Warren and Peter faced the oncoming tide stoically. The gearling with the crossbow clambered up its fellow’s back and leapt onto the top of the pedestal for a better vantage. The other one, once it was done being used as a ladder, slipped between the two Travellers and stood slightly in front of them with its swords ready. It would have been adorable if the blades weren’t clearly designed for killing.

Warren gave it a pat on the head, then eased it across to his right. “G2, you know the drill. Wipe the adds then backstab the boss.”

“G2, comply.” The little face glowed when it spoke, the voice like a bad 80s synthesiser attempting to talk. It dashed forward to meet the first slime, skewering it with both blades. They had little obvious effect, as the slime sloshed forward and smacked the gearling like a micro-tsunami, sending it sliding backwards a step. Undeterred, it slashed at the slime again and carving off a chunk which immediately lost cohesion and flowed away.

Taking a hint, Peter stepped into a forward stance and used the blade of the scythe to whittle away at the nearest slimes, whirling the weapon as fast as he could one handed and leaving glowing slashes on every monster in reach. Splatters of disgusting goo sprayed everywhere, but the mindless creatures had no morale to break and they battered back relentlessly, their caustic touch eating at armour and burning exposed skin.

Warren, on the other hand, braced himself for the assault from the slime/skeleton. He held his sword flat on, the massive blade a shield against the wide circular swings from the greatsword, ringing with every blow. When the gearling on the pedestal cranked out a rapid fire series of bolts, ringing the bronze helm like a bell and throwing the monster off balance, Warren didn’t even bother with his sword. He thrust the tip into the floor for balance and drove both fists into the bronze breastplate of his enemy, cracking it and causing slime to ooze out through the gaps. Two glowing fist symbols remained on the armour as the thing took several staggering steps backwards. While it was staggered, Warren whipped his sword out of the ground as though it were as light as a feather and thrust it through the creature’s abdomen, armour and all, and gave it a vicious twist. Slime poured from the hole like blood, making the coating over the bones shrink and leaving the armour dangling loosely.

Gathering itself, the slime/skeleton threw back its head and gave another gurgling roar. The remaining slimes quit trying to batter and engulf Peter and the dual wielding gearling, and flowed towards the boss. The momentary respite allowed Peter to look himself over, finding quite a few patches in his armour where the slimes had managed to dissolve right through the leather and begin eating into his skin. It burned and stung at the same time, but they were not as alarming as the parts where he was bleeding and it didn’t hurt at all. He took a moment to check on Warren and the gearlings too, Warren looked unhurt but the gearling was down to one blade and its left leg was fused into a single lump. The gearling on the pedestal was still peppering the boss with bolts, the missiles lodging in the remaining ‘flesh’ and bones and keeping it off balance.

The slimes that were left pooled at the boss’s feet and were swiftly absorbed, replenishing its lost mass and removing the stagger effect. The red glow where its eyes should be intensified and it gripped its greatsword like a proper fighter would. Its armour no longer hung off its bones, and even looked brighter and untarnished.

“Look out,” Warren growled. “It’s mad now, it’ll be more dangerous.”

Peter tried strafing left, trying to get out of the creature’s line of sight, while the gearling limped right. Warren tried his double punch staggering attack again, and though the boss blocked it with its sword he at least held its attention. The gearling stabbed its remaining blade into the thing’s exposed thigh, causing it to drop to a knee and keen alarmingly, but the motion tore the sword from the gearling’s grasp and left it weaponless.

Seeking to capitalise on the opening, Peter swung his scythe as hard as he could at the exposed neck in front of him only for the slime coated skull to duck at the last second and leave him overextended and open to the fist that came rushing at him in response. The slimy flesh burned on contact, but Peter didn’t have much time to appreciate that fact before his nose was flattened against his face. He reeled back, dripping blood and caustic slime, trying his hardest to wipe both off on his sleeve.

The slime skeleton clambered laboriously to its feet again, using its sword as leverage. It swept one leg back and raised its sword in a two-handed hilt-to-chest stance Peter had seen an old actor perform in a movie about a barbarian. Warren danced back, light on his feet despite his size. Peter threw himself flat, knowing what was likely coming. The gearling wasn’t so lucky, and when the slime skeleton spun backwards, the greatsword arcing out in a massive whirling attack the poor automata was sliced in half, spilling gears across the floor. The creature continued the attack, creating a tornado of death as it edged towards Warren with every rotation.

Seeing where this would lead, Peter shouted a warning to his companion. Warren chanced a look back, saw what Peter had seen and leapt backwards, missing the pedestal by millimetres. The greatsword, on the other hand clanged loudly into the side, stopping dead. Warren drove his blade into the boss’s chest as Peter ripped his scythe through its neck.

For a moment, everything went silent.

Then, with a gloop and a dull ringing the creature collapsed into a puddle of slime and shattered armour pieces. All the doors hissed open, revealing two new tunnels for them to explore and allowing Dani to rush in breathlessly.

"Are you alright?" She helped Peter up from where he had slumped against the pedestal to recover. She took in the flattened nose and bloody shirt . "What did I say about getting a helmet? And you,” she prodded Warren’s leg where he sat nearby with her armored boot, “how about listening next time? You nearly got both of you idiots killed.”

“Yeah, but, we also got that,” Warren pointed into the dark recess behind the door from which the monsters had recently poured. The tunnel was shaped like every other one they had traversed recently, but ended abruptly only a few meters in. The back wall was solid brick and high up in the centre was another reinforced glass housing for a light, this one glowing green. The light it shone illuminated a medium sized wooden chest bound in iron, sitting on a grating just before the wall. “Loot time.” He ignored Dani’s offered hand and hauled himself to his feet.

Approaching the chest hesitantly, all three were on the lookout for traps or more enemies. When none appeared or were triggered, Warren stepped onto the grating and found it solid. He used the tip of his sword to lever the chest lid open, leaning back in the hope that if something went wrong he would be out of the blast radius.

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All that happened was that the lid snapped open with a jerk and someone let out a girly scream. Warren looked at Dani, who just smirked and pointed a hidden finger at Peter who was nonchalauntly examining the tunnel wall. Warren turned back to the contents of the chest and took them out one by one. “Health potion, bronze dagger, pair of testicles for Peter, small bag of garnets, small bag of coins and this,” he held up a scroll covered in incomprehensible writing. “Which is probably a spell scroll but I don’t think any of us can cast magic. Right?”

“Can I get the scroll?” Peter asked. “Also, stick it up your butt. Jerk.”

Dani, trying not to laugh out loud, gestured for the dagger. “I don’t have a bronze one, can I get that for my collection? And Peter could probably do with the health potion, that whistling noise his nose is making is going to pull all the mobs.”

Warren handed out the items and dropped the gems and coins into his inventory. “We can split the cash when we get out, and you’re good with me getting the shinies?”

While Dani and Warren discussed the allocation of loot, Peter popped the cork on the little vial that Warren had handed him. The red liquid inside sloshed against the glass, more syrupy than he would have thought yet not clinging to the side as expected. He tried to smell the potion but couldn't draw air through his nose at all. Here goes nothing, he downed the potion in one gulp. There wasn’t a lot of taste to it, mostly just water and something sugary, but the moment it hit the back of his throat Peter felt a warm glow spread through his body. Bruises stopped hurting, his inflamed skin where the slimes had hit him cooled and healed over, but most of all his nose returned to its normal shape and stopped bleeding. He could still feel some of the places where he had been hit and the nose in particular still smarted, so he assumed he had not been fully healed but it was a great start and had left him feeling euphoric.

Someone waved a hand in front of his face, making him blink. “Peter, Earth to Peter, you in there? You haven’t lagged out have you?” Warren’s voice brought him back to himself a little.

“Give him a sec,” Dani suggested, “who knows what is in those old health potions?”

“That’s the other thing I’m worried about,” Warren wrapped an arm around Peter and guided him back to the previous room. “I knew a guy who got hooked on Gregarii health potions because of the painkiller in the berries they use to make them. Sure, Peter’s healed but we need him conscious too.”

Dani helped him guide Peter to the middle of the room where the pedestal sat with its glowing disk shining. Pulling a flagon of water from one of her pouches, Dani held it up for Peter to drink from. The cool water helped Peter to clear his head.

Drawing in a deep breath through his nose, Peter found the remaining pain helped balance him. “Dang. Um, thanks War.. Woz.” He leaned agaisnt the pedestal for support. “I needed that, but wow it packed a punch.”

“Okay, for future reference, the health potions in here have secondary effects.” Dani put the flagon away and started towards the southern door. “No drinking anything without supervision. You two coming back to the map?”

The map room was better lit this time, the glowing liquid in the pipes banishing the shadows quite effectively. “This here is where you were.” Dani pointed to the junction. “This is the red gem you lit up with your shenanigans. Now, if we assume that every red gem is a trap, then we can find our way through the maze without lighting them up.”

Peter examined the mass of piping, trying to find a way just by eye. “Fine, but there’s a whole lot of three and four way junctions like the last one. What if we have to use a cross? There’s a limited number of disks in each room and I’m betting you can’t take them out of the room you find them in.”

“Or here,” Warren chimed in, reaching over Dani’s shoulder to point at a particularly jumbled arrangement of pipes. “Looks like there’s either three ways to get through this area, or we might have to open all three to get past.”

“I say we try going back.” Peter stepped away from the glowing wall. “I’ve got more exams tomorrow, I’ll bet you do too Woz.”

Warren clumped over to the bulkhead door and listened for a moment. “Sounds like the slimes have gone back to their usual places, but what about why we’re here? The imps? I haven’t seen any evidence that they’re even around.”

“Oh they’re here alright.” Dani held up a pair of wings. “When you geniuses dropped the wrong disc onto the pedestal in there you must have closed the vents they’re getting around in. The little blighters attacked me in here while you two had fun.”

“So, as long as the vents are open they can keep getting in and out without having to go through the same maze we do. Just great,” Peter slapped the wall in frustration, “but we gotta get some sleep before tomorrow. Do you think there’s some way we can block the vent for now? Box them in?”

“We could try putting the wrong disc on the pedestal,” Warren offered. “That’ll close the vents like last time.”

“Yeah, and trap one of us in with it,” Dani shook her head. “No thanks.”

Peter paced the length of the room, then held up a finger. “Well, here’s a thought. I could go in and drop the disk the wrong way on the first pedestal. Not so that it points at the red gem, just so it goes nowhere. If monsters spawn, I die and you guys leave via the front door, we meet in town and try something else. If nothing spawns I log off, you guys leave via the front door, I’ll log back in tomorrow and we meet down here. How does that sound?”

“Like you’ve got a deathwish,” Warren replied, “but that’s nothing new. If you don’t mind dying, I’m more than happy to live, and protect Dani on the way out. Dani, you ready to go?”

“One moment.” She took Peter by the shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. “You’re an idiot. Don’t die, it bloody hurts and we’ll have wasted the health potion.”

“I’ll do my best.” Peter stepped into the chamber and lifted the disc from the pedestal. The northern door hissed shut and the light above it turned red. He rotated the disc so that the ‘L’ would face neither the eastern door he’d come through nor the southern door he suspected held some sort of slime based nightmare. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” He put the disc down with a click. “Hopefully.”

The door hissed shut and Peter was plunged into darkness for a moment, then the red lights over each door flicked on bathing the room with a hellish glow. Nothing moved. No sound emerged.

“Squeak.”

“Aaarrghg! DB you little bastard!” Peter spun around trying to pull his companion out of his hood. “Come here, you.” A dull thumping and muffled yelling from the other side of the door gave him pause. He stopped and put his ear to the metal. “What?” he yelled.

“ARE. YOU. ALIVE?” He could barely hear Dani’s voice but he could tell she was yelling as loud as she could.

“YES. I. AM. I. WILL. SEE. YOU. TOMORROW.” He shouted each word clearly and slowly. “And you, you little squeaker, I should stuff you in my inventory until I log back in for that,” Peter reached behind his head to give DB a scratch, “but I won’t. Partly because I really don’t want to try to undo my bracer with my teeth at the moment. It’s covered in slime and I absolutely don’t want that in my mouth.” Peter sat cross legged beside the pedestal and let DB down onto the ground. “But I do know a trick to logging off even if you can’t get to your Mark. It goes like this,” he lay back on the cold floor and closed his eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow too.”