Glade’s eyebrows furrowed in concern as he read the prompt. The well’s aspected mana had dropped another 3% in less than a day.

“Are you seeing this?” Glade called to Bragden.

“Aye,” the surly dwarf growled, looking around to confirm that everyone was in place. “Good thing we’re doin this today. Speakin o’ which,” Bragden hefted the spear, eyeing the distance between them and greater slime. “There be no time like the present.”

“We’re a little far out, don’t you think?” Glade asked carefully.

“I never said I was goin to throw the spear,” Bragden replied with a smirk as he began scrawling runes down the haft with his index finger. “Just that I would use the spear to paralyze the bloody thing.”

In moments, a subtle blue glow enveloped the spear’s haft before it slowly floating above Bragden’s outstretched hands.

“Now pay attention. If’n I was a hot headed youngster with more brawn than brain I would likely have just ignored the slagging drakes and attacked the slime like the Quake Masters of old,” Bragden said, his focus entirely on the floating weapon. “But these grey hairs prove I’ve learned a thing or three since my younger days. Namely, how to work smarter, not dumber.”

“You’ll notice that the spear is doin what I tell it to do,” he said, raising his outstretched hands, which, in turn, caused the spear to float higher. “This be more of a rush job, so I didn’t add all the corresponding control runes. Just up, down, forward, and back. I did that for two reasons. The first bein this here haft be made from sunrise oak, an uncommon quality wood, which means it canna take a great deal o’ mana.”

As he spoke, a tendril of smoke started rising from the haft.

“We got about two, maybe three minutes afore the runes degrade. The second reason be I can just point the slagging spear in the direction I need it to go. Do ye follow?”

Both Glade and Kedryn nodded, though they were both keeping an eye out for any ice drakes in case they decided to attack them instead of Rocky.

“Well, here it goes,” Bragden said, moving his hands higher until the spear floated well above their shield wall. Once it cleared, he thrust both hands forward.

The spear moved as if shot from a bow, soaring over the lake and through the waterfall, slamming into its target.

The moment of truth had arrived. There was no way of knowing how much star silver it took to paralyze a slime this large.

A shiver passed over the slime, as the tenacle like arms slowed, then stopped.

Glade counted silently to twenty, watching carefully for any movement as the spear’s haft dissolved before his eyes. By the end of his count, not only had the spear head remained, but the slime hadn’t moved an inch.

“That be a relief,” Bragden sighed. “It looks like the star silver be workin like it should, which means it be Glade’s turn.”

Grunting an acknowledgement, Glade pulled one of his remaining arrows from the quiver and handed it over to Bragden. With a deftness born through decades of dedicated application to his craft, the dwarf inscribed a temporary rune of fire on the sharpened head.

In a perfect world, they would have enchanted the arrow well in advance. Unfortunately, that wasn’t something Bragden was capable of without the proper equipment and materials. But with the dwarf’s speed and efficiency it creating temporary enchantments, it hardly mattered.

In moments, the fire enchantment sparked to life, engulfing the arrowhead in flame.

“That’s… strange,” Kedryn mumbled, moving so he could get a better look at the slime. It wasn’t the words themselves that made Glade look up, but more the tone of voice, like something was happening that couldn’t quite be explained.

He was glad he did. No sooner had Glade laid eyes on their target than a portion of the large slime separated from the main body, like a dallop of clear molasses sloughing off the side.

“Quick!” Glade yelled, holding out his hand. “Give me the arrow!”

Startled, Bragden almost dropped the arrow, but Glade snatched it from the air.

In one smooth motion, he nocked the flaming arrow, aimed, and fired.

There was a loud hiss as the water sluicing over the greater slime extinguished the flame. As intended, Glade aimed high, using the kinetic force of the water to drive the enchanted arrow down into the surface of slime’s body.

No sooner had the slime separated the part of itself holding the star silver than a dozen ten-foot pseudopods whipped out of the slime’s body, flailing madly in every direction. Glade and the others watched helplessly as the remains of the spear washed into the underground lake and started floating away.

“By the Mother,” Gent cried. “It’s working!”

Turning his head back to the slime, Glade could just make out the arrowhead sparking back to life, burning the slime from the inside out.

Everyone cheered.

“That was a lot easier than I thought it would be!” Kedryn laughed, a jubilant smile on his face.

“Don’t ye dare be jinxing us!” Bragden snaped, motioning for Glade to give him another arrow. “I swear, yer as bad as Krazzik!”

“Bragden’s right, boys!” Gent called. “Keep yer eyes sharp! If’n the beast is going to surprise us, it’ll be about now.”

The slime continued to burn as its many pseudopods waived wildly through the air, taking down ice drakes left and right.

Bragden had just started enchanting when the slime again stilled, sloughing off the part of its body inflicted by their first burning arrow.

Then it began to contract.

Dread flooded through Glade, recognizing the action for what it was. The slime was about to throw itself at them.

“Shield up, heads down!” he cried. The dwarves obeyed without question, everyone ducking behind their makeshift shield wall.

Bragden handed back a now burning arrow to Glade, who nocked it in all haste. Just as he was about to fire, the slime surprised them by spitting a small portion of itself back along the arrow’s trajectory. Namely, back toward him.

A brave dwarf raised his shield high, positioning himself between the inbound ball of slime and Glade, where the slime’s projectile hit with a loud splat.

“Arrrrghh!” The dwarf screamed as part of the ooze wrapped around the shield, brushing his arm and face. “Get it off! Get it off!”

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“Pull him back!” Glade yelled, drawing their second flaming arrow. “Kedryn! Riya! You’re up!”

Concentrating, Glade released the arrow with the intent to thread it through the storm of waving tentacles.

As soon as the arrow left the string, he knew as sure as the sun would set that it wasn’t going to make it.

A pseudopod slapped the arrow from the air, the fire enchantment going out with a hiss as it hit the water below.

“This isn’t working!” Gade yelled but was interrupted by one of the spear wielding dwarf’s helping the wounded shield bearer.

“It’s eatin Hurk!” the dwarf cried as he dragged the hurt dwarf into the center of the group as the others closed the gap in their shield wall.

Risking a glance, Glade saw the slime had not only eaten most of the way through the wooden shield but was starting to crawl up the poor shield bearer’s arm.

“How is that even possible?!” Riya yelled as she poured healing energies into the still screaming Hurk.

“There are some pure shards floating in the slime!” Kedryn yelled back, slamming his star silver dagger into the ooze, paralyzing it. “They have to be from all the drake’s it’s been eating. This a total guess, but I’d bet any of Bragden’s remaining hair that this means it can toss out other slimes at will!”

Bragden gave the Kid a dark look as the others gave a grim laugh.

“Incoming!” Glade cried as the larger slime contracted again.

The group ducked below their shield wall as another ball of slime passed just over their heads, landing several yards behind their formation.

“Good thing it’s got the accuracy o’ a drunk goblin,” Gent groused.

“I think it’s time for plan B!” Kedryn said as he lit the paralyzed slime on fire while Gent and some of the others carefully extracted Hurk.

“Slag and ashes!” Bragden cursed, “You know the drakes will be on us like ticks on a dew hound if’n we go with plan B!”

“Do you have any other ideas?” Glade growled as another ball of slime slammed into the shield wall.

“Fine!” Bragden snarled. “Get me to Rocky 2 so’s I can inscribe the runes!”

Kedryn directed two balls of flame, one flying toward the slime in their rear that was quicky making its way toward them. The other ignited their newest slime threat, the dwarf having already thrown down his shield before the gelatinous ooze could wrap itself around and attack him.

“Let’s give Bragden some cover!” Glade called out, the other dwarves roaring a battle cry.

Everyone charged forward, the remaining 8 shields raised against diving drakes who just now noticed the intruders. Spears, crossbows, stones, and balls of fire flew, stabbed, and burned the swarm of ice drakes, shields blocking their frozen breath attacks as another ball of slime flew past them.

The last time they had assaulted the cave they had learned quickly that their wooden shields could only withstand three, maybe four, of the drakes’ breath attacks before the shield bearer’s arm started to suffer severe frost bite. To protect themselves, every dwarf on the line had wrapped a blanket tightly around their shield arm. With any luck, it would be enough.

In moments, the dwarves surrounded their golem, creating a pocket for Bragden to work.

“Pyro!” the surly dwarf called. “Melt this bloody ice off o’ Rocky quick like!”

Kedryn redirected his fire, wrapping the ice encrusted golem in flame, all the while slime pseudopods waived frantically in the air, stripping drakes from the sky as it tried desperately to reach those that had caused it pain for the first time in its existence.

Glade ignored the dwarves and drakes for the moment as he triggered both his time dilation skill as well as his telepathy. Dozens of minds lit up within like sparks of light, illuminating his mindscape like a mental map. The lights floated like stars in the sky, his perception of time having reduced everyone and everything to a mere crawl.

Relying on years of experience, Glade broke down the force arrayed against them. The first thing he noticed was there were fewer drakes than he had originally thought. Every drake in the cavern was out in force. Between their earlier assaults and the slime, they had greatly reduced the population.

The greater slime was another matter.

It was alight with mental signatures, giving credence to Kedryn’s theory that the floating, purified shards were from the ice drakes. What was even more interesting was there were clumps of those shards already partially fused with the greater slime’s mana shard, creating the brightest mental signature he had ever seen.

The specks of mental light flared as the greater slime once again contracted its body, preparing itself to fire another slime in their direction.

In that moment between heartbeats, Glade triggered his psychic attack.

You have attacked a Greater Slime with a weak psychic attack and inflicted 2 points of metaphysical damage. The Greater Slime is disoriented for the next 20 seconds (10 seconds for every point of metaphysical damage).

“It’s disoriented for the next 20 seconds!” Glade cried out, disappointed that the psychic damage wasn’t higher.

Instead of collapsing like the drakes, the slime went wild. Its shape changed, first from a loose sphere, then to a square, and then into a spiked ball in less time than it took to breathe. After that, it started randomly launching smaller versions of itself all over the cavern.

Whether because it was disoriented, or didn’t know any better, most of the smaller slimes were immediately swept away by the waterfall, bobbing along the lakes surface like so many cubes of ice. A few randomly struck some of the ice drakes, which squawked in pain as the slimes latched on and immediately began to feed.

One of the dwarf’s screamed as a ball struck him full in the chest, the rest landing onto the shields or within their immediate vicinity.

Riya grabbed the screaming dwarf, scraping the slime off with the shadow armor spell that was wrapped around her before thrusting it into the already flame covered golem.

“If that’s what you call helpin, I’d suggest ye go back to where ye came from!” Gent yelled, shooting down another ice drake with his crossbow.

“Would if I could!” Glade grumbled under his breath, eyeing the smaller slimes that were now starting to move toward them. Even the ones bobbing in the water had started to wiggle their way toward them.

There wasn’t nearly enough star silver to immobilize a fraction of these slimes, let alone the entire horde! Even Kedryn, who could roast slimes with the best of them, couldn’t keep up with this number.

It was just too much.

Seeing the situation for it what it truly was, Glade opened his mouth to call for a retreat.

A mental tug, soft but insistent, demanded his attention with an offer of help.

Moments later, a manic grin formed as Glade granted Ember permission to channel his fire magic through him.

Dozens of sparks erupted from Glade’s outstretched arm, swarming both the drakes and the slimes while creating a kaleidoscope of fire, ice, and glistening balls of acid.

The fire swept through whatever dared to stand in Ember’s way as something bloomed within Glade’s chest. Words failed him as warmth and life and fire swelled within his very soul.

“That be enough!” Bragden yelled to Kedryn, who had just melted the last bit of ice-from their golem. It took the surly dwarf all of five seconds to inscribe massive runes of fire onto its rocky skin.

With a woosh of flame, Rocky 2 lit up like a candle. Then it took its first heavy step, then another, building up to a ponderous run as it pushed toward the greater slime.

“We need to clear a path!” Kedryn called.

Ember obliged.

The swarm of fire tunneled forward, creating a corridor for the golem to charge through.

Glade watched in awe as Rocky ran, opening its arms wide as if preparing to give the slime a bear hug.

In that moment, Glade could have sworn Kedryn said awesome under his breath.

For once, Glade agreed.

Rocky crashed through the waterfall and into the waiting embrace of the greater slime, extinguishing the flames created by the temporary runes.

The group collectively held their breath as the slime shuddered. One long, painful second later, Rocky’s enchantments sparked to back to life, engulfing the golem in fire as it trudged further toward the slime’s center.

“Keep it moving forward!” Kedryn cried, holding up his arms. His two balls of fire winked out of existence at the same time as the golem’s fire doubled in size.

Ember cried jubilantly as the egg’s power faded and the room quieted.

Over a dozen small slimes writhed like moving candles, some even bobbing in the water, unable to douse the flames in time. But those were nothing compared to what was happening with the big one.

The greater slime expanded and contracted, sloughing off large chunks of itself as it tried, and failed, to get away from the burning golem. It likely would have worked except for two things. Bragden, who was controlling the golem, and Kedryn, who was manipulating the fire. Neither gave up, pushing their attack forward despite the slime’s best defensive measures.

Seconds dragged out to a full minute, then into five, as the slime slowly burned away until finally, there was nothing left.

Glade looked around the destroyed cavern. The ice drakes were either dead or had flown away from the chaos that had engulfed their home. Ice crystals lay shattered and strewn throughout the cavern.

He idly noted that the portion of slime that still had the star silver spear head in it had gotten pulled into the current and was now flowing out of the cavern and over the waterfall. They’d have to go looking for that later.

Most importantly, the only slimes he could sense were the ones still bobbing in the water, wiggling their way toward them with single minded purpose. Kedryn had already called dibs and was roasting them as soon as they made land fall.

The danger had finally, blessedly, passed.

“Next time,” Gent breathed heavily, looking between Glade, Bragden, and Kedryn. “We lead with whatever the abyss all o’ you’s just did.”