38. Goblins Suck

After our conversation, I went to my room and picked through what I thought I needed to face the goblins, mulling over my options. I grabbed my shield and a shirt and went to find Josh. I already had pants that had proven that they could resist Slimey’s corrosive properties, despite their outrageous purple color. If I was going to face down some goblins, though, I wanted to at least be fully clothed. I also wondered if the shield could be modified, despite being inherently magical.

I found Josh amidst a pile of clothing near the storage area. Apparently, the slime traps had been working flawlessly, so he and Pyro had been adding more and more as they looted enough weapons to arm the traps. More traps meant more loot and more potential danger, so a rotation of monitors had been set up to collect the loot and to make sure slimes didn’t pop through. None had, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t ever. And so, Josh was tirelessly sorting through piles of gear and enhancing what he could. He easily enhanced my shirt, hardly looking up from his pile of gear. He paused at the shield.

“Oh…” He turned it around, examining the round buckler. “I think I can… Hmm, nope.” He mumbled as he tried his usual methods of enhancing items, his brows furrowing. He placed his hands on the smooth brown wood, feeling the grain and trying to see if his skill would take purchase. Eventually, he placed his hands on either side of the middle of the shield and pushed mana into it. The middle of the shield glowed slime green as mana entered, reinforcing its internal structure. Sweat dripped down Josh’s face as he continuously used his skill. I scrutinized every bit of the shield as Josh worked it over, trying to see any signs of change or hints about how the skill worked. Nothing seemed to shift visibly, but I felt as if the shield started emanating an electric charge.

“There,” Josh gasped. “I… It’s done. Best I can do.” He stumbled over to the water skin shelf and popped one open, guzzling down the clear liquid within.

“Thanks, boss!” I yelled as I rushed away, excited to meet back up with Thwain. I felt bad for using him for his skill. I figured I should get him something nice. The others, too. I’d have to keep an eye out for some shinies to keep morale up. I threw on my newly enhanced shirt and shouldered my shield, feeling its unchanged heft as I made my way up top. I summoned Slimey atop our defenses, emptying his inventory of everything but food and a training sword. I fistbumped a waiting Thwain, then donned my necklace, using it to zoom up to the portal to Floor 2, swinging wide to the west as I went, exploring a bit and clearing some more slimes for their loot.

As I shot up and down rolling hills, I couldn’t help but think of the people that were strung up on the other side of the Church’s portal. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much information was missing. What was the point in torturing slavers? Sure, they were horrible people, but did the Church really torture people and make them die slow, painful deaths to prove a point? If so, how many others had died in similar fashions and for what crimes? And how much had I fucked up by throwing slimes through the portal? They would obviously vastly improve their portal defenses from here on out, since they’d need to be watching for more enemies jumping through. Right?

When I arrived at the portal to Floor 2, I unequipped my necklace and waited for Thwain to land next to me. He circled above a few times before landing. We made eye contact for a moment, then nodded seriously. Thwain held out a pistol towards me, but I shook my head.

“I don’t think I can use guns while within Slimey. Best to keep them all on you in case you need them for life steal if it goes bad.”

Thwain shrugged and took the gun back, holstering it within his jacket amidst the almost ten others.

“You ready?” He asked.

“Not even a little,” I replied honestly. We both stepped forward into the portal anyway.

In a flash, we appeared amidst the ranks upon ranks of goblins. A shiver went up my spine even before I looked out at the crowd. I clutched my necklace tightly, caught between giving it more time to regenerate and instantly hiding inside Slimey. I tried to relax, but it was impossible while surrounded by an uncountable number of greedy eyes.

“Game plan?” I asked, ignoring the hitch in my voice.

“Golem mode with a shield just in case. Can you open me a hole to fire through? Portal out if it goes bad.”

I nodded, not daring to correct him by pointing out that it would absolutely go bad. Instead, I decided on slipping on my necklace and following the plan. As I hunkered down, my shield in front of my suspended body, a ripple seemed to expand like a wave through the assembled goblins. Green and gray monsters shifted, adjusting their tiny grips on shields, swords and spears. A low snarl started from within the crowd, growing louder as more goblins joined in. I shifted Slimey in front of Thwain and opened a small hole, just large enough for Thwain to stick his pistol through.

“One of them out front?” I asked.

“Front and center,” Thwain replied. He took a deep, steadying breath before pulling the trigger.

As the shot rang out, the entire floor seemed to explode into action. Spears crashed into Slimey, hurled by angry goblins who rushed in en masse. I had hardly enough time to register the goblin spearman’s body falling to the ground, a bullet right in its forehead, before the swarm was upon us. I just barely caught the flash of the portal behind me as goblins clamored to get to us first, the warriors in the back hacking their way through the spearmen in the front. I sent Slimey spreading out, decreasing his height but stretching out ten feet in front of me, swallowing up goblins as they rushed in and ducking underneath dozens of hurled spears. Slimey was still impaled from every direction as spearmen stabbed and tore with their variety of wooden, bone and metal spears, but I remained safe within his bulk.

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I didn’t dare surge out from around the portal, so most of the goblin casualties were dependent on goblins running to their deaths or from goblin warriors slashing their way through the crowd to get to us. As we stood mostly stationary, goblins were chunking off more pieces from Slimey’s body than my summon was gaining from eating our enemies, but it wasn’t a quick loss in mass. As goblin warriors got closer and closer, I started to worry about Slimey’s longevity. The swords, swung by the warriors’ strong arms, would no doubt do more damage than the flimsy spears wielded by the weaker spearmen. I reached backwards and poked the portal, shunting us back into Floor 1.

As I appeared in the meadow, I quickly exited Slimey and backed away from the portal, leaving my summon guarding the portal in case goblins actually followed us through. After a few seconds of deep breathing, it was clear that nothing was coming. I looked around and found a pale faced Thwain next to me.

“So…” I said lamely.

“Yeah…” He replied.

We stood in awkward silence for a bit, contemplating what we had just been through. Eventually, I piped up.

“At least they didn’t do too much damage to Slimey…” Speaking of, I checked my monster’s stats.

[https://i.imgur.com/lOtTQcK.png]

Bestiary entry: Devourer slime of hoarding selected.

Soul strength: 800%. Collect more essence to increase soul strength.

Stats : Physical resistance prioritized.

Size: D

Magic power: E+

Magic resistance: E

Physical resistance: F+

Speed: E-

Shrinkage: F-

My mouth dropped open slightly. Slimey’s size had fallen to D, and his soul strength either hadn’t risen above 800% since his threshold evolution or had fallen back down to his latest threshold percentage. I sent him out into the slimes and watched his page intently. After a few minutes of eating slimes, his size grew back to D+, but his soul strength never budged. I frowned, explaining the situation to Thwain.

“Maybe the slimes are too low level or whatever for him to gain strength from?” Thwain guessed.

“Probably,” I said with a sigh. It sucked that I wouldn’t be able to supercharge Slimey forever on Floor 1, but it was at least a good sign that he could regain some mass by eating more slimes. We sat around, discussing possible ways of getting around the wall of spears. Finally, we landed on a compromise: a second test. Hesitantly, I stepped back through the portal, this time already inside of Slimey. Thwain followed a few seconds after me. Eerily, all of the goblins were back in place, no signs of our earlier battle present.

Thwain conjured his wings and took off into the air. About half of the goblins tracked his movements, spears ready to throw. As soon as he moved out from above the portal, goblins started hurling spears en masse. Thwain climbed higher until none of the spears were in danger of hitting him, a little over eighty feet in the air. He flew out for a bit, positioning himself between a good chunk of the spearmen and the warriors. Seeing as they couldn’t hit him, only a few spearmen kept throwing their weapons.

That changed, however, when Thwain unloaded bullets into the crowd. Goblins surged from all over the floor, charging to get to the airborne threat. Spears were hurled with even greater fervor, forcing Thwain to rise higher into the air to avoid them. As soon as the ruckus seemed to calm again, Thwain dipped back down and sent another volley of shots into the mass of swarming goblins. They redoubled their efforts, straining to reach their attacker. Then, something new happened. Goblin warriors threw spearmen to the ground, wrestling spears from their grasps and from their bags, casting their swords aside. Then, they hurled the spears at Thwain, who had to twirl in the air, frantically trying to dodge the much faster, much more powerful projectiles.

I stood at the portal, frozen, just trying to seem inconspicuous. None of the goblins' attention seemed to be on me, just the way I liked it. I watched as what seemed like the entire floor’s worth of goblins converged onto Thwain’s position, throwing spears, rocks, swords and anything else they had, trying to take him down. After about fifteen minutes of this, a call blasted out from a horn from the nearby treeline. I looked around, but couldn’t spot which enemy had sounded the alarm. Instantly, though, I could tell that it meant trouble. Off in the distance, goblins who barely had room to pick their noses scooched to the side, letting a procession of newer goblins approach. The newer goblins wore tattered black robes and their faces were painted with swirling script in bright colors.

“We have to go, Thwain,” I called out.

A few goblins near me jumped, as if startled that I was in their midst. They soon ignored me again, rushing towards the flying man once more. Thwain swooped down another few times, relishing in dodging the incoming spears, which sailed past him and struck down other goblins off in the distance. When he finally exited through the portal, I breathed a sigh of relief before following him through. I didn’t want to know what kind of reinforcements were on their way.