48. A Training Montage With A Totem Warrior, A Warfare Specialist And A Motormouth Bard
“Oh! Thank you so much! I’ve been waiting YEARS for this. This one time, on my birthday, I asked for a dog. I really wanted a dog. But then I actually met a dog and wasn’t really a fan, so I’m glad that I didn’t get one. They make a lot of noise, sometimes. And sometimes it’s nice to just have some quiet. Or so my mom says. But other than that, I’ve always asked for a class. Every time! And every time, I got the same answer…”
I let Tam ramble and follow me as I found a replacement to fill Pyro in about the note, then went to get TG for the training montage that I had promised him. Pyro’s deity-obsessed brother was talking to Burt when I found him. The Warfare Specialist also agreed to join our merry band, and so we prepared to head out towards Floor 2, guarded by Slimey.
“Ok, Tam. This is TG. He’s the tallest and hunkiest of Pyro’s many brothers. Pretty sure his class has to do with totems of some sort.”
“Totem Warrior,” TG clarified, puffing up his chest.
“Right. Totem Warrior.” I pointed to Burt’s lanky frame. “This is Burt. He’s a Warfare Specialist. He can slap down a turret and, well, cut things?”
Burt nodded, mostly agreeing with my summary.
“Perfect. And, guys, this is Tam. He works in the kitchens and hasn’t gotten a class yet. We’re going to solve that today.”
Once we reached the portal, Burt followed Tam to Floor 2. TG sagged, his ever present façade of dignity finally dropping. It was kind of cool seeing the Totem Warrior out of sorts, as he had always seemed like a pillar of virtue throughout the years.
“By the gods, that child hasn’t taken a single breath since we set out.”
I shook my head wearily. “He does that. I hoped that he’d get tired after the first ten minutes. I was wrong. So wrong. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Burt’ll push him into the goblins.” I shrugged tiredly at TG’s half horrified look. I considered doing it myself as Burt and Tam reappeared. For a split second, I swore I heard Tam coming even before the portal flashed. The kid looked around, beaming.
“Oh, I got a class, I sure did! Motormouth Bard. Mmmmmotorrrrrr Mouth-Bard? Ew. Mmmmmotorrrrrmouthhhhhhh Barrrrrrd. Motor, motor, motormouth. I’m glad it has to do with speaking, because I’ve been wanting to work on that. Sometimes, I forget I’m talking and I’m not sure what I’ve said in a conversation. That’s unfortunate, because then I’m not sure what I’ve said, so I usually just start from the beginning. People don’t always have time, though, so they don’t usually stick around for the ending. But that’s why adults suck. They never have time for a good story. I have time for stories. Well, I used to. Maybe not now. Am I an adult now? Do you think I have more or less time for stories now that I’m a bard? Do I need to learn to play music now that I’m a bard? Probably an instrument with strings. I wouldn’t want any instruments that would take up mouth space. It’s kind of hard to tell a story when you’re also playing a flute.”
Every slime within hearing distance ballooned up and popped. They just… Exploded. My jaw hit the floor so hard that it almost shattered. Slimey reflexively surrounded our group as a wave of slimes rumbled towards us from over twenty meters away. We all stood in silence. Actual silence. Pleasant, quiet silence, aside from the squelching of slimes. I looked over to Tam, excited to see the kid’s mouth actually closed for once. I was disappointed. His mouth was wide open in awe. He trembled as he started up again, this time much louder.
“That… Was… AWESOME!!! I just used a skill to cause psychic damage to my enemies and slimes don’t have psychic resistance because they’re blobs. They’re probably, technically, kind of only thoughts given form, meaning that they might take more damage since psychic attacks the mind. Or less because they’re pretty mindless. Do you think slimes are mindless and take less damage or globified consciousnesses that take extra damage from psychic attacks?”
Once again, every slime within earshot popped. This time, though, slimes from even farther away exploded, as well as any slimes rushing towards us.
“Wooooah, that was wicked, but I don’t think-“
“Tam!” I yelled, placing my hand on his mouth. “Stop. Murdering. The. Entire. Floor.” I shook him slightly with each staccato pronouncement. I held my hand over his mouth for a moment longer, waiting until he nodded. I slowly drew my hand back. When Tam opened his mouth, my hand snaked out once more, covering it again.
“Nope!” I shouted. “We are… Just… How about… Just save your mana for now. Read your skills and think about them. Quietly.”
Tam deflated, nodding sadly.
“Good,” I said. “Just read them over. Figure out what they do and what you need to do to upgrade them. Once you’re ready, we’ll work on them. I don’t want you accidentally blowing our brains out, though, so no talking until you’ve got all the facts.” Tam’s eyes grew wide in panic, but he just hung his head after a beat and nodded reluctantly.
Having dealt with that, I turned to TG and Burt. “OK! Who’s first?” Burt raised his hand.
“I think my cooldowns are longer,” he explained. “I can slap down my turrets and let them do their thing, then you guys can go while I wait out the cooldown.”
When we all agreed, Burt conjured two turrets that shot out beams of energy every second for a little over thirty seconds. The beams ripped through a few slimes each The Warfare Specialist looked on giddily as his beams tore through slimes. “I had the option to upgrade my skill after spamming it steadily. I chose to have two turrets at once instead of one turret for longer. Their uptime increases fractionally as I use them, anyway, so I figured summoning two would help train my skills even faster.”
I nodded, agreeing with his logic. My Summon skill as well as my mana reserves would have been far slower to increase if I could only summon Rella… I seriously thought about summoning my demon, but I didn’t think I could handle the strain… Well, maybe I could, now that the summoning and upkeep costs were reduced. I knew that she didn’t want to nosedive into a bunch of slimes, but maybe she could work with the group. I decided to see how TG’s turn went, then I’d see if it was worth summoning Rella or not. He apparently had a skill that required him need to face dangers or himself or something to unlock it. I didn't want to intervene too much, in fear that I'd skew his results, but I also didn't want to leave him to face the slimes alone.
TG stepped up as Slimey took care of the few remaining aggroed slimes. He concentrated, conjuring a wooden totem in his right hand. The Totem Warrior took a few steps back, cocked his arm back, then took a few quick steps forward before powerfully hurling the totem, sending it arcing over the amassed slimes. When the totem landed, it split a slime in two before lodging itself firmly into the ground. Immediately, a pulse of energy shot out from the totem, decimating all of the slimes within a dozen feet of the unadorned wooden object. Slimes swarmed the totem, trying to get revenge for their fallen brethren. A second pulse shot out from the totem, clearing out all of the aggroed reinforcements, though the pulse seemed a little smaller. The third pulse came a few seconds later, reduced by another foot or so in radius. After a total of six pulses, the totem sank into the ground and didn’t resurface.
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“Why do you need me for that? It’s pretty cool and all, but…” The aggroed slimes didn’t have any other target after the totem sank away into the earth. They angrily jumped around, trying to ground pound the totem from above. Slowly, they jostled their neighbors, angering them as well. Within a minute, a clump of slimes was violently piling on top of itself, roiling with unspent anger. Then, their eyes landed on us. The angry hill rumbled towards us, bringing ripples of slimes with them in their wake.
“Huh,” I commented. “Point taken. Ok, Tam. Use your psychotic story time or whatever your skill is called.”
“Oh!” Tam shot to his feet. “It’s actually called Psychic Babble. It lets me send a pulse of psychic resonance to all of my enemies within range of my voice. Anyone that actively means me harm, or that I consider as an enemy, builds up a charge as I talk. Once my mana bottoms out, or I stop talking, the buildup slams down all at once onto each enemy. I really think that-”
“Tam! Trigger the skill!” I said as the column of slimes was almost atop us.
“Ah!” The kid finally stopped talking, noticing the impending doom looming over him. He snapped his mouth shut with an audible clap. Slimes in every direction echoed the sound, popping in unison. Two loot orbs, one white and one green, slowly drifted to the ground from the deaths of slimes near the top of the slime hill. I gestured to Tam, who excitedly poked both orbs while Slimey moved into a defensive position. Tam energetically scooped up a chunk of meat and a slime pot while I looked over to TG.
“Alright. So, you said you had a plan?”
“Indeed! My second skill requires me to overcome fear. To forge my spirit in the burning coals of battle. To assault the enemy until I find… Inspiration.” TG puffed out his chest and looked imperiously over the meadow.
“Does your totem hurt you?” The question came from Burt. The Warfare Specialist was studying TG intently.
The Totem Warrior frowned. “I have not dared to test such a thing,” he said hesitantly.
Burt nodded in understanding. “Right, right. You could throw it out of range, then subsequently advance until you are in range of the last blast. It’s the weakest, is it not?”
“Indeed! It is the weakest of the pulses. Even such a pulse, however, is strong enough to obliterate slimes. I have no estimates as to how powerful that would be.”
I thought on TG’s predicament for a moment, then made a decision. I took off the Slime King’s Servant’s Nephew’s Neighbour's Necklace and passed it to the Totem Warrior. At his confused look, I explained further.
“Equip it, activate it, then use Slimey as a buffer. That way, you can throw your totem, then inch forwards without having to worry about other slimes. Then, for the last pulse, stay wrapped up in Slimey’s body. We can see how much damage it does to him, and if you take any at all. Then, we can gauge whether it’s safe for you to go alone.”
TG nodded graciously, then followed the plan. It was kind of funny to see how much more Slimey had to stretch out to accommodate the much taller man’s body. Still, Slimey had more than enough to spare. TG stuck his hand out and into the open air, materialized his totem, then threw it about twenty feet away. When it landed, it released a pulse that massacred every slime within just under ten feet or so. I cocked my head to the side, wondering if I had just imagined the shockwave as smaller or not. The totem continued to pulse every few seconds, until TG slowly crept in for the last wave of damage. Slimey kept most of his body back, not wanting to take the full brunt of the pulse, but kept TG fully covered anyway.
When the last pulse shot out of the totem, the edge of the shockwave clipped TG’s slime-encrusted foot. The dark green slime was peeled back, as well as TG’s boot. Both were vaporized in an instant by the totem’s force. His skin, though, remained unharmed. TG and Slimey returned to the safety of the portal stone after mopping up the stragglers.
Pyro’s brother quickly exited Slimey and handed me the necklace. He looked a little green, even outside of Slimey.
“That was… Thank you for the assistance,” he said.
I shook my head. “I think you should keep this for your real run. Have Slimey bring you out, now that you know the totem doesn’t hurt you.”
“That won’t be necessary. Now that I know that my totem’s force will not harm me, I can place it on the other side of this portal.”
“What does your totem’s cooldown time look like?” Burt asked.
“There is no set cooldown,” TG said, standing as heroically as always, his voice echoing across the meadow. “The more times in succession that I use my totem, the higher the mana cost. I can at most use four in a row before my mana depletes. Come, now, and witness.”
With that, TG materialized another totem, then ran full tilt to the other side of the portal stone. With a powerful thrust of his legs, he leapt over the first few slimes and landed totem-first onto a slime in the fourth row. The totem easily pierced the slime and slammed into the ground, driven by momentum as well as TG’s not-insignificant weight. He had always been in good shape before having a class, constantly working as a manual laborer. Now, though, with proper nutrition, he was turning into a colossus of a man.
The first of the totem’s pulses was much larger than both previous attempts. It shot out at least twenty feet in either direction, almost even hitting us as we watched. Then, TG balled up his fists and started punching slimes as they rushed in. The second pulse cleared out the nearest aggroed slimes. TG walked forward and met the next wave head on, not caring about his lack of shirt or boots. His totem’s first pulse had obliterated those, though his pants and bracers stayed intact. The third wave ended much the same. TG slowly walked forward, punching slimes out of the air and throwing some towards his totem.
Once he was out of range of his slowly shortening totem pulses, TG simply slammed another totem into the ground and kept going. Despite his totems instantly deleting slimes with every pulse, he was still taking damage. I could see blood flowing from his hands as acid ate at his skin with each punch. Then, he slapped down a third totem. His first totem sunk into the ground, disappearing into the depths of the earth.
I slipped on my necklace, nervously watching TG. Sure, his totems were powerful, but he hadn’t yet turned around to come back, and I was pretty sure he only had a single totem left. I nudged Tam.
“Alright, Tam. As soon as TG slaps down another totem, you have to start using your skill just in case he can’t make it back to us in time. If he gets swarmed, you unleash. Got it?”
Tam nodded, moving his lips wordlessly in preparation. Burt also stood at the ready, though I wasn’t sure if his turrets were off cooldown yet. As the slimes moved in closer to TG, I held my breath, waiting for the last totem to appear. It didn’t. TG fought off slimes with his fists, letting his other totems expire. Soon, he was being mobbed by slimes and still hadn’t summoned his last totem. Something was wrong. I sent Slimey out, not wanting to waste time in having him pick me up. Before my summon could reach TG, though, a handful of slimes piled onto the Totem Warrior, knocking him to the ground.
“TAM!” I shouted. “NOW!”
Tam started up his incessant babbling, but stuttered out of sheer nervousness. Each time he stumbled, a ripple ran through the surrounding slimes, but they seemed to only freeze for a moment instead of dying. Hundreds of slimes shifted angry eyes towards us as Tam aggroed them without killing any of them. Burt put both of his hands together, a dark blue beam of mana shooting out and somewhat stabilizing, forming a deadly-looking sword out of the flickering energy. I activated my necklace, rendering me impervious to the incoming horde’s attacks, but unable to do much since Slimey was zooming towards TG.
It seemed as if the entirety of Floor 1 rumbled as so many slimes jumped in unison towards us.