“It was a mistake of ignorance,” Anadine disputed. “Neither of us were aware how close to this garden we were. We can still make it past.”
“I doubt it,” Rowen said, a note resignation in his voice. “The jungle slimes knocked out my tentacle, but not before I noted the area. The jungle slimes are circling around to cut us off. We’re trapped again.”
Anadine raised a single blue tentacle to Rowen’s body and tapped it gently. “In that case,” she said, “see you when we wake up.”
The woods behind them burst out as sharpened vines and leaves pelted their bodies. The echoing world vanished for the both of them.
*
“Alright, that’s attempt number six,” Anadine hummed as she used her acidic slime to carve out a new part of the map on the ground of her room. “We got farther this time. Knowing how close we were to that garden tells me we finally were clear of those bug slime swarmers. I think we can plan out a new route from this, right Rowen?”
She swirled her body to lock fake, slimy eyes with Rowen, who was slumped against the wall of the room, looking quite depressed. Anadine waved her tentacles at him. “Come on, Rowen. I need your input here.”
“No, you don’t,” Rowen snorted. “I’ll just be another burden.”
Anadine groaned and flipped her body like a pancake. “Rowen, please, enough with the self-pity. I got tired of it after attempt four. Look, no one gets things done right the first time, especially in this kind of situation. We just need to gather what we learned and move on.”
“Says you,” Rowen shot back. “This isn’t a game, Anadine! We’ve died seven times. Seven! If we weren’t slimes, our time would up already! We’d be dead, gone, vanquished, destroyed, obliterated! How can you not be depressed after dying?”
“I’ve already died, Rowen, and so have you.” She pointed out. “Humans die. Slime monsters in a slime dungeon do not. We respawn. Just think of it as a nice resetting nap that forces us to reevaluate our plan of attack.”
“You’re being reckless!” Rowen shouted.
“And you’re being stubbornly pessimistic!” Anadine shot back with the same level of furor. “Little brother, you need to get over this fugue and help me plan our next move. Unless you want to stay here in this cave forever?”
“It’s not like there’s anything better for us waiting where we’re going,” Rowen muttered, joining her anyway.
Anadine slapped the bottom of the map she’d carved into the stone. “Alright, this is our start point. We are on the far side of the forest cavern near the entrance to the dungeon. The exit, is here,” she pointed, “and the main staircase should still be here.” She pointed once more at the top of the map, where a lone staircase symbol stood.
“Now,” Anadine continued, “over the course of seven tries and three days, you and I have learned the layout of the area. The ceiling is completely off-limits. Both light-eater and luminous slimes are lethal. Crawling along the walls fails as well, as sticking takes our full concentration, leaving us vulnerable to any attacks from the forest.”
“Which happens almost immediately, because our colors are so obvious on the wall,” Rowen deadpanned.
“Incorrect,” Anadine tapped the floor. “Slimes don’t have eyes, but our movements on the wall are undisguised by the bare environment, yes. We’d have to move incredibly slow, but then we’d both lose concentration before traveling very far.”
“That leaves the forest,” Anadine paused as her tentacle tapped the detailed portion of the map. “It’s a puzzle of avoiding and hiding.”
“You mean from the hordes of bug slimes, patrolling grey slimes, hidden groups of herb slimes, and the random chance of encountering any combination?” Rowen asked sarcastically. “Too bad we can’t just make a horde of minions to handle such threats for us? Oh wait, we can!”
Fluidly, two slimes budded out of Rowen. The two grey slimes wobbled for a bit, before attacking Rowen with their bodies. Rowen casually slapped the two into nonexistence.
“But for whatever reason, any slime we quite literally birth from our bodies are immediately hostile and not useful. This makes them even less helpful than our current situation,” he finished with a flourish of tentacles.
Anadine tapped her tentacle impatiently. “Yes, our boss abilities are limited, likely by design. Back to the map, we’ve located the section of forest where the bugs live, and we’ve figured out the patrol route for the closest grey slimes. Now that’s we’ve located the garden, I think we have a real good chance getting through to the central forest this time.”
“Great. Now we can reach the halfway point after seven deaths. What an improvement,” Rowen said drolly.
Anadine whipped out another tentacle and slapped Rowen, sending ripples through his body.
“No sense of pain, remember?” Rowen chuckled darkly.
“Alright, enough,” Anadine snapped, twisting herself and turning a darker blue. “Rowen, I’m tired of you, your attitude, and every word you’ve said not only now, but ever since we fought. When we’re in the field, you either blame me or blame yourself. When we’re here, you moan and whine and just plainly bitch about everything. Clearly, nothing has been solved since our fight for you, and I’m tired of trying to pick you up. I’m done.”
With a huff, Anadine slid across the floor toward the exit.
“Where are you going?” Rowen asked, seemingly bored.
“I’m going to try again, and again, and again until I find the way across the forest,” Anadine announced. “If you aren’t going to help, then stay here and mope your core out.”
“Fine,” Rowen shouted, “maybe I will!”
Anadine didn’t respond. She was gone.
Rowen milled on the floor, slowly drifting toward the wall. Without Anadine present, the young slime was left alone, fully alone, for the first time in a long time.
“Well, that didn’t go well,” came the familiar voice from above Rowen’s head.
Rowen raised his tentacle and waved it but failed to touch anything above him. A faint giggle echoed through his slime.
“Come, little death slime, we’ve gone through this dance before,” the voice continued, sweet and soft and uncanny, a high pitched, hysterical version of his own voice. “You cannot find me, nor can others perceive me. I’m your little friend solely, and evermore.”
“You’re a hallucination,” Rowen grumbled, “a curse on my soul, created after violating my oath to the gods. A personal demon my guilt has created, a figment of my imagination.”
“Fancy wordage you’re using,” the voice teased. “Tell me, did your studies as prince include a cure for such hallucinations? Or perhaps you’re quoting something else? How does a 10-year-old boy understand such concepts? Oh, but then—”
“Stop it.” Rowen shouted, fruitlessly pounding his own body to stop the voice.
“You’re not who you’ve said you were,” the voice continued, teasing him with its ghostly presence. “A prince of a fallen kingdom, a refugee boy lost in the streets, a weakened slime. Which one is the true you? Or, is it someone—"
“No more!” Rowen screamed, and the voice disappeared. The paler than normal slime slumped into a puddle on the floor, his body attempting to pant even though the reason for it was long lost. “Leave me alone,” he whispered to the cavern floor. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to know about it. There... there is nothing to live for anymore.”
The puddled slime remained on the floor for a few minutes. In the silence of the cavern and light from the exit, the white-grey slime reformed wordlessly, and left, following the trail of the only other slime that had been in the room.
*
Anadine cursed to herself as she forced her body deeper into the hole. Hiding did not come naturally to her. It was in her experience to break through obstacles rather to avoid them, yet she found herself once again forced into such a position as another unexpected patrol of grey slimes slithered nearby. She’d failed to hide in time befo
re being revealed, so every squish and squid frayed her nerves as they searched for her.
Her mind couldn’t help but shoot back to the many times her former master had hunted her in the woods, attempting to train her ambush tactics and special awareness. She... no, the human known as Diana had been a poor student.
The feeling of uncanniness divided her mind once more, sending waves of uncharacteristic pain through her body, a feeling no slime should have been able to feel. Only things with brains should know pain, not her.
“Who am I,” Anadine whispered, unable to stop herself from vocalizing the words in a so human fashion. Yet she wasn’t human, but everything she knew told her she was.
Staggering pain. Blinded sight.
The slime known as Anadine lost cohesion as she fell apart, her core dropping uselessly onto her puddle of slime. The slime known as Anadine struggled to breathe, scream, cry, sweat, grip herself, and was completely, impossibly, unable to. The pain surged relentlessly as the searching slimes above resumed their patrol, forgetting her. Still, she suffered as the slime slowly moved through the skinny hole.
The pale blue blob inched her way out, confirming there was nothing in her immediate area before plopping under the light of the day. Only the light could remove the pain, as it illuminated her body in a way no set of eyes could. Though she could no longer perceive it, the sensation of light remained the same, no matter what body she was in.
Light was warm, bright, illuminating, and piercing. It was an experience felt, not sorely seen. The pain lessened as her mind caught back up to itself, un-splintering into a whole more familiar to the slime. Under the warmth, she began to speak.
“My name is Anadine, and I am a slime,” it whispered, forcing air through its body to form a pseudo-voice. “I… I was born less than a year ago. My memories are my own. I fought adventurers, creatures, and undead. I gained memories of my past life, but I am not my past life. What I think I was is an illusion of the past. I cannot forget it, but I cannot let it control me.”
The words were her motto, her creed. Ever since the argument with Rowen, and their subsequent battle, she had repeated these words over and over to herself whenever she became confused. She kept this to herself, unsure how to admit any weakness in front of Rowen, her younger sibling in slime. Human aspects, no doubt, but ones which she could not let go of: pride, fear, and doubt. Every time he opened his mouth, the same words she heard in her own head would fly like arrows into her soul.
That’s why she left him, but now the guilt set in. He was only voicing his concerns, fears, and doubts, and she had failed to comfort him. Instead, she treated him with hostility and unkindness, finally abandoning him to his darkness.
This failure to act, both her slime memories and human memories agreed, was a personal tragedy.
She’d left a comrade behind.
And yet, freedom was so close. Anadine turned to gaze further into the forest. Her close discovery notwithstanding, she was about the closest to leaving the forest floor as she’d ever before. Whatever Doc’s reasons for this trial, she was in the clear to move in on. The exit was just beyond the tree-line.
And she had to go back.
Letting out a sigh, either of contentment or disappointment, Anadine turned back, only to narrowly dodge ball of darkness that smashed a grown tree trunk into pieces.
A familiar white-grey slime approached, with nine more tentacles forming a magical ball of darkness. Anadine attempted to grit her teeth, having to settle with grinding slime.
“Rowen, I’m sorry I left—”
She dodged again as five balls slammed into the ground around her, being sent backwards by the combined shockwave. A large chunk of slime vanished from her body, forcing her to spend precious mana to regenerate.
Horrified, Anadine realized that the attacks were different from the previous attacks from other slime. She had a feeling, a strong one, that if Rowen defeated her here, she would not wake up in the start room.
She likely would not wake at all.
Chapter 13
Doc sighed, a feeling of restlessness taking hold in him. It had been a day since Claire had vanished into her home. Per their privacy agreement, he couldn’t check in on her, even after his repeated questions and inquiries had gone unanswered. With the two boss slimes on his ‘quest,’ the dungeon found himself alone once more.
Unlike other times, however, Doc was prepared to combat his boredom. With a twisting of otherworldly force, the dungeon spirit spawned to life a common slime onto the dungeon heart floor. The purple slime wobbled around as it began to explore its surroundings, with no purpose but to exist.
Doc’s spirit left his crystal and drifted down to the slime, studying it with careful senses. The slime was the same as ever before, a mix of gelatinous goo and a single, small core. He’d never really given either much thought before.
The slime of slime, rather it’s gelatinous body, was uniform in composition. Contrary to its initial looks, the slime was rather impenetrable, easily morphing around everything that it came in contact with. Using force, Doc poked the slime continuously and failed to pierce what appeared to be an outer membrane of some sort, a barrier between outside the slime and inside the slime. He didn’t understand what it was. A magic barrier perhaps, or did the slime possess qualities similar to water, which he’d seen exhibit similar properties?
The core, the only other part of the slime, was just as uniform as its slime. A smooth black stone which floated in the center of the slime no matter how the monster moved. Having snuck his awareness into an adventuring town before, Doc was aware of the many uses a slime core possessed. Slime cores were a vital component to enchanting, used in several mana restoring potions, and were occasionally used to make foci for magical wands and staffs.
“Well, then, let’s experiment,” Doc murmured excitedly.
Using his dungeon powers, Doc surged mana into the slime before him. The slime shook and vibrated, before suddenly bulging out and expanding into a larger version. It had become an overslime, the second stage of slime life.
“So just adding mana merely stimulates natural growth,” Doc observed. “In that case, what happens if I added more?”
An additional surge of magical power was thrust into the slime. With a shudder, the slime core grew suddenly, doubling its size and weight. The slime itself, however, appeared to only grow slightly, while its purplish coloring grew darker.
“A lord slime,” Doc announced with pride. “Ha ha! I’ve finally created a lord slime!” According to Claire, lord slimes were the third from of slime growth, and were considered the first true leaders in a mass of slimes. They could coordinate and employ basic tactics using their cohorts, making them far more dangerous than overslimes. Of course, that didn’t mean they were intelligent, just better ambush predators.
Doc felt a strain, however, as the lord slime continued to mill around the heart room floor.
“It appears I’m not strong enough yet to maintain even the most basic of lord slimes,” he said, dissolving the newly formed slime back into mana. The relief tickled his spirit, and his core, which had dimmed during the testing, regained its glow. “That means I can’t create lord slime versions of the higher tier slimes, then. Now, next would be the core.”
He formed another basic slime and imbued it with mana once again. This time, however, the dungeon spirit focused the insertion of mana into the slime’s core, as opposed to the slime creature as a whole. The core, under the stress of additional mana, exploded into pieces. Doc felt a wince of pain from the dying slime as it vanished into sparkles of light.
“Alright, so cores do not appear able to take the brunt insertion of mana,” he observed. “I wonder, is this what Claire meant when she described mana poisoning to me? If so . . . then a slime core could be used as a fragmenting weapon perhaps? Well, what about the slime’s body, I wonder?”
Another new slime, and this time with mana added to its gelatinous outside. What came out was surprisi
ng for Doc.
The gooey outside of the slime acted as a filter, a strain for the magic entering the slime. Doc watched as his pure mana was slowly stripped down to the most basic of mana strains, free of his influence and anything else. The raw magical power was fed into the core, but no growth occurred. Instead, the slime began to slowly leave Doc’s influence, as if it were traveling far away even without moving. Doc cut the power and allowed the slime to vanish back into mana.
“It was becoming independent,” the dungeon spirit realized. “This, this is amazing! If I don’t make sure some of my mana remains unfiltered, then I lose control over the slime. I can’t even see the world through it. But that means the slime can leave the dungeon!”
One of the most important restrictions on Doc was that his monsters could not leave the confines of his influence, which normally meant within the dungeon. The only opportunities beyond that were within another dungeon he was directly battling, any place on the surface where he’d stretched his influence, or land corrupted by magic he could hitch a ride on. This new discovery, however, opened up new avenues for him.
“I need to experiment more,” Doc reasoned. “Perhaps I can still see through their senses if I leave just a little of myself in them. But would that set a limit to their exploration outside the dungeon? Maybe I could install instructions before freeing them. Would ingrained instructions remain, though?”
Doc’s thoughts were disturbed by the sensation of battle on his first floor. Pausing, the dungeon mind turned his attention up to the forest-covered floor to see who or what was wreaking so much destruction. To his surprise, it was Rowen and Anadine. The two were entrenched in some kind of battle again.
Doc clicked his imaginary tongue at the sight. He’d thought the two of them would have made more progress than this, but it appeared they were still embroiled in a futile struggle with themselves and each other.
“This has gone on long enough,” he muttered in annoyance. “Alright, just go to sleep now.”
Dungeon Wars Page 13
