He expected the weapon to have terrible recoil, over-tightening his grip to compensate, but the kick of the handgun was barely noticeable with his increased STR. The bullet erupted out of the barrel, the bang echoing almost instantly in the narrow room. The noise was so intense in the underground stone chamber that Robin’s eyes vibrated painfully in his skull. His world became a ceaseless, all-encompassing roar.

The bullet struck true, slamming into the center of the slime core. It erupted in a sphere of vivid blue light, the slime around it splattered away. Robin fired again before the light had fully vanished, cocking the hammer with the butt of the palm of his other hand. Another bullet slammed into the slime core, leavin another MANA explosion. Robin cocked the hammer and fired again.

As Robin pulled the trigger back, the slime abruptly fell off or let go of what it was holding on to on the ceiling, plopping into a massive pile of gelatinous acid. The shot went wide, tearing a jagged hole in the slime and erupting on the wall behind it, lighting the room in stark blue for a moment. The quivering mass was leaking a translucent liquid a bit more fluidic than the rest of the slime’s folds.

The slime oozed towards him, flowing in a way that reminded him more of syrup than water. Robin scrambled backwards, grasping the revolver with both hands, cocking the hammer. Fully in the hallway, Robin steadied his breath and aimed the long handgun, staring down the top of the barrel as he lined it up with the slime core.

It moves kind of predictably… I might (will) be out of options if it corners me, but it seems like I should be able to kite it. To where, exactly? And the target is nice and big… Breathe in, breathe out…

Robin squeezed the trigger, and the gun roared, a strangely distant sound. Robin knew as he fired that it was a good shot; he could feel it in his core.

Instead of the blue burst from his MANA bullets, however, the bullet struck the center of the core and seemed to splatter over it, like a paintball hitting a brick wall. It left a tiny black splatter mark, but didn’t seem to have any other effect. It kind of looks like an edgy version of the Nickelodeon logo, Robin thought to himself as he cocked the hammer and backed up several steps, leveling his aim to fire again. He pulled the trigger and fired, the expected blue explosion splattering slime away from top of the core. The slime trembled as it oozed forwards, but didn’t seem to mind the attack otherwise..

Robin cocked the gun and lifted his arm to aim. As he did, he noticed a thin tendril of slime that was still connected to the ceiling, going towards the center of the room. Robin adjusted his aim to the tendril and fired, the tendril immediately snapping. As the two pieces recoiled, he could see crackles of electricity arcing between them briefly, while the main body seemed to vibrate, slowing the advance slightly. Robin backed up down the hallway, glancing up for Opal.

She was behind him on the ceiling. She seemed to have no issue with a strategy that involved running away, thankfully.

Robin looked back at the slime and was startled to see that it was much closer than he had expected. He backed up quickly, yanking the revolver up to aim. He let out his breath and took the shot.

His shot hit the black spot dead in the center, but he didn’t see the explosion he assumed would follow. He stared, confused. What just happened? That was my last shot! I can refill two, but if they don’t work on the slime, I won’t… I guess I should add two more bullets. He focused on pouring his MANA into the revolver, feeling two small increases in weight.

The slime was burbling up the hallway much more rapidly. The destruction of the dangling tentacle seemed to have enraged it, insofar as he thought it could feel rage. Robin backed up rapidly, aiming the revolver at the approaching slime.

The bullet caught the slime on the side of the core, erupting slime outwards in a grotesque fountain, but it didn’t seem to damage the core very much. Robin steeled himself and readied to fire again. Last bullet, unless I make more…

He steeled himself, then forced himself to relax, despite the mass of acidic jelly gushing towards him. He pulled the trigger, his bullet smashing directly into the convenient bulls-eye provided by the black splotch. Like before, his bullet vanished, seemingly to no effect. What…! That’s not fair!

The slime stopped moving, the liquidy insides contained by the tough gelatinous cell wall sloshing around wildly. As Robin stared, nervously checking his MANA, the black splotch began spreading like a vein, rapidly circling the entire metal sphere. The sphere began to crack open, the blackness radiating outward like oil leaking from an oceanic pipe.

Robin cheered mentally, watching the metal core slowly crack into two pieces. The cracking noise was muffled through the mass of the slime, but he could still hear the metallic ringing.

The core finished cracking, and both pieces fell to the side, sinking to the bottom of the slime to rest against the ground. Robin noticed they were not dissolving. Too dense? Or maybe it’s just already been purified by whatever quasi-magical acid the slime is made of…

There was a smaller core left behind, a hunk of whitish metal the size of a grapefruit.

Robin groaned, pumping the five MANA he had recovered into making a new bullet. He felt the bullet condense into the chamber and raised the handgun immediately, taking a breath and releasing it before firing.

The bullet erupted on the core, splattering slime onto the wall, but the core was unharmed. The slime surged at Robin, moving at the speed of a running dog. Robin turned and ran, mentally cursing his Peak Human title for withholding the bonuses to his movement. He ran towards the elevator, yelling for Opal to follow him. As he reached the elevator he hit the “up” button, and after a moment of hesitation, pulled open the fuse cabinet. His eyes found the formerly bright-red key plugged into the safety override. He knew it was not safe for it to be there under normal circumstances, but he was glad for the oddly cheap touches for which the original owner of the building had opted. He clicked the key over to “OFF”, and the restraint-feet that held the elevator in place on each floor slowly wheezed into the wall.

Opal had already made it into the elevator, so he slammed the door shut even as the elevator started to rise. Unfortunately, he did not have the time to shut the outer door to the elevator shaft, and it would not shut on its own with the safeties being disengaged. The slime was bubbling into the open elevator shaft, following the prey that had harmed the core.

Robin eyed the elevator’s lights above. The elevator was moving slightly faster than it normally did, but it kept jerking oddly as it ground the remaining spiders against the wall.

He looked through the grate of the floor. The slime was rising slowly, the sides of the slime pressing against the walls of the elevator shaft and slowly propelling it upward. Pieces of spiders kept falling into the ooze, dissolving within seconds.

The light clicked to the top floor, and Robin yanked the door open, then the outer door. The hallway was empty save for a small splatter of what looked like blood at the far end.

Good enough.

“Opal, get out here! Wait for me, okay?” He looked at her, focusing on the idea of what he meant, hoping he was getting through to her. She stared at him for a moment and then climbed out of the elevator and onto the ceiling of the hallway, out of sight. Robin sighed and looked up at the top of the elevator. The spider bits had given him an idea.

The top of the elevator had a small trap door, a metal grated thing that had obviously seldom been opened, by the amount of uncracked paint over the hinges.. It had a space for a lock, but was held closed by a zip tie that had barely been fastened. Robin withdrew the Machete of the Dark and slipped it through the loop, cutting it. He hopped on the guard-rail of the elevator wall and pressed upward on the gate, leaning out over the center of the elevator.

The trapdoor opened with extreme complaints, the squeaking echoing even over the sounds of the elevator settling and the bubbling noise from the ascending slime. Robin tossed his machete onto the roof of the elevator, then hopped up and grabbed the edge, pulling himself on top. He picked up his machete and looked at the elevator cables.

Here goes…!

“Delay Reaction!”, he shouted at the cables, following his words with a swing of the machete. He swung it over and over again, hacking at the cable. The impacts were odd; they registered to his mind like he was hitting a pillow with a bat, but his arms felt like his target was a metal post - they were ringing and aching after the first blow. He kept hacking anyway, attacking the cable until his PHYSTAM began to droop below half.

I hope this works, haven’t tried this yet…

Robin focused on ending the Delay Reaction effect he had placed on the cable, directing his willpower at it with all the intensity of a terrified fourteen year-old. He felt a slight snap within his mind, and the ancient cables suddenly snapped, suffering the cuts of several dozen machete blows all at once. Robin fell with it, barely managing to catch the edge of the open door to the ground floor with his free hand. He looked down, desperately peering over his shoulder just in time to see the elevator hit the slime.

The metal grating of the elevator hit the slime like a cheese grater on jello, immediately opening up scores of cuts, the cheap, badly-maintained metal began to dissolve immediately.

It was not fast enough to dissolve the floor before the elevator hit the ground. As it struck, the elevator crumpled on itself, sending a billow of dust pluming up the elevator shaft. A notification appeared, but the dust immediately got in Robin’s eyes, nose, and mouth, causing him to choke, almost losing his grip on the ledge. He tossed his machete over the ledge and onto the ground of the main floor, hearing it clatter on the stone. He reached his other hand to grab the ledge and pull himself up, struggling to contain his coughing for just a moment longer. The cable to the cut elevator was slowly unspooling itself in the dust cloud, falling to the bottom of the shaft as gravity unwound it.

As the cable unspooled more of itself, the additional weight increased how fast it was unspooling, and it soon reached the end, the jagged-cut cable popping out of the pulley entirely, snaking down to the ground, clanging wildly off the sides of the elevator shaft.

Robin was almost out of the shaft, swinging his leg up on the ledge when the jagged metal at the end of the cable hooked into the meat of his thigh. It yanked him off the ledge and into the darkness of the elevator shaft below.