Neil

Shassala and I made a quick stop at camp, I wanted to get a few things. Taking off my shorts I replaced them with my jeans. The denim was a little thicker than the shorts and would hopefully be a little more more resistant to damage, there was also the fact that they covered all of my legs which seemed safer. After that I attached my hunting knife to my belt and put the folding knife in my pocket. After that I poured the health potion into my smaller water bottle which I placed in my bag. The potion was lumpy and didn’t go in very easily and I spilled a fair bit of it, but it was still better than nothing. I then put a small handful of Moon Berry seeds in my pocket.

Standing up I checked the tip of my spear making sure it was as sharp as it was going to be. Seeing that it still kinda sucked but at least it was something I stood up. Shassala had already grabbed her bow and arrow and was checking the belts she wore making sure she had everything she needed.

Quickly putting my other water bottle in my bag along with my first aid kit, and some food I felt as ready as I ever would. I knew I could fit more in my bag, but I really didn’t want to carry too much, just some emergency supplies in case this trip took longer than I thought it would.

Together the two of us walked with a spring in my step and an extra sway in Shassalas slither towards the building. When we arrived I stopped outside found the Night Eye grass and pulled a few handfuls and placed them in my bag. That done I turned on my flashlight. While the sun was out and the building was fairly well illuminated I wanted to be certain there wasn’t anything on the ceiling or hiding in the corners.

Shassala despite having been almost vibrating in excitement a few minutes ago very suddenly became serious as soon as she took an arrow out and knocked it in her bow, but when she saw the flashlight turn on she got a giddy expression on her face, grabbed my arm and pulled my hand and the light towards herself to get a better look at it.

“Wow! What is it?” She asked.

Explaining what it was quickly she let go of my hand and beamed another smile at me. Trying not to blush I took a deep breath and steadied myself.

Stepping into the building with my flashlight in one hand and spear at the ready in the other was a tense experience for me. I didn’t think I had PTSD from a shitty desert food, but well these things got the jump on me two times, I wasn’t going to let it be a third time.

Checking the ceiling above the door as I walked in, I was happy to see that it was clear. Just as the rest of the ceiling in this room was. Walking through the room with Shassala right behind me we checked all of the corners and even under some of the ruble for any slimes or other monsters. Approaching the doorway to the 2nd room I stopped beside the door and listened.

Shassala moved her head closer to me and listened as well. I was pretty sure that I could hear distant running water, I was just about to motion to Shassala to follow me when she held up one finger, then pointed in the direction of the room and to the ceiling. She must have heard one.

Nodding that I understood I stood in front of the door way and fanned the light along the room until I saw the slime hanging from the ceiling. It had squelched itself down into a smaller form and it looked like it was ready to jump at anything that came near it. As I flashed it with the light it started moving towards me on the roof ignoring gravity.

Propping my spear against the wall I quickly picked up a fist sized rock. I looked at the surprisingly quick snot monster and threw the rock at it. Although the light shifted I could see that I managed to hit it in its middle. With a splork sound the slime fell to the ground and splashed a fair amount of itself all over the floor. Although it started moving towards us again, I thought that it may be moving a little slower than before.

Quickly picking up one more rock I threw it at the slime and again managed to hit it just off its center. The splat of the rock hitting the slime and the rock subsequently small explosion of its body was incredibly satisfying. Picking up my spear I backed up from the doorway as Shassala took aim and hit it dead center with an arrow.

By now the monster was starting to look pretty rough. The three holes we had knocked in it seemed to be leaking fluid and the slime was deflating pretty quickly. As Shassala pulled out another arrow and got ready to shoot it I transferred my spear to my left hand with my flashlight and pulled out a few Moon Berry seeds from my pocket.

“Stand back.” I said to Shassala, showing her the seeds. She looked at them incredulously before I threw them at the slime, grabbing Shassala by the arm I pulled us back. I honestly had no idea what was going to happen, the description on the seed just said stomach-aches and diarrhea so probably nothing since I wasn’t even sure if slimes had stomachs or could shit. The two of us were now about 10 feet from the doorway and I turned around to look at it.

Before it could follow us any further it stopped, and began to sweat. At first I thought it had just taken too much damage but then I realized that this was how slimes get stomach problems. Soon it started quivering and shaking, then the slime started oozing fluid out of the holes that Shassala and I put in it a few moments later and it just deflated and seemed to melt as we watched.

With a ding a small window opened in front of me. Knowing that I was the only person able to see them I tried to keep my expression neutral as I read it.

For defeating a SMALL SLIME with thrown weapons your THROWING SKILL and your and you HERBALISM SKILL has improved, continue to practice or seek out lessons for further improvements!

Looking at Shassala I smiled at her and pumped my fist a little. She looked pretty unimpressed with me but hell this was my first time having a flawless victory when fighting one of these things so I was pretty excited. I guess my enthusiasm must have been a little catching because I did see a small smile.

Getting my spear and flashlight ready again I stepped forwards into the room avoiding the steaming and bubbling puddles of slime on the ground. Casting the light from the flashlight around the room I checked the ceiling, ground and all of the corners twice before I walked in Shassala following me with her bow drawn again.

As we approached the hole in the center of the room Shassala started talking out loud. I still couldn’t catch everything but the words I did know were ones like, “big, amazing and wow.” Pointing the flashlight down the hole we looked at the stairs leading straight down.

The stairs were about 3 feet wide and had no railing. They were very shallow stairs and their incline was fairly steep, I felt a little unsteady walking down them. Looking at them I asked Shassala, “Are you ok going up and down these?”

Shassala bent down and ran her hands over the stone while looking at them, looking up she said. “No problem.”

I wasn’t entirely sure I believed her, but we would just have to be careful and take out time. Because I had the flashlight I decided to go first and I slowly led the way for us.

Walking down the steps I knew that we couldn’t be stealthy with the flashlight giving us away but it still seemed like my foot falls were echoing far more than they should in the dark shadows.

As we descended the air was getting cooler and cooler and the walls of the stone were almost cold to the touch. After walking for what felt like 10 minutes I finally looked down and saw something far below us. It was a small amount of light pouring into a doorway.

“Neil look!” Shassala said while pointing, having spotted the light at the same time as I had.

“I think we’re halfway there. Lets hurry up a little I want to get out of this stairwell.” Although stairwell was in English Shassala understood from the context and agreed with me. Now that we could see some light in front of us we hurried our pace a little while still checking for slimes or anything else that might want to eat us.

With our renewed pace we reached the bottom of the stairs without incident pretty quickly. As we made it to the bottom we saw the light was coming from a small doorway in the stairwell we were standing in. Looking through the doorway was enough to take our breaths away.

“Wow.” Shassala said breathlessly.

“Yeah, wow.” I repeated somewhat dumbly.

In front of us was an entire cavern that seemed to take up most of the inside of the mountain. We were standing on top of what looked to be a manmade structure looking down into it the cavern. The light was coming from a small flickering light post beside the door. While it may not have been very tall, the light it cast was strong enough to get an idea of what lay before us. We were standing on the roof of what looked like a large building. The roof had obviously been designed for foot traffic as there were still the remains of rusted wrought iron fences partitioning out a path along the roof towards a doorway at the far end. On the other side of the fence was a roof that was a sharp angle down leading into darkness.

Looking over the edge of the roof we saw that we were standing on a stone building and looking over the edges there was nothing but blackness as far as we could see. Even shining my light up I couldn’t see any sign of the top of the mountain or any walls, just pitch-black emptiness. The only light that was there was from the one still working lamp, several others on the roof were still standing but not even flickering.

The two of us were brought out of our trances when we spotted three large rat like creatures walking towards us from the far end of the roof. Walking towards us in short jerky movements on 8 short stubby legs that came out of their torso like a spiders. They were not spider legs however, they were rats legs. Some of the legs were facing towards us, but others were facing other random directions.

They were about the size of a bull dog, probably 30-40 pounds, they were mostly covered in a matted greasy fur but their faces were bare. They had small snouts and mouths filled with jagged teeth with small beady eyes.

Two of the rats had weeping pustules and warts on their faces, but the leading one didn’t. As they lurched towards us Shassala fired an arrow at the leading one and managed to hit it just off its face in its neck.

Unfortunately it just started hissing at us rather than dying. The hissing sounded like a cross between an angry mountain lion and a garbage disposal that had something stuck in it.

“What are they?” I asked

MUTATED RATS

These are the descendants of normal rats that have been exposed to Magic and Taint for centuries. Now monsters they are wild and aggressive and will attack anything that approaches them.

As Shassala readied another arrow I dropped my flashlight where I stood andwalked forwards with my spear held in front of me in both hands. Thrusting it into the rat creatures face I was pretty disappointed to see that instead of spearing the animal all I really did was bludgeon it in the face pretty ineffectually.

Shit. This was the worst spear ever.

The rat snarled at me prepared to leap towards me but as its muscles tensed in for the jump I readied myself as well and dove to the side just as it jumped towards me.

Crashing into the fence I knocked part of it over and it slid down the sloped roof before falling into the darkness. In a detached sort of way I expected to hear a sound from below, but instead heard a far eerier silence.

Getting up as quickly as I could I was now in the middle of the three rat creatures. Throwing down my spear I pulled out my hunting knife and turned towards the rat that had just missed me with its leap. Jumping onto its back I bowled it over and started stabbing with my knife.

The rat began thrashing and making a terrible high pitched squealing sound, while it thrashed and tried to bite at my arms and anything it could get a hold of. Throwing myself off of the creature I landed on the ground in the middle of the roof. Getting up as quickly as I could I kicked the injured monster and its legs collapsed causing it to fall over the edge, sliding down the roof towards the darkness below.

Holding my knife in front of me I turned in time to see the other two rats rushing me.

One of the rats had two arrows sticking out of its side and as I watched a third arrow slammed into its neck causing it to stumble and slow but not stop its charge. Turning my attention to the closest rat I crouched low as I prepared it to jump at me. Normally I would just dive out of the way but with Shassala right behind me if I did that it would just maul her instead.

As it jumped at me I fell backwards and stabbed up at it my knife scoring a long deep cut across its stomach. Feeling the warm blood splashing on my face I turned my head to the side and closed my eyes to try and keep the blood out of my eyes. Although I succeeded I could feel my face covered in the gore.

Kicking it off of me it landed limply on the ground beside me. Standing up once again I looked at the rat and found it pathetically crawling on the ground, its stomach opened up and leaking blood while making a blood curdling squealing noise. I turned around just in time to see Shassala downing the last rat with a sixth arrow.

Breathing heavily I leaned down and stabbed the rat in the neck trying to put it out of its misery but I must have missed because this just caused it to squeal even louder. Stabbing it again and again eventually I succeeded in quieting the beast. Picking up my flashlight I looked at Shassala who was staring at me with concern in her eyes.

“Are you ok?” She asked.

“I think so.” I said sucking in a shuddering breath trying not to start shaking.Shassala patted me on the shoulders, then gently took my knife and slid over to the rat that she had pin cushioned and with one smooth motion cut its throat ending its misery.

Coming back over to me she handed me my knife again and said. “Can you continue?”

I considered for a moment how much of a badass she was and nodded yes.

Looking at my arms I saw some fairly deep scratches that were bleeding but aside from that I was unharmed. Shassala took the healing potion out of my backpack looked at me and said. “Just a little, no more than this. OK?”

I nodded yes and watched as she poured some of the healing potion onto the scratches they closed almost immediately. “Try not to get hurt, more potion... bad for you.” she said judging by the words I recognized and the context of our conversation.

I took a moment to get my head together and Shassala retrieved as many arrows from the mutated rats as she could.

Picking up my flashlight I held it in one hand and I put my knife back in the sheath on my belt. Walking over to the wrought iron fence I grasped one of the bars and tested it by shaking it. Finding one that was fairly loose I gripped it and pulled as hard as I could. With a groan it came loose from the fence and I was left holding a 4-foot long piece of iron as thick as my thumb. The ends weren’t sharp but it was solid and heavy and I felt a lot more comfortable carrying this than my home-madespeareven if it made using my flashlight difficult.

The two of us walked across the roof towards the large open doors of the house, our hearts beating in our chests looking for adventure.