36. Slimey’s Extra-Dimensional Storage Face
9 days until the festival. Council in session……… Proposal to approach Tower 4216868: unanimously accepted. Proposal to divert 5% gross mana accumulation to Tower offensive arrays: accepted. Proposal to reduce the size of the vanity floors by 5%:........ accepted. Proposal to reduce artificial light generated in bottom quarter floors by 30%: unanimously accepted. Proposal to cease all weather simulations in bottom quarter floors: unanimously accepted. Proposal to view the shortlist of Tower-generated alternative festival ideas: postponed until next session. The Council shall reconvene tomorrow.
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I was stark naked in the middle of our base. Horrified, my face burning, I ordered Slimey to spit out loot orbs until one spawned a pair of pants. They were VERY purple, but I put them on quickly, nonetheless. I checked and saw that Slimey still had three green and five white loot orbs in his stash. By check, I mean that he opened what looked like his mouth and I peeked in. I dismissed my summon and less frantically made my way to my room, beating myself up for the day’s events. I left the small pile of meat, water skins and the training sword behind as I speedwalked to safety.
Back in my room, I collapsed into my corner, not complaining about the crinkliness of my blanket for what was probably the first time ever. I sank into an uneasy sleep filled with nightmares of accidentally slurping up family members with Slimey’s acidic goo and finding myself bare ass in the middle of the Slums.
When I awoke, I wandered around, telling everyone I saw that I needed to talk to Thwain and Pyro, and to let them know to find me if they showed up. I climbed a set of stairs, but froze as I popped up into the fresh outside air. Something was… Off… I looked around for a minute, trying to describe the ominous feeling that I had. Slimes? Check. Defenses? Check. What was the… Then, it dawned on me (dusked on me?). The sun had inched its way closer to the horizon, dimming its light slightly. It wasn’t dark on Floor 1, per se, but it was as if evening was approaching. And, well, maybe it was. Maybe the floor went through different day/night cycles than the Slums did. The sun hadn’t ever set before on Floor 1 while we were there, so maybe it spent a few weeks at a time in each phase. I hadn’t ever heard of such a thing, but it’s not like people sat around talking about the weather or the sun when there were monsters around.
Resolved to be productive while I waited for more answers, I summoned Slimey and checked to see if the loot orbs were still in his maw. I smiled as I realized that they were, indeed, still nestled snugly within the slime-filled depths. I had Slimey deposit the orbs onto the floor as I stretched lazily. There were three green orbs and five white orbs. I poked each of them, greedily watching loot form. I sat amidst my loot like a dragon atop his hoard, examining each new piece. Two plain brown pairs of boots, a water skin, a chunk of meat, a roughspun shirt, a small bag, a fluffy slime pillow and a slime card. I embraced the green pillow, squishing, squeezing it and watching its eyes bludge.
I threw the bag, the clothes and the food into Slimey’s extra-dimensional storage face, trying to see both how large it was, but also if the items took corrosive damage or something while stored. It would suck to store something important, just for it to be eaten within 24 hours or something dumb because I hadn’t tested the functionalities of my new storage space. With that settled, I ran back down to my room and stuck my new pillow atop my blanket before started to run back up again. I paused halfway up the stairs as I heard a familiar laugh.
“Josh! Hey, Josh!” I yelled, running back down the stairs.
“Yooo, whaddup, Théo? Doin’ good, buddy?”
“Yeah, kind of. Look, can you enhance my pants real quick? My other clothes got eaten by slime goo.”
Josh grinned. “Sure! Hold still.”
“Hey! Woah. Ack! Do you really need to… AH!”
“All done!” Josh said, stepping back with a large smile, looking over my pants with satisfaction. “Lemme know how they hold up.”
“Yeah… I’ll… Um… I’ll definitely check back in… If you see Thwain or Pyro, let ‘em know that I’m going to the portal we haven’t explored yet. There was some drama around it yesterday and I want to check it out again.” I climbed back up the stairs, fidgeting with my bright purple pants, hoping they’d stay on this time.
I slipped on my necklace and jumped into Slimey, watching in satisfaction as my newly reinforced pants stayed whole. We cascaded over the side of the tower, landing with a splash in the waiting slimes. Slimes both scattered and were consumed as we twirled around, corkscrewing and surging forth. We sped off, eating up ground and slimes as we made our way to the scene of my latest shame.
The portal was empty when I arrived. I wasn’t surprised. If I had lost a party member, the last thing I’d want to do would be to jump right back into the slime grind. Tanner’s party hadn’t just lost a single member, though. They had lost three. It had to be a devastating blow.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I exited Slimey, walking onto the dark stone circling the portal. I sent my slime to farm loot orbs while I debated peeking into the portal and letting my necklace recharge.
Once my necklace was completely charged, I called Slimey back once more. My heart thundered in my chest. Sweat slicked my palms. My breath came uneasily as I entered Slimey’s golem form. I walked in front of the portal, waiting for a sign or a reason to boost my confidence. Neither came. I looked down at my necklace. It was slowly turning blue. Not wanting to waste my opportunity, I surged forwards, crashing into the portal.
The entire multiverse spun, yoinking me out and throwing me back in, landing me in an unknown location. I was assaulted by a sensory overload while I gained my bearings. The smell of burning candles, of incense, of freshly cut wood and something musty clamored to rush into my slime-enveloped nose. Pristine white vaulted ceilings clashed with frescoes, supported by intricate multicolored stained glass windows that were so masterfully assembled that they looked like they were moving. Flames of a dozen different colors danced atop a myriad of candles. I instantly felt light headed from all of the stimuli. The murmur of prayer thrummed through the church as a single orator harangued the assembly. I was in a small room to the side of the church, a large set of double doors cracked open in front of me. Thick wooden walls, rising about twelve feet, surrounded the portal, impeding my view of the parts of the church directly around me, but allowing me to behold the majesty of the ceiling and the raised platforms off in the distance. Candles covered the majority of the available space on the floor, aside from a masterfully built black carriage to my right. It looked large enough to seat four inside, plus it had a driver’s seat up front and a pair of reins, but no horses or other animals were present. I wondered how it had ended up in the small room, as it seemed too large to fit through the double doors.
That was all pretty normal. What wasn’t normal were the people, or corpses, hanging from the walls, their hands shackled. There were about twelve of them spread out in the room, all of them emaciated and whipped. Some of them were missing their feet, others were impaled by rusty spears. Some were just dangling, blood having stained their faces, arms and torsos from who knows how many cuts. A few had been branded multiple times with a triangle with three vertical lines passing through it.
A page ran over to me from behind the carriage. He was a small redheaded boy wearing a nicely pressed white shirt and carrying a branding iron with the same triangular design on the end of it. He froze as he saw that I wasn’t who he was expecting. I couldn’t blame him. Not many people would expect a half dressed guy suspended in a dark green golem slime to show up through a portal. With the flick of my wrist, Slimey’s fist shot out, extending in an eye blink, covering the boy’s face and snapping his neck at the same time for good measure. His protests were silenced even before they began. Slimey forced goo into the boy’s open mouth, liquifying the poor kid within seconds. We surged forwards, scooping up the prisoners in Slimey’s warm embrace. Not many were still alive, and those that were weren’t going to be surviving anyway. I might as well stop their suffering. Not waiting to be spotted by anyone else, I quickly backed into the portal, whisked away by the Tower’s supreme control over mana.
Back in Floor 1, I exited Slimey and stood off to the side, letting my monster block the front of the portal while I let my necklace recharge and my thoughts to stop spinning. Looking between Slimey and the mass of slimes, a horrible idea started forming in my mind. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but it would surely be… Something. I couldn’t just sit back and wait for my guilt or my rage to eat me alive. If the Tower was dying and the Council wasn’t helping, surely the Church of the Tower was complicit. Even if they weren’t, they were monsters. Pure monsters, torturing people for what? Really, what could they possibly have to gain by torturing people? None of the suspended people had been part of the group from the day before, I made sure of it. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if the events were connected or if the group that was farming was part of the ones stringing people up.
I waited, my mind sinking further into convoluted theories, for what I figured was half an hour with nothing notable changing until my necklace was back to full capacity. Then, I ordered Slimey to scooch to the side of the portal a bit.
I slipped on and activated the Slime King’s Servant’s Nephew’s Neighbour’s Necklace, my stomach’s protests warring with the rage deep within my heart. Then, I gently stepped to the edge of the portal circle and reached down, snagging a waiting slime with both hands. Turning, I lobbed the slime into the portal. Then another. And another. I grabbed as many slimes as I could, hurling them quickly into the church beyond the portal. If they wanted to pretend to be pious so badly that they would hide a portal while torturing people, we were going to see if thoughts and prayers really did help or not. After I threw what was probably the fortieth slime, the portal flashed, revealing a-
SLAM!
Slimey’s fists came down on the man in front of me, quickly followed by the rest of his bulk. Our first trap victim of the day was a middle-aged man wearing gray servant’s robes. I looked away from the look of surprise, fear and hurt on his face as his screams only came out as low burbles. Slimey’s first slam had broken something in his legs. His acid broke down the rest. The portal flashed again, depositing a woman inside Slimey's trap. This time, the white-robed woman reached for a pistol at her waist, but didn’t have time to draw it before that section of Slimey’s corrosive goo turned a sickly shade of pink.
The beating of wings made me turn my head as I watched both humans slowly disappear. Thwain landed next to Slimey, a frown on his face.
“Théo, what are you doing? Please, please, please tell me you have a good explanation for all of this.”
Lobbing one last slime over Slimey and into the portal, I nodded gravely.
“Thwain… Look, I can explain. I know it’s going to be hard to believe, but… The Church… I think they’re evil. And I think I've found proof.”