke emerged across the map, accompanied by gunfire far beyond Gregor's portable abode. Galowyn and the rest must be retreating without her. As they should under those circumstances, but perhaps not as was best for her health.

"It won't last. Not once they realize Allaingar isn't there in earnest."

"It needn't last. As Tellech sends reinforcements along this route here–"

A hand of smoke emerged from the floating map as Mealworm leaned forward to see where Gregor indicated. It grabbed the key that dangled from her neck, yanking it hard enough to break the chain before racing back across the cloud. She grabbed for it instinctively, nearly toppling, but managed to leap back before cigar smoke could engulf her body. Its reagent had burned to little more than a nub between rough fingers by then; her own were no smoother as they found TAPEWORM TANGIBLE's hilt, driven by equal parts desperation and instinct as it cleared the scabbard in full.

"Oh, harvester mine!" she shouted as vapor closed on every side. The blade in hand was much like its outpouring—flickering and indistinct, compressed but decompressing. Small tendrils discharged along its length, only to arc back under some internal gravity like fish returning to waves. None mattered much to Mealworm. Not even the swelling against her ribcage weighed heavily compared to the prospect of falling short after a fresh round of sacrifices. Embodying that disparity, she swung hard toward Gregor.

What exploded into the world could barely be called static by then. Blinding, deafening, destructive beyond any measurement, its totality was an intrusion that could not be suppressed by natural means, only endured. A screaming cloud wreathed the room, claws tearing at anything and everything within reach. Stone. Metal. Flesh. Even before it withdrew, all dripped together into a slurry that refused separation. With time, it might well seep into the lowest reaches of Mt. Perfidy, coalescing around the base of a coffin that expanded and contracted with each of its inhabitant's rasps.

"Enough!" boomed Gregor as the static finally cleared. Barely twenty feet separated them, but it seemed a mile as wisps of flame curled from his gilded maw. With hat lost and robes tattered, he certainly seemed a dragon awakened in full.

Mealworm pivoted away from the following burst of flame. Continuing the motion, she released TAPEWORM TANGIBLE from stiff fingers, casting it toward him in a spell available only to those most desperate. A poor throw for that poor projectile. Nonetheless, even weasels wouldn't foresee the ploy when raised in a society that idolized duels defined by their own inherent rituals. She sprinted after it, and, when Gregor's mind had finally processed enough to brush the sword aside with more smoke, her feet were already flying at his chest. Half of Alpha-85 would have sold their souls to dropkick a wizard.

Gregor fell backwards as she landed on a piece of cold iron. Although much had lost coherency around them, that much was firm, two solid teeth digging into her diaphragm. There was barely enough time to shove it into an interior pocket before bowling over the wizard again, knocking away a fresh cigar that neared ignition. "Yeah, I'm thinking this might be enough too. Let's see how legendary the Hero of Mt. Daendil really is." She raised a fist, dead set on knocking several gilded teeth out. A ray of frost streaked by her cheek instead—such was its intensity that molars ached without contact, brain freeze setting in fast.

She retreated two paces to find the responsible finger trained straight at her torso. One might have expected it to tremble under those circumstances. A man nearing eighty could hardly be blamed, especially as the edge between victory and defeat sharpened fast. It stayed steady across heaving breaths though. Gregor looked more alive than ever, the haze of intoxicants and self-pity siphoned away by instincts yet smoldering. Perhaps there was more to these heroes than she let herself believe.

"I truly do not seek your pelt." His eyes darted from her, to where TAPEWORM TANGIBLE was stuck upright in a puddle of once-stone, to where the key had initially fallen. "Return my gift and this matter will be put aside. Her Majesty cares little for which mortals scurry in Cherinmark during wartime."

"Is promising to return your tower really all it takes? She's the one who let you toil in the sewers for years while civilians took your post! Our leadership might offer two or three extra if you let me drag them back. They'll see the light again, I know it."

"And yet they have never been needed less! Your weapons, your insufferable advice, neither have done aught but made warriors weak and leaders hesitant! If Her Majesty is willing to undo those bindings without stimulus anew, all the better. Be content that trade will be reestablished after our hegemony is secure."

"Your hegemony isn't really what I worked for." There was ever more worth saying as the distance between them stayed static. Ever more considerations required beneath that gash's phosphorescence too. How to dodge, how to close… how to accomplish either against an arsenal of uncertain potency after its years of disuse.

A few armed acolytes separated their standoff with bullets before any such considerations bore fruit. Crimson robes fluttered in the wind Gregor summoned, smog sweeping him up to a gap in the natural ceiling as he cast a few more rays. Their aim drove Mealworm further away from the gap, with only enough leeway to grab her sword and sheathe it anew. Being flightless, it seemed all too likely she would fall first—riddled with bullets or overwhelmed by blade-borne tumors. Not being able to restore meaning to Alpha-85's sacrifice was regrettable, but nobody could say she hadn't tried. Well, nobody should. Some would surely insist on it during their next lives.

With no better alternatives, she sucked in a final, polluted breath and dived into a puddle of liquefied stone that hopefully ran deep.

The mealworm who emerged days later from one of Mt. Perfidy's few outflow pipes was ragged indeed. Wheezing and waterlogged, she stumbled down a ditch hewn by centuries of erosion, clutching two magic artifacts instead of the modern weaponry she so fervently admired. It had been too clever a plan by too eager a plotter. Or perhaps too complex a scheme for paupers to manage. Regardless, she could do naught but limp away while pondering other gaps and other bait, all the while massaging a sternum that strained under internal pressure.

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