Having decided to take a leisurely morning, John didn’t log in until just before nine. The first thing he did was empty the well again, putting him at 68 of the water stones. Satisfied with that, he checked his friends list and, seeing Ex online, gave him a call.

“Hey John,” Ex’s voice came through clearly and without any of the strain in the last call. “What’s up?”

“Well, I have a couple of days while I collect Mana for what I need to do, and I was wondering if that offer to run the dungeon with you and Sally was still open?” John inquired.

“Sure! We’ll take you through the first couple of levels and let you kill things; it shouldn’t be too hard. The dungeon starts with some classics; slow moving slimes in the first level, followed by rats and bats in the second. Third level is where the giant arachnids are, we can take you through that if you want, what level are you now?”

“Fourth still, the only real combat spell I have is Hasten Decay though. I mean, I could maybe use Move Earth offensively…”

“Not in the dungeon you can’t, its walls and floor are resistant to that kind of thing. Create earth works though, do you have that one?” Ex asked.

“Yeah, but only at apprentice rank, same as Hasten Decay,” John admitted.

“Alright, well, let’s meet up in town and we can see what works.”

“Okay, see you in about an hour.”

Ending the call John walked over to the Cellar and sealed it, something he now realized he should have done days ago, lest some unscrupulous person try to steal his mana well while he was out. That finished he started off toward town.

The walk was entirely uneventful right up until the end when Sally greeted him.

“HI JOHN!” She exclaimed in typical fashion.

“Hey Sally, how’s it going?”

“It’s great! Ex is holding our place in line, but we’ve gotta hurry because we’ll be up soon!” Sally danced from foot to foot and then started off down the road at a swift pace, forcing John to jog if he wanted to keep up.

“Where is the dungeon? I’ve never seen it before,” he asked as they moved.

“It’s outside town by about a mile, the road splits off to the north,” Sally answered easily as she loped along.

“What should I expect? Ex said Slimes, Rats, and Giant Spiders. What about traps?”

“A couple poorly disguised pit traps on the first couple of levels, the trap door spiders on the third level do double duty.”

As they exited the town, and the danger of running into people, Sally picked up the pace until she realized that John was moving at a full run and couldn’t keep up.

“Sorry! High dex makes you fast!” Sally informed him.

John nodded, and then realized that, despite running full tilt, he didn’t really feel winded. Continuing to run it only took them a few minutes to reach the turn off, and it was perhaps three or four minutes after that they actually reached the dungeon. Slowing to a walk for the last little bit, John found that he was now puffing hard, apparently this was the limit of his current constitution. As they moved toward the long line, he spent time examining the dungeon entrance.

It looked like a large, stone gazebo with two sets of stairs spiraling down into the darkness. The structure itself was decorated with reliefs of monsters and adventurers in many poses, and even some instances of them fighting each other. The entire thing was done in black and white granite.

“Neat huh?!” Asked Sally. “Inside is all shadowy caves though!”

Several heads turned to look as sally and John walked up, and then Excelsior started waving his hands from near the front of the line. There was some mumbling as they moved to join him, but no one outright objected.

“You two had me worried there for a moment, thought I was going to end up going in alone,” Ex commented.

“You wear armor?” John asked, as he took in Ex’s ragged chain mail and heavy mace.

“I am a cleric, you know. Heck, there are actually no armor restrictions, per say, it’s just that most casting classes don’t get it offered as a skill, so they don’t wear it.”

John glanced at sally, who had, at some point, changed into hardened leather. He then looked back toward the dungeon, it looked like they were next. After a few moments the stairs unsealed themselves and Ex hurried through with sally close behind. John followed them.

As they walked down the stairs John got the odd feeling of being split between too places, however it quickly faded.

“What was that?” He asked, looking at Ex.

“The dungeon creating a new Instance, it means we won’t see any other adventurers and all the traps, loot, and monsters will be refreshed,” the elf explained.

John nodded and then looked forward as the stairs came to their end. They stepped out into a large cavern. The ceiling was covered in stalactites, and the occasional stalagmite rose from the uneven floor. A dim illumination seemed to come from all around, throwing deep shadows across the floor and ceiling.

“Alright, Sally and I have formed a party, but we’ve not invited you, because we’d like you to get all the experience. We’re not going to help unless it looks like you’re about to die, then we’ll step in. You shouldn’t have any trouble at all with the slimes, they move slow and are easy to hit.” Ex said.

“Okay,” John replied as he looked around, and then started moving forward cautiously.

It wasn’t long at all before they came across the first slime. It was a dark brown in color and Inspect identified it as a ‘small earth slime’. The slime seemed to sense them and started slowly sliding in their direction, it’s speed no faster than a slow walk.

“Are these like Dungeons and Dragons slimes? Do I need to crush them or what?” John asked.

“Nah! These slimes are like big bags of water! Puncture them and they deflate and die!” Sally explained gleefully.

John looked back to the slime, which had managed to bridge half the distance, and decided to try experimenting. If the slime was full of liquid, a part of that might be water. Taking out his wand he swapped the raw stone for a water stone, and then attempted to take control of the water in the slime.

There was immediate, and hostile resistance, like he was pressing his will against something solid and angry. He pushed against it, and he could feel his firm grip on the mana was making this easier, but it was still like trying to push a boulder up hill. After a few moments he had to give up, the slime was still advancing and he’d managed to do nothing but waste mana. The slime had, by this time, reached him, so he did the only thing he could think of, and kicked it.

It was like kicking a rather spongey ball and the slime went sailing. After a short flight the slime hit the nearby wall and splattered, popping like an overripe melon and painting the wall with a brown goo. As john watched a small rock fell out of the splatter and dropped to the floor below with a quite plop.

“Well that’s one way to do it.” Ex said. “I thought you were going to use magic to be honest.”

“I tried but it felt like I was pushing a boulder up hill,” John admitted. “Apparently you can’t use magic directly inside living creatures.” He then paused and looked at the remains. “Should I pick up the… rock?”

“That’s it’s core!” Sally interjected. “Grandma Loren says they’re used in Alchemy but there’s no alchemists to process them.”

John walked over and plucked the goopy core off the ground, a small amount of mana cleaned it off and he inspected it.

[Name: Earth Slime Core]

[Quality: Poor]

[Description: The core of an Earth slime.]

“Not a very helpful description…”

“Apparently Inspect interacts with other skills to give more information. For instance, if you had Alchemy it’d probably tell you what the core can be used for,” Ex explained.

“Well that could be useful,” John commented and then disappeared the core into his inventory.

As they made their way through the cave John made note of the fungi and moss he found growing. Most didn’t give even a name, and had only the most basic of descriptions. A couple did catch his eye however.

[Name: Tasty Mushroom]

[Quality: Poor]

[Description: Grown for their delicious, savory flavor, these mushrooms are a welcome addition to any chef’s arsenal.]

[Name: Sweet Moss]

[Quality: Poor]

[Description: This moss is known for its sweet and delicate flavor, in addition it’s easy and cheap to grow.]

The mushrooms were everywhere, while he’d only seen one patch of the moss, and he made sure to get samples of both.

“Really? Moss and mushrooms? You got a dark cave to grow them in?” Ex asked as John carefully harvested the moss.

“Not yet I don’t,” John replied with a grin.

“Found another slime!” Sally exclaimed and John hurriedly put away his harvest.

Moving over to join sally he got a look at the new slime, which was another earth slime.

“Are all the slimes the same type?” he wondered aloud.

“Nah, just the ones in this room. The next couple of rooms also have Metal and Crystal slimes, and then The Garden has Herb Slimes. The final room always has a single large slime, but its type varies each time,” Excelsior explained.

Sally had backed away while Ex was explaining, leaving John to deal with the slime on his own. The slime, for its part, didn’t seem to care who it was chasing down, as long as it was chasing someone, and happily squelched toward John once sally had passed outside its perception. John brought his wand up and thought of what he should try next. He still had the water stone out so maybe it was time to try cutting with water? He focused on what he wanted and cast Create Font.

The mana writhed in John’s grasp as he got the distinct feeling that Create Font wasn’t meant for this particular application, and he quickly lost his grip on it, the spell fizzling out without creating any meaningful headway. The slime came doggedly on, oblivious to the proceedings.

With a shake of his wand, john cast Create Font again, this time dropping a small deluge of water on the floor. He followed up with move water to gather it into a globe before him, and once again tried forcing the water to move at high speeds. Once more the mana writhed in his grasp, but this time he was ready for it, and in addition he didn’t get the same sense of wrongness. This spell was meant to move water about, it didn’t care how fast it was going.

The water compressed into a single line and shot forward with all the force of a fire hose, blasting the slime back and into a nearby stalagmite where it exploded like an over-ripe melon. John walked forward and picked up the core, then paused to consider. It had taken too long to conjure and then utilize the water, needing two different casting. Magic might be as quick as you could think and gesture, but that still took time, especially when you had to change from one way of thought to another.

“How long do we have?” John asked, looking over at Ex and Sally.

“I’ve got all day free!” Sally said excitedly.

“I’m in pretty much the same boat.” Ex said.

“Great, I’m gonna need a few minutes to make a couple new spells.” John promptly found a (dry) stalagmite to lean against and started casting spells.

He quickly went through Create Font, Create Earth, Move Earth, and Move Water, doing his best to memorize the runes. He then set to work re-creating them. Once again he was grateful for his increase in Mana Manipulation, as it made the crafting of runes far easier than his original fumbling attempts. Within 20 minutes he’d manage to assemble a rune sequence for Evoke-Move-Earth. Nothing happened. He pushed power into it, still nothing. Frustrated, he let the runes disintegrate and tried with water. After a short time of fiddling he got the same result, nothing.

“Help, why can’t I make a spell that combines movement and creation?” he asked the air.

[Answer: That answer requires the Tutoring Module.]

John let out a frustrated sigh and looked to Ex and Sally.

“Don’t look at me, I’ve got mostly healing in my kit,” Ex said.

“I use force and fire! But I’ve never seen a spell that creates and moves at the same time. Not on my list anyway,” Sally said. “Oh! Maybe that’s another Rule of Magic! No spells that both create and move!”

“That… makes a kind of sense,” Ex agreed after a moment of thought. “If you have to create the material you want first, that definitely slows down the casting rate. It also kind of makes sense, like how create spells have a range of only a few feet, while movement spells can reach further.”

John frowned as he thought it through. “Wouldn’t that mean that things like Move Earth and Move Air are more useful than Move Water and Move Fire?”

“I guess? But it’s harder to kill with air and earth. You have to get them moving fast enough, or compress them enough, or make them sharp enough,” Ex speculated.

“Well, I guess I’m stuck making the water and earth I need. I’m going to need a different Mana stone,” John said contemplatively. He then took the water stone out of his wand. Putting it away he took out a fresh one, along with one of his full earth stones. He divided each stone in half, and then re-combined them into two new stones and inspected the results.

[Name: Small Bi-aspected Earth/Water Mana Stone]

[Quality: Poor]

[Description: A small mana stone that holds earth and water mana, it is of poor quality.]

[Earth Mana: 1,250/1,250]

[Water Mana: 1,250/1,250]

“Wait, that’s a thing?!” Sally exclaimed as Ex looked on incredulously.

“Yup, found that out after I exploded,” John replied as he socketed one of the new stones. “This way I should be able to switch between Earth and Water spells without having to switch the stone.”

They went back to checking the rest of the room, and found two more slimes. The first one John dispatched using a spike of stone and the second he bounced around with high pressure water until it popped. They then proceeded down the short tunnel to the next room, which looked much the same as the first, except it had quartz clusters growing out of the walls.

“The crystal slimes are both faster, and tougher, so watch out for them. Your water trick probably won’t work as well against them,” Ex coached him.

John nodded and then took point, walking carefully into the room and looking about. Slowly he began to explore and soon had found the first slime. This one was flawlessly clear, allowing him to see the diamond like core at its center. As he approached the slime started moving aggressively in his direction at about twice the speed of the earth slimes.

Wasting no time, John brought up his wand and fired a spike of rock at the slime. To his surprise the spindly missile broke on the slime’s exterior, causing it to deform and wobble, but doing no serious damage. Next, he fired a stream of water at it bouncing it across the floor but, as Ex had warned him, doing little else. Still, the stunt had bought him time to try something else.

With a flick of his wand John created a slab of granite half a foot thick. With another flick of his wand the slab went rocketing forward in an arc to come slamming down on the slime. The was a squelching sound and a resounding crack as bits of jelly came spewing out from under the slab.

“NICE!” shouted Sally excitedly.

“But you probably broke the core.” Ex admonished.

John shifted the platform, and sure enough there were glimmering core fragments mixed in with the remaining goop.

“Well, alright, that’s not ideal,” John admitted.

John fought off two more earth slimes before they encountered the next crystal slime. This time he tried bombarding it with half a dozen spikes. The first few broke and bounced off, however the cumulative bombardment seemed to weaken its membrane and the last few broke through, skewering it. The slime slowly deflated as its jelly like innards pushed out the foreign objects and then seeped out. Once it was dead John walked over and retrieved the core, putting it away for later study. After that the room contained only another earth and crystal slime each, both of which John dispatched in mostly the same way.

Before moving on John paused to examine the plants in the room once more, finding a couple more patches of sweet moss and a few more tasty mushrooms. He didn’t bother to collect either this time.

The third room contained even more stalagmites for slimes to hide behind, and the ceiling was thick with stalactites. As they moved through it, they encountered another crystal slime, which John dispatched the same as the others. Then, not long after, they found what appeared to be a large ball of metal.

“And that’s a metal slime.” Ex said, as the ball of metal started swiftly rolling in their direction.

“How can that be a slime! It’s rolling and perfectly spherical,” John grumbled.

His first few attempts to kill the slime merely pinged off, the rock not doing anything to the metal shell except leaving a few scratches. His water caused it to divert off course but also failed to make any meaningful headway.

“How do you guys kill these things?”

“I catch them and crunch them!” Sally mimicked crushing a ball in her hands.

“I let sally catch them and crunch them,” Ex said shamelessly.

John spared a glance for the two, then repeated his flying stone trick. The slime deformed slightly and got caught under the weight, unable to roll away. John continued to bear down on the stone until, with the sound of tearing foil, the slime finally split, its innards spewing out. Releasing the pressure with a sigh john picked up the core.

“How many of those are there?”

“Two or three in this room,” Ex explained. “But hey, that was almost challenging for you, you might have gotten some xp!”

“What do you mean might?!” John exclaimed.

“We think you don’t get xp if it’s not dangerous enough!” Sally said enthusiastically.

“Great…” John grumbled as he moved forward, skirting an obvious pit trap.

The rest of the room turned out to contain three more crystal slimes, and two more metal slimes. The crystal slimes were fairly easily dispatched, though the metal slimes had to be trapped and crunched again. Fortunately John didn’t damage any more cores. Finished scouring the room, they moved on to the next.

Entering the fourth chamber it became immediately apparent to John why it was called ‘The Garden’ by Ex and Sally. The entire floor of the room was covered in a thick, lush grass, interspersed with patches of flowers and other plants. Through it all meandered a small river while in the ceiling above was a large cluster of shining crystals.

“Wow,” John said as he looked around.

“Pretty cool right? We’re pretty sure there are a lot of alchemical plants in here, but without any way to identify them…” Ex trailed off with a shrug.

“Well, we already found two plants that I might be able to farm, maybe we can identify a few more? Though I don’t know how I’m going to get seeds from anything in here…” John considered as he eyed some nearby plants.

They began circling the room in a counter-clockwise direction, examining the plants as they went. They hadn’t moved very far when an emerald green slime hopped out of a nearby bush and slid across the grass toward them.

“Herb slime!” Sally exclaimed and pointed, just in case either John or Ex had missed it.

John brought up his wand and speared it with a few spikes, causing it to deflate. As it oozed all over the nearby plants they visibly became more vibrant and grew slightly.

“Is that normal?” he asked as he examined the grass and flowers.

[Name: Grass]

[Quality: Good]

[Description: Typical short grass as may be found in many parts of the empire.]

[Name: Flower]

[Quality: Good]

[Description: A plant with multiple, brightly colored petals.]

While the descriptions held little of interest, the quality descriptor was another matter. The other nearby flowers and grass all showed a quality of Poor.

“What? The grass growing? Yeah that happens every time,” Ex said apparently unconcerned.

“OH! OH! It’s magic fertilizer!” Sally exclaimed as she hopped up and down.

“Yeah, but… how am I going to harvest it? Gonna need people to capture these guys whole and then squeeze the ooze out of them into some kind of container,” John said as he fished out an emerald green core.

“I mean, if you offer people money for it, they’ll figure it out,” Ex said.

John nodded and they started off again. Aside from a few more herb slimes, which were dispatched as readily as the first, they found a half dozen common herbs that John was sure he could grow; though he was also sure they were probably common enough he could likely get them from the other farmers. After a full circuit of the cave they still hadn’t found anything significant, but John had killed three more of the herb slimes.

“This cave seems a bit less dangerous than the others,” John commented.

“Yeah, we’re not sure why. The herb slimes do give a slight paralysis debuff, but it’s barely numbing, so that can’t be the reason. Might be something tied to the plants, but none of have bothered to harvest them for obvious reasons,” Ex explained.

“Hmmm,” John considered as they headed for the exit.

They skirted a pit trap in the final tunnel and then exited into a large, well lit room with a smooth, even floor and a rocky ceiling free of stalactites. The room was, for all appearances, empty and Ex stopped them just inside.

“Alright, this is the boss room, there’s going to be one giant slime, it could be any of the types we’ve seen, or something completely random. So don’t freak out if like, a blood slime or something shows up,” he explained.

“Wait, are blood slimes a thing?” John asked.

Sally just shrugged and Ex made a so-so gesture.

Sighing, John stepped into the room. The sound of grinding instantly filled the area as the entrance closed behind them. Then, in the center of the room, rose a field of bright lights, which seemed to dance and swirl around each other. After a few moments, the lights converged, creating one point of unbearable brightness which winked out almost immediately as the body of a person sized slime formed.

The slime was dark black with deep lines of red and orange covering its craggy shell, portions of which occasionally broke off and were subsumed by the fiery liquid underneath. John triggered inspect.

[Name: Large Magma Slime]

[Quality: Good]

[Description: An elemental slime that embodies earth and fire.]

As he read the information the slime jumped into action. Moving at a brisk jogging pace the slime began to quickly close the gap between them. Ex, John, and Sally all scattered. Ex and Sally to the left, John to the right. The slime started following John, who came to a halt as he neared the edge of the cavern. Turning he brought up his wand and started creating streams of water which he then switched to firing at the slime.

With each stream that struck, a loud hissing and cracking sound could be heard, even as puffs of steam came off the slime. For its part, the slime slowed down noticeably every time it was hit. John, seeing he was making little headway, increased the volume of the water, creating a large deluge which he then moved to surround it. A violent burst of steam blew scalding water away from the slime as its entire outer skin turned into a hard crust. However, John could already see it cracking, so he clamped more water around it, this time keeping a tighter control as it tried to blast off.

The sizzle and hiss of steam on stone resounded throughout the cavern and the slime came to a total stop, its body now too ridged to support the type of movement it’d been using. John let the water fall to the floor, and watched for a few moments. The slime was clearly still alive as small patches started to heat up again, but now seemed to be the time to strike. With a gesture and a thought he created a stone about as big as he was and sent it careening at breakneck speeds.

There was a resounding crack as stone met stone, and the entire outer shell of the slime shattered, causing molten slime to spew out all over the floor. John hastily scrambled back, only to find the wall behind him. He started dancing from foot to foot as the hot goo encroached quickly upon him. As the molten slime got closer, he finally remembered he was holding a wand, and dropped a small lakes worth of water on it.

The resulting steam was little cooler than the slime it had hardened, but it was quick in passing and left John feeling only slightly boiled, rather than truly burned. Looking out over the cave he could see that Ex and Sally had gotten far enough away to have never been in any danger. With a thought and a flick, he dropped water on the remaining glowing patches of slime. One glowing patch in particular caught his eye when it failed to be extinguished, and he moved to get a better look.

[Name: Magma Slime Core]

[Quality: Good]

[Description: The core of a Magma Slime]

Managing to extricate the core with a little effort, John then moved to join Sally and Ex.

“Okay, I’ll be honest. I have no idea how we would have defeated a magma slime without getting really burned in the process,” Ex admitted.

“I bet I could have clawed it to death! Besides, you’d be there to heal me afterward!” Sally interjected.

“So… aren’t we supposed to get loot or something?” John asked.

“Yep, over there,” Ex pointed to a blank section of the wall.

Even as John looked, a section began to lower, reveling a tiny chest on a pedestal.

“That’s… smaller than I imagined…” John said hesitantly.

“Did you ever actually feel challenge?” Ex asked.

“Not really,” John admitted.

“Less challenge, less reward.”

John nodded and moved to the pedestal. The ‘chest’ was actually the size of a jewelry box, made entirely of stone, with the exception of metal hinges, the box was plain and unadorned. Opening it revealed five mana shards.

“Well I guess that’s not terrible. Five mana shards is 50 copper,” John admitted as he collected them. “How are we dividing the loot?”

“It’s all yours, you did all the heavy lifting on this floor,” Ex said.

“Yeah! But we’re charging you if we have to help on the next floor!” Sally said with a grin.

John smiled back at her as he pocketed the shards. “Alright then.”

Another grinding sound signaled the opening of a new passage, revealing a set of stairs going up, and a set going down.

“Down?” John asked.

“Down!” Ex and Sally confirmed.