POV : FORT BONE
Atlas was in the training area with the baby trolls when Alexander returned from his afternoon hunt for mobs. Atlas stopped his drills and let the baby trolls know that the mini fairies would take care of them.
“Mini fairies, can you keep an eye on these two little guys?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” the mini fairies agreed.
Alexander and Atlas walked away from the training area to a more quiet and secluded part of Fort Bone castle. “What’s going on, Alexander?”
“Well,” Alexander began, scratching his head, “we went out huntin’ today, same as usual. Saw the usual crowd: skeletons clackin’ about, a troll here and there, couple of ghouls lookin’ all grumpy. But I swear, something was just plain off.”
He paused, looking everyone dead in the eye, “There were slimes everywhere. Like someone spilled the world’s biggest barrel of pig slop and forgot to clean it up. I nearly lost a boot tryin’ to kick one off the path.”
Atlas snorted, “Guess even the dungeons got their own brand of pests now.”
“Tell me ‘bout it,” Alexander said, rolling his eyes. “I’m just hopin’ they don’t start multiplying, or we’ll be up to our knees in goo by sunrise.”
“Slimes?” Atlas repeated, his mind racing. He suddenly realized, ‘Fuck, we never cleared the Slime Dungeon.‘ It was somewhere to their east, but it had slipped their minds after Evelynh and Kingsley’s deaths interrupted their search. With everything going on at Fort Bone—the bureaucrats, the military, bandits—he had completely forgotten about the slimes. And now, the problem was coming to find him.
“When you say there were a lot of slimes, what do you mean?” Atlas asked.
“I mean everywhere,” Alexander said, throwing his hands up. “Slimes were eatin’ demon dogs, dissolvin’ skeletons—anything that so much as moved, they oozed right over it. Looked like a puddin’ cup gone rogue.”
“They’re spreadin’ fast, too,” he added with a grimace. “No way this stays quiet. Adventurers’ll be comin’ back with slime stories all night long. Heck, they’ll be smellin’ like a frog pond by the time they get here.”
“Hoo-boy,” Atlas said, his concern growing. “Alright, we have a slime problem. If they form a pod—a king slime, uh, what would you call a giant frigging slime colony. If they form together, they’ll make this huge slime. Those are horrible to kill because each slime inside has its own core. We need to hit all the cores before the mega behemoth pod slime will break apart and die. It’s really hard to do, those things are as elastic and fluid as they are. The colony pod slime can also keep shifting where the cores are. The last time this happened, Clark and I led over a thousand men to try to take one down.”
Alexander’s eyes widened. “Sheeyoot, I didn’t realize it was that bad. I thought it would just be more of a pain in the ass than anything.”
Atlas nodded. “Can you help gather the rest of the leadership? I think we need to decide what to do.”
Alexander and Atlas recruited the help of a few mini fairies, and they gathered the leadership of Fort Bone. After Alexander explained the situation, the leadership was stunned. Dealing with slimes and the possibility of this king pod mega giant slime was something they’d never had experience with. The only experience Atlas had with it was not that useful.
Atlas stood in the center of the leadership meeting, his arms crossed as he scanned the room. “Alright, everyone, we’ve got a serious problem. Alexander’s crew encountered slimes out there—more than we’ve ever seen. These aren’t your everyday nuisances; we’re talking about a potential Giant Pod Slime.”
The room buzzed with confused murmurs. John raised an eyebrow. “A Giant Pod Slime? I’ve never heard of that.”
Atlas sighed, shaking his head. “That’s because we’ve never dealt with one. It’s basically a mass of slimes that fused together. Each one of those things has its own core, and to kill it, we need to destroy every single core. If we don’t stop them now, they’ll form into something we can’t handle.”
Wilfredo leaned back, rubbing his chin. “How do we even find this thing? Slimes aren’t exactly predictable.”
Atlas gestured to Alexander. “That’s the issue. They’ve started spreading everywhere. They’re feeding, growing, and soon they’ll come together. If we don’t take action, we’ll have a Behemoth Pod colony right at our gates.”
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Stu’s mace clanked as he slammed it on the ground. “Just fucking crush ‘em! We’ve faced worse.”
Alexander smirked, his Southern drawl slipping in. “I wouldn’t be so cocky, Stu. These things are slipperier than eels in a grease bucket. It’d be a nightmare to kill.”
Atlas nodded. “We need to hit them fast and hard before they gather. We’ll split into teams and sweep the area to the east where the Slime Dungeon was supposed to be. If we find the dungeon, we’ll take it out. If not, we destroy every slime we find.”
Barbara, usually the calm voice of reason, spoke up. “And what if they do form? What’s our plan then?”
Atlas grimaced. “If that happens... Well, I’m not sure we’ll have enough men or firepower. But we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”
Stu stood, slamming his fist on the table. “Then we stop them before it fucking happens. No one’s dying because of some damn slimes.”
The room fell silent as Atlas gave a determined nod. “Alright, we move out tomorrow at dawn. Let’s make sure these slimes don’t ruin our fortress.”
As the meeting wrapped up, Atlas felt the weight of the task ahead. ‘I hope we’re ready for this.‘
Atlas turned to Amber. “Is the Crafting Association still buying slime bodies?”
“We are,” Amber replied, “but they don’t really sell for much. There’s not that much use for them. We’ve been mainly stacking them aside, making extra pillows out of them, and the occasional pudding pop treat.”
“Huh,” Atlas thought. “Alright, what are you paying for them right now?”
“One coin for every three slime bodies,” Amber said.
Alexander added, “Yeah, that really doesn’t make anybody want to hunt these slimes. Those little guys only drop a few coins when you hunt them down. It’s way more rewarding to track down ghouls or skeletons who can drop up to ten mana coins. But there are a lot of adventurers out here, right?”
Isabella agreed. “Yeah, there are a lot of adventurers. The security is good in Fort Bone. But, like Amber said, I don’t see that many people hunting slimes.”
“Alright,” Atlas said, “we need to get the whole army out and focused on hunting down slimes before they form into this mega ginormous king pod. Ah seriously what do you call this thing? I’m officially calling it a king pod slime. And we need to actively encourage adventurers to hunt slimes down.”
“John, how are our expenses?”
John considered the expenses. “Well, we really don’t have that many. Some wages, but most of that’s paid by whoever has hired the people.”
“Alright,” Atlas said, “then we can afford to put a bounty out.”
He headed to the central area in front of Fort Bone, where he made an announcement. “Adventurers, Fort Bone is putting out a temporary bounty on all slimes. You can turn in their bodies for one coin per slime body. We need to take care of this problem before they form a king pod slime.”
The adventurers gathered in front of the announcement podium, murmuring amongst themselves. The bounty had caught their attention. Some looked eager, while others, like Alexander had pointed out, were still hesitant, knowing slimes didn’t exactly yield the most exciting rewards.
**
“At least slimes aren’t that tough to kill,” one adventurer grinned, giving his sword a twirl. “Just a good slice, and they’re done for.”
“Oh, easy for you to say, Mr. Fancy Pants swordsman,” his friend huffed, thumping his old, dented staff on the ground. “Try hunting them with a staff, like I do. You think you got it bad because they splatter on your boots? I had one gob up my whole leg, and let me tell ya, it takes a bit more than one whack to peel those sticky blobs off.”
The swordsman snickered, “Hey, at least it’s a free cleaning job for those boots you never polish.”
His friend shot him a glare. “Say that again when you’re elbow-deep in goo, trying to get it outta your hair. Last one I fought latched onto my face. I spent twenty minutes fightin’ off the world’s stickiest beard!”
The swordsman burst out laughing, nearly doubling over. “Maybe that’s an improvement for ya!”
“Oh, ha-ha, Mr. Smooth Cheeks,” the staff-wielder grumbled, wiping some slime off his sleeve. “Keep talkin’, and I’ll introduce you to the next one personally.”
‘‘‘
Amber, still nearby, shook her head slightly and said to Atlas. “I mean, it’s good we’re offering a bounty, but I’m telling you, those slime bodies just aren’t worth much. We’re gonna end up with a warehouse full of them at this rate.”
Atlas rubbed his chin. “Yeah, but right now, we don’t have a choice. I’d rather have slimes clogging up our storage than a King Pod Slime rampaging through the fort.”
John added, “Plus, with enough adventurers out there hunting, we’ll slow down their gathering. It’ll buy us some time to figure out where that dungeon is.”
Isabella chimed in. “If the Crafting Association finds new uses for those slime bodies, we could turn a profit on this problem. Maybe offer a bonus for slimes over a certain size?”
Atlas nodded. “Good idea. Amber, can you talk to the Crafting Association about that? See if they can work out some new recipes or products using slime bodies. Anything to make this bounty more useful for us.”
Amber shrugged. “I’ll see what we can whip up. But if you see a warehouse pillows made of slime that don’t sell, don’t blame me.”
As Amber walked off, Alexander slapped Atlas on the back. “Well, looks like we’ve got a bounty. Let’s just hope these adventurers are more eager to take down slimes than they are to hunt for something with a bigger payday.”
Atlas sighed. “We’ll see. But I don’t plan on waiting around. Tomorrow, we’re joining them in the hunt. I want every soldier, adventurer, and whoever else can hold a weapon out there. We’re not letting this slime problem turn into a disaster.”
***
The adventurers began to disperse, voices buzzing with excitement about the new bounty. Atlas picked up snippets of their chatter: one group was eagerly mapping out their route for an early morning hunt, while another debated the best techniques for handling slimes without ruining their gear.
“…heard slimes drop rare cores now. Imagine the haul if we hit a whole pack,” one of them said.
“Oh, and don’t forget about the legendary King Pod Slime,” another chimed in, eyes wide. “They say it’s huge, practically a walking treasure chest of loot.”
There were a lot of rumours that were flying around….some true. Others not so much.
***
When Atlas found out about the rumors he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. ‘At least the name is catching on.’