The middle slime bulged outwards as it compressed towards the ground, then extended rapidly and launched up and forward in a flash of speed. The walking stick slapped wetly against the creature, then released a blast of force that exploded the slime into a violent splatter of goop. Iris reached to wipe the slime from her eyes with her sleeve, and slapped herself with the bracer. She grunted in frustration, then shifted her face to the crook of her arm to smudge away the slime. Before she could see, something slammed into her chest and knocked the wind from her lungs. After recovering from a stumble, Iris opened her half-cleaned eyes to see the slime with eyebrows retracting from a lunge with a large, spiked piece of driftwood half sticking out of its body. There wasn't time to check her armor, the slime by the creek was charging another magic zap.
The slime with eyebrows shrunk back for another lunge, and Iris blipped. She reappeared near the shore beside the spellcasting slime. Her feet slid on gravel and carried her into her strike, a strong overhand swing of the stick with a blast of force that blew straight through the slime as it flashed brightly with magic. The zap shot out and struck her cuirass, searing the leather and leaving the flesh behind it badly stinging. The goop of the exploded slime landed in scattered splashes in the pool near the downstream outlet where they were soon swept away.
Iris recovered from the exchange with panting breaths and an indignant scowl, then turned to face the remaining slime, expecting it be upon her. Instead, it hadn't moved closer at all, and between them were four smaller slimes, each about the size of an apple, with two more in the process of forming from the scattered goop of the first exploded slime. These new slimes had no false eyes or faces, but Iris still found the small, featureless blobs kind of adorable -- if vaguely threatening.
The walking stick wasn't tugging on her mana, so she knew the last strike must have expended the last of the force stored within it. She considered her sword, but quickly imagined what a mistake chopping up slimes would be. Her next thought seemed like something, so she reached out towards one of the tiny slimes. She had never tried using her Send and Retrieve ability on living creatures, but she could blip others with her personal teleport ability at a significantly higher mana cost, so she tried it. The tiny slime blipped into her hand like a ball of viscous mud. An instinctual response from Iris flicked the sticky creature from her hands and sent it careening into the water. The mana cost had been surprisingly low, but was still too much to be sustainable for the number of small slimes that remained, and wouldn't help at all with the big one. She steadied her breath as the tiny slimes began to bouncing towards her, and the slime with eyebrows took a menacing hop behind them. Her brain raced while her mana recharged.
"Let's try something fancy," she said under her breath, then looked to the towering tree trunks above her.
The instant her mana maxed out, she entered a chain of blips and kicked off a trunk after each one, depositing her high above the forest floor. She angled the last kick so she'd launch mostly upwards, and she arched before beginning to fall. On the way down she blipped once to correct her aim and tucked her feet so the walking stick would impact first. As expected, it absorbed her momentum and brought her to a soft landing just behind the slime with eyebrows.
Her mana was now low again, and the walking stick wanted it all. She angled the strike towards the water and gave the stick the rest of her mana, but the slime twisted to block her attack with the driftwood spike. The force released by the stick exploded the driftwood into splinters that embedded themselves in the slime and the ground behind it, an unlucky tiny slime was obliterated by the shrapnel. Pain shot through Iris's head and veins as her mana well emptied, and she stumbled back against the pile of branches clutching her head. The slime with eyebrows was undulating towards her.
A flash of green caught her eye, and she noticed the little green slime was near her foot, just beneath a few small branches. His lifeless pebble eyes stared up at her with a perpetually cute expression. He was almost reachable, and she had an idea. She watched the slime with eyebrows warily while dropping the walking stick into her bag. With one hand clutching the exterior of the bag and another reaching into the void, she waited until she had just enough mana for two blips.
The first one brought her into the air over the slime with eyebrows, where she threw the bag backwards away from her waist while her other hand pulled her two-handed greatsword from the void. The second blip brought her just behind her foe, where she dropped the sword down the middle of the blob. The two distinct blobs fell to either side, each sharing one eye, one eyebrow, and half a mouth. After a moment, they righted themselves and began to move separately. Iris was already spinning, absently stomping a tiny slime beneath her boot as she swung a wide horizontal swipe that cleaved both newly formed slimes in half again. The chunks that fell to the ground soon began to move again and bounced towards each other to reform, giving Iris the time she needed.
After running in a half circle around the reforming slime, she ducked down and moved the last branches. Bell the Slime was shaking, apparently quaking in fear, but she didn't hesitate to scoop him up in her hand even as he tried to pull away. Quickly and rather rudely, she dumped him into her bottomless bag.
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She spoke quickly and in a single breath, "you'll be safe in there, sorry!" and then blipped away to make her escape.
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Iris landed gently on the beaten dirt road and strolled towards to the Giantrock City gates. Plucking Bell the slime from her bottomless bag, she held him up in front of her face as she walked. He tried to slink away from her, pressing his squishy body into her grasping fingers. He jiggled slightly, as if shaking in fear.
"It's okay, little guy," she said kindly, "you're almost home."
He seemed to somewhat relax, but his posture -- if you could call it posture -- was still tense.
"Here," she held the slime up to her left shoulder, "how about you ride on my shoulder, instead?"
The slime half stretched and half rolled to reach out towards her shoulder and cling to the fabric of her robe, then suddenly unstuck from her hand and finished the roll. After a few seconds, the pebbles and stick that made up his face reoriented to an upright, forward facing position. He seemed to calm, and Iris smiled at him fondly.
The gates to the city were spread wide, and several people were coming and go as she entered. A guard was posted on either side of the gate, and she briefly worried they might try to stop her from bringing a slime into the city. However, one guard was staring off towards the beach, while the other was preoccupied hassling another adventurer about the flaming sword he carried, insisting that the adventurer would have to wait for the flame spell to expire before bringing the sword inside the city.
It was a short walk from the gates to Miss Beal's apartment, which was situated in the southwestern quarter of the city. Iris traveled most of the way on foot, wary of running or blipping while the slime rode on her shoulder, until she reached the building Miss Beal lived on. At that point, she reached across to place a hand on the slime and hold him in place while she blipped up to Miss Beal's balcony. This consumed extra mana because she was carrying the slime, but not enough to make a problem out of a single blip.
Iris gently knocked on the sliding balcony door, and Miss Beal soon slid it open and gasped. Instantly, the woman scooped Bell the slime off Iris's shoulder and brought him into a tight hug, squeezing the slime so tight that he bulged out above and below her arms like he might pop.
"Thank you!" Miss Beal gushed as she released her choke hold on the slime and tears welled in her eyes, "my boy's home again!"
She held the slime out at arm's length to inspect him, then brought him close again and cradled him like a baby, "how was he? Did he give you any problems?"
"No," Iris laughed, "he was good. I found him hiding under some debris near the other slimes, I think they were bullying him."
"Typical hooligans," Miss Beal scoffed, then looked down at the slime in her arms, "I hope you didn't pick up any bad habits out there, Bell."
The slime said nothing.
"Thank you again, Iris," Miss Beal said, "if there's anything I can do to repay you, just name it."
"Nope," Iris said with a shake of her head, "I'm the one repaying you for the pot I broke."
Iris felt a strange sensation of pressure overcome her. The air felt thick and the walls felt like an enclosing cage. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a step back.
"Is something wrong?" Miss Beal asked.
"Uh, no," Iris said laboriously, "I better get going."
She turned and blipped off the balcony as Miss Beal called out a final thank you. First Iris landed one of the rope bridges that crisscrossed the upper levels of the street, but quickly felt as if the ground below was a bubbling cauldron that she precariously dangled over. Her vision narrowed, and the sounds of the city morphed together into a deafening cacophony. With a desperate blip, she landed on a roof top and felt a measure of relief, but it wasn't enough, so she blipped again to the peak of the roof.
The wind caught her robes and her sleeves flapped in its wake, but she didn't just feel the wind against her body -- she felt it everywhere. She sensed the currents of wind parting around her, swirling and morphing, splitting and combining. Even with her eyes squeezed shut, she felt the shape of the building on which she stood, and knew the exact fluttering of her robes and dangling of the drawstring on her bag. It was a pressure. A weight exerted on reality by an invading force of things that did not belong. Presence where there should be empty, matter where there should be void.
After carefully and deliberating catching her breath, Iris slowly peeked open her eyes. The combined sensations of seeing the faraway buildings but feeling the air itself stretching out before her was almost sickening. She averted her eyes to the shingled roof beneath her, where she found peace when her eyes and her strange new sense agreed that it should be there. Cautiously, Iris lowered herself into a seated position on the angled rooftop, and opened her adventure journal.
IRIS ORION
Hero Rank, Level 10
Experience Points: 56 / 7580
Progress to next level: 0.73%
Recent Accomplishments:
Quest Complete: Rescue and return Bell the Slime. 200 experience awarded.
She skipped over her attributes for now, instead flipping straight to her new ability.
Awareness of Matter
Source : Thread of Power (Void)
Cooldown : N/A
Mana cost : None
Description :
Sense the exerted pressure of matter onto the void. Range scales with Spirit Attribute. Perceived detail scales with Intellect Attribute.
Available Evolutions : 0