(Strive 2:2)

You feel agile! Your dexterity has increased from Unacceptable to Pathetic!

I blinked at the message that flashed across my vision for a brief moment before disappearing. I raised my hand to my face, and as I did, I felt that my arm reacted a fraction quicker, my eyes tracked the motion a fraction sharper than before. At least I thought so.

Running back over to the hole in the bottom of the scaffolding, I leaped upwards. This time, my hands cleared the edge easily, and I clambered up. Not bad. Not bad at all. But the question remained: how the hell were we going to get out of this filthy alleyway? Did the scaffolding lead up to the next floor? If not, all the agility in the world would only let me bash my head against the wall more efficiently. I pictured spending months subsisting on candy and soda, finally starving when the machine ran empty. Yikes. I shook my head to dislodge the image.

“Mr. Parkour over here,” said El, looking up at me from underneath the hole. “Now come back and give me a boost?”

I grinned. Even the squelch of my shoes landing in a puddle of garbage juice couldn't fully dampen my spirits. I bent over to pick up the raccoon, lifting her to the hole like Simba from the Lion King.

“Someday all this scaffolding will be yours, El Bandito,” I said. “Everything the smell of garbage touches is your Kingdom.”

“Nice,” said El. “Very cute. By the way, next coin’s mine.” She hopped into the structure without a word of thanks.

I sighed and boosted myself up. Two floors up, I found El rooting around in the stain of the slime I’d shot with my pellet gun.

“Already looted that one. And be careful with the goop, it burns.” I whipped out my plunger again from inventory, as a squelching sound came from the far corner, behind a mesh of orange netting. “Looks like another one’s on its way, though.”

The raccoon was already dashing forward, digging into the slime with both paws.

“What did I just say—”

El snarled as the acid bit at her, but there was a sucking sound, and she extracted the glittering coin. “Easy peasy,” said the raccoon, squeezing through a crack in the scaffolding to drop out of sight.

“Hey!” I said. “You didn’t kill it! Goddammit, El!” The raccoon was long gone, off to redeem her earnings. I guarded myself with my plunger as the now-coinless slime continued to advance on me. “Lazy fucking trash panda,” I muttered, jabbing at the sentient ooze. It didn't give me much trouble, and I didn't know how much the raccoon could actually help in a fight, but it was the principle of it that annoyed me.

When I had finished and descended, El was already munching on a mint-flavored protein bar she’d got from the machine.

“It’s pretty good,” said El, flicking crumbs from her whiskers.

“Don’t run off like that mid-combat next time—”

I stopped. El’s paw that had been burned by acid was healing right before my eyes. With each bite of the protein bar, the bloodied skin knitted itself whole again.

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“Health bar,” I mused aloud. “A bar that restores health.”

“Neat,” said El as a few crumbs fell out of her mouth.

We still didn't have an exit, so it was back up the scaffolding with us, fighting off more brown slimes. I had to admit, El’s method of stealing coins was efficient. When done well, we didn’t even have to fight, just tag them and run. The slimes were slow, and easily obstructed by small barriers we could step or jump over. They did burn her paws a little, since she had to make direct contact, so I used my plunger wherever I could. Through our fights, we slowly built up a small cache of coins.

Finally, we made it to the top of the construction site, where the walls of the alley shot up to a sliver of night sky like a cosmic coin slot. None of the stars looked familiar to me, but I’d never been a constellations guy, and I didn’t know Orion from an onion ring. More importantly, it was far too high for us to climb.

A drainage pipe protruded horizontally from the wall, leaking a yellow fluid. Underneath the spill, a golden slime had formed. It leaped about erratically, facing us.

“There’s nothing inside it,” I said. “No coins, no trash even. Just a blob of piss.”

“It’s not attacking, either.”

I watched the movements of the slime. El was right. It never got closer, just kept hopping around in a rhythmic little dance. When this started to bore me, I grabbed it with the plunger and flung it off the scaffolding. A few seconds later, it splatted on the ground with a sickening sound.

El and I exchanged glances, then made our way down. She reached it before I did, even with my Aspect of Corpus and newly improved dexterity. Well, it was only a slight boost in the grand scheme of things, and it wasn’t like I’d been especially athletic before.

“It’s not dead,” El said in a fascinated tone. “It’s still doing its thing.”

The golden slime bounced cheerfully in its new spot in front of the vending machine, repeating the same movement pattern. It always made two jumps forward, two backwards, then two sets of side-to-side motions before stopping and restarting the sequence.

“Maybe we’re supposed to copy it,” I said, imitating the movements. “Like that rhythm game, Dance Dance Revolution.” After a few tries, I noticed El snickering at me and stopped. We both sat there for a while, watching the shimmying slimeball.

Realization jolted me, stronger than the magic candy had. This wasn’t the boss of this floor. This was the key.

I strode up to the vending machine, punching in a code on the cross-shaped keypad. Down, down, up, up, right, left, right, left…

Nothing happened. Upside down, then.

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right…

A fanfare sounded from the vending machine and its lights danced in a kaleidoscope of colors, before it slid aside on invisible tracks to reveal a hidden entrance in the wall behind.

I knew being a gamer would come in handy one day.

I turned to see El trying to cram a coin into the machine, but it seemed to feel its purpose had been served. Her inserted coins were promptly spat out into the return tray.

“Ah,” I said as El shot me a baleful glare. “My bad.”

“Whatever.” The raccoon pushed in the secret door, and we entered. “I didn’t want them sour candies anyways.”

The new room had the atmosphere of a speakeasy cocktail bar, all warm woods and luxurious carpeting. A glass dish with a few hard candies lay on the bartop, along with two pink cans adorned with flowers. Strains of light jazz piped in from an unseen source, and a spiral staircase with a gilded number three seemed to lead up to the next floor.

A large podium that I initially took to be an ice sculpture stood in the center of the room, but on closer examination, I realized it was made of a material more like a magnifying lens, flipping and warping everything on the other side. The top had a deep hand-sized slot, much like in Hilbert’s wine cellar.

“Well, cheers,” I said, sinking my kada hand into it. My ring and contact both burned bright with script.

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