He shot his spoon spears forward, one in each hand and brought them down upon the slime core, trapping it in the center of the spoon spears sieve like cups. Surprisingly, the core did not seem to react at all, simply staying in its location. Ooh… I really hope I didn’t screw up my assumptions! Joe flicked a glance at his HP and saw it stuttering down five to ten every second with only about two hundred and fifty left. Joe felt a spike of worry spear straight to panic and he struggled to calm himself even as he bound the two shafts of the spoon spears together in a one handed grip so that he could pull the core hand over hand towards himself. Dumb… so dumb… so dumb! Got… what … thirty seconds… a minute! Gotta move! The pull proved to be a bit strange, as the core didn’t seem to be willing to move at all, despite its miniscule mass, and Joe found himself being pulled towards the core instead. As he pulled himself forward, he felt a drag, then a current, then a full blown surge pushing him away from the core. Joe kept his mouth shut and eyes closed, although he still was able to keep an eye on his HP while pulled himself towards the core anyway. Right… of course it would have a defense to keep things away.
Joe pulled himself ever closer until he was right upon the core itself and wrapped his legs around the shaft. His legs proved to do a poor job of keeping himself from slipping, but it did allow him the quick use of both of his hands if he needed to release the shaft for a bit. He brought both hands up to the spearhead, wrestling with the trap holding the core in place. The core began to vibrate within the center of the spoon spear cups, but its movement remained trapped, the core bouncing off the spearhead’s confines. He tried to slip his hand inside, but found it almost impossible to keep the core trapped, as tiny as it was, while making the gap large enough for a hand. Joe grimaced, his panic surging once again. Well… I was going to do it anyway… don’t have to use my hands first! Just gotta cut the core from its slime right? Easy!
Joe brought the spearheads to his face, pressing his mouth against the edges of the two spear heads and bringing one arm around both shafts. He cupped his hands so that it covered the seam between the two spearheads almost entirely around the sides and met at his lips. Once the seam was properly blocked by his hands, he cracked open the seam centered on his lips and opened his mouth at the same time as opening the spears, the two spearheads working as hemispheres trapping the slime within them.
He almost gagged when the slime pushed into his mouth, the feeling almost more disturbing than when it pushed into his ears and nose. Despite that, he kept opening his mouth allowing the crack to grow wider and wider until the core, bouncing around inside the cage of the spearheads, slipped through the cracks and into his mouth. His mouth and spearheads slapped shut, the spearheads in case the core tried to retreat and his mouth in hopes it was inside. Don’t have anything else to hermetically seal this thing! He grasped the spear shafts with one hand, holding them both but then dropping them without concern when he flicked open his eyes and saw the cage of the spearheads was empty and his mouth felt the bumping of the core inside. Why isn’t the slime…
Joe closed his eyes tighter and quickly brought up a free hand to his nose, squeezing it shut hard. Almost immediately, Joe felt a quiver go through the whole slime before he felt himself fall about eight meters to the ground, the splash of the slime body washing across the whole field. Joe grunted when he hit the ground, but kept his mouth shut. He quickly wiped his hands off as much as possible, spraying slime everywhere even as he cleaned his face and nose, especially when he felt the slime on his face starting to crawl towards and enter his nose. Nope! Nope… nope… nope nope nope!
He rapidly scraped the slime off his face until he could see relatively easily again and the slime on his face was no longer connected to the core through his nose. Clean hands… water!
Joe looked towards the guards and ran toward them. He found a guard with a relatively clean and dry cloak and grabbed it quickly, wiping his face once again as well as his hands before finally shifting to another slime free section of the cloak and pressing it to his face tightly so he could spit out the slime core into the cloak, keeping it relatively trapped. Even as the core fell into the cloak and he worked to wipe any residual slime off the core to finally kill it, Joe was already calling out.
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“Water! Water now! Clean the slime from my body and the other guard that was trapped. Water! Gwenvair! Water!”
Joe wasn’t really looking at all, focused on getting the slime dead before the core could drop back into its slime that was splattered all over the ground. His mind mentally recognized a thump to his side, but didn’t connect it.
“Water! Now!”
Joe swiped the slime off, and soon was able to hold the core without any slime touching it, but small specks of slime still whirled around it even as Joe brushed them away with clean parts of the ever more holey cloak.
“Water!”
The slime core was now decently in hand, and Joe looked around, “I said water! I need…”
Joe trailed off to see a man standing at his side holding a large blob of water floating in the air. Joe blinked, eyes widening. Cool… how is he... no! Not the time! Shaking his head, Joe looked over to see the guard that had been eaten by the slime wallowing weakly in the slime where he’d fallen.
“Can you make two?”
The man said nothing, but another ball of water formed and Joe nodded, calling out to the guards, “Go get that man and wash him in the water! If you are fast enough, you can save his life!”
Joe then turned to the magician, “After they have washed him, throw the water away… out towards the monster, and make another for the guard to be washed again… do it four or five times… makes sure the water goes in his nose, mouth, ears, and eyes then exits. I’ll need the same, but first…”
Joe trailed off and looked down at the slime, twisting it around until he found the last piece of connected slime and flicking it off with a corner of the guard’s cloak. With the silent euphoric rush of killing a mob coming through, Joe relaxed and turned to the guard, “Thanks guard… I am sorry I destroyed your cloak. I’ll make sure to pay you back. Just find me, if you can. I’m not really able to pay you right now. My names Joe McConnell.”
“I am honored, sir. But… are you OK?”
“If I don’t get the slime’s acid off me, probably not… but that’s why the water magician… give me a second. Can you hold this?” Joe tossed the slime core to the guard with a smile.
Joe stepped into blob of water and began to rapidly wash himself off, focusing on the more sensitive parts of his body as well as making sure he was snorting water into his nose, painful as it was, and his mouth before spitting it out. He spent a bit of time washing it off before stepping out and asking for another blob of water only to repeat it. He did come out for a quick second, the burning in his ears letting him know he wasn’t really getting the water in there where it was needed and asked the water mage to rinse out his ears carefully. He did so, politely, and Joe nodded his thanks, and then repeated this another four or five times until he felt he’d removed the acid.
It was pretty easy to tell when it was gone as it felt very much like the few times he’d gotten bleach on his hands; the slimy feeling of his skin sloughing off was never pleasant and the knowledge that it was his skin literally melting off causing the feeling of sliminess only made it worse. But… wouldn’t my HP heal…ooh… is that the dead skin… can’t heal the dead… maybe? So still feel the slimy collapse of the dead and dying cells? Huh… wonder… Joe cut off his thoughts and focused on cleansing himself completely. It wasn’t until after the fifth time that he no longer felt the slime, but he did worry a bit about his mouth, nose, and ears. Probably should get a healer check up… I think? Just to be safe?
Joe came out of the bubble for the last time and saw that his line that he’d carefully kept, protecting the guards and crafters, was growing ever more ragged. Luckily, the slime monster’s body left an acid pool and proved to be a pretty good barrier to keeping the monsters at bay but would make it hard for the guards to set up an appropriate defense once again.
So Joe asked the water magician for a bit of help, “Do you mind if you push the slime monster’s acid out from the wall a bit to allow the guards to redeploy their line? It’ll help me reset my line as well, if that’s OK?”
The water magician bowed deeply, “It would be my pleasure, Eccentric!”
Joe nodded then looked around, taking stock of everything. The guards were doing well, as were the crafters, although the one guard that had been eaten seemed to be struggling, and Joe suggested he be sent back to a healer, if possible. The leader seemed to agree, sending the guard back for healing and Joe then took stock of his situation. He did notice people staring at him with both awe and a small amount of discomfort and Joe quickly realized he wasn’t exactly dressed anymore, having lost the cloak early. Joe stiffened in embarrassment and turned to the man he’d taken the cloak from.
“Hey. I’m sorry, but could I have the cloak? I’m… a bit naked here.”
The soldier quickly came forward and offered his ruined cloak and Joe rapidly washed it in some water before wrapping it around his waist. He looked towards the leader and quickly asked that the man get a new cloak and to charge him the price, since he was the one to ruin it.
The leader seemed a bit apoplectic about the idea, but Joe’s insistence paid off and the leader bowed in a agreement. Joe thanked him and the man who’d lost his cloak once again and then turned to look up at the wall. Huh… this is…
“So… How am I supposed to get back up there?”