41. Of Gods and Slimes
I stood next to Yagmar, mouth agape, as the rest of our group reappeared from the portal. Their shocked gazes alternated between the unconscious body on the ground and the waves of slimes crashing against Slimey. We all stood there awkwardly until Slimey was finished with the angry green blobs. Another woman, apparently the last in the group, popped out of the portal, taking two running steps before stopping and standing with the group, sweating heavily. Her eyes widened comically as she saw Yagmar on the ground.
“Eeeeeeh,” I said with a shrug to the still agape group. “She went all PALADIN OF JUSTICE of Totec or whatever and obliterated everything, then passed out. I think.” I leaned over and checked for a pulse. I was pretty sure she was alive, but I had never really been good at checking. Well, ok, I hadn’t ever needed to check to see if someone was dead or not. But I really was shit at it. “Yyyyeah? She’s alive,” I said super duper confidently. I was met with four blank stares.
“Sooo… Shall we?” I asked, gesturing to the south.
“Are we just going to leave her here?” A woman asked, crossing her arms defiantly. I looked between her and Yagmar’s prone body.
“Anyone have any skills that can help?” I asked. Two people raised their hands.
“Oh! I think I can help! Just gimme a minute.” The last woman to arrive rushed forward in a whooshing of red hair and dark leather armor, leaning over Yagmar for a moment before reaching towards her.
“Wait, who the fuck are you?” The first woman asked, pointing at the redhead as the latter spread her hands out on either side of Yagmar’s head. “She’s not with us!”
I whipped my head to the side, looking at the redhead as she grinned, her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth in concentration, sickly yellow and brown energy building in each hand.
“Slimey, grab!” I yelled, panicking and rushing forward. Slimey obliged, sending out a tendril of himself to snake around the woman’s waist. She dodged, slapping one of her hands onto Yagmar’s face while she used the other to do a handspring, gracefully avoiding Slimey’s first two swipes. Yagmar’s skin sizzled as it remained in contact with the woman’s skill. Slimey redoubled his efforts, sending more and more tendrils of slime to attack the woman, forcing her to remove her hand from Yagmar’s face as she twirled in midair, expertly dodging the onslaught. My boot arrived just as she was about to land back onto the stone floor. My kick connected awkwardly, sending her tumbling back. Her left leg squelched into Slimey. My summon surged forward as the woman scrambled away, trying to rip her leg out of his caustic grasp.
“No! No! Totec cannot be allowed to awaken!” She yelled, struggling free. I threw on my Slime King’s Servant’s Nephew’s Neighbour’s Necklace, activating the enchantment and wrapping the woman in a bear hug. She struck out, slamming me in the kidneys with skill-enhanced fists. My shirt was instantly vaporized where she struck, my skin burning and bubbling with each impact. I yelled out, but held fast. Slimey came to the rescue, swallowing us up as I held on and waited out the assault. Punches and kicks came weaker and weaker as oxygen was removed from the equation. Soon, my grip on the redhead slipped as Slimey’s goo eroded the skin that I was holding. I swam back, popping out of Slimey and turning away as her screams came out as burbles.
“Pffft. They… never learn,” I scoffed, sitting down hard on the stone with a groan. Bile rose in my throat and my back arched as I jostled my wounds. I tentatively pressed my hand against my back. It came away bloody and seeping with a gross yellow liquid.
“Hey,” I called out to the man that had raised his hand when I had asked for a healer earlier. “Go heal Yagmar, then c'mere if you have any juice left.” I leaned forward and settled on my stomach, unable to lie down on my back due to my wounds. I thought of reaching for Hasan’s candies, but I didn’t dare. I wasn’t sure how long he was going to hang around and I had some family that I wanted to spoil. I tried ignoring the pain, mostly certain that I’d survive. Probably. A hundred scenarios flashed through my mind, most of which revolved around poison or organ failure, as I waited for the healer to get to me. The struggles inside of Slimey eventually ceased. My summon yoinked the gear that hadn’t been disintegrated into his storage before devouring the rest of the corpse. After an interminable few minutes, I heard a polite cough above me.
“I’m going to need to touch the wounds,” the healer said timidly.
“Fondle me up, daddy,” I hissed through gritted teeth. I was starting to feel light headed. My back exploded in pain as cold fingers pressed into my lower back. It felt like the entirety of all of the pain from the punches I had received was replayed on a loop of cascading waves of agony. For a moment, I considered calling out for Slimey again, but I just clenched my teeth and hoped I wasn’t being murdered. If I was, the rest of the group sure wasn’t helping. One of my teeth ripped out of its socket as I clenched my jaw too hard while waiting out the pain, distracting me with, well, more pain. I felt the soreness in my mouth spike as my tooth returned to its spot as if pulled by a magnet. The pain faded as my tooth reattached and my back finished knitting itself back together.
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“Sorry!” The healer, Marcus, called out from behind me as I lay panting on the ground. “My skill says it burns out weakness, I didn’t think it would be this painful.”
I sat up gingerly, covered in sweat. I tried not to blame the guy, grateful for being healed but sour at how much it hurt. By the time I stood up again, Yagmar was conscious again and nursing a waterskin, her face healed but the right side slightly droopy where the skin seemed to still have remnants of acid burns. We slowly made our way back to base, taking it easy so as to not strain either myself or Yagmar. We were healed in a technical sense, but we were also pretty drained of energy. While we trudged, I struck up a conversation with Yagmar.
“Soooo…” I said awkwardly. “What’s a Totec and why did you almost get murdered for mentioning… Them?” There was a scoff from beside me as Marcus rolled his eyes at my lack of tact. I shrugged sheepishly at the healer.
The recently less-old lady frowned. “Totec is what you would call an original Tower God, one of the oldest. He’s been restrained. Forced into slumber by the other Tower Gods because of a disagreement in Tower administration. His followers were hunted down and purged, years ago.”
“Well… Obviously not all of them,” I commented, raising an eyebrow.
“Not all of them,” she agreed, nodding. “He sent me back down, my power sealed to prevent anyone from tracking my aura. I stayed hidden and complacent for a while, but soon grew tired of the ruse. I’ve wanted to regain my class for years, tired of the incompetence in the Slums and in the Tower in general. Without my class, though, I couldn’t make it through the slimes, nor afford an escort. Until now.” She grinned at me weakly, still spent from the massive expenditure of mana from earlier.
My jaw dropped. I was both flabbergasted and relieved. At least she wasn’t showing such unbelievable power on her first day with a new class. “How high in the Tower have you been?”
“How high do you think I’ve been?”
“That depends. Did you actually meet Totec?”
“I have.”
“Then…” I hesitated. “Did you reach the top? Is there even a top?”
The corners of her eyes crinkled, but she didn’t answer. I bombarded her with questions the rest of the way back, but she stayed pretty tight-lipped about most things. Still, I managed to pry out of her that she had the ability to shunt mana directly to Totec, a serpent god of cultivation, blood, crafting and the cycle of life and death. With that ability, she was hoping to send enough mana upwards to let him break the chains that bound him. It wouldn’t happen by killing slimes, but it was a start. She agreed to stay on Floor 1 for another day to rest up and answer questions before ascending to a floor that could sustain her at her full power. She also claimed that she wouldn’t die on Floor 1, but that she would stay weak and sickly as long as she remained in an area that had too low magic density for her body to function at its full capacity now that she had regained her class. In return for answers to some of our most pressing questions, she also wanted to set up an altar to Totec in one of our bases. I agreed, but only with the caveat that it be in our main base, away from the constant influx of new people. There wasn’t any chance that I’d tempt assassins if they were still out there. She was amenable to the compromise, but asked that we sacrifice any extra materials or whatnot to the altar when possible. I agreed to at least discuss it with the rest of the group.
When we arrived back at base, the guard on watch lowered us a ladder and we climbed up, one by one, until I followed up at the rear. The group shattered as people spread out to find family members, test their skills or just find a place to crash. Pyro had created dormitories with stone bed frames, as well as smaller nooks for people who preferred to be solo or undisturbed. I flagged down a few people that were heading back down the tunnel that went to the Slums. After being rejected time and time again, I finally found someone that was planning on going to the Slums and returning to Floor 1 within a few hours. Her name was Baz and she said that her class was Smith. She promised that she’d make a trip to Market Alley for me, since that’s where she was going anyway. I gave her all of the coins that I had, including the ones that were inside of Slimey’s storage, claiming all of the loot orbs from the few trips across the floor to maximize the amount of wealth that I sent her with.
There was a small part of me that worried that Baz the Smith would just take the money and never come back, but I figured that between escorting her to Floor 2 and promising payment on delivery would more than guarantee her return. After all, we had changed her entire life for nothing but the promise that she not attack us or help anyone planning on attacking us. Plus, apparently Pyro had struck a deal with her and hired her to stay on Floor 1 as a smith for the near future. Adding some extra coinage on top of that was just frosting on the cake.
I wandered around, eventually finding Pyro after over an hour of exploring. There were so many redundant tunnels, new rooms and slime traps that I couldn’t help but be impressed by his work ethic. The man was unstoppable. I pulled him aside and explained to him the events surrounding Yagmar’s class and the attempted assassination.
“How da fuck did an assassin get to ya so fast?” Pyro asked, furrowing his brow.
“Great question. She was skilled, but she wasn’t necessarily an unstoppable beast of an overpowered climber. Maybe she was on Floor 5 and had been monitoring or waiting for any signs of divine skills or whatever that was?”
“That’s almost worse,” he said. “Means she had something that let ‘er know four floors up that a certain type of mana was used. Ever heard of a gadget workin’ cross floors?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Traditional tracking usually only works on a single floor. To be able to scan multiple floors…”
“An’ then she, what? Ran ‘er ass down four floors in the time it takes ta wipe yer’ ass?”
“Portal scroll? Return scroll?”
“Gotta be. An’ if there’s one…”
“There are no doubt others,” I finished, looking worriedly at my friend. Pyro just grinned back, cracking his knuckles in anticipation of a good fight.