Chapter 56: 21.3

Astrid the minotaur led the band through the city until they came across an old rusty iron door at the back of a deserted alley. After some difficulty opening it, in which Fey had needed to lend her unusual strength, they had forced it free and descended into the dark damp gloomy sewers of the city far away from any natural sunlight. 

Ellaria gestured and a dozen flames spluttered to life floating around the band. Astrid and Vivi eyed them nervously. Deeper, then deeper they walked, the slimy greasy walls and path along a river of suspiciously tinted water the only feature of the splitting tunnels they trod.

A rat ran shrieking as Vivi passed by. She wrinkled her nose and nearly gagged. “Oh gods why does this place smell so terrible?”

“It’s a sewer Vivi, and I’m still mad at you. Don't forget your punishment is inevitable.”

Vivi took a step away from Ellaria out of instinctive caution.

“It’s awful down here,” said Flora. “My poor sense of smell, I’m suffering!”

Vivi shot her an annoyed glance. “You don't have a sense of smell anywhere near as good as mine! and you float! You don't even need to touch anything! Whereas I have to walk on the ground, where there's been- all over the- oh I don't even want to think about it.”

“Well it's your choice not to wear shoes foxy. And shorts apparently.”

“Wummy did that, I’m not wearing shorts by choice… W-wait Wummy!”

The fox girl's pregnant looking stomach suddenly writhed as though tentacles were shifting below the surface. She bit her lip and shuddered, her thighs clenching together.

“What’s wrong? What is it?”

“It- It’s something is disturbing it! I think s-something is coming!”

“A monster?” said Astrid. She shrugged her shoulders and unholstered a broad-bladed hand axe from her side. 

“She’s right, I can hear movement,” said Ellaria, her flames flaring brighter.

The band readied themselves, staring at the nearest tunnel corner, just waiting for the coming attack.

A ball rolled around the corner. A shiny blue ball.

The band stared.

“Oh, it’s just a slime.” 

Ellaria flicked her fingers and a normal regular fireball struck the slime and it ignited. The slime made a squeaking noise before it promptly popped and died, a splatter of slimeyness pattering across the stonework.

“Yawn.” said Flora. “Truly you chose the most challenging of jobs El.”

“It pays well, if it's a good paying job then it doesn’t matter how easy it is.”

“Mhhmm,'' said the gnome drifting past with her hands behind her head, bouncing one leg over a knee. The band followed after.

Fey glanced to the side, watching Vivi. The fox girl was still having trouble and as she passed by the patch of blue that had been the slime monster a tentacle slipped from her pussy, quickly dropping down and rolling all over the blue on the floor. To Fey's surprise the blue was quickly slurped up and absorbed by the tentacle, sucking up the fluid and drinking it.

“Uhm, is Wummy a c-cannibal?”

“I think it's just very territorial,” groaned Vivi as the tentacle slipped back up inside of her.

As the band continued onward the number of slimes increased until they were crossing groups of half a dozen, then a dozen, then more, until all the band had to break out and start crushing them individually. This hardly proved a challenge and the slimes died in droves. Fey even felt a little bad as she brought a hoof down like a black smith’s hammer cracking the stone so hard that sparks flew and causing the slime beneath to explode in a splash of blue.

The one least happy about the slime slaughter was Vivi whose passenger seemed intent on sucking up the remains of every single slime they killed, often with many tentacles at the same time. The result being Vivi stumbling along as a half dozen tentacles reached toward the ground from her bare to the air pussy, dragging and touching along the stone slurping everything up as she walked.

As the number of slimes increased the architecture started to change, changing from simple stone work to more complex brick work and arches, and to the band’s relief so did the smell, changing from the mixed miasma of so many species faeces to a clean almost damp mouldy smell.

They eventually emerged from a tunnel Astrid had led them through and out into a huge dark space that seemed to have no end. Ellaria waved her hands and the floating flames around her rose up and bloomed into minor fireballs casting far more light.

The space was revealed to them, or partly at least, a vast chamber several stories tall and filled with many grand pillars marching away into the darkness. It was truly huge, enough space to fit the entire town they originally come from several times over.

“This is a sewer?!” said Fey looking around at the space in amazement.

“Not quite,” said Astrid, “It’s for flooding, it stops the city from turning into a quagmire in the rainy season, a reservoir, all the water that might normally cause a flood instead flows into here. It was built a long time ago and most people don't know it exists, it’s not of much interest so people don't hear of it.”

“Interesting,” said Ellaria tapping her chin. “I suppose that if more people knew of this they would take on this slime job. The most off-putting part of the job is fighting in these sewers but this flood reservoir thing is hardly a sewer, it’s practically clean in here.”

Flora drifted up into the gloom overhead, the arched spaces between the pillars giving the space an almost cathedral like presence that suggested its occupants be respectful. 

Flora opened her mouth and shouted into the darkness. “COME AND GET SOME!”

Her voice echoed away and then came back, bouncing over and over into the endless empty space.

“I don't think slimes understand speech Flora…” said Fey.

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“Hey my slime baby seems to, so maybe others do too yeah? Plus if it works it saves us wandering around in the dark for hours on end.”

A slime rolled from the darkness. 

“See, it's already working!”

Then a dozen more slime rolled forth.

“Rather well, surprisingly, although I suspect they were more attracted to the annoying noise than any understanding of what you said.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, it gets the job done so I don't care,”

The band went to work and the slimes just kept on coming, an endless tide of slimes that poured from the darkness. As they fought some of the slimes that wobbled and slimed their way forward were larger than their kin, one foot across was the norm but these were two or three or even four foot across, these larger slimes started causing significant problems as they couldn't easily be smashed underfoot or cut apart.

Astrid’s axe swung through the air in an arc and cracked against the stone below as it parted the murky green slime it had just passed through down the middle. The slime seemed to freeze up out of shock, then it slowly oozed back together, the chasm through its body the axe had created simply healing and sealing closed.

Astrid looked down in alarm as the slime monster latched onto her hand from where it engulfed her axe and began slurping up along her arm, quickly gaining ground.

“H-hey, I might need a little help here!”

“I thought you were supposed to be experienced with this stuff!”

They usually don't get so big! I’m not sure what's happening!”

She tried shaking her arm but the slime was firmly attached. She tried pushing at it with her free hand but to her dismay found her other arm sinking into the gel-like mass as well. It was nearing her shoulders, and seemed determined to get at her mouth and more importantly its sustenance, her saliva and fluids, despite her strength and frantic movement. 

Something touched at her shoulder and she turned her head to find a glossy white tentacle beside her, looking down at the large slime monster making its way up her arms. 

“N-not help from that thiiiinnng!”

But it was too late and the white tentacle dived down and stabbed inside the murky green slime monster, its tentacle piercing its surface. The slime immediately reacted, thrashing desperately, and trying to flee, but to no avail, the tentacle wiggled around and the slime quickly began to be sucked up and absorbed, the tentacle draining its mass into itself, shrinking the green slime down as its insides whirlpooled around the tentacles surface.

Soon the slime was gone and Astrid shuddered as the tentacle explored her arms, sucking up the last of the green slime’s remains.

She turned her head to see that the vulpine’s slime monster hadn't even been fully concentrating on the one attacking her and had been simultaneously attacking and absorbing slime monsters or their fluid remains.

“...What is with this band?”

She was stopped from further pondering however by a scream. With a whip crack sound the gnome flew past out of the darkness as though hit with a bat, her arc of motion near straight she was travelling so fast. She hit the ground hard and went rolling. 

“Flora!” shouted Fey galloping toward the fallen gnome.

“What was that? What’s happening?” said Lily, the otterkin standing by her invisible sister protectively.

“I don't know, but it seemed to have attacked from the ceiling judging by her angle of fall…”

Fey came to a stop by the gnome, her hooves sliding slightly on the damp stone. She slapped a hand down and a wash of green flooded the gnome quickly healing her fractured bones.

Flora slowly sat up and looked over her body. 

“Oh my gods I’m covered in sewer grossness!”

“Uhm, I think it's just damp moss here flora”

“Sewer bullshit is all over me!”

“P-please concentrate Flora. What happened? How did you get hurt like this?”

“It’s-” she scowled. “-Kind of a bigger one.”

The sound of large quantities of goo slurping across stone made the band turn their heads toward the darkness. The darkness seemed to change and after a moment it became blue. Their eyes moved upward and they realised that they were looking at a slime nearly two stories tall, a massive wall of blue gel-like slime that filled the space between two pillars and had to squeeze through due to its enormity. Above the slimes top most part floated a blue slime halo ringed with slime spikes like a crown and glowing faintly in the dark.

Stratothrax-After-Dark

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