The walk to the slime pit was not long. We went down a tunnel next to the inside wall and walked until we reached an open cave. Inside were two small green humanoids wearing rags and holding spear and torch. They were looking further into the cave and had their backs to us. Typical looking goblins. Past them was a large open cavern lit up with torches with more goblins standing about. There were also slimes. Lot of them, in different colours, all over the floor. One of goblins kicked a slime, sending it into a large pit at the back of the cavern.
The pit took up about one third of the cave and slimes could be seen slowly moving up a slope into the main area in front of us.
We were about five metres away from the two nearest goblins. Miko gestured to me and whispered, “This is a good time to raise your identify spell. Try it out on one of the goblins.”
Following her advice, I focused on the goblin on the right and cast the spell.
[Slime Tamer]
Health: ??? / 100%
Class: ???
Level: 3
Race: Goblin
+1 to Identify spell rank
The goblin’s body twitched, and a health bar appeared above its head. The goblin, now with a health bar above his head, walked over to his companion and punched them in the face.
The goblin dropped his torch from the punch and then jumped on his attacker.
Yui chuckled as she unsheathed her sword. “Stupid goblins.” She did not bother to whisper the words and the two wrestling goblins looked over towards us. I look between the goblins and Yui. She had her hand on her sword. “Wai-“, Before I could finish the word, Yui had cut them down with a single swing of her sword. My experience…
Yui turned to me as she sheathed her sword “We will take care of the goblins since they are higher level. You should just focus on the slimes for now.”
Miko walked up to some shabby looking tables against the cave wall and pulled one of them closer to the entrance. “We can dismantle the rabbits while we are here.” Miko grabbed the corpses of the goblins and threw them in to the pit.
“Good idea.” Yui pulled a stool out from her inventory, sat down at the table, and pulled out a pile of dead rabbits.
Miko followed suit and pulled out her own stool. She also pulled out her mug of drink from the waiting hall and had a gulp before grabbing a rabbit.
Richard walked up next to me, gave me a smile, and pointed his finger towards a goblin. A beam of bright golden light emitted from his finger and seared straight through the goblin. He pointed towards another goblin but before he could steal more experience from me, I grabbed his wrist and pointed it towards the ground.
“Hey man, kill stealing is considered rude in some circles. I’m confident I can handle a few goblins.”
Richard grinned and gestures towards the cavern “Apologies. I’ll be here if you need support.” He took a step back pulled out his own mug.
I grinned and picked out my first victim, the goblin close to the pit, the one that kicked the slime. I summoned a spear and in a fluid motion threw it directly at the goblin’s head. Crap, I should have cast identify first. My spearbolt pierced completely through the goblin’s head and continued until it imbedded itself into the back wall of the cave.
Experience gained
Richard spat out his mouthful of drink behind me. I turned around and gave him a thumbs up. “I got this.”
He ran the back of his hand over his mouth and sat down with the others.
I picked out another goblin and decided on using axebolt this time. Before I threw- uh, launched the spell I remembered to cast identify first. No new information was gained apart from seeing the goblins health above their head. I launched the axe, with slightly less strength than the spearbolt and watched as it split the goblin in two from its head to chest. The launch was still a bit too much and I adjusted the power against the remaining goblins.
The others were surprisingly efficient when it came to dismantling the rabbits. The pile was already half done. Looking at the three of them acting so casually while I murdered goblins made me smile. This was a definite improvement from my past tower experiences.
I took a moment to enjoy the moment before turning back to the cavern. The slimes were moving all over the dead goblin’s corpses, slowly dissolving them under their ability to eat anything. I picked out a lone slime away from the others and cast Identify.
[Blue Slime]
Health: ??? / 100%
Class: Monster
Level: 2
Race: Slime
A health bar appeared above the slime, and it started to slowly move towards me, it left a wet trail behind itself as it moved.
I summoned a spearbolt into my right hand and stretched my arm back. I took a moment to get a feel for the weight and then launch the spear towards my target. The spear hit the slime dead centre. The spear impaled the slime and buried itself into the ground. The health bar of the slime dropped by a quarter and the slime slowly climbed up the shaft of the spear.
I scratched the back of my head “Hmm, I was expecting a better result.”
“Try a different weapon.” Said Yui from the table.
“Yeah, Piercing and slashing weapons suck against slimes” added Miko.
“Piercing weapons normally do almost no damage. Interestingly, yours must still have an impact because they are made from mana.” Richard said, his voice distracted, probably writing in his notebook.
Well, if spearbolt and axebolt were ineffective, that left hammerbolt. I grinned to myself at how versatile my spells were. I really love magic. I pictured a small one-handed hammer with a short half, in my mind and cast summon weapon. Nothing appeared in my hand. Strange. I tried a second time, and again nothing happened. It can’t be a mana issue since I had over half left still.
Realization hit me, and I hurriedly opened my skill list.
Skills
Appraise Item (0)
Axe One-handed (5)
Axe Two-handed (5)
Counter (22)
Dodge (10)
Parry (10)
Polearms (5)
Shield (5)
Small Blades (5)
Spear (5)
Sword One-handed (27)
Sword Two-handed (5)
Unarmed (12)
I needed to have a skill of at least one in a weapon before it could be summoned… I never picked up a hammer back at the guild hall.
“Damnit!” I yelled out and looked as the slime dropped off the end of the spear. I took a step towards it and kicked as hard as I could.
The slime exploded from the impact and bits of slime sprayed everywhere.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Experience gained
I felt slightly better. There is something about mindless destruction that I just found calming. I looked down and saw that bits of slime were stuck to my robe. I gave the robe a pat and the bits slipped off and fell to the floor.
“Are you sure your class is not berserker or something?” Asked Miko.
The group were staring at me from the table.
“I forgot to gain a rank in hammers or maces.” I said in way of explanation.
“and that made you angry enough to kick a slime into the next dimension?”
“I was uh, aggressively meditating. You know, like bringing the internal conflict to the external and then…” I gestured to the floor where the slime used to be. “Make it disappear.”
Miko laughed, “You are so full of crap”
“Miko!” Yui stood up from the table
“What? We are not in the guildhall. You don’t have to be so wound up out here.”
Yui gave a “humpf” and walked over to the other table that was left against the cavern wall. She kicked out and broke off one of the table legs. She picked up the table leg and offered it out towards me. “You never got to practice with a mace before we uh…” She pointed to her cheek, where my hand mark was still visible. “Here. Use this, you will gain blunt weapons skill if you kill a few slimes with it.”
I appraised the improvised weapon.
[Table leg]
Quality: Crude
Weight: 3 kg
Value: 0c – 0.5c
+1 to Appraise Item
Oh, that sweet feeling of progress.
“Cheers.” I smiled at Yui. “Nice kick you got there.”
She returned the smile. “Aggressively meditating.” Yui let out a long breath “I can feel the stress just melting away.” She clapped me on the shoulder and walked back to the table.
“Miko, perhaps when we get back, we can practice this new meditation technique together.”
Miko gave a snort. “You can beat on my shield for as long as you need, just don’t cry to grandpa when you get a matching mark on your other cheek.”
I left the others to their banter and focused on what really mattered, experience. I really don’t want to use a physical weapon however I would basically be missing out on hammerbolt if I don’t get a skill point with blunt weapons. Better to use it now and get rid of it as soon as possible.
Movement from the pit caught my eye and a green slime landed on the edge. The slime bounced towards where the dead goblins were. This was the first time I saw a slime move like that. I cast identify.
[Green Slime]
Health: ??? / 100%
Class: Monster
Level: 2
Race: Slime
No difference from the blue slime. I wondered why this one was bouncing. Maybe the colour difference? I’ll ask Richard later.
The slime continued bouncing towards me. Once it was three metres away from me it launched itself towards my chest. I stepped to the side and watched as the slime sailed past me. The slime spread out over the ground as it landed and took a second to pull itself back in to a blobby ball shape. The slime bounce-jumped towards me again but this time I brought the table leg up into a swing and hit it squarely at centre mass. The slime exploded, sending green bits of gel all over the table and trio skinning rabbits.
Skill gained: Blunt One-handed (1)
Experience gained
They looked towards me with blank faces. Yui placed her hand down firmly on the table. “I did not give you that so you could rain slime guts on us.”
“Yeah, and can you stop making them explode? We want the slime cores for trade with chef Powin.” Miko added.
“Sorry about that.” I scratched the back on my neck “I’m still getting used to my body here.”
I tossed the improvised club into the corner of the room and summoned a hammer. The hammer looked just the way I wanted it. A stone cubed head with a small haft that fit in my hand easily. It took a few throws to get the feel for how much I needed to hold back my strength, before they stopped exploding into giblets. However, something felt off. This method of slaying slimes felt slow. Inefficient.
I decided to take a look at the pit and walked over. Reaching the edge, I could see a mass of slimes moving, writhing, and climbing all over each other. There must be at least a hundred or more slimes in there. An idea occurred to me then and I walked around the cavern and kicked all the slimes into the pit. I used some mana marbles while herding them into the pit until I reached full mana.
“Uhh, what are you doing?” Asked Yui from the table. I grinned towards them and gave them a thumbs up.
“Killing them one by one is just too slow. I thought, why not group them up before slaying them?”
I kicked the last roaming slime into the pit. “There we go.”
“Reigner, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Said Richard.
I laughed “Yeah I know. It’s a great idea.” And launched hammerbolt after hammerbolt into the mass of slimes as hard as I could.
Experience gained
Experience gained
Experience gained
…
The experience notifications kept coming and completely filled my vision.
Level up!
3 attribute points gained
Sleep or meditation required.
Experience gained
Experience gained
…
I continued to launch hammerbolts into the slimepit. I started laughing at some point and only became aware of it once I ran out of mana. I had a single mana marble left and decided to use it. Better to have some mana than none.
The group were all looking at me from the table with wide eyes. Richard was opening and closing his mouth, like a fish out of water.
I let out a contented sigh. “Nothing quite like grinding for experience.” I pulled out my own mug of ale and took a long swig. Still fresh and tasted great.
Richard managed to compose himself and started writing furiously in his notebook.
A chuckle escaped from Miko. “Well, that’s one way to do it, I guess. Are there any slimes left?”
“Just a handful. I’ll let my mana regenerate before picking up the cores.”
“We can do that” Yui stood up from her stool and dragged Miko with her. “We finished dismantling the rabbits.”
Miko let herself be dragged. “Fine, but I want to go to the forge to loot some ores. Reigner can clearly solo this place himself.”
“You two can go. I’ll stay here in case Reigner needs some healing.” Richard put away his notebook and pulled out a thick tome.
The next few hours were spent regenerating mana and killing respawning goblins. It was surreal to see a creature respawn. I knew it happened all the time in the last tower I was in, but I could never see it as most of the tower was in darkness. One moment the space was empty and then ‘pop’ out of nowhere a goblin appears, holding a weapon and a torch, and ready to be murdered.
The slimes only seemed to spawn in the pit and would occasionally move up the ramp. Turns out that they only bounced when hungry, and they always spawned hungry.
I managed to gain two levels, a point in intelligence, and increased identify, appraisal, and few other skills. Slimes only dropped cores, but the goblins always had some coins and the occasional rusty weapon, not including their spear. Richard said Miko would want the rusty weapons, so we left them in a pile for collection by the entrance.
I ended up clearing the slime pit a second time. By the time Yui and Miko returned it was half full again. I decided against killing what was left as I could see that everyone was eager to leave.
We were about to walk out of the cave when I heard a man yelling behind us. I turned around and watched as refuse and a dwarf fell from a hole above the pit straight into the mass of slimes.
Slimes splashed against the wall from the impact and a few even made it out the pit. We ran over to the edge and looked down. Inside was a dwarf swinging their hammer around while desperately wading to the ramp. Miko and Yui jumped down and helped clear a path while Richard sent a healing orb to the dwarf. I cast some half strength hammer-bolts into the pit, clearing a path to the ramp.
We pulled the dwarf up the ramp and sat them against the wall. The dwarf must be part of the others we met as there was the same insignia on their pauldron. The dwarf was breathing heavily and slapped away a slime that was attached to their leg. Richard kicked it back into the slime pit.
“Thank ye for the assist.” The burly dwarf gave a deep chuckle “Glad you left something for me to land on.”
Richard cast another healing orb on the injured dwarf. “You are lucky, a minute later and we would not be here.”
There was rattling noise above the pit and after a second, a rope ladder appeared. Once it fully unrolled, three dwarves shimmed down the ladder, landed in the pit, and wade and slayed their way to the ramp.
One of the dwarves with a shield strapped to their back cried out as they tripped over a hammerbolt. “By the Forge fire. Why are there so many hammers about?”
“Aye, looks like Thor’s rejects.” Commented the dwarf in front holding an axe. “Oh! Having a nice sit down are we, Burin?”
“Fuck you, Old-Prick. If ye didn’t jump back into me, I would nay have fallen!” Replied Burin, the dwarf under Richard’s care.
“What you call me, boy?” Old-Prick took a step towards the sitting dwarf, before he could take another a hand landed on his shoulder from behind.
“Enough o’ that Olwirck, I saw ye bump the lad.” Torva Flatpick stepped forward and knelt down next to her injured party member.
“All in one piece there, Burin?”
“Aye Cap, just a little drop.”
“Yes, one that left you in the red.” Added Richard as he finished casting a third healing orb. “Good thing you have so much health, Dwarves are not the most aerodynamic.”
Burin gave another deep chuckle “Aye, built like a brick and fall like one too. Thank ye. I’m in your debt.” Looking to the rest of us he added “All of ye.” He pulled out some folded paper and handed it to Richard. “Take this. A map dropped by the fort captain. Should lead ye to something good.”
Burin scowled towards the rope ladder. “We taking the ladder up, cap?”
Torva grabbed him by the arm and helped him to his feet. “Nay lad, we could all use some fresh air. Let’s take the long way back.”
Torva pushed her group towards the tunnel exit before turning to us. “I’m glad you were here. As thanks let me share some information I think you will find useful.” She lowered her voice to a deep whisper “My clan received news of a dwarf being summoned yesterday, by the undercity tower.”
“Wait.” Richard leaned closer to Torva. “Reigner was summoned yesterday. There has never been two people summoned on the same day.”
“Aye, but that’s not all.” The dwarf glanced towards her team before continuing. “They say that this dwarf was telling all kinds of strange stories.”
“Strange how?” asked Yui.
“Stories that he was a hero, with a level over three hundred, before arriving here. Apparently, lost all his levels on arrival.”
Miko glanced towards Yui. “That is crazy, it’s a well-known fact that Hiro holds the highest level of two hundred.”
“Aye, he was taken by the Shovel Knights so I doubt we will hear anything more.” Torva looked towards me. “Don’t know if there is a connection but I thought you should know as you arrived on the same day.”
Torva said her farewells and exited the cavern.
I watched her go and took a breath.
There was a dwarf in my support group named Grafoki, the group were all above level three hundred while I was closer to five hundred. However, Grafoki was a cleric, a lazy one at that, and would only spend mana when bribed or threatened. It’s not hard to believe that there are other worlds with Heros climbing and conquering towers. Perhaps this ex-hero is from another world like me and wanted a class change.
“Who are the Shovel Knights?” asked Miko.
“Bunch of lunatics.” said Richard. “You remember the group that tried to attack the undercity tower a few years ago?”
“Those crazy cultists?”
“That’s them. They believe they can take over a tower and rule the world. Or was it, destroy the world? I’ll have to check the library once we get back.”
Yui placed her hands on her lower back and stretched. The movement really showed off her athletic build. I looked away and saw Miko grinning towards me.
“I’ll let grandfather know. Now, let’s get out of here and celebrate our first day together.” Said Yui while she walked to the exit.
Miko followed her chanting. “Meat! Meat! Meat! Time for meat!”