Neil

At the top of the stairs I stopped and looked at the six slimes that were following me up the stairs. One group of two slimes was fairly close to me and one group of four slimes was a little further away, near the bottom of the stairs. I honestly felt fairly comfortable dealing with the two slimes, it was the group of four that had me worried, especially since I only had my smallest knife with me.

Still I had lots of room to work with and maybe if I could find a stick or something else with a bit more reach I could take them out one by one. If not I may be able to find a way around them and get back to my camp with my spears.

Turning around I walked back the way I had just come from. While I had just explored the upper part of the ruins I hadn’t done a very thorough job. I knew that there were a lot of dead ends and if I didn’t want to get trapped I would have to be careful.

As I made my way down the tight corridors looking into the small rooms for anything I could use as a weapon I was unfortunately coming up empty. Any stick I found was either too short, too thin or simply rotting and would break if I tried to swing it. So far all I had was my 3inch folding knife.

There were some rocks that I could throw but given how much of a beating that first slime took I didn't think hurling a few rocks at a slime would do too much to it so I passed them by without bothering to pick them up.

Walking to the end of the hall I was starting to feel pretty confident that I knew where I was going. Taking a right that I thought would lead me in a circle back to the stairs instead led me to a dead end. "Shit." I said as I hit the wall in front of me.

Turning around I ran back the way I came and I had hoped to backtrack and take another path but when I made it close to the corner the two slimes were blocking my way forwards. I probably could have run past those two without much trouble but the four past them were spread out in such a way that I didn't think I could just run straight past them without being trapped.

Looking at the walls the rock was still as smooth as when it had been made, no purchase or grip to climb up. Fortunately in the time that this place had been abandoned the creeping vines had taken over. 

Running back towards the dead end I stopped at the end and grabbed a thick vine. I tested my weight on it and when I was satisfied it would hold me I pulled myself up. The walls were only as tall as my shoulders so it wasn't too hard to pull myself up. As my head made it over the wall I got a face full of cliff. The wall I was on was apparently on the outer edge of the mountain and I was now hanging over a several kilometer-high drop straight down. Far below me was green jungle as far as I could see with scattered mountains and even a few lakes. If I weren’t about to plunge face forwards into it I might have appreciated the view. Pulling myself up I balanced carefully on the wall.

The wall was about a half a foot thick, not so large that I could run along it easily, but with a little care I shouldn't have too much trouble making my way along the walls.

Arms out I quickly walked my way past the two slimes who had reacted to my being on the wall by slowly making their own way up the wall. Completely ignoring gravity as they moved up the wall I almost lost my balance trying to quick walk past them. As fast as I was I wasn't fast enough to beat the four slimes and they were just reaching the top of the wall as I reached them. 

Stopping I looked at the slimes slorching towards me from the front and back. Great so now I really was trapped between the two groups of slimes. Looking to my left across the corridor I had just been walking down I saw a small room with a doorway I could enter, however I had no idea where the corridor on that side led to and I really needed to make my way back to my camp. To myright was the sheer drop.

Not wanting to get any more lost than I already was I decided to take a third path. Now that the corridor was empty maybe I could simply run past them. 

Jumping back down to the path I knelt down to break my fall and started sprinting the second I could. Running as fast as possible I made it past three of the slimes as they actually jumped at me but missed by a hair. Raising my hand I held it in front of my face which probably saved my life.

The last slimes managed to fling itself towards me and actually managed to collide with the arm I had just raised. 

"Fuck!' I shouted as the damn thing actually managed to stick to me. Still running I threw my arm back and forth and then my entire body as my hand and then arm started burning. Instead of being thrown off it was actually slowly spreading across my arm covering me more and more. Tearing at the slime caused my fingers to start burning but I kept at it, adrenaline and desperation helping me to ignore the pain. Finally after tearing at it and dragging it against the wall as I kept running I finally managed to get the damn thing off of my arm and I left it behind me as I ran towards my camp cradling my arm with my still burning hand.

Running down the stairs, through the corridor and reaching my camp I was relieved to see that it was as undisturbed as when I left it. Looking at my right and left hands there was no way that I could fight right now, the skin on my fingers were melted and covered with even more painful blisters. The adrenaline must have been keeping most of the pain from me but looking at it caused it to finally register with my brain. Most of the skin was red and looked downright melted and in a few places on my right hand I swore I saw a bone between the leaking blood.

Jesus Christ slimes were dangerous, just a few moments had been enough for a large part of the skin on my hand to be melted off.

Not having much time I threw down my bag that I somehow had kept a hold of. Dumping the half empty pot of potion onto my burned hand I sighed in relief as feeling returned to my right hand and I could once again use those fingers.

While some of the damage on my right hand had been healed it was still pretty bad and the skin on my left hands fingers were slightly melted as well.

Smooshing one berry in my cup I removed the skin and put in on my right hand, sighing at the immediate feeling of relief. Next I picked up a small handful of the grass and placed it in my cup with the berry. Now this would be the hardest part. With my injured hand I tried to scoop out the nectar but with my hands shaking because of the pain I had to give up. Instead I dumped in roughly half a cup of water from my pot into the cup, tore out the insides of the flowers one by one and squeezed them over the mixture going so far as to dip them in the murky liquid.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Hopefully some Nectar had made its way in. With my ruined hand I squeezed the grass in the liquid as best I could and stirred it. The pain was intense, every time I squished everything I cried out in pain cursing and swearing my eyes held shut as I prayed that this worked.

But before long the pain seemed to fade, at first I thought that maybe I was simply losing consciousness because of the agony but when I opened my eyes I saw that my fingers had actually been healed.

"What is it?" I asked looking at the pot.

This is a simple healing potion crafted by a talented amateur. Can be used to heal some light wounds and restore blood loss. Works both orally and topically.

With a smile I placed as much of my hand in the pot as I could and watched as my ruined skin slowly fixed itself and the potion seemed to be absorbing directly into my skin. Pouring the last of the potion onto my left hand the pain which had threatened to overwhelm me was reduced to just agonizing. Moving as quickly as I could I checked the corridor and saw all six of the slimes far closer than I would like and quickly splorping towards me. 

Shoving the pot in my garbage bag along with a small handful of berries and grass I picked up one of my spears and sprinted out of my camp site towards the rift. 

I looked to be just in time as the closest slime jumped towards me as I left the camp but I managed to jump out of the way before resuming my sprinting as quickly as I could.

I ran up the stairs to the rift taking them three at a time which proved to be a mistake as my foot caught the on the last step and I landed hard on my injured right arm. Yelling out at the sharp pain I got up and hobbled my way to the pool dropping my spear in front of it.

Upending the bag I dumped everything onto the ground picking my pot up off the ground I placed it on the ledge of the pool. Looking through the spilled ingredients I cursed as it looked like I had crushed most of them when I landed on them.

Grabbing the two least crushed berries I could see I squeezed them into the cup, not getting most of the pulp but also not getting the skin into the pot. Hopefully the two partially crushed berries would equal one full berry. The grass was fortunately crush resistant so I grabbed a handfull of it and smushed it quickly. One step left, I picked up three crushed flowers dipped them in the cup while rubbing at the delicate petals, hopefully mixing in the nectar.

Throwing the flowers away I started mulching the grass and berry with my hand keeping my eyes on the stairs.

I looked just in time as a slime was already oozing its way up the stairs. Just a few moments left.

"What is it?"

This is a simple yet effective healing potion crafted by a talented amateur. It can heal almost all light injuries and partially heal moderate injuries. Can be administered orally or directly to the damaged area.

Pouring the potion on my injured hands I immediately felt relief as my ruined and blistered flesh started knitting itself back together completely this time and even the blood was washed away.

With no time to rest I picked up my spear just in time to hold it in front of me as the slime jumped towards me impaling itself on the spear. Luckily the slime wasn't able to reach me just from that one jump and it was stuck on the end of the spear.

Whipping the spear side to side I was able to throw the slime off the spear far to my left where it splatted on the ground before taking a few moments to reorient itself and once again move towards me. 

Coming up the stairs were the other five slimes in one large group preventing me from running back that way and I had just thrown the slime towards the only remaining exit that didn't require me to scale another wall or a cliff. Looking towards the wall I noticed a distinct lack of vines. Climbing that before the slimes caught up to me was pretty unlikely.

Instead I ran towards the solitary slime that was slowly moving towards me, pulling back my spear I stabbed into the slime several times as I ran past it. It wasn't hard to pierce its flesh and I soon found myself having stabbed the creature a half a dozen times when it started to deflate into a puddle, like a slab of jello left out in the sun. 

'One down five more to go' I thought to myself. 

With all of them so close to each other I wasn't sure how I could deal with them, I had a clear exit now, but still no plan of how I could deal with them. Even if I escaped there was no reason to think they wouldn't continue to hunt me no matter what, and with all of my things strewn about my camp site I wasn't willing to run for it anyways.

The obvious idea was to bait them into jumping off the edge of the cliff, I didn't really trust myself to jump out of the way of all of them at once, but it wasn't like I had too many choices here.

Approaching the mass of slimes I was about 10 feet from the edge of the cliff and 5 feet from the slimes. Crouched low I kept my spear in front of me and I was ready to jump to the right whenever I thought they were about to jump at me. 

As they slid towards me I saw the leading slime stop and contact in on itself while leaning backwards while the slimes behind it started to move around it.

Not waiting for it to spring towards me I dove to the right rolling along the ground and getting Moon Berry all over myself and my shirt. From the corner of my eye I saw the slime flying past me and land on the ground several feet from the edge of the cliff. My jump was just at the right time.

Getting back on my feet I ran past the slime towards the cliff edge and started stabbing at the now solitary slime.

My spear while not particularly sharp or strong was enough to pierce the slime easily. I used a short quick thrust to stab the slime a half a dozen times as quickly as I could before I had to back off, the other slimes catching up to us. 

The slime I had stabbed deflated a fair amount and was now trailing slime behind it like leaking wound, it even seemed slower than it had been just a few moments ago if I wasn’t mistaken. No, I definitely wasn’t mistaken, watching them I could see the other slimes slowly outpacing it, and they were slightly larger than the injured one. Maybe I would get lucky and it would bleed to death.

By now I was about 2 feet from the edge of the cliff and the slimes were about 5 feet from me. With my heart pounding in my ears I waited and watched the slimes. When they moved just a little closer to me I saw the leading two slimes contract in on themselves followed almost immediately by the other two slimes that were just behind them.

The slimes seemed to be moving in slow motion as I saw them contract to about half their usual size. I paused for just a moment before throwing myself to the right being careful to not throw myself off the cliff by accident.

As I landed I immediately brought the spear up in front of me holding it towards the rear two slime.

The two leading slimes had jumped right off the cliff like I had hoped they would.

The closest of the trailing two slimes to me timed itself a little better and instead of hurling itself towards the cliff, it was now moving towards where I was now. Unfortunately for the slime that meant that it impaled itself on my spear.

With a sharp flick to my left I sent the slime flying over the cliff and down the mountain. With no time to celebrate I recoiled back as the other slime landed on my left wrist. For the second time today, I was being burned by a slime, but this time I was ready for it and I reacted faster than the first time.

Throwing my hand out side to side it was sent careening towards the stairs it and the other slimes had just come up.

I then moved towards the 2nd last slime now far smaller than it was than when it first leapt at me. Baiting it into jumping at me again I dodged out of the way, stood up and stabbed it several more times as it finally dissolved and died.

Taking a shaky breath my head swam as I stood up, my arms and legs moved lethargically, and even concentrating was difficult. I felt like I had been awake for a few days running a marathon.

With one slime remaining and barely able to keep my eyes open. I moved back closer to the ledge, took a knee and held the spear in front of me with shaky hands. I was too tired to dodge out of the way, and I wasn’t even sure if I could stab the damn thing enough times to kill it, but hopefully I could do this.

As it approached me I waited until it was within 4 feet, fairly easy stabbing distance but I didn’t bother. When I saw it contract I moved forwards and held the spear as tightly as I could just a few centimeters from it. When it leapt forwards it slid almost halfway up my spear impaling itself far deeper than the slime from before. Even still it kept slithering towards me getting closer and closer to my hands. Turning I threw the entire spear over the edge of the mountain, slime and all, collapsing on the ground afterwards.

The ding and the window told me that the last slime was now dead.

By fighting for your life and dodging you have learned the skill DODGE. When dodging you can now see subtle signals and tells in your opponent's body language which will tell you when your opponents will attack. Continue to practice this skill to improve it!

Dismissing the window after quickly reading it I fell down on all fours. I was so tired I could barely move, but the pain in my hand was a strong motivator. After resting for as long as I could before my burning hand forced me, I crawled forwards. Making my way over to the pool and my healing potion supplies.

Exhausted as I was I didn’t think I could keep my eyes open long enough to make another potion, and my hands were so shaky I wouldn’t have been able to. Picking up a Moon Berry Skin I placed it on my burned hand sighing in relief as the burning in my hand lessened, but was replaced by a burning in my chest. As bad as that was though I judged that the burning on my chest wasn’t as bad and I could probably live with it.

I was just rolling over to lay on the ground and sleep for maybe a few days when I heard it. More slithering coming up the stairs. Barely able to keep my eyes opened I shakily withdrew my knife, opened it and held it in front of me. If I was going to die, I’d at least die fighting.