15. A Fixation on Asphyxiation

Thwain stood, mostly fully healed because of the health drain from all of the slimes that he slew.

“Pyro?” He asked me, pointing towards the dome of earth a few dozen feet away. I nodded.

“Pyro!” Thwain yelled. “You gonna let us in or what?”

After a few minutes, a small hole opened in the dome. An earth-armored hand punched out, smashing a slime into bits. He stuck out his thumb, then the arm retracted and the hole closed.

“Ok, Slimey, clear us a path,” I declared. My slime spread out in a twelve-foot tube, then swept through the monsters between us and Pyro. We followed closely behind, careful not to let slimes dogpile us. Slimey intercepted most of the slimes, bunching up and expanding when necessary. I had a few close encounters where I had to sidestep a few slimes that slipped past Slimey, but getting to the dome was surprisingly more akin to a stroll than a harried rush. When we got to the dome, a panel shifted, revealing a set of stairs.

“Slimey, defend,” I ordered, before slipping into the shelter. My summon burbled happily, rolling around, eating slimes by the score.

When we were all inside, Pyro closed the dome, then lowered the ceiling so that it was completely flat.

“Ain’t no point announcing our hideout that much,” he explained.

Indeed, it wouldn’t do to have a bunch of Awakened enter the floor and bombard us with skills. Even at that, Slimey would no doubt attract astronomical amounts of attention, especially this close to the portal. I’d have to send him away to farm slimes farther from prying eyes. I figured he could make lots of progress if left to his own devices. Reaching 400% soul strength triggered an evolution for my summon and a rank upgrade for one of my skills, so reaching 800% might do the same. Still, it was easier said than done. Every increase in power made gaining more a harder task. In the beginning, each slime I killed gave me 4% soul strength. Now, it was only a fraction of a percentage. There were upsides, though. Slimey was killing far more slimes than he had before, and with a few more humans added to his diet… Did eating people count as keto? Probably. He had already skyrocketed to 464% and was steadily climbing. The soul strength per slime was going down, but the slimes killed per minute was rising sharply as Slimey grew in size, speed and power.

I’d also have to look into raising my demon’s soul strength, but she was already progressing slowly from the onset. I couldn’t imagine how slowly it would rise once she reached Slimey’s soul strength, especially against weak Floor 1 monsters. Maybe we would see more skill growth in higher floors.

I looked around the space. It was a small cavern with shelves, two rough rooms and the set of stairs that I was standing on. It felt like something was missing.

“Air?” I asked nervously.

“Good point!” Pyro said, creating four air holes in the ceiling. Almost instantly, slimes plugged the holes and started seeping into our bunker. It took almost a minute, but four slimes popped into our bunker, swiftly followed by four more.

“Nevermind,” Pyro said, closing off the air holes and stomping the slimes to death with his armored feet.

“Hold on, I’ve got this,” I said. “Open them back up.”

Pyro opened air holes again.

“Slimey!” I yelled, “Roll over us, keep it clear!” My summon obeyed, instantly rolling over the slimes, ripping them out and clearing our air holes. Every time the holes got plugged, Slimey cleared them again with a pass of his massive frame. I smiled smugly.

“Unsustainable,” Thwain commented, bursting my bubble. “The first group to pop in here is going to sound the alarm that there’s a ginormous slime boss. The floor will be crawling with Awakened within minutes.”

I thought about it for a bit. “That might not be the worst idea,” I said. “If that’s what it takes…”

Pyro shook his head. “Not a great plan. At least, not the time. We need to move. Let me get some mana first, then we’re headin’ out.”

“How we doin’ this?” I asked. “March behind Slimey?”

Pyro nodded. “You got here easy peasy. Take the shield and a dagger. Thwain, take a dagger and the wooden sword. You can shoot some if you’re injured, so you can take bit of risk. I’ll armor up. We can turtle up if we need to rest and use the shield if we need to heal.”

With that, we sat down and ate some food. The looted drumsticks were delicious, though I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of meat it was. Pyro closed the holes above us and I sent Slimey away for a bit to make sure he wasn’t seen if anyone came through the portal. He happily rampaged off into the distance. After fifteen or so minutes, Pyro was getting antsy.

“Fuck it, we goin’,” he announced.

“Shouldn’t we wait a bit longer?” I asked.

“Nah, I have enough mana to make a shelter, just not a nice one. I’ll keep the armor light, too, so I’ll regen on the way.”

“If it gets hairy, I can always aggro a bunch of them and fly off,” Thwain suggested. “It’ll buy time in a pinch.”

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With that settled, Pyro opened a hole in the ceiling and I yelled for Slimey. When he arrived, he spun in circles above us, giving us time and space to exit our hideout. We followed Slimey, moving slowly enough for my monster not to be overwhelmed, but fast enough to make decent progress. Slimes bounced, sprang and jostled to get to us, but they were devoured or beaten back easily. I used my shield as best I could, punching it forwards into oncoming slimes, smacking them into the roiling mass of my summoned monster. Thwain used the wooden sword to push slimes around and his dagger to great effect, swiftly slicing slimes to pieces. Pyro only covered his hands in his skill, slapping and punching slimes as they came.

We carried on for around twenty minutes, the portal disappearing on the other side of some gently sloping hills. We were planning on walking further, but I was starting to become exhausted. The constant mental drain of being alert for attacks from every direction and the physical exertion of repeatedly beating back slimes with a shield was starting to get too much.

“Good enough!” Pyro said. “Let’s just go deeper into this valley, first. The lower, the better.”

We walked down a gentle slope for another minute, descending as far as possible before stopping. The terrain really hadn’t changed much over the course of our journey. Gently sloping hills, burbling streams, a few trees… There really wasn’t that much more to it.

Slimey spun around us as fast as he could while Pyro raised a dome of earth around us. I blocked a few slimes that snuck past our protector, stalling for time as our shelter was being built. Within no time, Pyro had a crude shelter built up around us. I sat heavily on the ground, breathing deeply, peeking through the few holes that the earth mage had left in the dome. I watched as Slimey passed over our shelter over and over, keeping it clear of slimes.

Pyro, for his part, started slowly molding the earth. He could move faster, but the faster he moved the dirt, the more mana he expended. Soon, he had a set of stairs leading downwards towards a plain, rough room, maybe seven feet by seven feet. Thwain was already dozing, having flown most of the day and then subsequently almost having died. I idly wondered whether or not the sun ever set on Floor 1. We hadn’t ever entered during the night, so we hadn’t had the chance to find out.

I sat with my back against my slime pillow, trying to rest. I was just so exhausted. I ate more food, drank some water, tried to take a nap, but nothing seemed to make me feel better.

“Pyro,” I said softly, trying not to wake Thwain. “I think I’m low on mana…” I focused internally, but I had only ever gauged my mana by comparing it to the amount I needed to summon a monster. In hindsight, I had summoned my demon, then Slimey twice, and let Slimey run around all day. Maybe there was more of an ongoing mana drain than I thought.

“I thought you could keep him up forever,” Pyro commented.

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I think it’s tiring me out, keeping him up this long. I might not be at zero mana, but the strain of using a lot of mana earlier and then using it constantly for so long… What are we gonna do?”

Pyro frowned, rubbing at his chin. “I’ll make this shit hole bigger, for one. More space means more air. Then, we close it off for a tad. I don’t know how long we can go without breathin’ new air, but I should be able to make this place big enough to let us breathe for a few hours. Probly. If that ain’t enough, we open air holes and kill slimes to keep the holes clear. Let the air circulate a lil’, then close ‘em again. Should work, in theory.”

And so, that’s what we did. Pyro picked up the pace, clearing out larger, redundant rooms in no particular order, opening the air holes to the max, leaving gaping holes in the ceiling. He made them just small enough that slimes jumped in, got caught and had to squeeze a bit in order to enter, giving Slimey enough time to roll over and unclog the vents. When Pyro was almost tapped of mana, he stopped enlarging the space and closed up the air holes, slinking off into a corner for some well-earned sleep.

With our hideout sealed, I took a deep, nervous breath and unsummoned Slimey. I felt better instantly, though the lack of overhead support made me nervous. I curled up around my pillow, drifting off into an uneasy sleep. And that is how I died, asphyxiating slowly while I slept, because none of us dumbasses stayed awake to make sure nobody overslept. No, but really… How can you actually tell if you’re breathing in enough oxygen before it’s too late? Thankfully, I hadn’t found out first hand.

I awoke to a sort of rhythmic slapping sound. I crinkled my nose. Not again, damn it. I slowly cracked an eye open and peeked over. Oh fiew, it’s only combat. Combat! I sprang up, seeing Pyro fighting slimes. I took two stumbling steps forwards before stopping. Pyro turned and grinned at me.

“Fight club!” He yelled, body slamming a slime into smithereens.

I took a second to look around. Pyro had opened up a hole in the roof, letting in a single slime at a time. The slimes fell into an octagonal arena that he had constructed, complete with posts, fences and a seating area.

“You, uh… You having fun?” I asked.

“Damn right,” Pyro said cheerily. “I put a chimney on this bitch, so they come in slower.”

I blinked a few times. Another slime dropped into the arena. Pyro met it midair with an armored foot, smashing it into the fence. He spun around in an awkward spinning back kick, missing the slime by a foot. Well, with his foot AND by a foot. Eh? No? Ok.

“Where’s Thwain?” I asked, looking around.

“Scouting,” Pyro said, hurrying to kill the first slime as a second dropped into the arena.

“For?” I asked.

Pyro gripped the second slime in both armored hands, ripping it apart with a grunt. “Anything. Flying around, trying to see what he can find. Found the portal to Floor 2, doesn’t mean it’s the only portal,” he said.

I thought about that for a bit. The Slums spanned an entire floor of the tower. There was a city, a few villages, some farmland, some forests… Heck, there was even a small sea, though fish were quite sparse. Just because we had been using a single portal to enter Floor 1 didn’t mean that it was the only portal to the next floor. I sincerely doubted that Floor 5, AKA Noob Village, only had a single portal in and out. There were apparently several times more people there than in the Slums, it would be absolute mayhem trying to funnel everyone in and out of a single gate. That is, depending on how many people actually left Floor 5. It was supposedly much nicer and way less gang-y than the Slums. I wondered if it was comfort that bred complacency, there, or if they had their own issues. Probably both.

I heard a single gunshot outside.

“Summon Slimey,” Pyro said, climbing up and slowly creating holes in the ceiling. I rushed to summon my slime, not wanting too many monsters to ooze into our base. Once Slimey was busy doing his thing, Pyro opened a section of the roof, letting Thwain in. The Gunner entered, throwing a few pistols onto some hardened dirt shelving that Pyro had found the time to make, and faced us.

“Time for a meeting, boys. We need to talk, and we need a plan.”