“Ye should have seen it!” Gent threw up his hands animatedly as he paced back and forth across the dais. “The slagging thing snatched three o’ the ice drakes out o’ the air faster than a streaking gnome! All while it kept sucking the well dry. By the Mother, it had to be 15 feet wide and just as tall. I’d stake me beard on it!”
The hall was quiet as a tomb, everyone listening to the report with grim faces.
“Is what Gent be saying true?” Krazzik asked, turning to both Kedryn and Glade. The tone in the dwarven chief’s voice was one of resignation rather than doubt.
“I wish he were exaggerating. Unfortunately, I was able to identify it with my aura sense,” Glade sighed, the sight burned into his memory.
They had expected a narrow tunnel cut out of the rock by the underground river. Instead, they entered through the entrance of a wide cavern filled with ice crystals of every shape and size. Lesser Ice Drakes were everywhere, flying over and around a small lake that was fed by an underground waterfall.
At the waterfall’s base was a cluster of glowing crystals amongst the stones, the largest point easily clearing 4 feet in height. Of course, all of that was secondary to the massive slime that enveloped the crystals, feeding off them.
Glade read the prompt he had captured after analyzing the slime aloud.
Greater Slime, Level 27
Attunements: Pure 100%
Health: 840/840
Mana: 30/30
Stamina: NA
Status: Feeding
“Well, that makes our next decision easy,” Krazzik grumbled. “All in favor of lookin for a more accessible mana well say aye.”
While the dwarven chief’s voice was filled with sarcasm, there were still more than a few ‘ayes’ that came from the crowd.
“That’s what I done said!” Gent fumed, still pacing along the dais.
“Why not just set the blasted thing on fire?” Croon offered playing a lilting tune on his accordion. “After all, we got a royal pyro and whatever Glade be. What good is havin them around if’n we don’t use ‘em?”
“I tried,” Kedryn said with a shrug. “The waterfall inside the cavern falls directly on top of the slime. Any fire I throw at it is snuffed out.”
“I want to hear more ‘bout how the slime be feedin on the well,” Bragden spoke up. “What do ye mean by that?”
It had been quite the surprise to Glade that the cluster of glowing crystals was the actual mana well. Ever since learning of their existence, he had imagined the well would be similar in make up to a water well back home. Good thing he hadn’t voiced his thoughts earlier. That would have been embarrassing.
“In our travels through the catacombs Captain Glade, Corporal Kedryn, and myself came upon a slime feeding on a shadow carp’s mana shard,” Riya answered the bald dwarf, a hint of excitement bleeding into her tone. Even though the conversation was reserved for obvious reasons, Riya couldn’t help herself. She always perked up whenever the topic of sharded creatures came up.
“Like what yerself and Gent saw earlier today?” Krazzik asked.
“Oh yes,” Riya grinned. “My hypothesis from the limited exposure I had with the shadow carp incident is that after a slime uncovers a shard, it connects its own pure shard to it. Once that is done, which is utterly fascinating to watch by the way, the slime begins purifying the other shard! Just like the giant one we saw earlier today was purifying the well!”
Bragden, Krazzik, and several others leaned forward, their interest piqued. It wasn’t hard to understand why. Mana shards were not only rare, but extremely valuable for advancing one’s growth as a magic user or in making low grade magical items. The challenge being that in order to use the shard, the magic user’s attunements needed to match perfectly, which was rarely the case. The same went for using a shard to create a magic item.
Pure shards, on the other hand, could be used by anyone. The only problem being that pure shards were practically unheard of. If they could somehow use slimes to purify shards, it would be like printing their own money.
“That’s not even the most interesting part,” Riya continued. “As soon as the slime we were studying was done purifying the shard, it split its own mana shard, as well as the shadow carp’s, into smaller shards. Then it divided itself into lower level slimes, each with its own shard as the nucleus. If my hypothesis is correct, this is how slimes reproduce!”
Bragden blanched at the same time as Krazzik cursed. From the muttering around the hall, most everyone else was having the same reaction.
There were two reasons why no one had likely tried to churn out pure shards before. The first was that slimes were extremely dangerous and damn near indestructible. Anyone who had encountered a slime was either dead or had miraculously killed it, which was hard to do seeing as their only weakness was magical fire. The second reason was similar to the first, fighting one slime was hard enough. But when the slime divided into more than 10 right before your eyes? Riya might remember that experience with scholarly fondness, but Glade had to repress a shiver from running down his spine. They had almost died.
“Yer tellin me we’ve got a slagging jumbo slime that is not only hopped up on a mana well’s power, but it be purifyin said well so’s it can reproduce?” Gent asked, his voice getting higher the longer he spoke.
“That’s my best theory,” Riya said with far too much excitement in her eyes. “We don’t know what will happen for certain as a mana well is infinitely more durable than a shard, but this could possibly be an evolutionary step for slimes! We might be the first to witness the creation of a new species!”
“Leave it to a treeless to be excited ‘bout slimes procreatin,” Krazzik muttered.
“How many o’ these… greater slimes could be made from the mana well?” Bragden asked, his tone of voice a balance between resignation and intrigue.
“If we use the last slime we studied as a baseline, then I would say…” Riya paused, her voice trailing off as the ramifications of having that many slimes unleashed on the surrounding lands hit her. “Hundreds. If not thousands.”
The room was again silent except for Bragden’s muttering something about all this being Glade’s fault. Which was honestly a bit unfair. It wasn’t his fault the Adjudicators had branded him with all eight brands, making him a magnet for unexpected disasters, quests, and just about anything else that he would classify as bad.
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Then again, finding another potential disaster facing the group was just another day to him. Sure, the little balls of acid were a literal pain, but he, Kedryn, and Riya had proven slimes could be defeated. The dozens of pure mana shards they had in their possession from killing slimes proved that fact.
“We have time to come up with a plan,” Glade said, breaking the silence. The last thing they needed was to ruminate on a hopeless situation. “I was able to determine the ratios of mana within the well. More than 94% of it has been converted to a pure attunement. The remaining 6% is that of water. My best guess is we have at least a week, maybe two, before the slime completely consumes the well. Though, I’d like to go back again tomorrow to make sure. That being said, I’d like to open the floor to suggestions on how to deal with this problem.”
Bragden snorted. “We leave. That be the choice any sane person would make.”
The rest of the group glared at the surly dwarf.
“Not helping, man,” Kedryn said.
“I said any sane person would make that choice,” Bragden huffed, sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed. “All of ye are crazier than a room full o’ greased up gnomes on Downs Day. How I ended up bein the only sane one out o’ this bunch is beyond me.”
There were more than a few chuckles around the room at Bragden’s comment. Glade just rolled his eyes. He had no idea what a gnome was or what they did on Downs Day, but after hearing the dwarves talk so much about the unknown race even he had to admit he was a bit curious.
“That’s… one suggestion,” Glade said, “But seriously, what are our options? We can’t light the thing on fire while it’s under the waterfall. Can we draw it away somehow?”
“There were ice drakes all over the cavern,” Kedryn said, shaking his head. “All of them have shards. If the slime won’t move to go after them, then I doubt anything we put out will interest it.”
“And don’t forget how the slime reached out with its snotty ropes for arms!” Gent said, waving his arms in imitation of an octopus. “Them things reached out at least 10 feet. Snagged those ice drakes right out o’ the air like a frog snackin on flies.”
Glade gave the dwarf a nod of acknowledgement. Of all the slimes they had killed, he had never seen one use pseudopods to hunt. Either the ones he had faced had been too small or this one really was evolving.
“We should be able to stop that from happening if we can paralyze it with star silver, though I don’t know if the small amount that we have will be enough,” Kedryn said, rubbing his chin as he thought. “At the least, we can recover the plate I lost in the catacombs now that the spiders have been dealt with. If we need more than I suppose we can mine some more of it. Theres plenty down there from what I could tell.”
“I still want to send a hoard o’ golems into the catacombs before anyone goes exploring. Who knows if there be any o’ the astral spiders left in hiding,” Bragden interjected. “I’ve been makin the things while ye’ve all been gallivanting outside. Should be ready to send them by the end o’ the day.”
“Even if there are any, wouldn’t they be catatonic like the striker?” Glade asked, glancing at the caged monster. The overly large spider, easily the size of a cocker spaniel, had been deadly while it’s queen was alive. Now though, the spider was as docile as a lamb. Which had proven to be a problem when Dabbin, Krazzik’s son, had taken a liking to the monster. The same boy who was currently petting the crystal spider through its makeshift cage of wood and stone.
“Dabbin!” Krazzik roared, getting up from his chair and stomping toward the boy. “How many times have I done told ye to stop playin with the deadly spider!? Its un-dwarf like!”
A few chuckles filled the hall as everyone got out of their chief’s way.
Glade just shook his head and silently wished Krazzik luck. Dabbin had looked at the spider like a boy did with his first puppy.
“That’s strange even for people on Veil, right?” Glade whispered to Riya.
“When it comes to the touched, we know very little,” Riya shrugged, pointing out in a roundabout way that Dabbin had down syndrome. “But yes, this is most definitely strange.”
Glade relaxed. At least there were some things he could rely on to be normal.
“Unless he’s a natural Beast Tamer. If that’s the case, then this could be the first of many companionships he forms,” Riya said speculatively, her finger tapping on her chin.
Glade’s face fell. Beast what now?
“Beast Tamers are a thing here!?!” Kedryn gasped, his eyes gleaming with excitement. “That is awesome! I have so many questions!”
“Later,” Glade sighed, turning from his private conversation to the dwarves chuckling at Krazzik throwing his son over his shoulder and walking away from the spider.
Was it just him, or did the spider actually look sad that Dabbin had been pulled away?
The group speculated for another hour on what they could do. There were many suggestions brought forward from the group of dwarves, from collapsing the cavern to rerouting the underground river. Each as implausible to carry out as the first. It was after Croon had suggested lulling the slime to sleep with his accordion that Glade finally called for a break. Not only because everyone was groaning at the thought of listening to the Verser’s awful music, but also because everyone was hungry. Ice drake was on the menu tonight.
No sooner had they dismissed everyone, than Kedryn spoke his own thoughts to the council.
“I still say we need to open the vault next,” the Kid explained. “I didn’t want to suggest it in front of everyone for obvious reasons, but if we’re looking for something else that might help us against the slime draining the well than an ancient vault with potentially powerful artifacts might be just what we need.”
“Aye,” Krazzik said, a greedy gleam in his eye as he rubbed his hands together. “I agree with the royal. It only cost 450 mana to repair. Who knows what treasures be hidin… wait, where be Dabbin?” The dwarven chief asked, jerking his head around. He found the boy in the act of luring the astral spider from its open cage with one of the smaller ice drake corpses.
“Dabbin!” Krazzik roared, stomping away from the group. “By the Mother, I should have killed that spider yesterday, like I done said I would.”
“Don’t ye dare touch that spider!” Bragden snarled, leaping to his feet at the same time as Riya yelled, “There’s still so much to study about it!”
Glade just rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of the situation. Never in his entire life would he have imagined a scenario quite like this one.
“Do you think Dabbin will bond with the spider?” Kedryn asked, his tone of voice speculative as everyone else wandered off. “A Beast Tamer ability would be pretty incredible to have.”
“Not if Krazzik has anything to say about it,” Glade snorted, watching Dabbin’s crestfallen face as his father took away the dead ice drake while Bragden closed the makeshift cage. “Besides, even if he could, wouldn’t it be better to start off on something a little less… I don’t know, dangerous?”
Kedryn chuckled, but Glade knew that look in his eyes. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Kid tried taming a beast of his own soon.
“Let’s plan on opening the vault tonight,” Glade said, changing the subject. “Our mana should be mostly replenished by then. I should also read through Acumen’s tome. If we need to get stronger, then I had better do my part and begin leveraging all the tools at my disposal.”
“Mind if I join you?” Kedryn asked. “Bragden believes he has enough shards to open my astral channels and anything I can learn now could only help, right?”
“Why not? I’m likely going to need you to explain it all to me anyway,” Glade replied.
With that, the two sat at one of the only remaining tables that had not been pilfered for supplies or converted into makeshift shields. Kedryn had figured out earlier that they could use the settlement’s magic to repair the room, which included rebuilding the tables. The mana cost was fairly low and the well-made furniture was already proving to be a boon to their needs.
Together, they opened the tome and read the first page.
A Treatise on the Proper Progression, Specialization, and Employment of Magic for the Ham Fisted Ignoramus
Amateur Level – Astral Attunement
Soul Bound and Prepared for Glade
“Did Acumen just give you the equivalent of magic for dummies?” Kedryn asked.
Glade’s eye twitched.