Elaria, once again, was bored. The terrain this side of Felspire was much the same as it had been on her way there. Endless fields of tall grass that gently waved in the breeze, the occasional pond or stream interrupting the seamless ocean of green, and the towering figure of Cloudreacher Mountain in the distance, bridging the gap between heaven and earth with its hulking body. There was a blurry green line on the horizon which she guessed might be a forest, but she was still too far away to be able to tell. Judging from the mission description there should be forests on the way, otherwise she would be arriving at Lockmire having made no progress on the wolf subjugation. She knew there would be goblins about at least, having already experienced a delightful encounter with three of the little green fellows the previous day.
Luckily for the intrepid young woman she wasn’t doomed to spend the entirety of her first day in boredom, the silence in the air broken by a series of squishy sounding plops. The plops got louder and louder until Elaria spotted a group of gelatinous balls bouncing in her direction through the tall grass. They were varied in colour, most blue, but with a few greens and reds dotted around. As they bounced closer, and she was able to better inspect the viscous visitors, she realised what they were. Slimes! Even as someone who had rarely played games or watched things like anime or cartoons which often used slimes as beginner monsters, she could recognise the cute and playful things. They were just little blobs, brightly coloured with simple facial expressions, similar to emoticons, either ‘:)’ or ‘:(‘ depending on their mood.
Caught up in her excitement and unable to resist the sheer cuteness of the things, she let them surround her, smiling along with them at their playful plops and bounces. The bravest of the bunch, a large wobbling blue mass with a smile on its face, hopped right up to her. Did slimes have faces? She couldn’t tell. She reached out a hand to stroke the wonderfully bubbly little thing, and it jumped right onto her hand, absorbing it inside the gelatinous mass of its body. It was a strange sensation, and she didn’t want to move her hand out of fear of harming the creature. If Elaria had bothered to pay attention to the prompt from the Chain which had appeared along with the group of slimes, she may have remembered that these loveable balls of goo were in fact, monsters. Her carelessness was punished by the pack of bouncing balls as the large blue slime which had absorbed her hand, began to digest it with vigour.
Elaria felt her skin burning inside the slime, and attempted to pull her hand out, but the quivering mass of jelly refused to let go of its meal, sticking firmly no matter how hard she waved her arm around. Seeing their elder brother strike, the rest of the slimes now pounced, attempting to submerge and digest their latest victim. It was only now that she noticed two boxes in the corner of her vision, and cursed herself for letting the slimes’ cute appearance draw her into their trap. The facial expressions of the ravenous jellies had turned from happy smiles to angry frowns, and they were all bouncing after her as fast as possible while she attempted to break free from their encirclement and shake off the large slime which was starting to digest the skin on her hand.
You are being digested by a Blue Slime!
-1 health per minute from acid corrosion
Elaria drew her sword, swiping madly in order to fend off the increasingly ferocious attacks from the surrounding slimes. She considered swinging at the slime on her hand, but the risk of slicing off her own limb was rather off putting, so she decided to try and defeat its comrades and figure out a solution once the situation had become less intense. A small red slime compressed itself flat onto the ground, before leaping at her with explosive force, shooting directly for the head. If it connected and began to digest her brain, her chance of survival would be almost zero. She pivoted on her feet, then planted them in the ground, preparing to strike. Her sword whistled through the air, and unable to stop having launched itself, the red slime flew straight at the blade, cleaving perfectly in two, the limp halves of the monster plopping to the ground. Before the body could even fade, the other slimes pounced onto their fallen ally, digesting the gelatinous corpse to bolster their own size and strength.
Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Elaria made an attempt to free her hand. She raised her arm high above her head, the large blue slime starting to drip onto her arm, before smashing it down as hard as she could into the ground. The slime exploded with a satisfying pop, sending bits of blue goop flying everywhere, coating herself and the surroundings, the other slimes delightful at the addition to their ongoing meal. She was greeted with two little boxes informing her of the successful slaughter, but pushed them to the side so she could focus on the battle with her wobbly foes, who having finished consuming their comrade, turned their full attention back to the large, fleshy meal before them.
The three slimes, one red, one green, one blue, still looked incredibly cute with their angry frowns, and even though Elaria knew now the pain of being digested by one of the little blobs, she couldn’t help but hesitate to obliterate them. Instead of simply launching individual attacks, the slimes demonstrated intellect you might not expect from a ball of goop without a brain, and the green slime compressed itself into a bowl, which the other two hopped into, before springing back into its original ball shape, launching the two slimes at super high speed towards Elaria. Whether or not this was an elaborate sacrifice or a genuinely deadly weapon was up to the heavens to know, but it made no difference to her. Having used her blade in a few battles, Elaria had begun to get a knack for the proper technique, and after calculating the trajectory of the two slimes, slashed outwards in an arc, carving both of them in two with a single elegant strike.
The final slime, seeing that all of its brethren had fallen, panicked as it tried to decide between devouring them to gain more mass or simply escaping from the big fleshy threat. Having seen the decisiveness and speed which the other slimes were put down, it chose the latter option, and desperately bounced through the grass at maximum velocity in an attempt to flee. Unfortunately for the little guy, Elaria was faster. A short sprint followed by a stomp covered the grasses in green goop, and her brief but exciting encounter with her first slimes came to a close. Despite the seeming intensity of the short battle, the only damage she’d received had been from the first slime which tried to eat her hand, and she was only missing 4 points of health. The last bits of slime faded into nothingness, and she checked out the notifications from the Chain that had been popping up throughout the battle.
Level 2 Red Slime has been slain
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+6 XP
Red Slimeball x1
Level 4 Blue Slime has been slain
+12 XP
Blue Slimeball x1
Level 2 Red Slime has been slain
+6 XP
Red Slimeball x1
Level 2 Blue Slime has been slain
+6 XP
Blue Slimeball x1
You have levelled up!
+1 stat point
Level 3 Green Slime has been slain
+9 XP
Green Slimeball x1
“It’s really going to get annoying if every single time I kill something a fresh box appears. What if I’m battling an army of thousands of goblins, and become blinded by the deluge of kill notifications, causing me to fall in battle from a strike I should’ve seen coming?” Elaria muttered to herself, letting her imagination run wild. As if in response to her complaints, another message appeared, to which she immediately answered yes.
Would you like kill notifications to be grouped?
Yes/No
Kill notifications will now be grouped using notation familiar to the user.
She would have to wait until her next encounter with a group of monsters to see what effect her choice had, but given that she had plenty of kills left to reach the targets listed in her missions, she was sure it wouldn’t be long before she’d find out. Elaria continued with her journey, making sure to keep a watchful eye out in case any more slimes or snakes tried to sneak up on her using the long grass as camouflage. Unfortunately for her, given her thirst for more battle, the rest of the first day was uneventful, and passed by without another monster encounter. Using the portable tent in her backpack, along with a fire starting kit, she set up a makeshift camp for the night, nibbling on some beef jerky to keep full.
Having settled in, Elaria remembered that her skill should’ve come off cooldown, and before letting the tender hands of sleep claim her, she decided to activate the Lesser Call of the Treasury, in hopes of receiving something useful for the journey ahead. The familiar whir of the portal activating above her tingled in her ears, this time a bright green, meaning she was about to receive a rare grade item. Not as good as the All-Purpose Antivenin from before, but still decent considering this was her daily skill. A spherical object fell from the lime green portal, and she caught it in her outstretched hand. It looked like a large pill, and was black in colour. Raising it to her nose, she gave it a sniff to see if it was some kind of medicine, but recoiled in disgust as sulphuric fumes burned her nostrils. Using the Chain, she identified the object, and giggled.
Silak’s Maximum Strength Stink Bomb (Rare)
Consumable Item
Silak the Cowardly was a notorious prankster and fool in a distant kingdom lost to the passage of time. For his entire life, he perfected various techniques and technology in order to cause mayhem and mischief among the populace. One of his myriad tools, this stink bomb will render the sense of smell of any victims in the area unuseable for an entire day, and induce nausea and vomiting if they are in close enough proximity.
She didn’t know when she would ever have a use for such an item, but at the very least it might prove useful if she ever needed to cause a distraction. The next morning was spent in much the same manner as the previous day, and it was only as the sun was approaching the peak of its arc through the sky, that the forest in the distance had come into full view, the bright green canopy of the towering trees stretched for almost a hundred kilometres in both directions, and the trunks of the trees stretched high into the sky, almost thirty metres up as far as she could tell. Hopefully she would be able to find a wolf den while she ventured through this neck of the woods, and make some progress towards her guild mission. Elaria had barely taken a step past the first root poking through the soil, when there was a rustle in the leaves and a dark shadow fell from above.