“Slimes can use magic?” Caleb’s voice rose incredulously. Zanie propped herself to her feet, still leaning against the tree and had an expression just as curious as his.
“Anything can learn to use magic,” Hazel said sagely. This brought about images of the dryads emerging from their trees and the deer with several rings that Jeremy had seen the very first day.
While they were speaking, the slime had cast several more mana projectile spells. These were perhaps the only thing in its arsenal because it did not seem inclined to do much else. They were still somewhat effective against Jeremy’s mana shield, however, since the slime was tacking strengthening runes onto them. This meant it was not only sentient enough to at least will damage upon their party, but also to will even greater damage upon their party.
“Are we able to kill it the same way that we normally do?” Zanie asked.
“Yes, it’s just a matter of avoiding it’s spells as you approach.” Hazel said.
Jeremy had been keeping up a constant flow of mana to the barrier. It seemed like the slime could not move when it was concentrating on casting spells and had remained in the same place, not that much smarter than the great coalescence of slimes which did not seem to understand it could simply go around a barrier. This one also did not seem to be able to rain down mana damage in any other pattern than just a single straightforward projectile, which dissipated against the barrier.
“They are actually fairly terrifying as they begin to level, but I imagine this one is fairly tame, given the low level of this dungeon,” Hazel continued to speak as he walked a bit closer to the barrier. “Since this is only a level two dungeon, I imagine the slime isn’t much more than a level one or two itself, right?”
He glanced toward Jeremy for confirmation. Jeremy nodded. “There seems to be a delay of several seconds between each of its attacks. I can tell you when it casts a spell so you can take advantage of its lag time.”
“I would appreciate that, thank you.” Hazel put both hands on his hammer, at the ready.
Jeremy watched the slime intently and as soon as he saw the runes begin to coalesce in front of it for the projectile mana attack, he said, “You’re good, Hazel.”
The elf walked in front of the barrier and brought his hammer down on the slime with an anticlimactic thud that felt just about the same as the rest that had shook the ground beneath their feet.
Caleb grimaced and held up a hand. “Should have had Zanie kill it so we could get a boss monster core.”
Jeremy looked at the flat pancake of slime metal with the shards of glass somewhat off center in the abstract shape. “It’s just a level one slime. I’m sure we’ll run into more of those.”
He let the barrier drop and looked around for the reward, which Zanie had already found. In one hand she held the spear that Hazel had given her to use, and in the other, she had picked up a new spear, which appeared to be made entirely of some kind of metal. Jeremy hoped it was not the same type as the slimes, because it did not seem to be the most resilient of metals.
Before they could do much else, the ground began to rumble in what was becoming a familiar sensation to Jeremy. Around the edges, the trees simply began falling away into the void, tipping outward and eventually uprooting and disappearing completely.
“Time to go!” Caleb announced, striding toward the dungeon portal where he picked up two of the bags of crystals. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the rest of them were right behind, then stepped through. The rest of them hurried behind, stumbling over their feet as the ground lurched and rippled beneath them. But all the bags got picked up and in the grans scheme of how their other dungeon clearings had gone at the end, this was fairly tame. It was somewhat nice to have an idea of what was coming each time.
They stood back in the tall grass with the forest edges choked by briars and other brush to either side of them and watched the dungeon entrance collapse in on itself. With a little blip it was gone from existence. Not of the stable variety apparently.
“This one must have been created in a single event like the one made in the storm.” Jeremy mused as they gazed into the air where the dungeon had once existed. As though its collapse had suddenly reminded Caleb of the nature of the plane of existence he had just been on, he looked a little green around the gills again.
Hazel nodded his head in agreement. “I’ve encountered about an equal number of stable and unstable dungeons.”
“We’ve only run into one stable dungeon, but three unstable ones,” Jeremy said. “Do you have any idea what other kinds of events might cause a dungeon to form?”
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“I think some of them were created simply during the lifting of the spell that brought mana back to your world.” Hazel hypothesized. “There was – and still is – a large sorting of mana and so it would not be surprising if some of it smashed together in some areas to create these temporary dungeons as it sorted itself out.”
Jeremy nodded along.
“I’m curious to know if the unstable ones would eventually destabilize and collapse on their own if left long enough,” Zanie said. She leaned against the staff Hazel had given her heavily, still obviously drained from melting so many of the metal slimes. As if she was thinking about that as well, she looked at Hazel and asked, “You can have this metal one, but do you mind if I keep this other one as a walking stick?”
“You keep the metal one.” Hazel assured her. "I'm not too worried about either."
Jeremy frowned at the spot where the dungeon portal had been and wondered if it would be possible to station people around one of the unstable dungeons so they could kill any monsters coming out of it and be able to monitor it over time. The only issue with that was figuring out if there was a way to tell a stable and unstable dungeon apart. There did not appear to be any indication in their overlays unfortunately.
“Have you been able to figure out any patterns for where the stable dungeons are in comparison to the unstable ones?” Jeremy asked Hazel.
“No, I image there must be some kind of mana flows over the Earth and the meeting points of those flows – where mana would be most concentrated – is likely to be where the stable ones are located, but you’d have to map all that out.”
Caleb had pulled himself out of his temporary horror at imagining what might have happened if they had gotten stuck in the dungeon or whatever else his mind was conjuring up and joined the conversation with, “The easiest way to map those lines of mana would probably be to plot out all of the stable dungeons.”
“This is something which I have begun to do.” Hazel pulled out his phone and fiddled with it to show them a mapping app into which he had saved the coordinates of several dungeons.
“That’s an amazing idea,” Zanie commended.
“I’m able to share these locations with the two other groups who are tracking the dungeons,” Hazel said proudly. “Hopefully soon we will have a complete map of them in this region at least. I am interested to see how they might line up in pattern with the gates.”
“Do you think they would?” Jeremy asked.
“I imagine they might,” Hazel nodded enthusiastically. “The gates do not appear to be powered by anything, yet are constantly functional, so there must be some type of mana source for them.”
“Huh.” Jeremy rubbed his jaw. He wondered how ridiculous it would be to try to visit one of the gates. But for now he had other priorities, like practicing enchanting some more so that he could put all of the mana crystals they just harvested to use.
“We should figure out which way we want to head next. I don’t really want to make camp in all these tall bushes and shrubs,” Jeremy looked around in distaste at the tall grasses that surely held a million ticks and other critters. Not to mention how difficult the logistics of setting a tent up amongst the taller shrubs would be.
“How about we walk back out to the road and decide what to do from there,” Caleb suggested.
They all agreed to do this, but there needed to be a sorting of the bags before they could set off. Caleb and Jeremy pulled their bags out from under the briar bushes where they had been stashed. Jeremy hissed and cursed as the prickles caught and scraped his skin, making a few raw lines, a couple of which actually dotted with blood.
When they laid them out, he crossed his arms and considered his options. “I think we can fit some of the smaller crystals into the gym bag with the scales. Hazel, are you able to take the larger crystals and the slime cores in your pocket?”
“I can do that,” Hazel answered graciously. He was currently inspecting the now softly distorted edge of the spear he had given Zanie. She looked a bit bashful about damaging yet another of his weapons and had tried to offer the metal one they had gotten as a reward to him again, but Hazel mostly seemed fascinated that she had been able to heat the spearhead to such a degree while managing not to burn up the wooden shaft.
Jeremy bent on one knee to unzip the gym bag and shove some of the scales to the side to make space for one of the bags of smaller crystals. Hazel came over to pick up the rest of the bags and let out a sound of surprise.
“What have you been carrying around?” he asked incredulously, gesturing to the gym bag.
Jeremy frowned at the scales. “Dragon scales and a few teeth.”
“Where on this world did you find dragon scales?” Hazel asked, face still blank with shock.
“Well, a friend of mine and I killed one a while back,” Jeremy explained. “And I figured the scales would probably be useful since they appeared to be bulletproof.”
Hazel bent over and picked up one of the scales to inspect it. “I hardly doubt you managed to kill a dragon.”
“Well,” Jeremy furrowed his brow, tone turning defensive. “We did.”
Hazel hummed in a very agree to disagree tone, then tossed the scale back into the bag. “What is your purpose for carrying all the scales around?”
“I thought they might make a nice set of armor or something.” Jeremy said. “They seemed to be incredibly hard to damage, so I thought they would be good for that.”
“Dragon scales do make good enough scale armor.” Hazel agreed. “But don’t expect them to act the same way as they did while on the dragon’s skin. They lose much of their muster when they no longer have the dragon’s mana running through them. It is necessary to add enchantments to get the same kind of functionality out of them that they have on the back of a dragon.”
“Oh,” Jeremy ran his fingers over the scales. “Are you saying it is not worth it to carry them around?”
“No,” Hazel shook his head. “Not necessarily. I’m just warning you, so you don’t think you are going to automatically get bullet-proof armor out of dragon scale mail.”
“Right,” Jeremy still stared down at the scales, a little disappointed, “No, yeah. Thanks for saying something. I haven’t been able to take the time to figure out how to make them into armor, anyway.”
“We can fit those into my pocket as well,” Hazel offered.
“I’d appreciate that.” Jeremy figured he could probably trust Hazel at this point to store large quantities of their more valuable harvested materials. They packed everything away and began making their way back out to the road.