Chapter 16: Searing light | Contact Lethe kept watching as the group of adventurers ran for cover, wondering how they had known to do so. Looking at his [Mutated Acid Slime] though, he was able to easily piece together the puzzle. The tiny little dew-drops on the surface of the slime's body were actually spinning while the slime itself kept shrinking into itself. For the first time in a while, Lethe didn't care what happened to the little group of adventurers anymore; he was far more excited to see the skill in action. When he had first seen it in his mob list, he had no idea it would take such a long time to gather itself. Perhaps an improvement in the base slime type would improve the lethality of it, as it was somewhat evident that it wouldn't be able to hit any of the adventurer's after they took cover. Soon enough, the slime stopped shrinking and without pause, ballooned into its previous mass. The drops of acid that were just before attached to the slime's body were shot out everywhere, spinning small globs of corrosive fluids, pockmarking the cavern with dots. The speed at which they were shot out was nothing to scoff at either, as the projectiles started to melt through the obstacles that were in its way, albeit much slower after going out the other side. Unfortunately for [Jones and Folks], that meant their hastily found shelters were not enough for them to escape unscathed from the massive attack. As the [Acid Rain] dissolved the stones, rock, and various other substances of the cavern, steam began to rise, floating into the cavern, creating a sizable mist. Alongside the mist, groans and yelps of pain emerged from almost all of the party members. Surprisingly, the only one unaffected was the [Shieldbearer], not because of any skill in his part, Lethe observed, but simply due to luck. The group of rocky pillars he decided to shelter behind were closely knit together, and most of the acid was unable to even pass through the stone. In contrast, their only healer, seemed to be faring the worst, mostly due to his hiding spot not giving him enough cover and also poking his head out of cover while the skill was ongoing. The man now had burns on his right cheek, a couple of spots on his arms, and various other places, judging by the state of his disheveled robes. The rest of the party were hit, each of them having a couple of burns on their backs or thighs, and the actual damage seemed to be limited. Looking at the scene in front of him though, Lethe guessed that the primary damage from this skill came from difficulty in avoiding the area of effect and the agonizing burns, which also seemed to be particularly hard to heal, evidenced by the number of [Mend]s the [Acolyte] has had to cast on himself. Overall though, Lethe was pleased with what he had seen. This was a boss fight that he could get behind since it didn't seem to be as difficult as he had thought it might be but still had its dangers. He could easily see another party reacting much more different to the set of moves the [Mutated Acid Slime] had unleashed, where they were more than likely to charge in to attack rather than use caution and hide. Removing himself from his fantasies, for now, Lethe once more focused on the group, who were already leaving their cover and heading back towards the fight, the [Shieldbearer] once more drawing the monster's attention with an attack followed by a sizeable [Bash] with his shield, actually knocking back the gelatinous monster a few feet. As horrible as acid burns were, Jones thought they were actually quite lucky to have made it out of that attack as well as they did. The cavern itself was now pockmarked by coin-sized holes from the massive AoE skill the boss had presumably released and the fact that they were all actually still alive was a blessing in itself. As the battle played out, the healer himself continued to shoot sporadic [Radiance]s towards the mob, while healing the party, except for George, of the burns. They would definitely have to upgrade from their crappy equipment once they were back at the outpost. Soon enough, the rest of the party was ready to start dishing out damage once more, although, Jones noted, it seemed that they had passed a threshold. The [Acid Slime], which had previously been content in using 2 massive club-like appendages to crush their valiant tank, had upgraded to its presumably, hopefully, the maximum number of limbs of 4, each pair working in conjunction to keep George pinned and taking bruises one after the other. The man would probably be all black and blue after this encounter, although whether they would survive it was still up in the air. The [Acid Slime] itself had shrunken somewhat, to around 4 meters in size after another opportune [Backstab] from James, who was currently trying his best to aid George in distracting the gelatinous appendages from making him into a paste. Jones knew that if they didn't pick up their damage per second, they were more likely to exhaust themselves to early death than conquer this boss. "Boys, Ima start Plan B-eaaam hahaha!! I'm gonna start searing this oversized pudding, should give y'all enough time to attack it all ya want, let's bring it down!" Jones yelled, feeling his blood boil in his ears in anticipation. Without bothering to make sure if everyone heard him or not, Jones focused on his skills and started to chant a [Prayer] before overlapping it with the lines for [Radiance]. As his chant reached the crescendo, a beam of searing white light escaped from the end of his staff, as if the gods themselves were smiting down the massive jelly. The beam traveled from the end of his staff, burning and tearing into the slime's membrane, digging into its gooey insides while Jones himself felt his mana pool draining with each second he continued to maintain the cast. While he had to keep the majority of his focus on maintaining the spell, Jones was able to witness the appendages of the slime moving at a now much more glacial pace, as if the intelligence controlling it was distracted, giving the melee combatants of his party enough time to get past the limbs and start attacking the body. Each slash, blast, stab, bash, and puncture seemed to make the slime shrink, and before long, it was small enough for Jones's beam of light to penetrate one of the floating cores and shoot out of the other end of the slime before dissipating. Jones himself, seeing that a core had been destroyed, was unable to maintain his focus anymore, nor the cost from his pool, and let the chant dissipate. Leaning against a column of rock, he puffed and panted, as if he had walked a marathon alongside a growing headache he knew he would have to face sooner rather than later from using so much mana at once. As for the boss itself, with one of its cores destroyed, it seemed to sink back in on itself in fear, shrinking far quicker with every attack. As Jones kept observing the fight, now reduced to a spectator due to his absence of resources, he noted that the monster seemed to be on its last legs, now less than a quarter of its original size. Jones had never heard of a slime with two cores before, but it seemed that there wasn't anything too special about them other than its ability to attack multiple people; although that skill it had used in the middle to rain acid everywhere was intimidating; however, he did notice that the slime seemed more solid than before, albeit smaller. Before he could continue his line of thought though, he saw James lunge in for a [Double Fang], intending to finish off the mob, and a shred of fear crossed his mind. Before he could react, the slime enlarged in size almost instantly and engulfed James, half of his body inside the slime before he could even react. A shrill scream escaped from the throat of his brother as he instinctively used [Retreat], having to let go of one of his knives, before being able to just free his arm. Unfortunately, his left leg seemed to be stuck in there, the leather boot he wore on it melting faster than any of them could react. Suddenly, Jones saw a figure barrel past James, grab his torso and charge away from the horrible monster. And before the monster could do anything further, a [Force] enhanced [Split Shot] (let's face it, [Force] is broken) penetrated the monster and was finally able to pierce through the last core. Jones watched as the core broke into pieces inside of the slime, the gelatinous monstrous gloop stilled before slowly dissolving into a puddle, green motes of mana escaping from the membrane and leaving behind a sizeable amount of coins, a few bottles of some form of potion, and a small greenish leather-bound book. Forgetting the boss monster that they were finally able to vanquish, Jones focused on the figure carrying James towards him, which he finally seemed to realize was actually George. Suddenly, sounds came rushing back into his head as Jones broke out of his fugue state, finally understanding that he had [Mana Exhaustion] for the last couple of minutes, which seemed to only now alleviate. Looking at the left-side of James's body, Jones saw that most of his leather armor, gloves, and especially the boot, was nothing more than scraps, with lines of acid burns covering the areas where the slime was able to dissolve the material fast enough. The man himself continued to moan in pain as George carried him towards us, not even bothering to look back towards the boss, only eager to get his brother healed as fast as possible. "Bring 'im here George but give me a sec, think I just went through [Mana Exhaustion], was outta my mind for a while," Jones said, indicating a spot next to where he was leaning against. "Harry, mind getting that loot and keeping watch. We're not sure if that's the last thing we'll face here but I wanna make sure." he continued to instruct, the [Trapper] himself nodding and heading out to grab the loot. George gave a slight nod to him, continuing to carry James over to the spot he indicated. "Ya know, we prolly should've--" [Greetings [Jones and Folks]! I am Lethe, the [Core] for this dungeon!] A sudden green box appeared in Jones's mind's eye, similar to when he would interact with the system. Looking at the rest of the party, it seemed it wasn't just him that saw it! [You all have been splendid in getting this far, have shown excellent coordination with your brothers, and the caution necessary to clear my first floor!] [As a reward to you all, I will let you all know a little secret! The chest at the end of this floor contains a surprise. Be quick on your feet and keep your eyes out, don't let IT get away!] And as sudden as the boxes appeared, they vanished from the group's vision. "That wasn't an illusion, was it?" John, the [Hedge Mage], asked, rubbing his eyes and face. "Nope, I saw the boxes. Quick on our feet....what the hell does that mean?!" George replied, crossing the final distance between himself and Jones, depositing their injured companion. The man himself seemed to be breathing heavier than before, and before the injuries could worsen, Jones went ahead and started to cast [Mend] on the worst burns. "Well, I think that cleared our quest, don't y'all think" Jones replied, a small smile on his face even while he was wincing at the injuries he was slowly mending. His mana pool had barely recovered enough for him to stabilize James but it was evident that he would need much more healing. "Before we do any o' that though, think we should rest up. Since the [Core] already told us, we should be safe right here." "Aye" Harry replied, crouching down and retrieving the loot from the boss they had just defeated. "Guys, we hit the jackpot! This looks like a skill book!" he excitedly replied, waving the small greenish leather book before packing it up and moving back towards the group. "Rest first Harry. We'll have plenty of time to go over it." Jones said, sitting down on the floor and leaning back against the stalagmite beside him.