57. Splat. Squish. Sploof. Burble. Repeat.

Splat. Squish. Sploof. Burble. Repeat. An autobiography.

That was what my life had become. The entirety of Floor 1 had always been and would always be filled with small, green, mindless, hateful slimes. Well, so we thought. The Festival shop wasn’t the only present sent to us from above.

I faced off with my newest opponent: a king-class slime. It towered above everything else, even having a bulk advantage over Slimey, surprisingly. Smaller slimes poured in from all sides, sacrificing themselves at the altars that were the titanic slimes. The boss slime sat there as if sizing us up, unmoving. I squinted, slightly worried by the signs of increased intelligence from the newest slime variant. The ground shook almost constantly from the surrounding raging battles where teams of climbers took on their own boss slimes.

After arriving on Floor 1, I had raced to our duo of underground bases to check up on the status of the boss-slime defense. My friends and allies had been keeping them at bay, but had a hard time killing them off before reinforcements arrived. The need to clear smaller slimes while kiting boss slimes who regenerated health AND grew larger while gorging themselves proved to be just enough of a challenge to create a stalemate. One that couldn’t last, seeing as the slimes were tireless and the defenders were visibly tiring.

I smacked the top of Slimey’s blob form, sending satisfying ripples cascading throughout his body as well as producing a nice, crisp slapping sound. Both Slimey and the boss slime took the cue and surged forward, Slimey in a straightforward dash and our opponent with a heave and a massive leap.

The ground trembled from the giant slime’s impact, but we managed to avoid getting butt-smashed. Slimey snaked out a tendril to test our opponent's strength, but his probe was slowly digested. Our first attack thwarted, I reached into Slimey and withdrew the sword that I had looted during the raid on the Church. I infused it with mana and swung, sending an energized sword slash flying straight towards the monster. A vertical sword projection tore towards the boss slime, cutting it perfectly in two. Unfortunately, it simply did what slimes did best and absorbed its fallen half, reforming within moments.

The slime heaved again, launching itself into the air. I charged my blade and swung, then swung twice more, sending smaller slashes in the wake of the first. The first slash carved into the boss slime, cleanly cleaving a large chunk of its mass from its form. The two smaller sword energy projections bit into the monster, but were far too weak to bisect the thing.

Slimey expertly sludged forward, catching the fallen piece of slime as it fell and avoiding the incoming slime stomp. My summon burbled greedily as it consumed the goo while starting to quickly circle the boss slime, effectively cutting it off from tiny slime reinforcements. When the boss slime jumped again, I charged my sword and swung again, trying to find the minimum amount of mana needed to pump into the sword while still cutting chunks off of my enemy, but my aim was off and I hit nothing but air.

A few more attempts later, I had shorn off enough of the boss slime’s body that Slimey went on the offensive. As soon as our opponent landed, the ground shaking far less than before, Slimey pounced. We enveloped the now-smaller glob of goo, and Slimey savored the taste as he digested his first boss slime.

My eyes shot wide open as I saw my FP counter soar. I had been accumulating tens of FP during the fight while killing smaller slimes, but the boss netted me just over 4 000 points.

“Four… Thousand…” I breathed. Instantly, my gaze locked onto my FP counter and opened the shop. I scrolled down to the more expensive categories, but froze upon reaching the Social tab. There was a little red 1 tacked to the category’s name. I hesitantly opened the category and received a message.

Joshathan Otherside has invited you to join the guild FML-Dorado. 100FP. Accept?

I did a double take at the message before ultimately accepting the invitation, unsure how a Tower-sanctioned guild worked. My points dipped slightly and the category was replaced with a copper-colored FLM-Dorado tag. I urged Slimey towards the next slime boss while I examined the guild options.

Guild: FML-Dorado

Current projects: Information missive: guild projects. FP: 854/1000

Available projects:

* Information missive

* Territory expansion / solidification

* Increase spawn rate inside of territory

* Decrease spawn rate inside of territory

* Establish a safe zone

* Increase resource availability

* Increase quality of crafted items

* Select a stat to buff

* Set a territorial tax

* More…

My jaw dropped at the sheer number of options and their usefulness. I focused on the active project and topped it off, curious as to what would happen once a project completed. The project flashed gold briefly, then disappeared. And then… Nothing. Grumbling, I started a project to expand our territory. A transparent pale blue wall appeared in my vision, showing what I thought were probably the boundaries of our territory, though it wasn’t clear if they were the boundaries from before or after the expansion. Shrugging, I accepted, and a new project started.

Current projects: Territory expansion. FP: 0/5000

Shrugging, I spent all of the FP that I had earned from my first slime boss fight, and watched the project flash once, then disappear. Again, nothing visibly happened.

Slimey burbled, shaking me from my testing. Seeing another king-class slime, I drew my sword and waited for it to pounce. Our strategy worked flawlessly. The new slimes, though massive, were predictable and couldn’t navigate mid-air. Slimey had no issues avoiding being stomped on, leaving the pace of the fight to my ability to score a hit with my sword projections.

I pushed Slimey to move even faster. Our second slime boss granted me an entire five thousand points. A greedy grin split my face and I started fiddling with more projects. When I selected to establish a safe zone, a now-familiar blue circle appeared in my vision. I moved my head and the circle followed. Curious, I placed the circle above a closed entrance to our underground base. With a thought, the circle expanded until it covered around thirty feet of space (more than enough to enter and exit the underground complex and set up some infrastructure topside).

I confirmed the project and checked the listing, seeing the 9.7k price tag. I whistled and hoped that the price was only dependent on the size of the space and didn’t increase the more safe zones we placed.

The next boss slime we approached wasn’t alone. A trio of climbers that I didn’t recognise were desperately fending off the large slime without much success. The only man in the group, an average height black-haired man in green robes, sent fiery snakes at the boss slime, searing small holes that repaired themselves quickly with the constant influx of smaller slimes. One of the others, a small woman in all black leathers, kept the area around her team clear by manipulating a cloud of blades as if she were conducting an orchestra. The last member was bloody and limping, frantically trying to keep up with her party while emitting a faint white light from her hands.

I didn’t take the time to see what the light did (though I assumed it was some form of healing), sending a sword slash into the bounding slime, hoping it would throw off its trajectory. Indeed, the slime smashed into the ground next to the trio, but not on top of them. Still, the three of them stumbled and the limping woman was thrown to the ground, landing hard on her shoulder. The light from her hands winked out.

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I charged.

I didn’t have time to wait for the slime to pounce. The monster was so close to its prey that it simply had to scoot a few feet and it would find its lunch. I sized it up, biting my bottom lip. I had shorn off a chunk, but it still seemed slightly larger than Slimey. Now, intellectually, I knew that size wasn’t everything. Slimey had some unique upgrades and a great personality, besides the whole motion of the ocean thing. I just had to clench and hope that it would be enough.

I sent mana into my sword while Slimey carried me closer at top speed. The boss slime dispassionately rolled towards the scrambling party. Slimey extended two tentacles forward, slamming them into the boss slime and halting its momentum, giving the trio the time they needed to get out from underneath both titanic monsters. Once the rest of his body caught up, Slimey retracted what was left of his tentacles and pitted his entire bulk against his opponent’s. They seemed almost even, both monsters digesting each other and keeping themselves aloft with the hundreds of feeder slimes supplying them.

I swung my charged sword, sending a vertical slash a bit to the right of center. Green goo evaporated in the wake of my sword projection, and the halves instantly started inching back towards each other. Slimey was ready, though, and he crammed himself in the crack between both sections of slime as they were split by my weapon’s enchantment. My summon ignored the larger half of the boss slime and engulfed the smaller half, digesting it and growing larger, until ultimately turning on the much smaller boss slime and greedily chasing it down.

I pointed the trio towards where the new safe zone was supposedly going to pop up and dumped my new points into the project, completing it with only a few tens of points to spare. This time, the effect was both instantaneous and perceptible. The slimes in the previously highlighted section seemed to get pushed by an invisible hand, leaving a perfect circle of unoccupied space amidst the ocean of slimes.

By the time I arrived at my newly-created safe zone, the stone stairway leading down into the base was open and Pyro was snooping around outside.

“You do this fuckery, Théo?” He asked, gesturing to the circle of unoccupied space.

I nodded, stepping down from Slimey and sending him to mop up slimes by himself. “Yeah, new guild thing. Did you get an invite, too?”

Pyro nodded back. “Sure did. Been too busy keepin’ shit from collapsin’ to look at it much.” He poked a single slime with a stone-encrusted finger and stepped back. As expected, the slime bounded forward and was erased from existence with a heavy kick from Pyro’s reinforced boot.

“How’s the defense going?” I asked, following Pyro back underground. He didn’t close the hatch behind us. It made me nervous, but there wasn’t much point in a safe zone if it didn’t last. Plus, there shouldn’t be any civilians left that couldn’t take on slimes long enough for help to come running.

“Been alright.” Pyro shrugged tiredly. “Josh modded all the weapons we stuck in all our defensive structures, so he’s gettin’ more points than he knows what to do with. Thwain’s keepin’ the gobs from takin’ over. Rest of us are fendin’ ‘em off good ‘nuff.”

“Wait, goblins?” I asked. “Like, they’re here-here?” Obviously, I was aware that slimes could go into the Slums, but I hadn’t really given the goblins a second thought.

“Yep,” Pyro nodded, pointing down a hallway before turning into it. I vaguely remembered Josh’s workshop being somewhere down there. “Gobs charged in quite a ways before Thwain went over an’ fucked ‘em up. Once their momentum ran out, they stalled. Now just a little distraction’s enough to keep ‘em contained. Well, from one of the portals. Figure we’ll have to wait until gobs push in to figure out where they’re comin’ in from, then track ‘em back home.”

I nodded along. It made sense, but it was worrisome. By the time goblins reached us, they would have covered half of the floor. “What about luring some boss slimes to the goblins?” I asked. “They’re pretty strong. We could kite some over and let them protect the floor. They also seem to keep the points from anything they kill, so they’ll be walking piggy banks that we can take out and replace once in a while.”

“Good plan,” another voice said. I looked up and met Josh’s eyes. He was reclining on a brown leather sofa, feeding himself figs and grapes like an emperor.

“Hey, guild master!” Pyro said half mockingly. “Workin’ hard for them wages, I see?”

Josh’s grin widened, then he shoved a few more grapes in his mouth.

“Life’s good, what can I say?”

“Heyyyy… Joshathan…” I dragged out the words, trying to suppress a smile. “Really struck it big with the Festival, eh?”

He pursed his lips together, but I could tell he was also trying not to smile. We exchanged some more quips, but before the conversation devolved further, I asked what had been nagging me the most.

“Hey, what’s the information missive thing, anyway?” I had finished that project, but hadn’t gotten anything from it, though I hadn’t been the one that started it.

Josh’s eyes lit up and he sat up straighter. “Yes! A pretty cheap one. It just told me how projects get queued when you buy more than one, and how to set permissions within the guild to stop trolls from queueing something expensive just to mess with us. But that’s not the juicy part.” The newly-minted guild master brought out a bottle of what looked like bourbon and three glasses. He poured each of us a drink and took a sip before continuing.

“I spent most of my points on an information packet about this whole Festival thing.” He swirled his glass around and gestured vaguely upwards. “Fifty thousand smackeroonies. Tower really spelled it out for me. The Festival, the removal of safe zones around portals, the whole shabang.”

Pyro downed his drink, then almost shouted. “How many point ta make ya actually tell us instead of stallin’?” I took a sip from my glass, but coughed as the burning liquid assaulted me. Once I was finished hacking, Josh continued, his eyes growing dark.

“It’s… It’s a convergence of Towers, it said. Our Tower is a magical construct floating through the cosmos. We are now surrounded by other Towers. Some of them are looking for trade, others… Other Towers want more floors.” Josh poured himself another glass and downed it.

“So… The Tower, well, Towers, are like a bunch of ships docking together? And how do Towers gain floors?” I looked between Pyro and Josh, the liquor turning sour in my stomach. I didn’t like where the spiel was going.

“The missive was vague about that part. But, essentially, one Tower can drill into another and send raiders in. If you pillage enough resources, you can, by the sounds of it, take a floor back with you and add it to your original Tower. The Festival is the Tower’s way of preparing its residents for combat, and it’s way of generating more mana to use for defense against other Towers.”

My fists clenched. “If the higher ups knew this was coming, why didn’t they prepare us beforehand? You can’t tell me we’re on par with other Towers and their residents. If they invade… An army of climbers who’ve been actually climbing for years? The Slums wouldn’t know what hit them. What happens to people on a floor when it gets stolen? Do you get transferred to the other Tower or do you just…” I flung an arm into the air and twiddled my fingers. “Poof?”

Josh and Pyro both shrugged.

“More reason to spread influence and prepare,” Josh answered simply.

“Influence?” Pyro asked, snagging the bottle and filling his glass. I took another sip, but my face scrunched involuntarily. The hard stuff really wasn’t my thing, apparently.

Josh nodded repeatedly, steepled his fingers and explained. “Guilds, under this new system, have influence. A territory. Members, and anyone greenlit, get buffs while fighting inside of the guild’s territory. We can also influence the spawn rates in our territory, set taxes, training grounds, increase crafting proficiency, fiddle with resource spawns... There are more options than we’ll ever be able to afford.”

“We can make Floor 1 safe?” I asked, hopeful. If people could clear the first floor easily…

Pyro shook his head emphatically. “If anythin’, we make it harder. Or concentrate zones. We make slimes spawn less, we get less moolah. Cashola. Cha-ching.”

My frown deepened. “Wasn’t the whole point of this to make the Tower easier to climb? We’re just going to turn around and make it literally impossible?”

“No, Théo,” Josh cut in. “If we expand our territory enough, we get to prevent just that. We can make a section from the Slums to Floor 2 just have a sprinkle of slimes. Keep people on their toes. Then, we can funnel and crank the spawn rates in farming areas. We have to push hard, though. I don’t know how long the Festival’ll last and I doubt the shop’ll stick around after.”

“Alright,” I agreed. “Let’s draft a list of project priorities, then get to grinding. Maybe set up more of your passive income farms, if we can. Kite some boss slimes to the goblins, then prepare for visitors.”

Pyro cracked his knuckles, looking for all the Tower like a malicious bouncer looking for a scrap.