Chapter 18: Chapter 17

Slimes collect Mana Hearts. Contrary to popular beliefs slimes do not form mana hearts, they collect them. It is unknown why they do this, but the fact is that every slime upon evolution changes into something that is hardly related to slimes anymore. Slime evolutions are extremely rare and slimes often stay at level 24 for the rest of their lives. Most experts believe that slimes just like shiny things.

Excerpt of ‘The Slimonomicon’ a collection of slime facts for slime fans

 

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Argul had mercy with Arthur and stopped supplying her spell with mana, she might need it later. On their search for a hideout they scavenged all the things Arthur said were edible. The trio of girls would have forgotten food without Arthur, to which Arthur could only shake his head.

 

It took Arthur about 30min to find a place he was satisfied with. In that time Fia had collected some herbs and a handful of berries. Argul had used her magic missile to hunt maybe rabbits or Erod rabbits? She didn’t know and didn’t really care as they would change in the near future anyways. They looked like someone had tried to mix deer and rabbit and now five of them were missing their heads. Argul couldn’t understand why, but her aim was really good. She always hit and her shots even curved after their fleeing target. Completely natural of course (cough).

 

Alyra ate three of the things then and there and Argul had to carry the other two. Nobody wanted to carry the headless corpses for some reason. Through the whole ordeal she thought she had only kept her shit together during the hunting and while carrying the Erod rabbits thanks to mental fortitude.

 

Then they had another problem being that they couldn’t light a fire, at least as long as they really wanted to stay hidden. So Argul once again had to create a spell, which she used to heat up a somewhat flat stone to use as a pan.

 

You created the skill heat!

You can heat up nonliving things. The less distance there is between you and the target the less mana you will need. Higher temperature requires more mana.

 

Arthur used this time to skin and gut the rabbits. Alyra fed the entrails to Aina who happily accepted and gobbled them up. Arthur had to roast the meat, because of course Alyra and Argul had no idea how to do it and Fia was on watch duty.

 

When the meat was done the mana zone reached the few huts. It was only a bit after sunrise, so most people had been asleep. They now had to munch on the meat while looking out for anything sapient to save. Arthur thought the huts in this village were a lot better than their shacks had been.

 

After another two minutes Argul noticed two new mana signatures in two of the huts. One of the persons lived alone, but the hut of the other looked like there lived at least two people in there. Only two out of seven huts, that was not a lot.

 

Argul pointed at the two huts and their now moving inhabitants. That was signal enough for Alyra to do something a normal fox would not be able to, she whistled extremely loud.

 

Sure the people might follow their quest instructions like Arthur, but it was rather unlikely as normally humans do not like to do what they are being told. Hearing the whistle the person living alone opened the huts door and stared around, holding a crude ax in his hands. Argul, Arthur and a waving Fia stood at the edge of the clearing and the gruff looking man noticed them.

 

He eyed them for a second before he went into his hut again and came out carrying more things. He cautiously approached them, only to stop when Argul pointed at the other hut and wrote SoS in the air. He seemed to understand and went to the hut. When he opened the door an unsure teenager came into view.

 

He looked at the man, who whispered something to him, with respect and nodded. Then the boy took an already packed bag and the two started to come in their direction again, still ready for a fight.

 

Fia now gestured for them to hurry up, they maybe had another minute, but they weren’t sure. The duo sped up, but was still ready for a fight with the teenager a little behind the man.

 

They did not have another minute. When the two were 10 meter away from the last hut a lot of other mana signatures appeared and Argul cursed. Fia and Arthur made themself ready for anything. Their battle ready stances did not help making the approaching strangers hurry up, it had the contrary effect. At least until the door of the hut on the other side flew away and something that was more tentacles than human came out. That made the duo run.

 

The thing saw the two and was about to follow when another door opened and a werecat jumped on it. Still Argul cursed, because there was someone small in the middle of the village who acted a lot different than the others and was hiding in a corner. Argul shot multiple magic missiles at the wall and opened a hole in it. A small girl looked at her with wide scared and teary eyes.

“Run!!” Argul shouted, but the girl was frozen in fear. Alyra jumped out of her hiding place and ran for the girl. The duo had reached the three of them and stared wide eyed at the 2m tall fox that was now running inside the village, while Agul shot things that got near the girl with magic missiles.

“The fox is with us, hurry up and run into the forest, we need to get away from here. Argul give Fia Aina and then follow us with Alyra once you have the girl. We are not as powerful as you two.” Arthur took command. They needed to act quickly and he was good at that. Argul nodded and threw Aina to Fia, who nearly failed to catch the slime. The two turned around and ran for the forest, while the village duo stayed for a moment longer admiring Argul’s beauty before the sounds of the village pulled them back into reality.

 

Alyra meanwhile had reached the girl and was now running back roughly carrying the girl with her mouth. Argul ran in their direction as the tentacle thing shot a tentacle at them. Argul cleaved the thing in half with a magic missile and got an angered screech in return. She shot something else that was about to come out of the hut beside her and looked like a snake with a human head. God she wished she hadn’t seen that.

 

Argul met Alyra and in one motion took the girl and jumped on her daughter's back, who could now run at her full speed. Argul hugged the girl tight and tried to comfort her.

“It’s okay, everything is going to be alright. Just close your eyes and hug me back. Everything is going to be alright shhhh.” It was less about what she said and more about how her voice sounded and Argul was calm. The girl hugged her back, Argul gave her a pat and then shot another missile at the thing with entirely too many eyes that was trying to follow them.  It died, which was a good thing as the corpse would distract all the other monsters.

 

They reached the others at their hideout, the man and boy a bit out of breath.

“We have to go on, the things are going to search for food once they have eaten each other and I would rather not be here when that happens.” Argul said calmly, still hugging the girl while she climbed off Alyra’s back. The others nodded and they jogged west to spend their stamina more sparingly.

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Argul held the girl at face height, before she started the mission ‘distract the scared and uncomprehending child’. “What’s your name?” Argul asked in her nicest sounding voice. “Mia”, the girl said, her voice nearly too quiet to hear for Argul. “Okay Mia, I’m going to have to take you piggy back and all you have to do is hold on. I will even allow you to touch my ears and if you do it right I might even purr.” 

That got Mia’s attention and Argul positioned her on her back. Mia held on with her legs and one arm. With her now free hand she caressed Argul’s ears, which made her smile. 

 

The others hadn’t said a peep during that time, but talking would distract the girl, so Argul needed to let her introverted tendencies lie beside her for now. She noticed that Mia had fur on her legs, so that was a good thing to start with.

“Do you have a tail Mia?” Argul asked curiously. “Yes.” Her small voice answered.

“Why don’t you show it like I do? Be proud of your body, even if it looks a bit different then before and no matter what others say, now it is definitely better. Look, I also show my ears.”, Argul said, flicking them a bit, “Showing your tail to us will make you a strong girl and me happy.”.

“Okay. I’m a strong girl.” Mia whispered before she stopped caressing Argul’s ears to take out her tail. She continued afterwards. Her tail looked a bit like that of a squirrel which was nice in Argul's opinion. 

 

At that moment Mia hit a sweet spot and a purr escaped Argul’s mouth. Arthur and the village duo looked at her fascinated, which was really embarrassing for her. Mia though now confident that she really could make Argul purr got to work and a lot better with time.

 

Arthur saved her by distracting the newcomers. “So what are your names? I am Arthur, the fox is Alyra, the girl with the wings is Fia and Argul you should already know. The slime is Aina, it’s a pet.”

Argul thought she had heard the part with the slime somewhere before. The gruff looking man answered for the two.

“I am Harald and the boy is Tony, thank you for getting us out of what the hell was happening there. You seem to know a bit so it would be nice if you could explain what on earth is going on here.”

 

“Erod”, interrupted Fia, “we named the planet Erod and we are not on earth anymore.” That bit of information, while not new to any of them, now started to set in.

Arthur, Fia and Alyra then explained the situation to them while Argul purred in the background. It felt really nice what Mia did and the girl seemed happy to have something to do.

Harald and Tony were a bit shocked when Alyra started to speak, but after seeing someone you had known for three years become a tentacle thing, a speaking fox was a rather nice surprise.

 

After half an hour they had to take a break for Tony. Nobody said anything about that though, now was not the time to discourage someone. Argul took this time to play with Mia. She didn’t know how old Mia was, but would say five or six. Argul wanted to distract Mia as much as possible, the girl would have enough time to cry and mourn later, the same was also true for Harald and Tony. For now they were holding themselves together rather well, but that was bound to change once they had time to settle down.

 

“What are your plans now?” Harald asked. Alyra looked at Arthur and Fia, who both just nodded. She knew her mom's answer without asking, so there was no need to stop her from playing with the girl. They now included Aina in their games and if it wasn’t for the situation it would have been a nice view to look at, the multiple meanings fully intended.

“We are going to continue our quest. We really need to rally as many survivors together as possible and then build something lasting. Mana changed a lot and magic is now a possibility, so that might make things easier. Once we have something like a village as a base of operation we can send out scout teams to search for more survivors. The monsters will likely start to breed, so we need to be ready for it to become a lot more dangerous.” Alyra told them their plan and all their quests updated or they got a new one. “It would be nice if you would help us, but you are free to leave if you want.”

Harald didn’t need to think about it. He didn’t want to be alone and helping the group if strange people for now would give him a purpose in this hell. “We will help you, at least until you get a village going. After that we will have to see.” Alyra just nodded, satisfied with the answer.

 

What remains

The members of your former species had been given a choice, a choice that has already produced many casualties and will continue to do so as the level 1 mana zone spreads. Gather at least 50 survivors and build a base of operation from where you can send out relief squads.

 

• There is a small settlement 15km west of you that will be integrated in about 5 hours. People saved: 3 Str +1

• You have to choose. There is a village to the east that will be integrated in roughly six hours. There is a village located in the south further down river where people will slowly be integrated depending on how much mana saturated water they drink. There is a small town near a hill to the north-west about one and a half days by feet from your current position. Integration is estimated to be in three days.

 

 

Argul was the first to speak up and voice her opinion, not stopping to play with Mia. “I vote for the small town. I know it is harsh to say, but we can save a lot more people by going there, even if it means leaving others to their doom. We can’t be everywhere. The people to the south will likely manage as long as they only evolve one at a time. The village to the east we can’t reach. We would have to travel through an already monster infested area and we know that an ogre lives where we came from. I’m not going to go through such a dangerous area with a kid as long as I’m not strong enough to blast the things living there with a flick of my hand.” She laid bare her thoughts. It was a realistic view of the situation and there wasn’t much to discuss, so they now hiked in the direction of the town.

 

Mia now sat on top of Argul’s shoulders and was silent. She would need time to let what had happened behind her and would likely never be able to live through the same childhood as kids from earth had, but Argul would make sure that she had at least something resembling family.

 

They walked silently for most of the day. The group stopped here and there to collect berries or herbs. Water wouldn’t be a problem as Argul could just conjure it. Argul let Mia walk beside her now and then and in the afternoon Alyra went hunting, while they searched for a spot to stay during the night.

 

They found a few larger trees with some bushes around where they would be less obvious and less likely spotted. Alyra came back with 5 Erod rabbits and had already eaten 3. They used the same method to cook as before. There were now monsters in the forest, no need to paint a target on your back.

 

Alyra, Harald, Fia and Arthur set a plan for a night watch and then they all settled down. Tony was deemed too young and Argul took care of Mia, so they weren’t part of the watch schedule.

 

During the whole day the new addition to the party hadn’t talked a lot. The others had toned it down for the day, not wanting to be rude. The only one who had taken a lot was Argul who had told stories to Mia and in extension the others distracting them all with nonsense that happened to her in her last life.

 

Argul hugged the small girl and caressed her hair. Mia started to cry and hugged her back. Argul just made comforting sounds and continued her caressing until Mia was asleep. It took her a long time, but that was okay. Argul made herself comfortable not stopping to hug Mia and slowly drifted into the land of nice and today likely bad dreams.

 

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