Jason equipped the new sword and slid the bejeweled bracer over his right arm after standing up. His old sword he adjusted its location to the opposite side of his waste. He didn’t believe that he would need it, but having it ready just in case couldn’t hurt. Stretching, he prepared himself to rejoin the fighting.

Meanwhile, Rina activated the foci, slipping it over her hand. Her VUI filled with a description of the device and it’s statistics. It listed two slots for spells. The first was a simple fireball and stated that it had no limit to the number of times it could be used, but it did have a small recharge time between shots fired. The second slot was taken up with a second spell that was called ‘flare’. Unlike the first spell, flare had only 1 charge that could be used each day. Its stats seemed to indicate that it was a much more power spell than the fireball, but Rina had no reference. She hadn’t seen anyone use spells before so she didn’t know what the stats meant on a practical level nor what their relative differences equated to.

The next slime zombie staggered into the party’s killing box. Apisis had slowed enough that before she could strike at its meaty core Rina cast a fireball at it. The fire disintegrated the slimes and passed into its core scorching it. The zombie, unlike every other time its core had been damaged, melted, losing it shape briefly, but before completely falling into a puddle it pulled itself together, a little shorter than it had been previously, but otherwise unharmed. Apisis’ blade cut down through the slime zombies heart before another shot was fired off.

Jason saw what happened when the slime was hit with fire. It was destroyed. Despite the zombie reforming and continued on the slime that it was made out of was annihilated. It didn’t turn into a puddle and join the central mass of ooze. “Apisis, pull back. Let’s see if Rina’s fireball can kill these things,” he relayed to the team. Duk was about to say something, but Jason continued. acting as if he didn’t forget about Duk’s safety, “Kill it if it gets too close to him, but try to hold off as long as possible.” He turned to Rina, giving her a thumbs up, “You got this.”

The next enemy was let in. The moment Rina had an open shot she launched another fireball at the slime and again it burnt away some of its mass. It started to pull itself back together only to be hit with another ball of fire. More of its body was eliminated. This blow took longer to recover from. A third fireball had an even greater effect. It was half its original size and almost to Duk. Apisis was about cut the creature down when yet another fireball smacked into the zombie and it dropped into a puddle. Everyone waited for it to reform but instead it fled to the main mass. She had done it. It took more effort to do just cutting the mean, but Rina had defeated the creature. She and Jason were happy with the results. Their companions, however, didn’t understand and thought they were being silly. What they weren’t considering was that fire method may take longer, but it destroyed more of the slime which was the real threat in the end. There was no telling how much of a difference eliminating more than half of the zombie’s body would make when they had to go up against the main body mass of the collosal slime.

Just when things were started to look up the main body began to slide towards the party. Had they the time Jason would have just let Rina slowly whittle down the number of zombie slimes, but that no longer looked like an option. It might never have been a real option. Who knows how long Duk could have lasted, but now they had to move out and figure out a new plan of action. It then occurred to him that once the barrier was down and they were on the move, so far as he knew, Duk would have no way of taking out the zombies slimes. He pulled the orc’s sword from his inventory and handed it to Duk.

“What’s this for?” Duk asked.

“Can’t just block all day. A punch probably wouldn’t hurt these things so you’re to need something to cut them.” Jason replied.

“I see. Hrmmm,” Duk looked at the large gnarly sword with consternation.

“We’re going to have to have you drop the barrier and three of us are going to spread out and take down as many of them as possible,” Jason said.

“That sounds like the battlefield I am more used to,” Lady Apisis chimed in from behind them.

“Rina I’m going to need you to keep casting fireball on the slimes as much as possible. I think your fireball is the only tool we have for killing the slime,” Jason stated.

“Hai!” Rina said looking charged up and ready to burn everything to ash that she could.

“Alright. Let’s do this. When you’re ready, lower the barrier. Apisis you take the right, I’ll take the left. Duk, you hold the center.”

The party members took up their positions, ready to implement the plan. Duk growled deep under his breath, closed his eyes in a moment of calm, and then relinquished his summoned wall. At that moment he gave a howl and charge out, directly into and through the meat wall that had formed. The orc sword gift from Jason swept out horizontally across those the unsuspecting slime zombies. Seven of them instantly dropped and the mucus that once made up their humanoid bodies darted away, seeking refuge in the core mass body.

Jason and Apisis followed suit when they saw the wall fall. Their swords flashed out cutting down a half dozen creatures in seconds. The trio quickly swept through the crowd. The slime zombies were no longer a threat to them. They were only dangerous if you didn’t know how to deal with them and due to their large numbers. It had only taken them so long to kill a quarter of them due to this lack of information and just how slow they moved. So long as none of them made a mistake the only danger posed was to their cleanliness, but that had long since passed being a credible threat to even their clothes. The hours of strenuous physical activities had all but obliterated their gear with the scent and grime of their sweat.

Rina did her part as well. Every time that she was able to shoot out a fireball she did so. She understood the logic of Jason’s plan so she fired as fast as she could into the horde without aiming. It didn’t matter where the fire hit, so long as it hit. It was even better that she didn’t often hit the meat chunk heart of the slime zombies, because doing so stopped the fireball. Missing the core allowed the fireball to keep going further, turning more of the slime to ash. This was both a good thing and bad. Her attacks did more damage than Jason had predicted, but with her being so efficient it drew the ire of the collosal slime, making it target and slowly ooze towards her.

Jason had hoped that attacking from different direction they’d be able to make the Slime monster get locked in place, unable to decide which direction to go to stop the damage from happening. it had only been a half hour since their all out attack had started and most of the slime zombies had been vanquished. There had been thousands, but now there was only few hundred left and every attack brought their numbers down by several. It wasn’t enough to draw the attention away from Rina.

Before too long the great mass was upon her, Duk, and Xev. There was nothing that they could do. The creature was too large for any of them to get around and their weapons seemed ineffective against them. This is when the pressure and fatigue made things go from bad to worse. Apisis made an error, over extending herself slightly, but it was enough for one of the slime zombies to get ahold of her. It pulled her down and into it. Jason saw what had happened. He tried to fight his way over to her, but his attention was split between what was happening with the others. He missed the core of one slime zombie that he thrust into causing him to fall directly into its grasp. Duk didn’t make a mistake. He resorted to his natural instinct and held his shield to protect others. Unfortunately, this did no good for him. His shield did nothing to stop the slime from drawing him into it and soon he was almost completely covered in ooze once more.

Rina fired off as many fireballs as she could at the gargantuan slime as it wrapped itself around Duk, but it swallowed him up faster than she could cast the spell over and over again. Xev did nothing to stop the situation, seeming completely unphased by the danger that loomed in of her. Rina panicked. She was saving flare for when Jason told her to use it, but there was no time to wait for that order to come. She held out her hand. It shook with fear. Duk took his last breath as the slime covered the last of his body. The gem of the foci glowed. There was a moment of silence, then air rushed towards a center point that seemed to be located somewhere within the slime creature’s body. At its center a point of light came into being. A wave of light flashed through the body of the slime. It seemed like whatever the spell was it had no effect when suddenly the slime began bubbling before a roar of fire burst out from all sides of the slime washing over all that was in the bailey. All of the party members were lifted and flung away. Each of them were thrown back against the walls save Apisis who tumbled through the air uncontrolled. The winds around her were turbulent from the blast.

When the raging fire settled, Jason regained his composure first. He looked out upon the bailey that had become a battle field and saw that the slime was gone. All but a small puddle that quivered near Duk, Rina, and Xev. Two of the three were unconscious, and the one who wasn’t, as usual wasn’t looking to take action. He saw that the slime puddle began to retake a form to continue its attack. He ran towards it. He didn’t have a plan to stop it. He had dropped his sword in the blast, but he didn’t think. He just reacted and charged at it, hoping to suppress it long enough for Rina to recover and take it out. Jason launched himself in the air, balling his fist to strike. The slime formed into the shape of an attractive young girl with long hair, all made of slime. It clearly had much more defined features that the previous slime zombies. Her eyes grew wide as she saw Jason flying through the air towards her his fist balled to strike her. She screamed loudly as though she was being attacked by some random pervert. It awoke those unconscious members of the party just before the jewel on Jason’s bracer glowed, his fist came down on the slime girl making her lose her form, but then instead of reforming the slime crawled up Jason’s hand and seemed to be absorbed into the jewel which seemed to become a whole and polished gem. The glow faded. Jason blinked in confusion, not understanding what had just happened or where the slime went.