The first rule of firearms was that you weren’t supposed to point them at people unless you wanted to shoot them.
The second rule of firearms was that you didn’t take the weapon off of safe unless you wanted to shoot someone.
The third rule was that you did not put your finger on the trigger until you wanted to shoot someone.
The fourth one was to rethink whether it was a good idea to shoot that person and to keep in mind whether they were resistant to your attack method, because obviously escalating into a fight you could not win was a bad idea.
They had then run in circles in Mark’s lightweight armor, a mile in boots wasn’t particularly fun but his clothes felt almost weightless but they needed to make sure he could move adequately in even the lightest armor variety they had in stock.
Then he had dragged his tired body out of the store and started down the road towards the target of their quest. They had found it obviously labeled near the side of the road.
The Sewers.
He was on a paved road on a slight decline, surrounded by trees and foliage and there was a small sign pointing towards a stone entryway labeling it as a sewer system.
Mark entered and remarked upon the interior.
“I thought I would be choking on the smell”
It didn’t smell of pine for sure but the smell was more acrid and reminiscent of heavy chemicals. After he closed the door behind the group it sealed off the noise of chirping birds and the ever-present rustling as smaller vermin dove into the bushes to escape his sight.
The tunnel was also well lit for some reason, there were two walkways on either side of the tunnel along side a stream of green sludge in the middle.
It didn’t resemble a sewer from his memories, but given his lack of experience with sewers and the fact that magic existed, he was more than willing to believe it was because a wizard did it or something.
That was probably why this sewer was so far away from town and didn’t seem to be covered in feces. Magic.
Zirrilit sniffed at the air, “I didn’t think the sewer would smell like this either. It smells like acid or poison and not a latrine.”
At that moment they both saw it. A small orb of liquid trailing along the ground. It was an opaque green coloration with a small black stone inside.
Mark grinned beneath his helmet, pointed his rifle at the thing and promptly blew it in half.
The laser caused a minor steam explosion when it came into contact with the water. He watched as the acid slime slowly pulled itself together because its core hadn’t been damaged.
He shot again and missed from eight feet away.
So he shot again, and again and again. Rapidly unleashing a rain of fury and lasers.
He missed sixteen times before he hit a fluke shot into the inch wide spherical rock in the center.
Mark was definitely not a sharpshooter. That was for certain, he gestured to the automation following them.
“Can you keep track of our kills for the guild?”
“Of course Sir! I will perform tracking our kills for the guild.” It replied in an artificial helpful tone.
Zirrilit tapped his shoulder and pointed, across the small stream was another slime. This one was close to fifteen feet away.
Mark nodded, her words were unsaid but he knew she wanted him to successfully use this weapon and this time he aimed, getting down into a knee on the unsurprisingly damp walkway in an uncoordinated repeat of what he had seen on games and TV, looking down the sights of his weapon and releasing one aimed shot at the black rock floating within the slime.
He missed anyway, but it tore through the slime fairly close to the small rock core and evaporated a significant amount of its body. Mark adjusted and shot again…
“The core is far too small to properly strike with a ranged weapon.” Mark decided, “The core is moving slightly throughout the liquid and it is too small to properly aim at.”
The machine behind them recorded the fact that Mark clearly had no ranged abilities.
Unless it was a ranged attack ability that wasn’t related to aiming?
The researchers behind the monitor still basically knew nothing.
Zirrilit nodded, that made sense because aiming a laser could be difficult. He had to use his hands after all.
She then opened her mouth and shot a beam across the hall, it was so bright that it nearly blinded Mark and he was forced to turn away.
The slime was blown apart, the stone melted and exploded sending shrapnel which might have taken out an eye or something if the person in question wasn’t wearing enchanted safety gear.
It could have destroyed a car and she could do this almost as often as she wanted. She was armored like a biological tank and could also attack like a biological tank when necessary.
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Mark took his arm away from his face and looked up at the crumbling stone and slag, then looked down at the rifle in his arms.
Zirrilit grinned. “Was that good?”
Mark gulped and nodded silently, the amazing futuristic weapon feeling suddenly very small in his hands. Then he turned his head and sighted in on his next target.
The third slime was approaching fast though it lacked sensory organs. Without something directing it the construct would move continuously in whatever direction it happened to be facing.
Mark turned to face it changing his stance, he readied his rifle and then shot twenty rounds into the ball of slushy acid wandering randomly towards him before a random shot clipped the stone core and destroyed it.
The fourth slime came upon the group by surprise. It had been inside of the river of green goop in the middle of the sewer hall before it happened to crawl out and rolled into the side of Mark’s boot. He turned to watch the acid slime began intensely crawling into him with no visible effect.
The group watched for a moment as it failed to dissolve anything.
“Are these actually acid slimes?” Mark asked, poking at the fluid slightly.
“It has roughly the same PH of stomach acid.” The machine behind him answered. “It will take a few days for it to get through parts of your armor. It represents a serious threat to your health if you were unarmored. It would be capable of rendering you blind if its fluid entered your eyes.”
“Oh.” Mark prodded at the construct with his boot. “Is it dangerous to my skin?”
The machine answered without the hesitation that the organics needed to register a question, “Yes, after an extended amount of time it will cause rashes and blistering.”
Mark reached down with a gauntleted hand and pulled the core out of the slime with a slight tug.
He rolled the small, perfectly spherical object in his hand and noted the small glowing runes that surrounded it in a pattern he couldn’t decipher.
Bringing the rock closer revealed that the patterns began large but branched out into smaller and smaller sub-runes.
In fact they eventually grew so small he could no longer make them out.
“What is this?” Mark held up the core to their machine minder.
“That is a small lode of manastone, it appears to be liquid themed, and you can assume an acid specialization based on the context of its use.” The machine answered with its standard monotone.
Zirrilit nosed between Mark and the machine slightly wanting to be part of the conversation but had nothing to input.
“How much is it worth?” Mark asked the next most obvious question.
This question required some intensive calculations, a rock of manastone an inch and a half long could cost between eighty to one hundred and twenty gold pieces. That would not be the end though, it would need to be shaped into the necessary form, polished, and have any flaws or impurities removed.
All of this would be used to create the basis for what they could then carve into to create an enchantment before they coated it with a mana neutral resin which could vary depending on the manastone subtype.
The orb in his fingers was a final product, having it specially created as a custom order from a proper tradesman could cost thousands. Mark could probably sell it to someone who happened to want a slime construct wobbling around and dissolving things, but he would have to undercut professionals and thus it would result in a slightly cheaper price.
People generally did not want hazardous acid orbs that wandered around with a mind of their own. It might be illegal to own on the basis it was a health hazard with no benefit. Therefore he would probably need to recycle it, sand off the protective resin and the three dimensional carvings and resell the smaller manastone it resulted in.
On top of all that the manastones would not have a warranty or a quality guarantee like most industrially supplied manastones, thus dropping the price significantly.
“As they are, they will likely sell for fifteen or twenty gold coins each. You will also need to find someone who would be willing to buy them.” The machine answered after spending less than a fourteenth of a second calculating local prices. “Would you like for me to store these for your convenience?”
“Yes please.” Mark handed the machine his current loot. “Thanks man.”
“I am a constructItem received.” It interrupted itself to announce the completion of its task, as it was programmed to do.
Mark now sighted in on the next slime, one of hundreds crawling around the sewers. It was a true infestation he had been called in for. He walked over to his next target, bent down and ripped its core out of his body with a quick jerk.
By the machine’s calculations he appeared to have gained a severe powerup. He had gone from dozens of attacks taking over thirty seconds in total to making a single attack and completely eliminating the enemy while preserving valuable regents.
It of course highlighted the recent information, but the actual people monitoring this deemed it unimportant.
“Right, so we just need to kill as many of these as possible. Zirrilit do you think you can jump over the walkway and get those ones while I grab these ones?” Mark asked.
Zirrilit nodded, then bounded over the stream.
She decided to copy mark, since those little rocks were apparently valuable. The dragonoid bent over, pinched one of the stones between her claws and pulled.
She pulled the mana stone in half and the slime popped, splattering onto her slightly.
Zirrilit tilted her head, then sighted in on her next victim before pinching that stone as well and crushing it between her claws by accident. She grimaced slightly, the tension of the slime was enough that by pulling her sharp claws would sheer the core. It had more in common with a circuit board than an actual rock.
Though her claws could sheer through stone if she decided on it.
“I can’t pull this out properly.” Zirrilit whined.
“What? Why?” Mark walked over to where Zirrilit was hunched down.
“I can pick things up. I can pick people up. But if I pick up something I am trying to hurt I can’t stop my claws from going into them.” Zirrilit clawed out a piece of concrete and lifted it properly as an example.
The machine corrected her explanation to Mark. “Her strength and durability is magical in nature and thus behaves outside of what should logically work. The fact her razor sharp claws wouldn’t harm you if she grabs you is in itself a magic ability that only works on friendly targets.”
Mark looked over, “I guess it doesn’t matter, just smash those ones and I’ll grab the cores out of these. The point of this quest is to kill them all anyway.”
Zirrilit nodded, “I’ll just hurry up on my side then.”
Mark looked across the tunnel. Hundreds of slimes… It basically amounted to hundreds of golf balls on the ground for him to pluck up.
It didn’t take long, fifteen minutes later Zirrilit had crushed her side and Mark had finished gathering his magical golf ball equivalents and handing them off to his robotic companion.
Then he turned and saw the next hallway, which seemed to have even more than the first.
“How large is this sewer system?” Mark asked his machine follower.
“There will be a dozen hallways roughly this size in a labyrinth with no branching segments.” They answered.
He sighed, “Do you have a name? I don’t really know what to call you.”
“I am referred to as, machine, robot, cleaner, help, helper, servant-” It began listing adjectives.
Mark pulled another slime core out and sighed, “Okay, I heard enough.”
He needed to think about it, the name servant seemed too… mean? The machine was too lifelike for him to treat them like an object. He was attached to it the same way he had once felt feelings for a potato with googly eyes attached.
In other words, he would be notably upset if it was destroyed.
Mark held out another slime core for the machine and nodded, “...what if I name you Core?”
It sounded both suitably robot-y and person-like, plus it was what he was holding in his hand.
The machine had a completely utilitarian opinion. “That will be a unique designation, and thus will not be translated automatically. Since it is in a language that only one person in the known universe can speak, most will be unable to properly enunciate it.”
“Okay,” Mark replied while only half listening.
“Are you sure that you would like for me to-” Core began rattling off.
Mark pulled another slime apart, “Yes.”
“This change cannot be undone as a measure to prevent accessibility in the case this unit is hacked or otherwise rendered-”
“Yes.” The human sighed, even computers in this world made you click okay a dozen times before giving you what you want.
“This unit is now referred to as Core.” Core announced to the room along with a slight trademark jingle, as it was programmed to do in the case of a sudden name change.
“Okay Core, here’s some more.” Mark stretched and handed off another handful of the magical golf balls, “Actually can you just grab the manastones out of these for me?”
“Of course Sir.” Core replied.
“Just call me Mark.” He leaned against the stone wall just for one of the bricks to shift inwards.
And then he noticed a section of the wall fall away revealing a staircase down.
Zirrilit bounded over, having sensed the sudden change, and Mark leapt away from the wall and almost fell into the green river before Zirrilit pulled him back.
“What the fuck?” Mark whispered to himself.
Zirrilit paused and tilted her head and smiled, “Did you say you want to-”
Some things didn’t translate properly.