“Neat,” Claire said. “I’ve honestly never seen a slime nest in action. It’s efficient. Oh, how are our resident slime bosses?”
“Still sleeping.” Doc shrugged “The Twins, too. I think Anadine and Rowen will wake up soon enough. Don’t worry about them until they manage to return to the heart room.”
“I won’t interfere with their test,” Claire promised. “But you have to make sure they don’t die. I’d be very disappointed if you were unable to resummon them.”
“I’ll have my eyes, metaphorically speaking, on them during their journey,” Doc promised. “Hey, I saved you some fun slime deaths. Want to watch?”
Death is amusing to watch, see, make happen. Everyone dies, so why not make a spectacle of it? The cries of pain, the last twitches of life—that’s the honey of life slipping away, is it not, my sweet Claire? It’s not so different watching something die, whether it’s a human or a slime.
Claire shuddered as her mother’s voice whispered through her head.
“Maybe later, Doc,” Claire muttered. “I’m… I’m not in the right mood.”
“Alright,” Doc said.
The little pixie watched the scenes playing on Doc’s crystal one more time. An ant slime bit a beetle slime in half, devouring the core as the victor. Feeling pale, Claire left and returned to her home with the excuse that she needed to clean more.
She needed to wash her hands again, but the blood she saw could never be washed away. As she scrubbed, the images she’d seen of the dungeon through Doc’s crystal played through her mind. In particular, to a group of herb slimes collecting seeds and plants in the forest for their garden. Had she been wrong, or had one of the flowers been an ethereal blue?
Chapter 11
While the situation in the dungeon calmed, blossoming new life and patterns, outside the dungeon, the forest was a much different place. An air of fear and uncertainty seemed to blow with the wind, though most creatures didn’t understand why. They didn’t need to, though. They understood enough to hide and flee.
The invasion of Doc’s dungeon destroyed the natural balance of the forest. Few creatures of claw and teeth had escaped, resulting in the freeing up of territory. The surviving predators were only cautiously exploring this, but the situation would soon change. Free territory meant so much, after all: more prey, the chance to attract a mate, and better nests to live in.
The northern wilderness was expansive and wild—a dangerous place for any person to enter. However, it still had rules: unspoken, unwritten, and ancient. Above all others was the rule of strength. The strongest ruled. And when there were two lords to rule, they fought for dominance.
The area the dungeon appeared in had no major lord—though this was only a fairly recent development—and so the area was divided into a series of small territories from which the strongest controlled. However, the dungeon of slimes had appeared smack dab in the middle of those territories, carrying the scents of prey, danger, and change.
With change came hatred, a disruption to the plans of the world.
The results of the dungeon invasion had been enlightening. With most of the predatory beasts dead, and with the ending of winter soon upon the wilderness, this part of the forest would soon be overrun by prey capable of inflicting great loss on the vegetation. Not only this, but the great abundance of prey would attract new hunters, who would fight for supremacy. The weak would be once again weeded out, leaving the strong behind.
The dungeon, seeing as it did nothing to establish territory beyond its bounds, would be left alone. None of the remaining creatures desired to return to the trap. If newcomers were to enter, it would be only after the cold left and the challengers appeared. However, this timeframe of only applied to a natural turn of events.
Little did Doc and Claire know, they had only precious time remaining before the true dangers would appear. They were safe, for now. However, what had once been a feeling had gained form in the surrounding forest. A smell was wafting up from the void; not one of the nose, but instead the mind.
It was this new thing that chased the little green creature through the shadows of fading sunlight. Having returned from the cavern below, it had wasted no time in collecting its hidden brethren to lead them below. However, they’d been attack by monsters; cruel perversion of what had once been something else. It shed a tear as it clutched the headdress, the symbol of leader, it’s mentor had given it before facing the threat. The defenders bought time but suffered a fate worse than mere death.
Still the threat approached, one that the little green creature ran from, dragging as many of its ilk as it could to the dungeon. Only the fastest made it into the clearing where the dungeon entrance lay, the new leader turning to gaze back into the silent forest. It shed one last tear before heading back down into the dungeon with those remaining. In the shadows of the trees, a scaled hand gripped a tree and trembled. With shocking force, its claws expanded and tore the trunk into pieces, toppling the tree to its death. Silence returned to the forest surrounding the clearing; no hint of anything besides a fallen tree.
*
Claire took a deep breath, steadying herself. She peeked out from behind her leaf cover to the garden below. The patrolling plant slimes failed to notice her, seeking only to protect their garden and the herb slime caretakers.
“Claire, are you sure you need to do this?” Doc’s voice echoed softly in her head. “You said yourself you aren’t sure whether our contract of mutual protection extended to these unlinked slimes. I can easily summon—”
“It won’t be the same, Doc,” Claire cut him off. “I’m tired of living off magically recreated or picked flowers. I haven’t had fresh nectar in days, and I need some.”
“I still don’t see how this is different from before,” Doc grumbled. “You’ve been perfectly content with the nectar I’ve provided up to now. You could even leave the dungeon to gather wild flowers like you did before. Why risk danger with the plant slimes?”
“Fresh nectar, Doc, taken from a dungeon-grown flower,” Claire licked her lips. “The taste isn’t comparable to anything else! I need it, no matter the cost, and only I can harvest it correctly. Especially this one. I still can’t believe it appeared here and that you found it.”
“Hard to miss it, really. But anyway, why?” Doc pressed her. “You still haven’t told me why you have to do this yourself.”
Unseen by Doc’s spirit, Claire’s eyes flashed and glistened. Her breath suddenly came in shorts bursts and she gripped her fists so hard the skin broke. A moment later, she relaxed and cast a silent spell to heal her hands.
“This nectar is important for my home,” Claire explained softly, a touch softer in expression now. “With it, I can cast certain magics to repair my damaged clothing and other fabrics.”
“I thought you only had one pair of clothes?” Doc wondered.
“Same dress, many individuals,” Claire rolled her eyes. “Are you going to help me or not?”
Doc grumbled in her mind for a moment before answering yes. A sense of relief coming over her, Claire adjusted her stance as she waited for the signal.
Doc didn’t disappoint. A few moments later, the plant slimes all paused, as if listening. Like one unit, they turned together and swarmed away from Claire’s location, a group of bug slimes having suddenly appeared at the opposite end of the garden. Seeing the guards suitably distracted, Claire made her move.
With a flick of the wrist and muttering of an incantation, the pixie’s form turned blurry and indistinct before finally losing all visibility. The leaf she was hiding behind twitched as she passed, the only relic of her passing as she flew quickly down to the garden’s edge. The herb slimes failed to react to her presence, their attention remaining solely on their plant charges. Claire let out a hidden breath of relief. She hadn’t been completely positive her invisibility would work on the slimes. After all, invisibility worked on eyes, of which slimes had none.
Confident in her lack of presence, the
pixie made her way towards the patch of Dream flowers. Their undulating blue petals dancing in the light of the luminating slimes far overhead. Dream flowers were rare, a type of flower found only in the wilderness with a very strict growth requirement—soil with high concentrations of mana. The dungeon was thus the perfect place to find these flowers, and the herb slime caretakers made sure it thrived. Claire had never had nectar from this flower before, but she was well aware of its benefits.
Reaching the pale blue stalks, Claire slowly formed the wisp of a spell with her lips. A verdant mist spread forth from her fingers down to the dungeon floor, forming subtle tendrils that wrapped around the stalks of the flower stems. Gently, methodically, the tendrils dug the roots out of the ground, freeing plant from dungeon floor. Claire continued her low muttering as the tendrils dug out three more flowers, all from various parts of the bed. When the four were free, she closed her mouth and gazed on with satisfaction at her prizes. The levitating flowers were in perfect condition, and she turned to leave.
However, her smile dropped at the faint tugging of something on her body. The Dream flowers sensed the cut in their connection to the dungeon mana, and their roots had begun searching for a new source: her spell, which kept them aloft. Claire could feel the mana being drained from her body, and she suddenly recalled something her father had once told her. The memory engulfed her, despite the situation at hand.
Her, small and innocent, sitting prettily in her purple dress between her father’s legs. Him, smiling down at her, warm and smelling of damp grass and earth. They were sitting together outside mother’s undead dungeon on a lone tree in the desolateness, enjoying the rain as it tumbled down from the heavens above. Claire’s father held out his hand to catch a few drops, tasting them.
“Can you taste it, Claire?” he asked her. “The rain, it tastes of earth and sky, satisfying the world and keeping us in it.”
Claire had giggled and collected a small puddle in her hand, pouring it into her mouth too quickly. Her father chuckled as she coughed.
“Care, my child, do not partake with such haste. It is not going anywhere, and neither are you.” He ruffled her hair.
She covered her hair, protecting it from the mauling it received. “Daddy, I don’t taste anything except water. That isn’t anything special.”
“Exactly,” he winked at her. “Water tastes like water, and water is life. So, water tastes like life, but we experience so much life that the taste is lost from our tongue and becomes common.” He paused. “I, too, didn’t appreciate this before I... met your mother. Now, I try to come up to watch the rain every chance I can.”
“Is it because Mommy’s dungeon is full of zombies?” The young Claire asked. “Maybe you can ask her for some more plants for your garden?”
Her father chuckled and hugged Claire within his arms, so much bigger than her own. “Little sprout, there is little left I can grow in my garden. Your mother has been kind to me, in her own way. No, only a few more things are missing form my collection, the few that can stand to grow in such... conditions.”
“Like what, Daddy?” Claire asked.
Her father hummed to himself before answering. “I suppose the Dream flower, for one, or the fairy blossom. These and others do not require the light of the sun or the life of water, only mana. Rare as they are, they are hardy little plants, able to seek out mana to feed from any source and feast on it. That includes us, you know.” He punctuated his point by tapping Claire on her nose, eliciting another giggle.
“Promise me you’ll be careful little sprout,” he asked of her. “Alright? No messing with strange plants. After all, that’s how—”
“Great Uncle Fin got eaten by a giant fly-eater flower,” Claire finished. “I remember, Daddy, and I always will!”
“Good girl, sprout. Good girl...”
Claire was jolted back into reality by the sight of roots climbing her green mist spell toward her person. With a yelp, she canceled the spell, and the four stalks fell daintily to the ground.
“Oh no,” she whispered. The herb slimes, alerted by the sound of Claire’s voice and the plants suddenly appearing on the ground, released paralyzing spores into the air, turning the surroundings yellow with their fright. Claire covered her nose and mouth but was too late from stopping the effects from settling inside. The tips of her fingers tingled, with the feeling spreading slowly down to her palm.
“That’s it, Claire. I’m interfering,” Doc’s voice rang in her head. A surge of magic engulfed her, and the pixie found herself teleported into Doc’s heart room. She coughed, sucking in the fresh, breathable air as much as her lungs would allow.
“Doc, I need, the antidote,” Claire gasped, the feeling spreading quickly down to her arms. Unlike her father, she held no immunity to the effects of paralysis or poison. The spores would hit her small size hard, and she’d soon be unable to breathe.
“Antidote, antidote... Claire, what’s an antidote?” Doc asked frantically. The dungeon spirit could only look on in horror as his pixie partner slowly grew more and more still, her wings drooping onto the floor. “Claire, tell me how to help you!”
“My room, yellow bottle, kitche...” Claire’s voice faded as the paralysis engulfed her throat and ended her words.
Claire, still being able to see and hear, could only sit slumped forward as she listened to the sounds of frantic searching in her home. The sound of cracking and breaking made her eyes twitch, eliciting feelings of exasperation and annoyance even in this tense moment.
“Here, Claire, I found it!” Doc’s voice joyfully echoed through the room. A small glass bottle flew out of Claire’s door, smashing right through it, and hovered in front of her face. “Now what?
“Right, can’t speak,” Doc continued, without missing a beat. The potion tilted, the cork popping off, and slowly drew closer to Claire’s... nose. The pixie, whose face was losing feeling, could only look on in horror as the antidote bottle was tipped slowly into her nose, and thankfully failed to enter her body due to her forward leaning.
“Wrong hole, right. Sorry, Claire,” Doc apologized as he forced Claire’s mouth open and magically controlled the antidote into her stomach. The magical elixir permeated her body in but a few moments, prompting Claire to cough out the forced-in potion bottle onto the floor. She heaved from the experience, hurling an empty stomach and finding nothing to lose.
“Doc—cough— that was… blegh. I... thank you for saving me, Doc,” she finally managed to get out as she calmed down.
The floating crystal blinked, as if sighing. “That was truly reckless, Claire. I would not have been able to save you if you hadn’t prepared this antidote.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Claire cleared her throat. “I didn’t think I’d be so hopeless, nor did I do my research properly on those flowers. To think, they could feed on any spell touching them. This was my fault.”
“As long as you are okay,” Doc murmured. “In any case, I think we’ve both learned a valuable lesson here. Though my slimes failed to attack you, you can be affected by their indirect attacks and abilities. You’ll need to be more cautious in the dungeon until we understand the limits.”
“Yes, Doc, understood,” Claire stood up, appearing properly chastised. “To think, you’d be forced to save me like this when I’m the smarter one—an apt humiliation for my dungeon pixie heritage. I didn’t even manage to collect the flowers,” she sighed.
“Not true,” Doc said. Claire looked up questioningly.
“They’re in your room,” Doc admitted with a sigh. “I teleported them there when I got you. I didn’t do anything to spoil them, so no more excursions, okay?”
Claire’s face relaxed into a comforting smile. “Thank you. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a rest now before cleaning. And you’re right, no more dumb risks.” She flapped her wings and flew into her home, pausing only for just a moment in the doorway to give Doc a thankful nod.
When the door closed behind her, Claire survey
ed the damages. Doc hadn’t been subtle in his search. Items and furniture were strewn around the floor in an organized chaos. The Dream flowers stood in her kitchen with the others, their root already sinking into the mana rich dungeon floor. Claire let out a sigh and cast a series of cleaning spells. She walked through the rising mess, dodging out of the way as wood un-shattered and decorations moved seamlessly back into position. A few tricks learned from... someone. She’d remember eventually, like everything else.
“A curse,” she muttered as she reached the kitchen. Claire grabbed a goblet and filled it with water. She eyed the wooden container in her hands, swirling the water and watching it slosh back and forth against the edges. With her right hand, she reached up to one of the Dream petals, and squeezed. A single drop of milky, fluorescent, glowing blue appeared on its tip, the flower petal withering up in the process. The drop fell into the goblet, and the water changed.
Claire stared into the depths of endless blue. When she swirled the cup, the contents no longer sloshed but instead seemed to be untouchable by force without any ripples. With closed eyes, she raised the drink up to her lips, and drank it.
The cool blue entered her, became her, and soon after, was all that mattered.
The sea of red replaced by a sea of serenity.
No more.
Chapter 12
“Rowen, incoming!” Anadine warned as she herself dodged out of the way of the seed spread. Rowen slipped his gelatinous body behind a tree as the pellets slammed into it, creating numerous small holes that caused the tree to groan and sway dangerously. It didn’t take long to fall, creating cover from which Anadine and Rowen met up once more.
The white and grey slime used a tentacle to peak over the edge and hissed in pain as it was torn to shreds by another seed shooting through the air.
“I messed up,” Rowen growled out as he lowered his tentacle, reforming it.
Dungeon Wars Page 12
