Like before, however, the blue box of magic only lasted for a brief time before shattering. Claire frowned and snapped her fingers again, remaking it.
“I’ve never seen a tier zero ability before,” Doc said, casting a questioning look toward Claire.
“Don’t give me that look, Doc. I didn’t intentionally hide this from you,” Claire said, defending herself. “Tier zero abilities are innate dungeon abilities, like creating floors and rooms. The other tier zero abilities have more to do with other monster races besides slime. In the same spirit as your higher abilities requiring lesser abilities to be unlocked, tier zero relies on starting monster race or additional monster races.”
“But wouldn’t this nest ability have been useful back at the dungeon town?” Doc wondered. “It would have been a great way to save mana during adventurer runs.”
“No, because knowing you, Doc, you would have filled your dungeon with these spawn nests,” Claire explained. “Contrary to what you may be thinking, this ability is relatively expensive and can be destroyed. Your growth would have been significantly slowed if you’d been forced to remake the nests.”
“I feel like it that would be especially useful as a trap,” Doc argued. “Maybe even a good dungeon boss minion.”
Claire chuckled. “As good as your imagination is, that ability only works in the dungeon proper. No boss fights. It would be as useful to you as orc lodgings, imp summoning circles, kobold dens, or undead graves.”
“Those sound all incredibly useful,” Doc observed.
Claire huffed in annoyance. “Fine, yes you could make them work, but would you really have stopped yourself from making so convenient a slime creator?”
“No,” Doc relented.
“There you have it. Now that we have an understanding, let’s return to the task at hand,” Claire continued. “Spawn nests are a basic structure that allow dungeons to create a place where monsters are born naturally—or as naturally as one can get in a dungeon. It uses minimal dungeon mana, and the expenditure does not exponentially increase while invaded unlike traditional monster making methods. On the other hand, they can be located and destroyed, so a dungeon overly depending on them would find itself at the mercy of its enemies if they were well prepared. Nests cover a wide range of monsters, excluding slimes, who require a queen slime to fulfil this role. In your case, however, I already checked and found that your animal slimes can indeed be born in nests. Interesting note: your animal slimes will never grow beyond their base form into overlord, lord, etc.”
“I expected that. To summarize what you just said, I can make a leaf muncher nest, and it would produce leaf munchers,” Doc noted.
“Correct.” Claire nodded “And the other benefit is that you can create a set behavior in the nest, in which every leaf muncher born in that nest would follow. For instance, setting it so that they only patrol an area around the nest and are limited to using their reproduction skill unless in combat with non-slimes.”
“That sounds a lot easier than making every slime individual by individual,” Doc couldn’t help but remark. “Where do you think the nests should go? Oh, and since the furry slimes are also animal slimes, can I make a nest for them as well?”
“Furry slimes, huh? Yes, I believe I can understand why they are animal slimes,” Claire giggled. “For the leaf munchers, scatter a few nests around the second floor for now. The best way to do it would be to make each nest produce a unique color of leaf muncher so they can tell who’s part of their hive. For the furry slimes, we’ll have to wait till you’re strong enough. They don’t have any prey, though, so I suppose it’s fine that we wait.”
“They’ll hunt the traditional slimes,” Doc reminded her, “same with the leaf munchers on occasion. I’ll change the traditional slime behavior to include fighting different families for territory, too. Maybe this way I can simulate an ecology while waiting for more mana and animal slime evolutions.”
“By the way, Doc,” Claire said, “did you notice anything about your mana capacity after the leaf muncher massacre?”
Doc cocked his metaphysical head as he thought about it. He hadn’t bothered to look, because Doc had felt he had used a lot of mana during the fight. Checking would only make him feel depressed. At Claire’s prompting, though, Doc checked his internal mana supply and discovered it had increased by a small margin over his pre-fight level.
“It increased, as if an adventurer had died,” Doc said, bewildered.
“The other benefit of spawn nests,” Claire grinned, “is that when those monsters die, you receive more mana than it took to create them. Those monsters absorb mana like little sponges, giving it all to you upon their death. In this way, dungeons without adventurers can slowly build up their mana supply and improve themselves. Even though those leaf munchers were not nesting, they relied on their own abilities to propagate without any expenditure from you, so you profited. Oh, but like I said earlier, if a nest is destroyed, it’ll take a good bit of mana to regenerate it, so be careful.”
“Well then,” Doc grinned, “I think it’s time we made a little something to surprise these bosses when they wake up. Claire, would you be ever a dear and retrieve a few tree seeds from the forest outside? I want to grow a few in the cavern to increase diversity.”
“It would be my pleasure, dungeon lord,” Claire bowed ever so gracefully.
“And one more thing,” Doc said. He eyed the sleeping slimes with a wicked gleam. “I just had an epiphany regarding how to train these two into proper slimes. How’s this?”
Claire listened as Doc whispered his plan to her through their mental bond.
“Oh Doc, that’s wonderfully brilliant and evil!” Claire complimented. “And I agree with you. They need to be shown their proper place here. I’ll move them as soon as I retrieve the seeds.
The two shared a slightly maniacal laugh. The unconscious bodies of Anadine and Rowen shivered. As the two slime bosses shivered from their respective nightmares, the inside of the dungeon slowly changed. Trees sprouted with unnatural speed, overtaking the large bushes that had previously dominated the space. In various spots within this new forest, small mounds appeared, sprouting small slime cores which quickly sprouted into new slimes. However, in a most curious way, these first slimes seemed to know more than they should. Waiting patiently for more of their family of slime to emerge, so began the age of slimes in the dungeon.
Chapter 8
Anadine’s awareness returned in a flash. Her body instinctively tensed up into a ball and hardened as the realization hit that she had been moved. Her mind raced as she quickly comprehended the space around her, using her enhanced slime senses of echolocation and smell. From an outsider’s perspective, they would have observed a nearly flattened slime bunch up back into a ball, jiggling its body once or twice in some odd manner of communication.
Anadine relaxed when she realized there were no threats around her. With that in mind, she looked around for Doc and Claire but found herself in an unfamiliar part of the dungeon. At least, she assumed she was still in the dungeon, given the level of ambient mana in the air. She was no longer in the heart room but instead appeared to be in a smaller room branching off a standard dungeon corridor.
“Doc, can you hear me?” Anadine sent via their connection, but the dungeon lord was silent, uncommunicative as the cold stone around her. Anadine tried again, but to no avail.
“Claire? Rowen? Anyone?” Anadine attempted to contact the others, but they too were unavailable. It was as if there was a barrier placed around her mind. The sudden loss of presence was disconcerting to the lady slime, as she hadn’t been this alone since she’d been human.
Anadine deflated slightly, concerned with the fate of her friends—no, her family. The last thing she remembered was reaching the dungeon heart room after successfully defeating the unexpected horde of leaf muncher slimes. She had collapsed from exhaustion, alongside Rowen. They had been too tired to compare how many kills they’d made.
“So how did I end up here?” she wondered to herself. “Was it my imagination that I made it back to the heart room, or maybe an illusion?” She winced, as the familiar headache came back to pester her. It wasn’t a strong affliction, but it had stayed with her ever since the fight to help the adventurers escape the demon horde. Or perhaps it was a leftover from meeting her... former sisters.
Shaking off her weariness, Anadine squirmed to the edge of the room and looked out into the tunnel. The slightly purple stone glittered under the occasional torchlight, illuminating the barren underground passage that led into the darkness. Looking around, Anadine spotted another cave room a little way to her right. She slid over to it and peaked in.
To her delight, she saw a sleeping Rowen snoozing in the center of it, just as she had been. Different than any other creature, slimes gave no indication that they were alive when they rested. Resembling puddles, they made neither sound, movement, or smell while asleep, which made stepping in them a strong possibility if one wasn’t careful. Needless to say, stepping in a puddle of acidic slime was an unpleasant experience.
“Rowen!” Anadine called mentally, but the bone-white slime was unresponsive.
“Squirt, little brother, shorty!” Anadine tried, but nothing seemed to be reaching the slime merely ten feet away from her.
“Rowen!” Anadine finally opened her slime body and forced it to make a sound. Due to her lack of practice, however, the word came out distorted and fractured, sounding more like ‘O-en.’ Even with the poor pronunciation, it was enough to cause the sleeping slime to rouse and awaken.
Anadine watched as Rowen bunched back up into a ball and sprouted tentacles, much like she had done. It appeared that he was also trying to mentally contact someone but was having as much success as she had had.
“O-en, ‘ere,” Anadine called, forming tentacles to attract his attention.
“An’a’die,” Rowen said, relaxing at the sight of his fellow slime boss. “Wha ‘app’ened? Why can’t ‘e speak?” In his confusion, Rowen reached out with a tentacle to touch Anadine. When it reached her, the two of them experienced the feeling that something had changed within themselves.
“The mental connection wasn’t working, but it appears that physical contact has restored ours,” Anadine said, privately sighing in relief, as she didn’t have to use her clumsy body to form words anymore. “I just woke up in a room, like you. What’s the last thing you remember doing?”
“I… remember… returning to the heart room after the battle,” Rowen recalled. “I was very exhausted from fighting, and I just... fell asleep, I think. Were we moved?”
Anadine folded her two tentacles across her body, mimicking a very human-like thoughtful posture.
“Given that we appear to still be in the dungeon, and that our connection with Doc has been blocked somehow, I think we can assume that maybe this is another one of his ideas. I have no clue what his goal would be, though,” she reasoned. “He has been a little off ever since the move.”
“Given that crystal’s sadistic nature, I bet he wants us to fight some more,” Rowen grumbled. “Or maybe he wants us as part of another of his crazy experiments. I wouldn’t put anything past a psycho like him.”
“Now that isn’t very nice, Rowen,” Anadine waggled a tentacle disapprovingly. “I don’t think Doc is sadistic or crazy but is instead a kind person forced by circumstances. Sure, he kills, but that’s what he has to do to survive.”
“Forced? I think you’re misinformed there, princess,” Rowen chuckled. “Doc is one of the most cheerful murderers I’ve ever seen. He experiments on living things as if they were mere tools for him to use and recycles their old parts for more experiments. Do you know how much pain I went through when I was human?”
“Look, I know that you’re still mad about the trap experiments,” Anadine said, “but didn’t you learn how to better control your powers? It was a good training experience that improved your level of mastery over those corpses during the invasion, right?”
“You and I seem to have a different idea of what makes good training,” Rowen said sourly. “And don’t remind me. I can’t control those skeletons anymore, let alone summon them from goddess knows where they ended up after I died.”
Anadine thought back to her training as a human under her former master. The images came quickly, blinding Anadine with the memories of running from a wave of blood and fire, or the time she had to fight four floating swords at the same time with one hand, or that one time she was placed in the woods three days away from home with only a single ration of food and a knife.
“You are correct,” she finally admitted to Rowen. “What you did would be a form of training on a low-medium difficulty, maybe a slight bit higher than that, given those mini-slimes.”
“What hell did you go through?” Rowen couldn’t help but ask.
“Blood and flames...” Anadine shivered as the images flashed through her mind. “Be grateful you didn’t train under my master long enough to really feel what it means to feel it.”
“Right...” Rowen gave the female slime a pitying look as he trailed off. “Well, since you’ve been here the longest, what do you think we should do?”
“You acknowledge me as the older sister, then?” Anadine asked happily.
“That’s not what I said, and you know it,” Rowen retorted. “Look, let’s just find our way back to the heart room so Doc can explain himself to us. I don’t enjoy only having you as a conversational partner.”
“Alright,” Anadine agreed, tacitly ignoring Rowen’s feelings toward her. “In that case, let’s follow the tunnel to its end to see which floor we’re on.”
The two slimes slid across the floor together out of the room and into the tunnel. The tunnel, being the same brown and purple rock, left no clues to their location. However, the two could see torches lighting up a larger room in the distance.
Upon reaching the end of the tunnel, the two slimes were overcome with shock and surprise as they beheld the sight before them. The tunnel let out high in the air above a large cavern that had to be a second floor. Before their eyes, the cavern, illuminated sorely by what appeared to be a mass of luminous slimes on the ceiling, was covered in a huge swath of greenery that covered the entire floor. Unlike before, large trees stretched up towards the ceiling, which had been elevated somehow. They could see various slimes moving through the dungeon jungle, cutting paths in the greenery as they patrolled.
“Incredible,” Rowen murmured as he examined the environment. “An underground world run solely by slimes. Those luminous slimes, they are slowing moving across the ceiling much like the sun. I bet Doc will have a mass of light-eater slimes follow their path to simulate night. And down there, you can clearly see various patches of plants watched and managed by herb and plant slimes. It’s still rather empty, sure, but I can see so much potential here. Perhaps he could simulate winter and summer with fire and water slime variants...”
“Well you seem to be having fun,” Anadine laughed. “And I must say, this is rather amazing to look at, especially from this high perch. Doc and Claire must have had a field day putting this all together. First time I’ve ever seen trees in here. Want to go down and look around?”
“Well, that would be the quickest way to reach the stairs,” Rowen reasoned. “After all, I doubt you or I can walk on the ceiling.”
Anadine snorted with laughter, acquiring a withering glare from Rowen. Waving him off, the older slime boss led her fellow down the wall towards the floor. Halfway down, Rowen lost his footing and tumbled off the wall. Anadine attempted to grab him with a tentacle, but a slime’s viscous body could not be caught so easily. He slipped through her grasp and landed with a sickening splat on the floor.
“You alright there, Rowen?” Anadine asked hurriedly, landing next to him with a much softer splat.
Rowen reformed his body and wiped the dust off. “I’m fine,” he said curtly. “I knew falling wouldn’t hurt me. You don’t have to
worry about me.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t catch you,” Anadine apologized.
“You acted reflexively, but we don’t have proper bodies anymore.” Rowen said. “Forget about it.”
As Rowen slid away toward the undergrowth, Anadine examined her tentacle.
“We do have proper bodies, though, right?” she wondered aloud.
Rowen stopped, turning his body slightly to look at her.
“Are you kidding?” he asked tersely. “Look at me and look at you. We were both human, and now we’re slimes. Boneless, skinless, mouthless, eyeless slimes. Don’t you feel wrong moving around in that? Doesn’t it make your soul crawl to realize you have no skin to feel?”
“I can’t say it does,” Anadine shook her head. “After all, I was initially born without my human memories and learned how to use my body properly. Though... it hasn’t been the same since I retrieved my memories. Skin... I remember feeling the sun on it.” The aching in her head increased, forcing her to hide the shaking her body attempted. Rowen noticed her unnatural stillness.
“See,” Rowen shook his slime in frustration, “it isn’t natural. We aren’t natural. Humans are supposed to go to one of the three heavens or, gods forbid, a hell when we die, same as any of the other sentient races. But since we both made that pledge, this is our afterlife. I can’t see, hear, taste, or feel anything properly now. My life is a joke. Eternal servitude with no end in sight and no rest for when I’m weary.”
“Our echolocation and mana sense give us better vision than a human eye would,” Anadine argued. “And when Doc becomes a powerful dungeon, we’ll be able to rest and fight when we want to.”
“Really?” Rowen asked sarcastically. “To hear you say it, we aren’t slaves but servants here in his killing hell. I can’t wait now for the next time Doc asks us to fight. I’ll just say, ‘I’m too tired,’ and everything will be fine.”
“That’s not what I meant!” Anadine protested.
Dungeon Wars Page 9
