The sludge had enough volume to fill a public swimming pool, reaching up to the first-floor balcony of the central library. This one was a deep brown, almost black with all the muck, leaves, and rotten tomes floating around its surface like a makeshift armor of facts and logic.
“That doesn’t look good.” Rye pointed down to where Mouggen and Karla were already engaging the massive monster. “If the small ones were anything to go by, that is several tons of muscle and, well, muscle. What even IS a sludge? How do they work? Are you going to kill it?”
“An animated compost heap. Hopefully, like balloons. Most definitely.” She brushed another lock out of her face, sticking it to the rest of her blood-matted hair. It stayed there. Handy, that. “Let’s mop up the conjurers up top before we join the squad.”
Down below, the sludge puckered up, before launching a sword of bone and broken twigs at the others. Mouggen just barely managed to parry, the blow pulling him off his feet. Karla meanwhile couldn’t find a place to place her living chain. It squirmed around like a sad caterpillar before being crushed underneath the big glob and absorbed into itt. She stabbed it in return, but though her shortsword drew a brackish kind of blood, the wound resealed moments after.
“That isn’t a good first impression,” Elia said, ducking under a mage with better fashion sense than the previous ones and pushing her over the railing. “That thing has no joints, and it's not made of jello either, so our spoon won’t be that great.”
“That slash healed up quickly, I’m guessing our spear will be pretty useless for stabbing too. Shall I try conjuring?”
Elia nodded. “Reservoir isn’t too topped up, but I know you’ll make do. We’ve been hit with a bunch of reference material, can you cook up something bigger than snowballs and snow cones?
A nervous sigh went through her mind as Rye rejoined her.
No, and I can’t come up with a new spell on the spot when learning the first one took me a month… wait, that might just work.
“What might work? Hey, don’t leave me – fuck off!” She kicked the knees out from another dreg, and finished it off. With them, the first three stories of balconies should be clear.
Rye conjured up the shell of another snow cone. Before moving down to the first floor, switching to her spear, Elia noted that this one had the point pointing outwards. If Rye’s idea turned out to be a bust, she’d prefer some reach over her spoon.
Meanwhile, on the ground floor Mouggen was back on his feet, chanting something most likely for moral purposes. A pseudopod shot out of the slime, trying to bat him away, but it sizzled and jolted back as it touched his mask. He didn’t let it though, grabbing the pseudopod before it could retract and searing an impression of a smiling sun with every headbutt.
“Hah, banishes the foul indeed.”
She stabbed down at the overgrown slime as it ambled close to the walkway. As expected, only a small spurt of liquid showed itself, but that was enough to divide its attention. The balcony buckled as it rammed into a supporting pillar beneath her.
Keep it steady, I need to concentrate. Now, careful, careful… done!
The spell floated besides Elia, a cone except longer and thinner like a sharpened arrow shaft. Rye cast the spell and the stopper in the back popped as force flew free and the arrow propelled forward. It hit the slime only by dint of its size, sinking into its mass of book armor before disappearing, doing little harm.
No! I mean, what was I expecting, but man, that was sad. Alright, second try. So, the propulsion chamber went along the entire line and that meant the projectile was effectively just a rod of ice when it hit. Maybe if I split the chambers in two… and the flight path is off too. Better not to hit the armor, but its hard to aim either way. Humm, HUMMM.
“Try fins,” Elia said, poking the slime again.
Like a fish?
The balcony buckled, wood splintering before this side crumbled down just after Elia moved further along. “I was going to say like an arrow but sure.”
… I can’t do radially asymmetrical shells yet. But I like the idea.
Elia’s reservoir drained a bit more than normal. If the previous iteration of the spell was worth two and a half snowballs, this one was worth five. She could practically feel Rye concentrating on getting the thickness of each part of the shell right, and plucking the right essences from a place far above to mix them at the correct ratios.
Finally, the second prototype bolt was done, and her apprentice ring was only a tiny bit green from minor mistakes. The bolt hummed with energy ready to do work.
Ready… go!
It hit a point between the books this time, penetrating deep beneath the sludge. The area around the point of impact rippled as something detonated inside. Black blood and muck sprayed out of the wound and didn’t stop for tens of seconds. It shifted its book armor over the wound long before it had healed.
“Did you just… invent armor piercing high explosive rounds?”
T-that’s good, right? Everyone’s spells are different! I just… took some inspiration from a memory of yours, about metal boxes driving on chains shooting each other. Really, and here I thought videe-games were useless.
“Yeah, well I can see–“
The slime tugged on its grappled tendril, hopping in a small backflip that nevertheless sent Mouggen flying. He crashed right through the palisade next to her, and Elia barely had the time to dodge when the giant bone sword cut the floor in two beneath her.
She fell down, landing hard but jumping up just as quickly. A scything blow took out a pretty pedestal and the marble bust atop it, but the spray of wood and stone still pelted her worse than the spells before. She was freezing, bleeding, and her knees were killing her as she hopped, rolled, and ducked out of the way into a side room intended for quiet reading.
The sludge didn’t manage to follow after, though it did jab a bundle of very sharp looking branches through the door, nearly skewering her hams.
“Fffind me the number of the guy who fed that sludge, because I’m about to get him to read a book on animal obesity, then slap him across the face with it.” She pulled at a splinter stuck in her forearm that was as large as her forearm, then thought the better of it. “FUDGE that hurts.”
E-elia, we just made it angry. Oh, why can’t I do anything right?
“No, you did great.” The sound of the slime bouncing around outside was shaking candles off the tables. Elia peeked into the main library room. Karla was fighting the thing again, bravely holding her position like an ant fighting against an avalanche. “How big can you make one of those before it turns Karla into a pancake?”
B-big? I, well, there’s no hard limit if you make the shell thick enough. But the more energy I put in the shell, the less energy and concentration I have left for influences. I was already feeling the strain with that last one, and it was barely as long as a longbow arrow. A-and that’s just the call, I don’t know about the cast, It would go way off course, or explode, or miscast. Without a good chance, I can’t hit it.
And yet, in spite of her doubts, Elia could feel her other half’s readiness. The girl had an inkling of vengeance in her after all. Another reason to be proud. “I’ll get you that chance. You just keep on casting away.”
She looked outside again, saw that even Karla couldn’t tango with the sludge without stumbling right into her death all too soon, and moved out.
A jab followed a swipe, a dodge a roll, and second after second so agonizingly slow. Elia had fought thousands of sword duels in her lifetime, armed with just as many different weapons, tools, and rocks, so she knew it when she saw it. The slime was frankly cheating. The bone sword wasn’t entirely a single solid thing, and so sometimes it would have a longer hilt for more reach, sometimes a thicker blade for quick, devastating swipes out from its murky mass. What was more, it had so much relative mass that pivoting on the spot was trivial, even with a weapon that nobody but Karla could safely block.
Still, she held on, falling into a sort of groove. Death on her heels for every misstep. Lungs burning from exertion and from runoff cold from Rye’s casting. Business as usual. She had faced way worse odds in the maze.
The cold was new though, as her reservoir emptied from seventy to sixty to fifty-five percent. Then to fifty and a few percentile more. There was no way Rye was handling the entire call or cast without some mistakes, mistakes that were then amplified by the scale. This spell was inefficient. There was a reason most of the dregs had kept to their single, low effort spells. They were easy to remember, easy to replicate, and most of all, easy to cancel.
The image of Nali’s mage-dreg friend flashed across her mind. If something happened that forced Rye to abort the cast, they’d need to deal with a whole heap of conjuring noise. They wouldn’t get a second chance either, which was only more worrying as Elia felt the inefficiencies manifest as a cold frost on her skin and in her bones.
What other gamble could they take? Could she trust Karla to suck the sludge dry, if its fluids even counted as blood? Could they topple part of the library onto it and light it on fire? Anything and everything she came up with sounded more implausible by the second. There really was nothing she could do but trust in Rye and Rye alone.
She grit her teeth. Trust was good, but guarantees were better.
Almost. Done. Get. Ready.
‘Well, here goes probability,’ she thought, skitting to a stand.
“Hey j-jackass!” She yelled, gripping her spear like a javelin, and letting the trickle of runoff influences coat it in frost. “C-catch!”
The spear soared, and though its tip was blunted by the frost, the slime seemed to think it a magical bolt. It did what she wanted, namely dodge, but not at all in the direction she had hoped. In one singular motion, it slammed its sword into the ground, and like a high jump athlete vaulted into the air.
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Its body brushed the remaining candelabra with a distant tinkle.
“N-no f-f-flippin’ way.” It could decide when and where to fall at its leasure. The protective side rooms were too far away. Karla was close by, Nali and Cesare were probably somewhere in this mess as well if they weren’t dead already.
This was it.
The feeling of winter beside and within her grew tenfold as joints locked up and geometrical snowflakes crusted over her eyelashes. Elia staggered back until she had a wall to lean on.
“F-f-fire.”
A demand, a hope, or a last warm thought, it crossed her lips in a whisper. Next to her, the long bolt of ice rocketed skywards. Her burden lessened as she watched it impact the slime slightly off center, piercing straight through its massed armor of words and pap. There was a breath of foreboding, of worry that Rye got the mixtures wrong.
Then, an explosion ripped a tenth of the slime’s side outward. A tenth was still much, comparable to losing an arm, and this slime was all one giant muscly appendage. Cracks of frost decorated the crater as it twitched one last time.
You have slain: Great Sludge
You have gained: Soul x3,500
“H-hey, f-first try.” The popsicle sludge teetered, as ten tons of ice and water started falling towards her, with no way to dodge. “Ah c-crap.”
As the tons of dead slime came crashing down in silent cacophony, Elia closed her eyes. She was enveloped in something incomparably soft and characteristically not a mound of frozen compost and books. Every breath still hurt, and the air still smelled like nature’s worst byproducts. Tentatively, she opened an eye.
She was expecting to see a savior in shining armor, a miracle, or the ceiling. Instead, she saw nothing but darkness.
We’re alive! Elia, the slime was going to kill us and then suddenly, fwoomph!
She mumbled something, but her mouth was stuck against what felt like leather and a mountain of wool. A horn poked her cheek as something wriggled above her.
“Cesare? I thought you were a coward.”
There was a high-pitched, muffled laugh. “I thought so too, but then my legs just moved and here we are now. Hey, um, I know I’m handsome in the dark, but could you maybe… stop moving your hands?”
I-I’m still making calm signs, just so you know.
Elia spat out Cesare’s backpack. “Sorry, Rye’s still trying to convince the sky-fish that we’re just air bubbles and not food.”
“Ah. Ok.” He sounded somewhat nervous, like he understood the implication, but not the extent of the threat. “Are conjurers considered a delectable snack for them?”
“More like an irresistible shiny lure. Best to make like a bubble and pop. Or pretend to. I don’t know how to explain other than that if we’re not fine, you will notice for sure.”
A few seconds passed in squished-together silence.
“If you’re going to get a boner, I would like to be forewarned.”
“Hah! I will have you know, I have precise and perfect control over all of my bodies’ functions. Perks of being created instead of born.”
“So you can take a shit whenever?”
“… yes, that too.”
Oh. Um. Weird. But somehow, endearing. He’s also very warm for a lizard – I mean, lizard-person.
A few more moments passed in even more awkward silence.
“Hey, Rye. We’re gonna be stuck until someone digs us out or the oxygen runs out. So, got a name yet?” Elia asked as she wiggled into a position where a fat book wasn’t pushing in between her shoulder blades. “For your spell.”
What?
“Every new spell needs a name. C’mon, don’t leave me hanging.”
Um, alright then. How about… Hailstone Javelin?
Elia’s smile grew wide. “That sounds friggin’ awesome.”
They waited for what felt like minutes in the dark. Eventually, the pressure on them shifted, then lifted completely with the first crack of light.
“This. Is. Kinda. Heavy.” Karla huffed and puffed as she lifted part of the slime far enough up that they could squeeze out. With a heavy thud, she let it fall down. “That was quite the heroic feat, sir Cesare. Are you two alright?”
Elia patted her body down, still shivering. The good news was that the blood around her wounds was clotted to frozen clothing. The afterglow of the fight was still pounding against her chest. ‘Killed a boss, and nobody died’, she thought, before grinding to a halt.
“… we should check on Mouggen.”
Cesare nodded. They hurried up the broken balcony, finding him hanging over a broken table amidst copious tools for measuring the stars.
Cesare winced as he saw his companion, Rye covering her mouth with her hands.
“I don’t think necks bend that way,” he said.
“They shouldn’t. They really, really shouldn’t. Karla, could you…”
“What? Oh. Sure.” Karla went to fling him over her shoulders like a sack of grain, and Rye thought not for the first time that the princess was a bit too accustomed with gore, a bit too eager to get her hands dirty. Suddenly, his body shuddered. “Ack!”
Before their eyes his neck slowly righted itself. They heard it too, and that was something Elia felt Rye could have done without. His mask glowed with a dim golden shine that grew bright for a split second. They all waited around him like a bird watching eggs hatch.
“I-I…,” he stuttered, grabbing his face before shrinking back from one of the metal solar flares. “Ow, what is? Oh, right… So, I died again. C… Cesare, that makes it how many?”
“Three since we met you. Four if you count the Summer Watcher.”
“The others, are they… quite alright?”
“All’s accounted for.” He slapped his companion on the back. “Glad to have you back, old chum. Maybe this time you’ll remember what you were looking for.”
“I remember sun… the sand…” Mouggen stared at the assembled cast with considerably more effort. “Are you going to introduce me to our new friends? Or… or did you already do that?” Everyone shared a look. The realization hit him softer that way. “Oh. Where’s Nali?”
“She’s hiding right behind… hey, where is she?” Cesare looked around. “Did she walk off on us again?”
Nobody seemed as worried as they should be that the person who didn’t even have a boon to defend herself was missing in the slightest.
“Shouldn’t we look for her?” Karla asked.
Mouggen shrugged as he still rubbed his head. “We’ll find her. She’s still in the tower, we would have heard the lift move otherwise. I’m sure curiosity got the better of her. To her, violence is a terrible boor. Gods, I could use a bowl of respite.”
“You mean like that one?” Karla pointed to a bowl in the middle of the room, a bowl that had decidedly not been there before.
“Yes like… that one.” He sighed. “Forget it, I just want a drink.”
*Gong*
As exhausting as the fight was, the water tasted that much better afterwards. The loot was well worth it too, as both the slime and the conjurers had dropped loot aplenty. First, there were the shards, which they all divvied up equally between each other.
You have gained: Bone shard [Common] x4, [Uncommon] x2, [Rare] x1
“A lot less impressive than when we fought alone.”
A lot safer though. And more people means more consistent victories. How long has it been since you defeated a… greater foe without paying a single life?
“Very.” Elia stared at the shards for a bit longer than necessary, before pocketing them with the others.
Soul count: x21,411
Shard count: [Common] x41, [Uncommon] x14, [Rare] x1
Next up were the big drops. By the time they had returned the sludge was dissolving into runny muck, trailing down the stairs and off the edge of the tower. Its soul was sitting happily in the middle.
Soul of the Great Sludge
Soul of a great sludge created in the heart of the Academy of Yorivale from those who succeeded in binding their soul to a crystal ball, yet failed to do the same for their bodies. Sludges were often used for waste cleaning in sewer systems, where this one grew to its prodigious size. It later found an entryway back into the Yorivale academy, where it fed on words as much as paper.
“A slime with a hunger for knowledge. Made of people.” Its corpse was deflating slowly in front of her eyes as whatever counted for its blood oozed past leathery, dead cells. “Good thing it didn’t remember how to cast magic, eh?”
“I think the hoard of casters would have been enough to balance that out. Lucky for us, you thinned them out beforehand.” Cesare shot her a nervous smile. She wasn’t so sure what to think about that, nor did she have to think much at all as there was still loot to identify.
Essence of Attraction
An essence of attraction caught within a glossy shell of a pearl-like substance. Swallow to imbue a boon with essence.
“Seems our little slime boyo couldn’t hold himself together without some magical cheats after all.” Elia looked around. “Anybody got dibs on the essence?”
There was a round of shaking heads. It went to Elia, while the soul went to Mouggen, as it was likely uncommon, as well as some mixture of body and another element.
“Hey, Elia, look what I found!” Karla pulled the oversized bone sword from under a toppled bookcase. “It’s loot!”
“No, Karla, look, that’s evidently not meant for human hands.”
“But it is! Let me just… one second.” She tore a piece of bone from the hilt, then another. More and more scraps fell until she cracked the central knot of bone and calcified ligament open, revealing a smaller version of the blade. Its edge was still wickedly jagged, but at least it looked like a sword meant for human hands.
“Alright Karla, hand that over for a second so I can make sure it isn’t super cursed.”
“And if I don’t wish to hand it over?”
Seriously? A rebellious phase, now?
“Then you can be doubly sure its triple cursed up your behind and back. Just a touch, Karla, you know I’ve got a boon.”
Libation
A ceremonial dagger used by witches during holy sacrifices given willingly. A blade entirely impractical for use in battle, unless one is possessed of the great strength necessary to overcome its dull, jagged edge.
Creates terrible wounds that bleed continuously. Can make creatures without blood bleed.
A magical saw-tooth sword. This was a rare one, strong too. She’d almost kept it for herself if it weren’t so… over the top evil looking. You’d have it easier cutting things with a saw too, though if paired with Karla’s strength the wicked edge would likely still wreak terrible havoc. Elia gave it back, watching Karla play with the ridiculous looking weapon.
She looks so happy. That’s… good?
“Yeah.” Elia chuckled as the hilt of the sword-dagger popped out an additional foot, then retracted again. “Totally impractical. Now she really looks like a blood-cult princess.”
Oh shush, let her have her fun.
“Back in my day, all we needed was a broken shortsword, a shitty boon, and a whole heap of grit.”
Back in your day, the thought of any food was a luxury. And you didn’t know what to do with souls. And things generally sucked more.
Elia chuckled. Rye had her there. She went through the bags of a corpse, picking up its casting focus.
Yorivale branch
Casting focus of Yorivale conjurers. The bone-white wood can trace its origins to the stars, which makes it an excellent conduit for casting, assuming the wielder can withstand the additional strain.
Reduces call and cast time moderately, but increases spell cost and reduces subtlety.
A focus that incentivized dumping a lot of reservoir quickly for maximum effect, all while exacerbating the risks. Another dangerous combination, though maybe she should be giving the conjurers of Yorivale more credit. They were all using some variant of these foci and without a single miscast in between them. The danger was there, but neatly bound behind what were no doubt years of study and practice. And they had good incentive for casting safely, Elia was after all wearing the armor of some group that dedicated their life to hunting down miscasts and dangerous conjurers.
The conjurers of Yorivale were like TNT, safe but deadly. Compared to them, Rye was like a bottle of nitroglycerin. A giddy bottle of nitroglycerin that could learn.
Elia stretched herself until she felt a satisfying pop. “Alright, now help me stuff all these wands and whatnot into our backpack. Mahdi’s gonna buy them all and then we’ll be rich.”