Chapter 34: Book 1: Chapter 14 (Part 1 of 2)

I switched my gaze to the second pool of lava approximately thirty metres in front of us and detected a further five slimes bathing in the molten rock. If the third and fourth pools followed suit there would be twenty slimes to deal with. This matched up with the numbers of Skreechers in the previous chamber, so it was likely to be the case.

What can you tell me about red slimes that’s not in the analysis text, Quixbix? I thought at my imp, conscious that Jackson was within earshot.

<They are a bubble up and burst mob. When they get close to a target they expand and explode their outer slime shell. Spurting out gobbets of themselves in all directions dealing fire damage if you are struck by the flung globs of slime. This attack will reduce their Hit Points, though. After exploding they retain a fifth of their max Hit Points in a core slime. The damage and distance of the slime explosion are determined by how many spare Hit Points the slime possesses for their splurge attack. In the wild, they are usually a one and done mob, but here, the slime core will retreat to the lava pool if you let it, and regenerate back to max health before coming for you again> he explained.

Okay, an area of effect attack but they were vulnerable to cold damage which was handy as my scimitars had plenty of that.

When will they approach us? How close can we get to those pools? I asked him.

<I think you’ve been clever where you stepped off and you are just out of their perception range of fifteen metres. Fortunately, slimes aren’t very quick. But if you get within five metres of the lava you will start taking fire damage, which will increase the closer you get to it> he informed me.

I don’t suppose we could just run through the gaps ignoring the slimes in our wake and exit to the next chamber? I chuckled darkly.

<I like the way you’re thinking. Sadly, you can’t pass through to the third chamber until all threats in this one are neutralised. So, you would only manage to activate and attract all the slimes, and that would be bad> Quixbix advised.

I nodded at his advice.

“Torin, what shall we do?” Shana asked after I’d been verbally quiet for a few seconds.

“These are area of effect exploders,” I started, and saw her brows narrow in confusion. “That just means they don’t attack a person specifically, but an area,” I explained.

Shana smiled her understanding. “Yes, I remember, now. They sometimes call it AoE don’t they?”

“That’s right. The AoE damage the slimes can do is based on how many Hit Points they have left. Normally, to be safe, I would advise we get them to come at us and then stand back and whittle them down with your dark magic-infused arrows.”

“However, as these things are vulnerable to cold, I think we should conserve your Mana for the next room. When they get halfway to us, I will rush forward, hit each of them if I can and set off their explosion. You stay back until they have exploded and then run forward with your dagger and finish off the smaller left-over slime cores,” I instructed.

“Okay,” Shana replied and stowed her bow and drew the dagger.

I would need to create something a bit larger for Shana in the future, like a gladius short sword.

“Jackson,” I called to the young sorcerer. “Stand back as far as you can. That’s not technically a safe area anymore.”

It was time to enact my plan.

I stepped forward a few paces and immediately observed the slimes change their movement in the lava. Within a few seconds, they had eased their way over the lip and slowly approached us. They moved by having a tentacular part of their ‘body’ extend forth and grip the floor and then pull itself the rest of the way. This made them a little slower than human walking pace, but it would still only take them a short while to reach us, and maybe a minute for them to traverse the length of the chamber if they were so inclined.

I had Shana stand directly behind me and this caused the slimes to bunch up as they neared us. Interestingly, they didn’t touch one another, keeping the minimum distance they needed between them.

When they reached the halfway point, I darted forward and aimed my short run for the slime furthest on my right, so I would sweep leftwards back towards the granite platform. I chose this direction as when I finished my sweep of the slimes, I’d dive away from them and didn’t want to risk going a little too far, and thereby potentially triggering the slimes in pool number two.

Before I’d even reached them, they started to swell in size.

<They’ll explode when they get to twice their usual size. You have maybe three seconds> Quixbix prompted concurrently with their sudden swelling.

Three seconds wasn’t a lot of time and if they hadn’t been clustered together, I wouldn’t have had a chance at getting them all. I arrived between the two leftmost slimes and aimed a joint downward slash with both scimitars, each blade cut into a separate red slime.

You have inflicted 3 piercing damage and 48 points of cold damage to Red Slime #4.

You have inflicted 3 piercing damage and 48 points of cold damage to Red Slime #5.

I didn’t have time to truly process the damage notification and dismissed it from my mind. One of my three seconds had elapsed. I moved down the line and slashed out with both blades for a second time.

You have inflicted 3 piercing damage and 48 points of cold damage to Red Slime #3.

You have inflicted 3 piercing damage and 48 points of cold damage to Red Slime #2.

Two seconds gone and four slimes reduced in size. The final slime ate both blades of my final attack.

You have inflicted 3 piercing damage and 48 points of cold damage to Red Slime #1.

You have inflicted 3 piercing damage and 48 points of cold damage to Red Slime #1.

I let my momentum carry me away and dived to the floor and curled up into a ball, covering my head as all five of the red slimes exploded.

 -14 Hit Points. (556/570) Fire source.

-28 Hit Points. (528/570) Fire source.

Making myself small helped and I’d only been hit by gobbets from two of the red slimes. One of the globs came from the closest of the five that I’d hit twice, which halved the damage it could inflict.

I uncurled and got back on my feet. Shana was already advancing, and she deftly dodged the sizzling splodges of slime on the rocky floor which had been thrown outward. The much-reduced red slimes had started their retreat to the lava pools but being a fifth of the size they had been, they were slow enough that she reached them before they got within five metres and she would start to take fire damage from the proximity of the lava.

Thankfully, the Ice Daggers did as much cold damage as the scimitars and she had stabbed and slain three of them before I could join her and finish the two which remained. Shana grinned with savage joy.

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“Are you alright?” I inquired. “I didn’t get any damage notifications for you.”

“Yes, Torin,” she answered breathlessly. “Your plan worked. The slime balls fell short of where I was standing, and I didn’t even need to try and avoid them. How about you?”

“Down forty-two hit points. Not ideal, but manageable. However, now that we’ve cleared one pool and I’ve got a better handle on the spatter pattern I’m confident I can cut that down for each of the remaining pools” I assured her. “There is no benefit to waiting as Carl and his friends won’t assist even once they’re through. So, let’s crack on. Although I want to change things a little, I’ll explain first.”

I laid out my adjusted plan to Shana and then we started.

For the second pool of slimes, we could approach it from the South and have a full thirty metres clear behind us, and as I’d observed the depleted cores were too slow to get inside the heat haze of the lava pools in time to begin their regeneration before we reached them.

This time Shana stood over by the right-hand-side wall and I was in a central position. When I moved forward centrally, Shana stepped up at the same time from the right side and we jointly triggered the slimes perception.

Then I shifted laterally as far left as I could without moving into the heat zone of the first lava pool and Shana stayed where she was. As I hoped this caused the slime group to split up, three came for me and two for Shana.

When they reached the same midway point between us, I launched myself forward, while Shana stepped backwards. I ran by the three slimes on my side and slashed each of them once without slowing down. My proximity had been enough to start their explosive swelling.

Then I rushed towards the two that had gone for Shana and reached them with maybe a second before the first three disgorged their fiery blobs.

I lashed out with both scimitars into the fourth red slime and then the fifth before I leapt backwards away from them and curled into the ball as before.

Meanwhile, once I had inflicted my cold damage on the leftmost three and had headed towards the two on the right, Shana crossed over in the other direction, running in an L pattern to stay out of the slimes blast zone and then hit the depleted slime cores before they could abscond back to the lava.

My enhanced plan had been a success. By splitting the group of slimes and activating the first three slimes before rushing away, I’d been mostly out of range when they blew their fiery loads. I was hit by one glob for a further fourteen fire damage from one of the latter two but managed to evade a second wound.

Once I was back on my feet, I approached and finished off the second set of slimes. Fourteen damage taken was a significant improvement on forty-two.

There was a ripple of applause from behind us and I turned to look. Carl and the rest of his team had finally joined us in the second chamber. It was only Tommy and Jackson clapping for our success, though. Carl looked to be sucking on lemons, his face was so sour and puckered.

Shana and I repeated the tactic for the remaining two groups of five red slimes. I even managed to completely avoid being hit by a sizzling slime ball on the fourth attempt, leaving me with five hundred hit points.

After we were finished, we waited by the exit for the other team. Because in reality that is what we were, two separate teams running the same dungeon.

We had the amusement of seeing Carl yelp loudly as he jumped down from the granite slab a bit too close to the first pool of lava.

“You might want to stay away from those,” I called out, less than helpfully.

I heard a grunt that sounded a great deal like ‘Fuck you’ but couldn’t be sure from this distance.

A couple of minutes later they reached us.

“Did you take any damage? I have a minor healing spell I can use on you,” offered Tommy and he tried to step up to me with his hands out.

“No, you don’t,” Kelly interrupted, and grabbed the portly boy by the shoulder and pulled him back roughly.

“Cheers for the offer, Tommy, is it?” I asked, knowing the answer.

Tommy nodded and rubbed his shoulder where Kelly had squeezed him.

“I did take a few hits, but I’ve still got five hundred in the tank,” I assured him.

For once, this was an intentional slip. My mic drop moment had the desired effect as a few jaws dropped and there was a muttered “Bullshit,” from the permanently surly Carl. I just smiled my toothiest grin and flexed my biceps.

“Well, if you’re such a fucking badass, what are you waiting for?” sneered Carl, and he pointed at the shimmer of the archway exit.

“Oh yeah, well as you seemed to be unprepared when we went through last time,” I jibed, and crossed my arms. “I thought it would be best to let you go through first and then we’d follow after. If you stay in the safe area, you’ll be fine until we get there.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I’m the fucking boss here, not you. Me,” Carl yelled, his cheeks purpling with rage.

I shook my head, took Shana’s hand and moved to the wall. We sat down to wait, my body language declaring for all to see that Carl’s tantrum had been dismissed.

He spat bullets for a few minutes more until finally Kelly pulled him aside and cupped his hands over Carl’s ear and spoke to him quietly.

They were within twenty-five metres of me and therefore within Quixbix’s range. Is he saying anything interesting Quix? I thought to him.

<The usual. Calm down, he’ll get his, killing the bastard will be all the sweeter for the wait. It’s our moral right or whatever other self-righteous garbage valiant types come up with to justify backstabbing their allies. Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on them and give you and Shana the heads up for when they muster up the courage to make their move> Quixbix related.

I nodded absently to acknowledge his update. I wasn’t surprised that he effectively confirmed their impending betrayal. There was a smidgen of a chance that Quixbix was attempting to dupe me, but I doubted it in this case. Carl and Kelly may as well have had ‘Plotting Betrayal’ stamped on their foreheads.

<You could hit them now if you prefer? They’re stupid enough not to expect you to do to them what they plan to do to you> Quixbix suggested.

No, we’ll let the dungeon wear them down a bit more, I answered.

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