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Story 001: Saving private Ivy Welter

Story 001: Saving private Ivy Welter

This is My Life Project, I decided to bet everything on this, enjoy.

Story 001: Why Slimes aren’t weak

Year 337 of the Yulian calendar; Black Mist Forest.

“Hit harder!”

Screamed the Swordswoman while slashing downwards on the neck of a Troll, replying to her, a mage finished chanting his spell and threw a Fireball the size of a boulder on another troll.

Trolls, One of the 4 worst encounters you could have while traveling, 3 meter tall giants, hard-leather like grey skin, with two brownish-yellow tusks protruding out thier lower lips like the  bull's horns.

One would think they live closer to human villages or roads while instead they tend to live deep in the forests or down caves in isolation, no one really knows why, especially considering their violent behaviour.

The moment the Fireball landed, the fire quickly spread over the greyish skin releasing the stench of burning fat in the air, the troll blindly charged the mage while the fire was still devouring his body, in a last effort attack he managed to reach the mage.

Seeing the Troll so close, at the last moment the mage managed to create a blue dome around him, [basic mana shield], the shield was capable of defending against low level attacks, not really suited to block the charge of a few hundred pounds Troll.

When the troll hit the dome, his whole body was came to an halt for a moment before the mana underneath him bent, the mage observed the body of the troll getting closer and closer, however he couldn’t move, otherwise the mana shield would disappear and he would die immediately.

A few tears rolled down the mage cheeks, as he understood he was done for… the same moment the mana barrier fell and the mage was crushed under the heavy body of the troll on fire.

The swordswoman couldn’t do anything as she was busy dealing with her own troll, luckily, the troll on fire died so it was a 1vs1 with the other one.

The crude slab of stone in the hand of the troll created an arc ending right on top of the swordswoman, luckily with her superior agility she avoided the slab.

However when the slab hit the hard ground, rock splinters flew around, one of these as if guided by the hands of fate described an arc hitting the unprotected forehead of the swordswoman and knocking her out.

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Tomorrow Morning the rest

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When she came back to senses, a frigid cold was biting in her exposed flesh, groggily sitting up she gazed down on her body.

Gone

Her armour, a gift inherited from her father who inherited it from his father and so on for 5 generations, it was an extremely precious heirloom able to boost one’s physical condition, without it her possibilities of surviving decreased dramatically.

Then, after recovering from the shock of losing the armour, she noticed that all her clothes had disappeared too, she was completely naked on the cold stone ground.

Letting out a short shriek she covered her nether region with one hand and with the other her exposed c cups, suddenly, the noise of giant footsteps echoed from somewhere in the darkness, and after a few seconds a monstrous figure appeared carrying a simple lit torch in his hand, the flickering fire revealing his wild face.

The Troll!

He was back, the woman looked around for anything that she could use to defend herself, however the only thing that she could see thanks to the feeble light were either pebbles or boulders encased on the ground.

The troll seeing his Guest awake gritted his teeth and ferociously roared while charging toward the defenceless woman, on the other side of the cave the frightened woman could only stand up and run deeper in the cave, however her run ended shortly as she slipped on something rolling on the ground and smashing heavily on a wall.

Dead end!

She could only tremble in fear as she saw the troll charging in her direction, her ankle had twisted and she couldn’t even try to run away anymore, finally accepting her destiny she closed her eyes waiting for the end, however, it never came, opening her eyes she saw a bizarre scene.

Her ferocious attacker was on the ground wildly clawing at his face, focusing more she noticed something dripping from the roof of the cave to the troll, the substance was green in colour and it seemed moving on its own.

Invading the orifices of the Troll’s head the substance quickly disappeared entirely, meanwhile his poor victim was screaming on top of his lungs, his face a sorry spectacle between deep cuts and something resembling melted parts.

The troll tried breathing but his throat was obstructed, his nose dripping blood and so were his eyes and ears, whatever that green liquid was doing inside there had brought the troll to his demise, with his last act of lucidity he looked in the direction of the swordswoman, his eyes part red expressed a sense of sadness and regret then he fell limp.

His body kept producing weird gurgles and every now and then it convulsed however whoever were to look closely could notice he was indeed dead.

With her mount gazed open the woman had observed everything that had happened till now, she composed herself now that the troll wasn’t a menace and approached the body to take a hold of the torch, she was still beware of the green liquid inside so she tried to be as fast as possible while limping.

After prying the torch from the troll’s hands she took a few steps back wary of her surroundings, especially the roof, that’s when she noticed something shining in a corner, with slow steps she approached and when she came close enough to light that part of the cave she almost burst in joy.

“My armour!”

Throwing away all her cautions she sped up her pace closing in to her gear, it wall all there neatly stacked, sword, backpack with rations and…. The corpse of the mage.

“Syrus…”

She held back a tear and wore back her armour trying not to look Syrus body as much as she could; done gearing up, she lit flames to the border of Syrus’ Robe and offered a quick prayer.

“Lord of Light lead his soul to safety, Lady of the Netherworld welcome him to your home, Lord of Flame grant his spoils rest, Lady of the Earth accept his remains and give them new life, Lady of Battle etch his name on the wall so that he may never be forgotten.”

After that, torch in hand and sword beside she left the cave in big strides, with her battle armour on her confidence had been restored to a degree, if only her ankle wasn’t twisted she would have ran out in a matter of seconds hacking away any obstacle.

Lucky for her she had the torch, the cave was a maze of tunnels intertwining, however thanks to the torch she didn’t get lost, the flame flickered in the direction of fresh air, aka the exit, and so in a matter of minutes she was already out.

A grassland extended outside the cave, covered by an infinite starry sky, the light of the two moons shined gently on the dew covering the grass in a lightshow.

With a mouthful of fresh air she ventured in the great unknown….

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you know how it works, decide what will come next

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Part 3

6 hours after escaping from the troll’s den, the swordswoman had travelled for miles unsure of the direction to take, she had never learned how to navigate using the stars as reference, nor she had a pointer, a magical tool able to indicate the direction of a pre-decided place.

All the matters regarding directions had been pushed on Syrus, however, now that he had been smashed to a pulp she couldn’t rely on him anymore, and so she was lost in the great world, unable to even understand the way home.

The pain coming from her ankle hadn’t decreased, instead it was stronger than before, maybe trying to walk it off wasn’t an idea as good as she had initially thought, thankfully she was driven by her sheer will to survive or either, she would have probably fainted on the ground, turning in a free monster snack.

A few minutes before dawn, her haggard breath and painful legs forced her to stop and rest for a little, had she been in her prime condition a short walk of 6 hours would have been a walk in the park (pun?), especially for a knight such as her, trained since infancy to become a tireless war-machine.

She finally come to a stop and heavily fell on her butt, painting hard and sweating like a slave under the 3 suns, the moisture in the air was incredibly high and coupled with some sleepless bugs, her march had been hell.

Firmly planting the troll torch in the ground beside her she reached for her bag and took a see trough glass flask filled to the brim with water, she took a few big gulps before closing the flask with a big smile on her face, next she took off her chest plate, thanks to the enchantments it wasn’t heavy, however the temperature plus humidity had turned the mighty armour in a steam boiler.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

And finally, she feel on the comfortable grass bed, the fresh dew partially soothed her heat problem together with a fresh breeze cooling her finally free chest.

She was feeling in paradise when naturally something had to disturb her rest, a weird rustling noise coming from her bag caught her attention, at first she had blamed the wind, however the noise was inside, scared  that it might be a rat trying to devour her rations she opened the bag and gazed inside.

At first, it seemed normal but then “frush”, the weird noise appeared once again together with one of the meat bundle slightly moving.

Carefully she stabbed her sword point in the bundle, hoping to kill the intruder without spending too much efforts, the moment the sword stabbed inside, she felt a nice resistance, so either she had stabbed the little thief or the meat.

She raised the bundle still stabbed by the sword and took it off the bag, and with a final effort she pried it open, however, it wasn’t a little rat what appeared from the bundle, a weird slimy green liquid oozed out the opening spreading on the fresh grass.

Where the liquid meet anything but dirt a sizzle like fat burning on a metal place filled the air, recognizing the weird liquid from the cave she jumped back, creating a 2 meter distance from the unknown menace which was still calmly oozing out and feasting on grass.

When the bundle was finally empty, the green substance gathered in a sphere formation, becoming similar in shape to a deflated ball, it was almost completely see trough and with a green colour mixed with dirt, a few air bubbles moved from his bottom, disappearing after touching the top part.

The swordswoman looking at the alien creature in front of her came up with a name on the moment, “slime” because it was all slimy and lime colour, the slime became still for a full second before groggily slither towards the female knight.

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Part 4

Focusing on the weird thing in front of her the swordswoman didn’t lower her guard, she wouldn’t be fooled by his inoffensive appearance, just a few hours ago one of is kind had violently killed a troll in front of her, a scene still burning in her mind.

Circling around it with her limp leg proved to be useless, she couldn’t even know if that thing had a front part or a back, no matter where she went the slime lazily corrected his movement to meet her.

Tired of waiting she lunged forward performing a flawless down slash cutting the slime in two perfect halves, the weird liquid composing his body dispersed like water on the grass forming a weird and vile-looking puddle.

The swordswoman stared dumbfounded to the remains of the enemy she feared and after staring for a while and only after believing it was dead she sheathed her sword and with a dry laugh she sat again near the torch.

She spent a few minutes checking her bag for more unnoticed guests and after confirming it was over she ate some smoked jerky while watching in awe the first sun emerging from the horizon.

His blue pale light lit seemed to give life to the world, the water reflecting lights in the surroundings, she kept observing the surroundings with a smile, finally some rest after all the fear and fights.

She closed her eyes for just a moment, her tension melting away with the sun, and without even her noticing, she fell asleep, her dreams weren’t so peaceful, scenes of the last night played in her mind, the trolls, the slime and lastly, but more important than everything, Syrus…

He was….

Suddenly her mind showed her Syrus death once again, and again, some times with variation, in one of those, she was the one killing him, in another, his flattened self was accusing her of his death and so on until she woke up.

A few hours had passed, the red sun would emerge any minute now, her leg was still hurting but she could bear it, after drinking a gulp from her flask she went back to the slime puddle and found an unpleasant surprise, the green goo was gone, leaving a trail of dead plants and scorched earth.

She put on her armour, took the torch and followed the trail, after 5 minutes she found the little abomination,  only that it wasn’t so little anymore, he had grown in size and from his previous ball size had become as tall as a midget.

The moment she came in his line of sight, he probably recognized her, lots of bubbles flew from his bottom to the top and his body bobbed back and forward lunging like a bullet right to her face.

Thankfully she was enhanced and easily avoided it while piercing it in mid-air only to find her sword stuck to him, his body kept flying with her sword and landed a few meters away,  the sword still stuck got slowly sucked inside and became encased inside like a bug in amber.

Shocked she took a few steps back however the slime wouldn’t let her rest and lunged forward again, she managed to avoid again, but by doing so she ended putting too much weight on the injured limb and fell to the ground.

Barely managing to avoid tasting the earth, she immediately turned to the slime, only to see it already preparing the next charge, his head bobbed back.

"it's going to come again!"

When his body was ready to spring forward the swordswoman had already rolled left towards the torch, without a weapon she knew her chances to get out of there were extremely low.

While the slime was landing, she thought about her options:

A)    Run away- impossible, I have an injured leg, I’m not confident of beating that thing in stamina.

B)     Fight- low chances, my sword is still stuck inside him, if i don’t find a way to get it back i won’t be able to fight properly.

C)     Parley?

“hy?”

The slime didn’t even put in his face her words and bobbed back, prepared for  another charge when he noticed the fire in her hands and suddenly came to a stop, his green colour darkened a bit, a reaction one could undoubtedly identify as “fear”.

A wave of courage passed through the swordswoman body, finally something she could use to fight, yes, she could run away, however, without her sword she would be defenceless when meeting something different from this goo-ball.

Waving the torch in the air to scare the slime worked well, as it slithered a few steps away, then, taking advantage she used the good leg to sprint forward and stab the green monster with the unconventional weapon.

The moment the slime came in contact with it, he immediately caught fire, his body burned like an oil ball before exploding with a “hiss” sound, sending green stuff everywhere, some burning, some not, a few drops even landed on our slime-killer thankfully not producing any harm nor to her nor to the surroundings, as if it had lose his corrosion ability.

Even the sword had been dropped in the explosion, hurrying to take it back, the swordswoman found it a few meters away, just that it looked different, she had grown accustomed to its blue hilt and simple yet elegant silver blade.

However after being spitted out, the sword had been trough some  noticeable changes, first of all the hilt had probably soaked some green goo and turned green, then the blade had grown in width and length, turning from a short sword to a claymore, and finally the whole silver blade was emitting an eerie feeling with a green aura surrounding it.

She poked once with her finger just to be safe but nothing happened, so she steeled her nerves and picked it up, at first she almost fell back, she had put enough strength to raise a claymore, however the sword itself had still the same weight as a short sword!

With a big smile splattered on her face she slashed the air a few times, trying to get the hang for the new sword, then decided it needed a new name, after all it wasn’t the same as before.

Granting the name to a sword was a big deal in Yulian kingdom,  tales said that if the name you granted to the sword was appreciated by the sword it could grow in raw power,  however you had to be very lucky to stumble upon the right name.

Planting the sword on the ground she performed the ceremony.

“I, Free knight Ivy Welter, decided to grant a name to this sword so that it may help me in battling my enemies, Lady of battle Akalosh grant this little one  the right to take a name from your wall and etch it on the sword so that it may fight again not as wielder but as wielded, May this sword and its thirst of blood be known by every man and beast with the name of....”.

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This story is over, you might stumble upon the sword or in Ivy in another story, but she won't be the main character anymore.... probably.

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