Underneath the city of Stromfell is a sewer system that very few cities could hope to match. Created some 500 years ago by settlers from the Votani empire, these sewers stretch miles underground even to this day, more and more sections are added by the population. Carved from solid stone and reinforced with ancient magics, the tunnels form a labyrinthine network that snakes beneath the city, unseen and largely forgotten by those above.
Despite its extensive use, the true scope of the sewer system remains a mystery. Few dare to venture into its depths, due in part to the horrible stench that grows ever more sickening the more you tread. Nowadays, No one knows where the waste ultimately goes, nor what lies at the deepest and most foul levels.
There is some debate on what truly lies at its depths. Some claim that remnants of the ancient Votani lie down there. Others claim that the sewers are connected to even older ones that predate the Votani. Whatever the case is, no one will ever know what truly down there, not if the criminals and beasts that lurk there have any say in the matter…
***
The skeleton stared at the grime-covered ceiling, both in confusion and in pain. He remembered being dragged through the ground, though it felt like he was being waterboarded if he was being honest. After that though, he didn't know what happened. He just found himself lying on something very slimy and staring at the ceiling. He tried to move, multiple times in fact, but whatever it was that he was laying on was truly sticky since he couldn't move at all. The book he had snatched from the screaming lady was next to him in the slime although it was slowly sinking into it. Overall, his situation sucked and began to suck even more when he felt the slime underneath him move.
It was very gentle at first, just a little tug on his bones before it eventually turned into a feeling of constant rolling as he was carried off by the slime. He should have been panicking after all, he was being carried off by god knows what but instead he wasn't. In fact, he kinda liked it. It was like being carried on a very squishy bed and sure while he didn't know where exactly he was going, it was sure as hell better than being chased by a mob.
For who knows how long, he was carried through the sewers by the slime as he stared off at the ceiling, sort of thinking about everything that had happened thus far. He still didn't know who he was, where he was, much less what was even going on at this point. That annoyed him greatly since he would love to figure out what the hell was going on. That's why he grabbed the book because it might tell him something but at this point, he wasn't sure anymore since he had descended deeper into the slime along with whatever else it was running over.
It was really when he began to think about the old man and what he had done that he felt the slime stop. It was very sudden, rocking him back and forth as he tried to look around. Unlike where he had been before, the sewers here seemed much older, the stone having been heavily eroded to the point where he thought he was in a cave. The tide of sewage had also changed, going from a lazy stream to appearing almost like rapids. It was weird and grew even weirder when he felt the slime underneath him begin to bubble.
He felt the slime that had stuck to him peel off and he was unceremoniously dumped onto the floor. snapping around, he saw the slime was now much larger than it had been before. Before it stretched a couple of inches off the ground. Now it was a couple of feet high and bubbling as if someone had lit a flame underneath it. The skeleton stared at it, confused before it promptly exploded.
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***
For many slimes in the world, although not all, they function through what is commonly referred to as a “Magic Stone”. These stones aren't hard to produce, usually coming into being whenever magic seeps into them over the course of decades if not centuries, or if a wizard decides to pour some of theirs into it. Although used as rudimentary batteries if proper ones aren't available, these stones are also used as hearts or, as speculated by some, brains for the various species of slimes.
No one is quite sure where they come from, there has been no observable evidence of them being created artificially nor being “birthed” from other slimes. However, it has been noted that whenever there are large numbers of magic stones in an area, it is guaranteed that various slime species will be found near them.
For many slimes, they act as scavengers, constantly clearing the ground with their gelatinous mass as they dissolve whatever it is they suck up. While the slime was dragging the skeleton away, a hunting style many slimes have been observed doing where they simply carry whatever it is that they catch until it sinks into them to feed on, it had the misfortune of running into a rusted blade that was lying on the ground.
While rolling over it to get at a few cockroaches that were scurrying on the ground, the blade was absorbed and due to its position, slowly pushed into the slime's magic stone. Slimes are not sentient, nor can they think as they simply move around in a constant search of food. Due to this, the slime did not act nor did it care as the rusted metal slowly pierced it before eventually killing it.
***
Just before the slime exploded, the slime had stopped just short of a large drain, the sewage that flowed past it vanishing into a dark abyss. The skeleton was not sure why it did that, all he knew was that the force of the explosion sent him over it and now sent him careening into an abyss. He felt a sudden rush of air as he plummeted downward, the dim light from the sewers above quickly fading into darkness. The sensation of falling was disorienting, his bony limbs flailing helplessly in the void. He fell for a long time, long enough that he began to question when exactly he would hit the bottom when he finally entered a new area.
The whistling sounds his bones made were immediately replaced by a loud echo as he entered a massive room if the echo was anything to go on. The falling had made him almost fold into himself with the wind pushing before suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. It was like hitting water at a high speed because he smashed against whatever it was he landed on, absolutely shattering his left arm before he began to sink into whatever it was he landed on.
He felt no pain where his arm should have been, instead feeling a numb sensation as it floated beside him. The substance he had landed in was thick and viscous, similar to the slime he had encountered earlier, but colder and more unsettling. He struggled to move, his skeletal frame feeling heavier than ever as the thick liquid pulled him down. For a moment, he thought he landed in sewage but as he pushed his head around, he noticed everything was very…clear.
He could see his arm drifting beside him, along with other pieces of trash that were just sort of suspended in the air. Twisting his head to the point he thought his neck would snap, he saw a large piece of wood just floating a few feet in front of him and for some reason, it was bubbling around its edges. What? He thought as he looked at it bubble, noticing then that not only was it the wood that was bubbling but also his body and his arm.
He was confused as to where he had landed when almost on cue, a light pulsed around him. It was like watching an octopus’s tentacles lighting up around him, the light drifting off in small pulses as far as the eye could see before stopping at an orb the size of a house. It was then that he realized what had happened. He had landed on a slime far bigger than any one that had been recorded thus far and it was in the process of eating him.