47. The Slums Are Full of Secrets

I reviewed the prompt, but instantly knew what choice I was going to make. Without the Tower feeling bad for me and giving me crumbs of knowledge, I probably would have gone for the first option. However, there was nothing that tempted me more in the moment than uptime. Sure, I could probably grind until my mana regeneration could keep up with my summons, but it just seemed so far away. I was always having to choose between Slimey and Sunder Rella, and I didn’t want to have to choose between those two and Gobbo the goblin or some random third wheel when I already couldn’t manage the other two.

I slammed in my answer, confident in choosing the second option and hastily reviewing my character sheet.

[https://i.imgur.com/68wRtLm.jpg]

Class : Summoner, rank 1.

Soul Echo (rank tied to class rank). Passive. Effect: absorb a portion of your opponent’s essence upon their death, adding it to your Bestiary.

Summon, rank 3. Active. Cost: variable, diminished. Effect: summon the power of the souls in your Bestiary. Examine and influence the stats of the souls in your Bestiary.

Bestiary monsters: 2/2. Upgrade your Bestiary to hold more souls.

Instantly, I felt the drain on my mana lessen, even though the crêpe buff was still flooding me with magic. I swept downstream, spreading Slimey out as far as I could to mop up as much gunk as we could. We left nothing but mud behind us as we went. We followed the river into the forest and down lazy turns until we eventually arrived at the gelatinous blob that had once passed for a lake. Dead trees ringed the poor excuse for a body of water, standing like creepy sentinels. We dived in with gusto, sinking to the bottom of the lake, trying to find the middle. I figured that the farther down we were, the more the gunk would press down on us, leading to a faster cleanup. Really, Slimey was having a hard time moving fast enough through the stuff to keep up with his ability to digest it.

My theory was proven correct as we made our way deeper into the lake. I could almost see a whirlpool of sludge form above us as Slimey obliterated everything that he touched. We creeped around the bottom of the lake, zooming from one end to the other, trying to see if moving in zigs, zags, straight lines or circles was the most effective method of sewage disposal. I happily came along for the ride, content to be neither in contact with the noxious substance nor suffocating under its weight. Idly, I wondered what we would find under the docks. If I could breathe under this sludge, I couldn’t see why I couldn’t breathe under salt water.

My joy ride through darkness was halted as an electrical surge zapped Slimey’s right side. His dark green body lit up as parts of it bubbled and tried to evaporate. I made us dart left, putting distance between us and whatever sewage monster had attacked us. I zigged, zagged and zugged, trying to avoid any more electrical blasts while hurrying to shore. If I was going to fight something, I wanted to fight it where I could see it, not while surrounded with literal shit.

We breached the surface, got onto the bank and darted away, only doubling back after we reached the treeline. I felt relatively confident in the thirty or so feet between us and whatever horror was after us. I was surprised to find a monster in the Slums, but it made a certain bit of sense. We were still in the Tower, after all. After a minute of tense anticipation, I started to wonder if the monster was “water” bound or if it just didn’t dare breach the surface. There had been plenty of lake monster rumors throughout the years, but I hadn’t ever given them much thought. Now, though…

The surface of the “lake” stayed completely still, showing no signs of our passing other than dark traces where the waterline used to be. After a good twenty minutes, I mustered the courage to dive back in, albeit on edge. We stayed in the shallows for a while, inching closer and closer to the center of the lake, but nothing attacked. No extra ripples. No lightning blasts. Nothing. Maybe it had swam off, upriver? Not the way we came, since it was nothing more than a winding mud puddle instead of a river, but maybe up another of the tributaries

Our cautious approach slowly morphed into another sweep of the bottom of the lake. We stumbled upon a few wreckages, but most of what we found was so rotten or rusted that there wasn’t anything to loot. Then, it happened again. BZZZZZZZZZRT!

Lightning shot through Slimey’s left side, vaporizing a portion of his mass. This time, I simply edged slightly to the right and waited for a second strike, trying to draw the creature from its comfort zone. We could take it. No attack came. We waited, my heart hammering in my chest. Slimey slowly regained his original mass as he sucked in gallons of sewage. We waited. Still nothing.

After a whole lot of nothing, I inched Slimey back towards the monster. Then, I saw it. The next surge of lightning lit up the murky depths, revealing a metal rod protruding from the bottom of the lake. I backed Slimey off of it before too much of him was destroyed. Once he was back to full size, we circled around a bit and tried again from another angle. And again, Slimey rolled over a metal rod and was greeted with electric death.

We swam straight up until we surfaced. I looked around, noting that we were almost perfectly in the center of the lake. I zipped on over to the shore, taking a break while thinking everything over. I looked around, trying to find something that would help. I settled on the trunk of a fallen tree, reaching over and trying to pick it up. Unfortunately, the wood started dissolving immediately and it was too big to fit into Slimey’s storage. Instead, I surged over to rock after rock, dissolving them until they fit into storage. After storing six miniature boulders, we headed back to the center of the lake and dropped the entire load directly on top of where I was pretty sure the electric rods were located.

I zoomed off to shore, not wanting to hang around in case there was an explosion, a portal or some sort of retaliation. Indeed, my foresight was rewarded. As I backed up towards the treeline, a pillar of electrified sewage fountained up from the middle of the lake. Even from over fifty feet away, Slimey was still nourished with tiny chunks of unspeakables that he happily gobbled up. I watched the shockwaves ripple throughout the lake, unsure of what I had just done. Sure, I had wanted to poke the thing, but I was really hoping I hadn’t unsealed a demon, a secret dungeon or some sort of sacred beast. I watched warily from the trees, but nothing else seemed to happen.

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I took the time to check the medium-sized box that I had looted from the same wreckage where I had found my Awakening Stone. It was locked, but with a little tender loving from Slimey, it fell open easily enough. Inside, there was a single piece of paper and a pencil. I tentatively reached out and unfolded the paper, unsure if it was possible to make folded paper bombs or not. It didn’t explode, but what was written on the page was enough of a bombshell. It was a simple checklist written in a neat, thin script.

* Use the Awakening Stones. You’ll understand later.

* Prepare for an ambush. Don’t let Thwain search for escapees. No good comes from it.

* Don’t let Joe participate in the Church ambush or raid. His class is too important to risk losing.

* Don’t trust T the Tank. He usually gets you early on. Tell him “the Queen” has claimed you.

* Be careful where you discuss your plans. The walls have ears.

* Outright avoid Market Alley this time. I’ll get you your blankets after the festival.

* Don't bring more than 14 people to Floor 2 to get their classes. After that, they draw too much attention from a blood god.

* Don’t let Em get his class. He sneezed once and blew up a city block.

* Avoid the Church until the raid. They have a way of getting updates between loops, so don't tip them off to our plans.

* If you decide to help him, tell Milos to jump. He never figures it out on his own.

* Go to the Gilded Hornet. Ask to speak to Bab. He has a memory crystal that can help. Upload any divergences from last time.

* Try and see if you can figure out who the three dark splotches are in your memory crystal.

* Burn this after reading.

I sat in stunned confusion, limply holding the slip of paper. Was I supposed to have picked this up with the Awakening Stones? Had someone, either the Blood Queen or someone related to her, been spying on me and left this here for me to find? Obviously someone was familiar with what I had been doing, but how? And what did it mean by, well, everything? “Upload any divergences…” Had the events happened before? Was I supposed to be part of a larger plan or was someone trying to convince me to act against my own interests? It was too much. Whoever it was, they knew far too much about what had been going on with us. If I would have picked up this note with the Awakening Stones, would I really have followed it, either way?

Against the instructions of the list, I decided on keeping the note, slipping it into Slimey’s storage. I had to show the others. Maybe we could make sense of it all together later. It’s not like we could do much about it, but there wasn’t any chance that I’d actually go see Bab at the Gilded Hornet, whoever that was. Not alone. Then again, it wasn’t as if I could completely ignore the entire thing. There were just too many points that lined up with the events of the last few weeks.

A stirring in my abdomen drew my attention. My mana was draining, albeit slowly. Far slower than it ever had while I had both Slimey and Sunder (well, Rella) summoned. I had been so shocked that I hadn’t even noticed when the crêpe buff had worn off. I dismissed S… Rella, despite estimating that I could probably keep her summoned for another half hour or more. I had a long day ahead and didn’t want to get burnt out before it really began. Plus, she had had more time in the Slums than I thought she’d have.

Nervous that I might be playing into someone’s hands by causing a ruckus around the lake, I rushed away from the explosion site before dismissing Slimey, as well, and walking the rest of the way back to town. A part of me wanted to go to Market Alley just to spite the note, but a bigger part of me was nervous that it was a legitimate warning. Well, Market Alley had seen a few attacks and a full-blown coup, so it was pretty sound advice, in hindsight.

I made my way to the portal easily enough, only having to wait a few minutes at Gim’s desk while a group got set up on the other side. The Guild didn’t block off the entire portal for too long, however. They had a policy of giving anyone entering the portal a five-minute window to get set up before allowing anyone else through. It wouldn’t really stop anyone from murdering some unfortunate unclassed farmers, but it would certainly give me time to summon Slimey and zip away or have Pyro open and close a tunnel if we ever wanted to keep skills secret.

I waited out the grace period, then stepped through the portal. Two poor suckers were farming slimes with shovels. Literal shovels. I ignored their nervous glances as I summoned Slimey and activated my necklace. I swam a few circles around the portal, leaving loot orbs where they dropped before darting off to our secondary base, hoping the two unclassed picked up the loot orbs before picking their jaws up off the floor. Aggroed slimes bounced after me as I easily outpaced them, practically flying over hills. I toggled between stretching out as wide as possible to eradicate huge amounts of slimes and scrunching up to double down on speed.

I found Pyro asleep amidst a pile of empty slime pots and slumped against a stone shelf. I stood there awkwardly as I debated waking him. I hadn’t actually seen the gruff Geomancer sleep since… Not since our misadventures in the Slums. Surely, he had taken a rest or two at some point. Hesitantly, I slipped the note into Pyro’s pocket and flagged down Tam as I saw him pass.

“Hey, tell Pyro to check the note when he wakes up. I found it where I found our Awakening Stones the first time,” I told the young boy. He was vibrating with energy to the point that the flour that covered most of his shirt was puffing off in tiny clouds.

“Oh! That’s awesome! I’ve always wanted a class. This one time, I took a cooking class. But not a class-class. Just an instructional class. Not a Tower-given class that gives skills, but just a class in the sense of a half hour instructional tutorial where we learned how to make a cook fire. Can there be a non-instructional tutorial? I’m pretty sure that’s impossible since a tutorial is supposed to tutor you. Tutor you all… Tutor y’all? Tutor real.”

I cut him off before he could keep going.

“Wait, you don’t even have a class?” I asked. I had thought that everyone that was with us on Floor 1 had gotten a class. It was obvious, in hindsight. Tam was young and I clearly didn’t remember bringing him to Floor 2. With the amount the kid talked, there was no chance that I’d have just forgotten, that’s for sure.

Tam shook his head vigorously. “Nope! Not yet. I was hoping to get one eventually! That’s why I’m helping the cooks! Maybe one day, I’ll prove my worth and I’ll be whisked off to gain my class and I’ll become super powerful and wreak havoc amongst my peers for the way that they mistreated me. You know, this one time, Jill told me that-“

“How about we get you that class,” I interjected. Tam’s eyes grew wide. “I need to go to Floor 2, anyway,” I clarified. I closed my eyes, immediately regretting my decision as the kid erupted in stories, questions and theories about what class he would get. Maybe I’d just dump him with Jackis in their creepy cultist basement and they could try to out-annoy each other.