Dungeon Wars

by Jeffrey Logue

  Honestly, Doc could not imagine being more prepared for an attack than he was now, given his current power level. The reproducing slimes had begun to fill his crystal with their gathered mana, but it was still slow going compared to his time as an adventurer-killing dungeon. Granted, killing a demon so early on in his life was a boon, especially as it had not been solely his own power at work.

  His slimes were many and of various family groups that could coordinate, his remaining bosses were all in tip-top shape, and he himself could create a lord slime body to temporarily inhabit if the need arose. The only issue was... Claire.

  The dungeon spirit once more turned to look at the shut door in the wall.

  “Oh Claire, I don’t know how to help you,” Doc whispered sadly. “And I’m afraid that, pretty soon, you’ll be beyond any help I can render.”

  Chapter 21

  Ayla licked her front paw carelessly as she considered the two slimes before her, both attacking a training dummy made out of rock with their tentacles in a repetitious flurry of tentacles. Her sister, Aisha, sat next to her, yawning.

  “How much longer you need, sister?” she grunted. “They either ready or not ready. Decision, not large. Perhaps scared your own lose to mine?”

  Ayla snarled in annoyance, but she didn’t follow up her sister’s question with an answer.

  “Hm, is issue then?” Aisha asked, her curiosity piqued. “What weighs on mind, sister?”

  Ayla grumbled to herself before answering her sister. “Are we sure they’re ready? I mean, just a few weeks ago we were more naïve than either of them. Who are we to be teachers, when we couldn’t even separate ourselves.”

  “Meh,” Aisha snorted, whipping her sister with her tail. “Think too much, sister. Have trainees rubbed off on you? You, I, we live through four sets of trauma and not go crazy—four different lives of false pain, immense pain, and foolish pain. Came out different, yes, but not worse. Family kept us safe, family keep them safe. Is lesson they have learned. Fighting also yes for outer strength, but family make for inner strength. Doubt is for overthinkers, is why you relate to blue girl, right? Not enough simple, like me.”

  “Simple is right, you knucklehead,” Ayla chuckled, returning the tail whip affectionately. “Fine, then, you’re right. They both have proved their strength, endurance, and adaptability in combat, and they both have set aside their demons, if but for the moment. All that’s left is our bet, which Anadine will win.”

  “Still wrong, but we see,” Aisha said. The worg let out a loud bark, summoning both slime fighters. Anadine and Rowen ceased their practice and sped over to stand at attention in front of the two worgs.

  “Is time now,” Aisha announced with an even expression. “Final lesson complete, but now need final fights. Rematch, proper, between you two with winner gaining nothing and loser losing nothing. Do not hold back. Fight and speak with tentacles!”

  Ayla rolled her eyes. “Just show each other the fruit of your training. You can’t die, so don’t hold back. Understood?”

  “I do,” both slimes acknowledged.

  Ayla waved her paw at them, prompting them.

  The two slimes faced each other—one blue, the other white with grey stripes. Both the same size, weight, and of similar density of slime. They faced each other with their non-emotional bodies brimming with tension and feelings beyond their physical appearance. Even their background mirrored each other, past lives entwined beyond coincidence.

  As Anadine stared down Rowen, unbidden memories played through her mind: the first sparks of intelligence that came from devouring the undead dungeon core fragments, whisking Rowen’s cocoon away back to Doc and Claire, seeing the outside world through his eyes, visiting him in the tavern and meeting Milly, the regaining of her past life memories, the showdown against the Empire, and all the events that had gone down in the dungeon since their teleportation. They had been together since regaining consciousness, both out-of-placers in a new home.

  Her training with Ayla, it came to her now.

  *

  With a flying moan, Anadine sailed across the cave room into the wall, making a resounding splat. Her splattered corpse drifted slowly down the wall, collecting itself back into a puddle once it reached the floor.

  Ayla, yawning, waited until the slime had vaguely reformed before speaking. “Well, that was pitiful,” she said coarsely. “Have you not heard anything I’ve said in the last day? You don’t have the height, weight, or weapons to try that human form against me. Stop thinking like Diana.”

  “I’m not,” Anadine argued angrily as her puddle body reformed into a slime. “I’m attacking like we practiced, tentacles out and brain off.”

  “Pah,” Ayla snorted disdainfully. “You may have started the fight that way, but as soon as I mixed up my attacks, you decreased the number of tentacles to two, with one acting like a shield. Tell me, how well do you think a tentacle works as a shield with its length and thinness? You’re forcing yourself into bad habits when things change. You’re not adapting.”

  “What, you expect me to forget years of training at the drop of a slime?” Anadine shot back rhetorically.

  “Yes, I do,” Ayla said, glaring at the slime. “I am your mentor, and you are not listening to me. I told you before we started, I’m talking to Anadine, not that human girl who died. She’s dead, gone, destroyed, and worthless to both you and me right now.”

  “Worthless? I am not worthless!” Diana screamed at Ayla, charging at her with sword drawn and shield out.

  Ayla rolled her eyes and casually moved out of sight, her tail emerging from her pupil’s shadow to whip her back into the wall.

  “Idiot,” she scolded. “You want to tell me that was you speaking there? Because that was a poor showing of anything beyond blind rage, which has no use here with your body type.”

  Anadine, dazed from the second impact, reformed slowly, sulkily. “Alright, so maybe I was controlled by my memories for a moment there,” she admitted. “But—”

  “No buts,” Ayla interrupted. The worg sighed, rubbing her ear with her paw. “Alright, look. I’ll apologize for calling your former life worthless, but you need to listen, I mean really listen to me, okay?” She waited for Anadine’s nod before continuing. The worg pointed a claw at Anadine then scratched a circle into the ground.

  “This is you, Anadine the slime boss,” she explained. “You came into being here mindless and full of possibilities.” The worg then scratched in part of the circle. “Since then, you received training from everyone on how to best act as a boss. This was improved once you absorbed those dungeon heart pieces, granting you a greater intelligence.” The circle was now filled in about a fourth.

  “However, your training was then sidetracked—in my opinion, ruined—by the acquisition of all your past life memories.” Ayla now made a large “X” in the remainder of the circle. “Doc has observed you in battle since, and he’s agreed with me. Your human training— which was excellent. mind you—is meant for a human. Muscles, bones, height: you no longer have these things by which to create force or strength. All you have now is incredible flexibility and material hardening, neither of which your former self used. Your mind is trapped in a box of its own design, and you need to free yourself of it. Or I’ll break and beat it out of you. Either way.”

  “I’ll admit your argument has merit,” Anadine murmured reluctantly as she reformed and moved back in front of Ayla, “but do you not think we should work on modifying my human tactics into ones usable in my current body? Wielding seven swords for instance—”

  “Will do you no good,” Ayla interrupted once more. “Look, human weapons are powerful in different areas, but each are designed based on human traits. You could wield a hammer right now, but you’d need quite the wind up to exert the same force a burly adventurer could. A sword requires technique, which is refined from muscle training, practice, and footwork. You lack muscles and feet, to say nothing of your actual amount of time spent practicing. A
ny fool can wield a sword, after all, but only a master can utilize it as part of his or her body. You know this, deep down in those irrelevant memories of yours.”

  Anadine said nothing as she formed two tentacles to gaze at. Having mastered mana sight and echolocation alongside tremor sense, she could witness the world around her in a rainbow of colors and shapes, but her body remained a dull and lifeless grey. Perception-wise, it was a sight she’d seen since the day she was created. Memory-wise, the sight was an abomination of the sense she had lost. Even when she moved, her slime body kept reflexively trying to swing imaginary arms by reflex.

  “Then how can I separate myself?” she asked quietly. “I’m no longer her, yet I can’t separate her away from me anymore than I can separate myself from this body.”

  “You think it was easy for my sister and I when first realized the changes that came over us?” Ayla asked.

  “Well, you certainly beat Rowen easily enough in his enraged form,” Anadine pointed out.

  Ayla chuckled. “Yes, but defeating a foolish opponent is hardly a challenge when the dungeon itself is supporting you. No, little sister, when you rest, my sister and I are continuing our own training to better get used to our changing bodies. When we saved you, I could still see perfectly, but now...”

  She trailed off, gazing silently down at the slime. Anadine looked back up, and in her kaleidoscope of vision, she finally noticed the tinges of grey slowly appearing on the worgs body. The light of mana still shone from her, but it was as if a see-through cocoon was wrapping itself around her.

  “You’re going blind?” Anadine asked, surprised.

  “Technically speaking. I’m also losing my traditional sense of smell, hearing, and taste,” Ayla responded evenly. “My sense of feeling, balance, and others remain fine—for now, at least. Still, you are not going through this alone.”

  Anadine said nothing.

  “Every night?” she asked after a few moments.

  “Every night,” Ayla confirmed with a nod. “My sister and I may be mentoring you and Rowen, but we are also mastering this process. We only have a head start thanks to Doc’s support, our mental journey through everyone’s head, and our lack of prior, proper, training. Moving through shadows and ripping out throats does not take much practice, after all.”

  “Then,” Anadine ventured carefully, “do you really believe I have to put aside everything I remembered?”

  Ayla shrugged. “In the end, it’s your own decision. I can only train you into fighting like a slime. Whether you want to add to that is your own path and not something anyone else can decide for you.”

  “In that case,” Anadine said with a glimmer in her core, “I think I know just the way we can go.”

  *

  Anadine returned to the present as she faced down Rowen in front of the worg twins. She hadn’t felt so relaxed and free since before her memories had returned. Ayla had been right; she did think too much about the wrong things. In the end, all a slime needed was a good brawl. She took a stance, by which she shifted her slime into a half moon shape facing her opponent.

  “Here I come, little brother,” Anadine said, a smile appearing on her amorphous body.

  “Prepare yourself, sister,” Rowen answered her, a similar smirk appearing on his form. In response to her stance, he morphed his body into a spiral, which began to spin.

  On both sides, seven tentacles exploded outward from their bodies, each surging forward in an attempt to skewer their opponent. Meeting in the middle, the tentacles each found an opponent and began whipping against each other in a flurry of blows that sent wet slapping sound echoing through the cave.

  Though appearing as a mad, random mesh of tentacles, in the eyes of their mentors, the fight was rendered down into base strategies and strengths. Anadine, with her more physical and ambush fighting style, was using her greater strength to attempt to mow through Rowen’s defense. Rowen, on the other hand, preferred ranged combat, rotating his tentacles in a circular motion using the momentum to deflect Anadine’s force the same way a shield user deflected sword attacks rather than meet them head on.

  With Anadine’s crescent stance, she formed two protective sides of three tentacles, each hardened along the edge into becoming pseudo-swords, that surrounded her middle tentacle, a large, brutish harpoon that kept up a spear-like assault. Her six outer tentacles acted like whips, using momentum to continue and escalate their speedy assault. The middle tentacle, on the other hand, used her slime as a spring to hold the potential energy within her until she could stretch no more. Each time, the tentacle smashed its way through Rowen’s defenses, but it lost too much momentum fighting against his current stance.

  Like the wind and water, Rowen’s rotating body easily brushed off most of Anadine’s attacks. His undulating body was strange, because while the entire slime seemed to be moving counter clockwise, parts of his body would suddenly move clockwise, creating a shredding surface that broke the enemy tentacles once caught. Of course, his tentacles operated similarly as drills, glancing off blows while also seeking to inflict maximum damage in the process. His only weakness was Anadine’s central spear attack, which forced him to devote most of his attention to defense, leaving her time to restore her lost tentacles.

  “Elasticity verses deflection,” Ayla noted from the sidelines. “Two of the strongest points a slime can possess. I’m curious, though, sister, why teach Rowen a defensive technique when he is a magic slime? I was sure you’d focus on distance attacks.”

  “Did focus,” Aisha admitted, “but then suffered same issue as other slimes. No defense. Magic slimes use brethren for defense, but Rowen use self. Proper boss without minion fighting style, though countered by strength, you see here. Why elasticity for hardening and copy focus slime?”

  “It was her idea, honestly,” the worg admitted. “Apparently, a thing known as a “whip sword” exists in the west, requiring a flexible body to wield. Given her prior sword training, we agreed on this form of attack to be best when confronting a ranged opponent, though it seems just as usable with in a close-range battle.”

  “Is not just close,” Aisha snickered.

  As if answering his mentor’s cue, a new tentacle sprouted from behind Rowen, a ball of darkness on its tip. With a flourish, the magical attack was shot at Anadine. The blue slime had barely enough time to fold all her tentacles into a shield before the blast struck, sending her back a good few feet, though unharmed.

  Rowen, keeping up the momentum, froze his movement and created a ball of darkness on each tentacle, eight in total. He unleashed the balls together, forming a small wall of darkness that zoomed straight at Anadine. The blue slime sprouted more tentacles and increased her shield’s durability, blocking the blasts but being forced back once more. Wave after wave of magic slammed into her shield, with Rowen moving closer while she was forced back. Her hardening buckled, forcing her to create layers of hardened slime beneath the first, but the cracks were showing. Her back against the wall, Anadine lost no time in moving up, with Rowen following, turning their ground battle into a sideways one.

  “If you’re waiting for me to run out of magic,” Rowen called out, “you’ll be disappointed to know I can create balls of darkness now with the smallest amount of mana possible. Your shield will break long before I run out.”

  Anadine failed to respond, instead opting to take the fight to the ceiling, where they battled upside down now. The two worgs looked up and continued to watch the apparently one-sided fight.

  “Hey, Rowen,” Anadine suddenly called out. “Tell me, you ever climb trees as a kid?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Then you’ll understand this!” Anadine suddenly separated her tentacles from her shield and threw it at Rowen. The slime-hardened shield twirled through the air and slammed into the surprised Rowen, distracting him for just a moment, a moment Anadine used to sever him from the ceiling.

  The white-grey slime, dislodged from the wall, reflexively shot his tentacl
e up to stick the ceiling in an effort to save himself. However, in that moment, he failed to keep track of Anadine, and the blue slime appeared right above him, severing his tentacles. Rowen fell, tentacles waving loosely, and landed with a loud splat. Anadine followed him down, though taking the form of a hardened hammer first, and smashing straight into Rowen’s core. The slime core, strong as it was, cracked under the combined weight of hardened slime and gravity.

  “Anadine wins,” Ayla announced, rather smugly. Aisha merely groaned and slapped her muzzle.

  “Ay, forgot to train to forget fear,” she admitted gracefully. “Silly Rowen still follows fear of pain, though to pain to be had. Ay, is too bad.”

  “You beat me,” Rowen said as Doc’s mana restored his core and his body. “Anadine, that was a good fight.”

  “Yes, it was,” the blue slime said, before wrapping Rowen in a slimy hug. Rowen, taken aback at first, soon reciprocated. Their cores released a pleasant warmth that spread through the both of them, a feeling of family, inclusion, and strength.

  Doc’s restriction on the two of them came undone.

  “Well done, you two,” Doc’s voice echoed in their heads for the first time in weeks. “You’ve both adapted into fine slime bosses. As such, I’m returning to you all your powers and abilities as rank 2 slime bosses. This means your minions will no longer attack you and that other slimes will now be slightly intimidated by you.”

  “We won’t let you down, Doc,” Anadine assured him, marveling at the rush she’d somehow forgotten.

  “I know you won’t,” he said, a faint smile being heard through their link. “However, now that you’ve both returned to form, there is a situation you must be made aware of. Come back to the heart room with The Twins—I mean Ayla and Aisha. There is much to discuss.”

  Chapter 22

  “So, let me get this straight,” Rowen summarized. “Somehow, our dungeon is in the middle of another dungeon, which is buffing up all the animals and monsters in the area into freakishly strong versions so that it can destroy enough. On top of that, Claire is nonresponsive and something in her home is draining the dungeon’s mana by an ever-increasing amount, placing the entire dungeon in danger of forced hibernation. Is that about right?”