32. Slime Cards
10 days until the festival. Council in session……… Proposal to reduce Council member mana stipend: unanimously rejected. Proposal to reduce Council member seats: unanimously rejected. Proposal to reduce increase floor-to-floor mana trickle-down effect by 3%: ….. rejected. Proposal to reduce the size of the vanity floors by 10%:........ vote tied…... overruled by the Speaker Frankie. Verdict: rejected. Proposal to reduce the maximum rarity of loot generated in the bottom quarter floors: unanimously accepted. Proposal to view the shortlist of Tower-generated alternative festival ideas: ……... rejected…… Councilor Chomsky proposes a recess…. Seconded by Councilor Howard….. Unanimously accepted. Council shall reconvene tomorrow.
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“Alright, Théo. No errands today,” Pyro announced.
“Errands?”
“Yeah, you know. Lumberin’ to and fro to the Slums an’ all that. I’m busy.”
I cocked my head to the side, intrigued. “Big plans, big guy?”
He nodded seriously. “Figured it’s time I expand the tunnels. Gotta be a better way ta get people here than ta babysit ‘em. I’ll see what I can do, but that means no door bitch duty for me. Not today, or at least til I get back.” With that, he hefted a bag filled with what looked like meat and slime pots, then walked straight into a wall, parting the dirt in front of him as he went.
I climbed back up to the tower where I had spoken to Burt the night before, just in time to see Thwain take off into the air. I watched him fly off to what I was pretty sure was the West, still searching for more portals. I fiddled with my Bestiary, unsure of what to do. Figuring I’d be here all day, I summoned Slimey and sent him over the edge, rampaging through the countryslime countryside. He spread out in his usual rolling pin formation, extending well over twenty feet long, decimating the slime population.
I grew restless watching him. There was only so much slime massacring you could watch before it got tedious. He looked like a scythe, clearing a field of grass over and over again as it regrew. Just as I was about to descend the stairs back into the base, Burt showed up again.
“Howdy partner,” he said in his slightly nasal voice.
“Hey, Burt.”
He had his quirks, but I couldn’t help but like the guy. There was just something about him that screamed “good guy.” Not in a creepy way, though, like the guys who only told girls that they were good guys so that they would date them. No, he looked like the kind of good guy who would step in front of a gang member during a gang war in a dark alley of the Slums and take a knife to the kidney for someone he had only just met in passing. Then, he would say something humble like “better me than you, it’s fine,” and then die a hero’s death, content in having bought someone a few more minutes of life.
“Whatchya thinkin’ about, Théo?”
I snapped out of my daydreaming, trying not to look too startled. “Oh, you know. Just, uh, Slimey’s progress. Killing slimes, slimes and more slimes. I swear, I’m even dreaming of killing slimes. I don’t think it helps my summon’s soul strength, though, dreaming about it.”
Burt nodded amiably. “Wanna see something cool?” He grinned a child’s grin. I couldn’t blame him. He had new toys to play with, after all.
At my nod, the Warfare Specialist stepped to the edge of the platform and held out his hand, fingers crackling with energy. He focused, clenching his fist, the electricity curling into a ball that he then placed on the railing. The ball expanded, then disappeared in a flash, revealing a turret made of gleaming metal and smoothly spinning gears. Tiny wisps of energy crackled along its form as it stabilized in reality.
Burt couldn’t suppress his smugness as he pointed towards the mass of slimes and simply said “fire.” The turret roared to life, sending a small energy beam each second into the slimes. The beams weren’t as effective as Thwain’s bullets, but there were more of them. Each beam seemed to kill around two slimes apiece, the turret firing beam after beam for about thirty seconds before winking out. Burt cackled the entire time, giddily watching his turret’s devastation. When it dissipated, he leaned against the railing looking satisfied.
“How often can you summon a turret?”
“Once every half hour. It’s not much, but it’s pretty fun.”
I shook my head, gesturing to the slimes. “On this floor, with these weak mobs, that’s going to turn into a lot of carnage once you rank it up.”
Burt smiled proudly.
We stayed atop the tower for another half hour, giving Burt enough time to summon his turret a second time. We watched contentedly as the energy beams obliterated slime after slime. There was just something so satisfying about a good automated turret.
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When the turret dissipated into the ether or whatever, I descended to our slime traps once more. My cousin Jean was dutifully watching the traps, though it was way more boring than it sounded. If the slimes would fall onto the spikes on the ground, at least we could sit back and laugh at them while they deflated. The way the traps were designed, though, meant that only multicolored sparks shot out of the holes in the ceiling. Well, other than the loot orbs that had fallen out, but that was apparently only a few times per hour, at this point.
“Anything new, Jean?”
“Ma hallo dere, Théo! I been watching de slimes in da trap, là là. Pyro says I get extra food if I keep my eyes peeled like patates, you know?” He patted his belly with a proud smile as he gestured to his small pile of loot.
I leaned over to peek at what he had piled up. A pair of pants (no pockets, of course), a shirt, a wooden sword and a slime pot.
“Not bad! It’s a good start, at least.”
“Goshen, dere use to be more if you know what I’m implicating.” His laugh shook his whole body.
“Jean, when he said you’d get more food, I don’t think he meant all the food. We have people to feed, man. Mame and Pape look like rakes, even after they got their classes. And they aren’t the only ones.”
Jean suddenly looked horrified. “You… You don’ tink dat Pyro’s gonna fire me, crois-tu? Goddarn, I’ll…” His eyes lit up as he saw something behind me. With a squeak, he raced around me, poking a white loot orb that was slowly drifting towards the ground. A perfectly cooked pink drumstick materialized in his hand. He raised it like a trophy.
“Fuck ouais!” He hurried back to his pile of loot and grabbed the shirt from the ground, replacing it with the meat stick as he used the shirt to wipe the nervous sweat from his head. A small card tumbled out of the previously-white shirt as he used it as a towel.
“Garde,” he said, pointing to the meat. “De… De meat is in da pile. Please don’t get Pyro to fire me. Dis is de best job I’ve had since fishin’ in da boat.”
I nodded absently, inching curiously towards the card on the ground. It was face down, but I hadn’t seen any other cards other than…
“Oh goddarn, you want da carte? Take ‘er,” Jean said, noticing my interest. He leaned over, scooped up the small rectangle and handed it to me. “Da loot is for everyone, like you say! It’s, it’s, it’s… Uh… We all get a cut, non?”
I graciously accepted the bribe, turning it over to reveal the cute little green slime in a grassy meadow under a blue sky. Well, he was cute compared to the abomination that Slimey had become. I thanked Jean and hurried off, navigating through caverns, kitchens and hallways of dirt and stone. When I reached my usual hole in the wall, I found a nice surprise. Pyro had engraved my name above the now four-foot tall opening in the wall that I used as a door. I ducked in and smiled at the upgrade. The crafty Geomancer had expanded my little nook into a small room, the shortened door letting in less light as the cavern outside grew brighter with each new renovation. I even had a small glowing stone that let off a dull purple light on my shelf.
As I looked around the small empty room, I couldn’t help but think that I needed to fill it with junk. Not necessarily trash, but some comforts. A pillow here, a pillow there, a few real blankets, that sort of thing. All I had so far was a water skin, the least comfortable blanket in the Tower, and the glowstone. Once Slimey hit his next threshold, it would be time for some epic loot grinding, for sure.
I grabbed my blanket, laying it out in a rounded corner of my room to make myself a comfy little nest. Except it really wasn’t that comfy. So, a little nest. Minus the branches and twigs. Ok, so I sat in a dirt corner on a shitty blanket, pretending I was in luxury.
I flipped open the pouch at my side and withdrew the three other slime cards. Instantly, I felt them tug towards the fourth like magnets. I brought the glowstone closer to get a better look at the process. Nothing seemed to have changed on the cards. Slowly, I brought the fourth card over and placed it atop the other three. Instantly, they all snapped together, fusing into a single piece and glowing a green bright enough to illuminate my entire room. Then, the glow shifted to white, then green again, then blue, purple, blue, orange, green, red, blue, orange, green, white… The colors flipped faster and faster. My breath caught in my chest as I saw flashes of gold and silver amidst the flickering. I half figured I was just misinterpreting gray and yellow, but I was pretty sure those weren’t colors associated with any rarity of loot or classes, which shared similar color-based rarity scales.
As the colors started shifting slower and slower, I held my breath, crossed my toes, prayed and did everything else I could think of to encourage my luck. Come on, please… Pleeeease…
White, blue, silver, orange, green, red. Red?
“RED!” I yelled, flabbergasted. “It’s red, it’s red!” I went to jump up in celebration, but I thought better of it. Once the item formed, then I’d move. The red aura slowly condensed, wreathing the card in a rich scarlet. The card’s form started shifting and stretching before freezing in place. A prompt bloomed in my vision, blocking the transformation.
ERROR!
Unable to spawn [Mythic| rarity item ID 46209-BIF [Slime Emperor’s Crown].exe due to Council restrictions and insufficient ambient mana. Calculating………………….….. Downgrading item to [Legendary] item [Slime King’s Mantle]....……………. Error. Council restrictions in place. Downgrading item to [Epic] item [Slime King’s Steward’s Tabard]............. Tower mana reserves too low to perform full conversion. Reconciliatory protocols engaged. Generating cookie… Cookie generated. Spawning cookie.. Cookie spawned. Scanning faulted party………. Class identified: Summoner. Generating appropriate recompense….……..… Rare item generated: Slime King’s Servant’s Nephew’s Neighbour’s Necklace. Spawning Slime King’s Servant’s Nephew’s Neighbour’s Necklace….. Slime King’s Servant’s Nephew’s Neighbour’s Necklace spawned.