Creeping Slime, Level: 9. HP: 110/110.
Four slimes roared to life, all charging for Lester in a coordinated attack.
"Sweep right," Jay called out to Lester, indicating the slime on the left as he leveled his crossbow at the enemy. "No exploitable weakness."
He took a moment to charge a Wild Strike ability, feeling the rush of energy through him as his attacks sped up. He continued pelting arrows into the one on the far left as the others joined in with their attacks.
Ken darted forward into the fight, dodging icicles from Taylor Lynn along the way. He was having trouble finding a way to strike the enemies without drawing the attention of those still waiting for an opportunity to ambush. At the last minute, he twirled to avoid a slime that shot out of a puddle, forced to defend Lester's back from this new foe instead of joining in dispatching the ones currently outnumbering their wildcard companion.
Jenny activated a tag on Lester, causing a rush of strength. Lester's sword whirled faster, hitting multiple enemies in one fell swoop while he bellowed out a roar. His slicing attacks weren't effective. The taunting ability drew the focus of all the slimes back onto him, ensuring that no one else would be caught up in the next wave of attacks.
As Jay and the others continued to pelt the slimes with ranged attacks, Lester tried to block one of the slimes with his shield, wielding his large weapon one-handed. Unfortunately, the creature's gelatinous construction made a single plane of resistance useless. It wrapped entirely around the shield, striking out with a slime tendril.
Jay shot another arrow through the slime to pin it to the shield. In response, it similarly reformed its shape around the projectile, mostly unharmed. It took three more combined attacks after Taylor Lynn successfully froze part of it to finally destroy it.
The party grimaced in disgust as its body collapsed, oozing a stringy gel between the shield and floor. Due to the jelly-like composition, those 110 hit points lasted twice as long as they would for a typical foe. Even in death, the inert slime made Lester's environment a bit more challenging for his fighting style.
Throughout the fighting, the party worked reasonably well together. The worst moment came when one of the slimes snuck off from Lester while his taunting ability was on cooldown. He had spread out his damage, working with Ken to keep the slimes' attention. They had lost track of one.
The creeping slime, already half-dead, found its way to Taylor Lynn. The tendrils of slime slapped at her like baseball bats, interrupting her spell-casting. Fortunately, one individual slime didn't do as much damage as the boars or dire wolf, but when Jay noticed her health dropping on his HUD, he quickly turned that way and reprioritized his attacks.
Jenny was loading as many runic tags onto her friend as possible, keeping the worst damage at bay.
Jay let the crossbow fall to the ground, drawing his dagger as he ran. He activated his most damaging attack again and slammed it into the slime. It wasn't as satisfying as he had hoped. The blade sunk deep into the slime, taking a small chunk of health but leaving only a superficial wound. The creature dropped to the floor, making unpleasant noises, and began crawling around to menace Taylor Lynn further. He continued to try to block its attempts to get at her with erratic swipes of the dagger and occasional stomps of his boots before sensing Ken pulling up beside him.
"What are you doing?" Jay asked, his eyes never leaving the slime as he continued to look for opportunities to attack. In his peripheral vision, he could see enough movement to guess that Ken was trying to get purchase on the slimy creature for a proper lunge.
"Protecting the spellcasters!" Ken answered with effort, exertion clear in his voice. "What are you doing back here?"
"The same." He glanced over his shoulder at where Lester had been left to fend for himself. "Dude!"
The slimes focusing on Lester were starting to wear him down. Both enemies he was currently facing off with were near death, but with Jenny paying attention to Taylor Lynn's wounds, the damage to Lester was stacking quickly.
In a panic, Jay rushed to take down the slime with a final slash that turned into a fortuitous combo attack with Ken. Before the slime had fully dissolved into a pool, he was already rushing to help Lester, thinking the other player was dead.
To the party's amazement, their growing dread turned to awe as a surge of yellow light emanated from the Champion. In a few seconds, he grew half a foot. His body extended, muscles increasing in size, powering a thunderous strike through the two remaining creatures, finishing them off. Even more amazingly, his HP bar was ticking back up at a fair pace without any healing from Jenny.
"Nice work," Jay said as his feet finished propelling him to Lester's side. His body hadn't responded to the battle being over, heart still beating out of his chest from adrenaline.
Lester was already calmly cleaning his sword off with a small cloth from his bag. "Thanks. That was a little hectic, but it's our first battle together. No worries."
"You seemed to handle it very well," Jay admitted slowly, his mind starting to piece together the new information about Lester and this dungeon.
"The Champion is normally meant for solo players, I think. I've managed to turn myself into a tank with the right gear, a couple consumables, and an ace up my sleeve. You haven't even seen the ace."
"Kinda looking forward to it," Jay muttered, barely paying attention. Lester had said that Jay was in charge of the dungeon.
As he considered the terrain and the remaining slimes, an idea occurred to Jay. He motioned the rest of the party to stand back. He was watching the clock on his buff, wanting to make sure he could enact his plan while able to reload quickly. His eyes combed the ground as fast as he could, looking for the heaviest rock, while his hands finished loading the right bolt into his crossbow. Jogging over to one that seemed to fit his purposes, he picked up the stone, checked that his party was out of the way, and then tossed it down the strange hallway of slime pools.
The first part of the plan worked exactly as he expected, causing five slimes to erupt out of the remaining untouched pools. They all lunged for the rock as Jay aimed at the closest slime his crossbow sight could find where they were grouped together.
Upon impact, tiny globules of fire spilled all over the slime. The smoldering bolt's additional damage had a dramatic effect as the extra fire damage burned away bits of the slime. The singed pieces fell off the slime, slipping onto the floor and leaving an admittedly hazardous situation of slick surfaces and embers, but he had no plans to run.
The second bolt was loaded before his friends caught on. An entire collection of projectiles was fired into the slimes in the next volley. Jenny's traditional energy bolt landed alongside where Ken's thrown dagger struck true. An empowered fire bolt from Taylor Lynn slammed into another one of the slimes simultaneously.
An impressive-looking throwing spear appeared in Lester's hands from nowhere, which he immediately sent sailing through the air.
With Rapid Fire still active, Jay set a punishing pace with the others in firing off attacks. The wave of slimes fell in no time flat against their combined efforts.
"Why didn't you tell us you wanted to try and lure the slimes?" Lester asked. "We could have prepped attacks." Jay knew he was asking as part of the evaluation.
He didn't really want to admit to his mistake. He had honestly thought that the smoldering bolts would cause an explosion, spreading damage among the entire grouping. He could have easily avoided the problem by re-reading the text before enacting his plan. He could afford to slow down in the future.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Small mistake about the effect of my bolts," Jay replied with some hesitation. "They're new, and I had expected something a little more… combustible."
"Can I see them?" Lester asked thoughtfully, accepting his explanation with a slight nod.
In response, Jay opened a trade window. It was getting annoying to show data and tooltips through trade windows. Jay made a mental note to check with the developers; surely, this could be updated. He'd seen links sent through chat systems in other, older games. The design team could find something even better with the new systems.
While they exchanged information, Jenny worked on healing up Taylor Lynn. Ken's head was somewhere else, not paying much attention to either event.
"Thanks," Lester said after peeking at the equipment. Jay waited for him to say anything else or provide some advice, but instead, he looked around and asked, "Should we loot?"
With a few nods of acknowledgment, Jenny and Ken turned their attention away from a fully healed Taylor Lynn to start grabbing the loot from the slimes. Jay focused on adding the creeping slime to his catalog, expecting it to be significant at some point. At the same time, Taylor Lynn sat on the ground near the wall, watching everyone else. She seemed to have something on her mind, but she seemed content just to keep an eye out.
The slimes didn't offer much of note, which everyone had anticipated in the dungeon. It was their first dungeon in Tumultua, but everyone in the party had experience in other games. The best loot would be found in the chests, after all, deeper in.
A few baubles dropped by slimes could be sold for a little extra money. When Lester, Jay, and Taylor Lynn passed on them, the twins were happy to accept since they didn't have a nest egg built up like the others.
Jay took a second to check his stats: between the Fishmongers and Creeping Slimes, he had accrued 560 experience points. There was still several hundred experience to level eleven.
"Should we continue?" Jay prompted as he closed the screen and mentally rejoined the room.
"Let's do it," Jenny agreed, throwing an excited fist into the air. As she turned to help Taylor Lynn up off the ground, Jay found himself sharing an amused look with Ken before the other stiffened and turned away. They were totally making continued progress.
As the party tank, Lester led the way into the next room of the cavern. The party passed by the abandoned pools where the slimes had been, which now looked dull and lifeless.
From the doorway, they could see the shape of the circular stone chamber awaiting them. There was no altar, and it didn't look like a place of worship. In fact, there were no furnishings, no apparent monsters, and it appeared totally empty. This, of course, did not set their nerves at ease. Instead, it made everyone anxious for the other shoe to drop.
Jay wondered what it could be, but he still felt like he was missing the purpose or theme of the dungeon itself. The plain stone chamber could have functioned as a panic room or confinement chamber, perhaps.
"I'll take the lead for this room," Ken suggested. "This room screams traps. I should have a good chance at spotting any traps."
"Agreed. I'll keep my eyes out, too," Jay said, remembering the pitfall trap he found in the woods. Jay was pretty confident his Perception score would be higher than Ken's, but he didn't know if the other man possessed skills to make up the deficit.
Ken made a strange path, moving in a zig-zag motion along a semicircular way. He would move a few paces forward, fan to the left and right of that spot, and then return to the center to advance again. The path allowed him the most opportunity to spot traps and the greatest danger of running into them. Everyone's nerves continued to build as they moved step-by-step in his wake toward the middle of the stone chamber.
The other shoe dropped.
Jay didn't spot it until it happened, despite his Perception score. Ken suddenly disappeared from sight, leaving only the edges of the square pit for them to see.
Jay managed to retain control long enough to choke out: "'It's a pitfall. Only an idiot would fall for a pit trap'" before he erupted into laughter.
The whole party, except Lester, fell apart in a fit of giggles, hearing Jay echo Ken's words from the day before.
"What are you doing? Shouldn't we get him out?" he asked, bewildered at their attitudes and inaction. This set the group off again. The peals of laughter echoed around the room as each of them tried to regain their composure.
Jenny even had to brace herself against Taylor Lynn as she was doubled over in laughter, but she was also the first to regain control of herself. Despite the minor damage to his health, Ken was obviously not in grave danger. She made her way to the edge of the pit sporting a broad smile, then pulled a rope from her inventory. She lowered it while gesturing for the party to help pull Ken up.
Everyone worked together to pull him up from the bottom of the pit. Fortunately, Lester had not been the one to fall into the hole, as he was the strongest person in the party by far. Everyone working together liberated Ken from the trap, though most horsepower came from the party tank.
"Shut up," Ken said gruffly as soon as he was visible, but he was missing his previous venom.
"No one said anything," Jay said with a mostly straight face, managing to contain his laughing fit.
"No one needed to," Ken said, shaking his head. "That was a magic pitfall trap. The dirt completely disappeared. How was I supposed to see that?"
"You weren't," Lester said. "Most mages have a way to spot hidden things by the middle levels, but magic traps require a specialist touch at this level. I know of someone in my guild with the Locator class. That's the only person I know of who could have seen it. Maybe Ichibad, but he's higher level than us."
"Stupid, broken dungeon," Ken said, kicking loose rocks into the pit trap.
"I've been trying to get him to kick rocks our whole life," Jenny said innocently.
"Wow," Ken said, legitimate surprise on his face. "I didn't know you were funny, and I've known you my whole life."
The exchange set off another round of laughter within the party. As it faded, they moved to make their way carefully through the rest of the room, the atmosphere a lot more relaxed despite the looming unknown.
Ken kept to the front, with Jay deciding to follow behind and keep his eyes out for an ambush. He actively focused on opening up his perception as the party moved.
"What's your Strength score?" Jay called behind him to Lester as they moved.
"Thirty. I focused on only Strength and Vitality. I can tell you'd crush me in a foot race," Lester answered quickly. He brushed his hands together as he talked, a simple gesture that revealed to Jay that the other player was using the same full dive gear.
Lester continued, "I have a title boosting my strength by five points, so not all of the score is from leveling. I dumped the rest of my statistics into Vitality when we left since I'm a tank now."
"That's a useful title. I have a couple myself," Jay said. "I was curious how much the statistics affect our actual characteristics and gameplay experiences."
"The physical ones definitely have obvious effects. It's even more pronounced comparing the capabilities at level twenty, when you're specialized, to a level-one character. We ran a few tests in the guild, but the mental statistics are a little more nebulous. We think the game supports senses and reaction speed. Definitely harder to measure."
"Shouldn't your guild keep more of the secrets to yourselves until we're accepted?" Jenny asked, blatant curiosity on her face. Jay was impressed with her insight.
"There's no wiki," Lester said with a shrug. "I've made it clear to my people when I think information should be protected. But still, how else will people learn about the game?"
"That's really cool," Jenny replied. "I actually like the lack of a wiki. It's maintaining some of the more social aspects of the game."
They made it to the other side of the room safely. Ken inspected the edge of the door, clearly wanting to avoid messing up again. He spent two minutes or so looking it over as the discussion meandered to the lack of abilities at lower levels. Jenny and Taylor Lynn debated the merits of the spellbooks found in magic shops. Since they received spells from level ups, they weren't sure what role the books would fill. It was too costly an investment to make without understanding the mechanic, especially for Jenny.
Satisfied with his investigations, Ken opened the door with a flourish. Beyond was another hallway, which would hopefully be something with more excitement – and more loot.
Jay was the last in line as the party moved single file through the doorway. As Jay stepped through the threshold, a stone slab fell like a guillotine, clicking into place in front of him and separating him from the others.
There didn't seem to be any obvious way through. He was stuck in an empty prison room, all by himself.
"Uh, guys?" Jay said blankly to the stone in the doorway, his voice raised to hopefully penetrate the thick stone. He was almost too loud to hear the footsteps behind him. But he heard them. "Someone else is in here with me! I don't like this."
"Hang tight," Lester called through the door. "We'll find a way back through."
Not wanting to know the answer, Jay turned to see what was behind him, specifically to see if the other doorway was blocked by a stone slab. As expected, the other exit was blocked.
To his surprise, a young woman was standing in front of the magic pitfall trap. She wore a green dress, reminding him of Taylor Lynn's green shirt at their coffee meeting that started his whole mission. Her features were beautiful, similar to the other humanoid builds he had seen. He wondered which race she was. The woman's hair was black and cropped above her shoulders, obscuring her ears. He quickly scanned her for the Demon features he knew about, but it didn't seem likely. Not Elven either, he assumed, given her ears.
Jay decided to activate his Analyze ability on her, knowing it would be risky. He wasn't sure if the game would classify her as a monster, but he needed more information about what he was dealing with. He had never tried using it on anything other than monsters, so he was unsure what would happen if she wasn't a monster.
He spotted her nameplate just as he activated the ability.
Slime Princess [First Boss], Level 15. HP: 800/800.