“How come the horns grow much faster than Cala's at the time?”

“Because Andy is attuned to magic at a much higher degree. Of all species, dark elves are one of the closest to magic. They are closer to magic than any other elves, elves being one of the most magic attuned species.”

Hm. OK. And I still could not use that lightfire spell. Well, at least not everything was terrible with my character's choice.

How much time do I have in the game before they close this access?

Considering the duration of the login proxy I had used before, I might have about a week until this connection is cut off. Maybe more, maybe less.

That the system is up and running is a surprise. That it is not entirely separated from the internet may mean that it was impossible to do so or that they do not have the resources needed.

'They', who the hell they are? A company? A consortium? A billionaire, some oligarch or some dark club? Oh, well... Maybe better not to find out, 'they' is good enough for me now.

Furthermore, it looks like they are trying to rescue the environment; else, why not scrap it? Why do they keep the servers running? That must be costing a lot of money. Can it be that they will re-enable the login after some tests?

Another possibility might be that they want to use it for experimenting... If the dream interface and this particular Mephisto game help trigger the 'witch-genes', somebody will want to study it. But if this is the case, there may also be some agency which works in collaboration with some oligarch(s), and they will want a controlled environment. It means they will want us out as soon as they find out we are in. Then I have even less time.

Why do I insist on saving these virtual friends of mine?

This does not make any logical sense! I cannot justify it to myself, and yet I simply have the feeling that I must do it. I have the feeling that they are more than just computer-generated puppets. I know it is not rational, but I cannot fight it. Probably it is only my subjective feeling after meeting them in this 'more real than real' environment.

Can they be some kind of AI that achieved sapience and sentience? Or is it something else?

You have such a 'this is real' feeling here in this world! There is a difference to any other game environment I feel from the very first seconds I am in. I wonder what this game has that the others do not?

I was fabulating about all these whilst Flo kept fighting. Her fight here is a pure mage fight; I do not have much to say. Andy is too weak to risk a close one-on-one encounter, even if I could try to teach her some of Cala's tricks. Andy needs to keep her distance all the time. The wings are now half-developed, and I jump like a frog or rather like an annoying flea. Bite and jump.

Maybe I'll try later.

There was a force of about ten spear-wielders, a couple of archers and one mage that I was facing, but even the slimes learned new tactics to rotate at the front. I was baffled when I realized that the seriously wounded and depleted slimes retired whilst others took their place on the 'front' line. The king slime stays in the background. Is that thing controlling and coordinating them?

We've reached an enormous cavern, and the werewolves seem to have decided to make their stand here. They are baffled that I am not being attacked by slimes. I even stepped on a slime by mistake, not only once, and they did not attack me.

There are various types of slimes; I think the difference comes from the magic elements they are being formed with. A brown-coloured population is predominant, probably having the earth element dominant in their structure. Some of the slimes are reddish, and from what I saw, they are hotter and burn when touched. Fire element? Some are blue or green, or a mix of these. Greenish-brown is the second significant population of slimes.

One could make a whole slime study here! Dolores' slime research papers! Maybe this could become my next school project?

Kidding, but really somebody must have thought about it and made all these populations, isn't it? Or was it some computer learning algorithm?

Oh, well. I could have abandoned the slimes and tried to make it on myself, but I think that this is one of the best opportunities to level faster.

It is a war of attrition, and the humans/werewolves try to minimize their losses and maximize ours. They do not seem to have a healer, but from time to time, I saw them use healing potions. They use their spears to shock the slimes trying to immobilize them and then destroy their core and are more efficient at it than the slimes are. However, now and then, the slimes manage to corner one spear-wielder and finish it.

I duel most of the time with the archers and the mage but help the slimes when I can. This is a tricky job, and what I feared happened. At one moment, Flo was not careful enough, and a fireball engulfed me. It was a massive fireball that not only burned my skin but threw me meters away directly into a fire slime.

I cannot take two such fireballs on. If they hit me now, I am gone.

I rolled away from the slimes, hard-pressed to avoid an arrow, and I saw the slimes around coming to attack me. Oh, no! To my luck, they stopped and hesitated. As I healed myself, I was wondering what did happen because if the slimes attacked me, I would be done. I cannot possibly avoid everything.

Flo had the right idea:

“The coating is gone!”

That might explain it, but then what do I do?

I looked behind at the giant slime. Is it the one halting the slimes from attacking me? Are giant slimes wiser? Could I try and repeat the 'coating' experiment? And survive, that's the point, isn't it?

Oh, uh, there were now two giant slimes here; which one is mine?

Another fireball exploded at the place where I was a moment before. The slimes around make strange zig-zag courses, to me and away.

Flo healed and ran towards the giant slime.

“What do you do?”

“I need a new coating!”

“Are you crazy? Have you not seen how fast it engulfed a spear-wielder?”

And how fast it did disappear? But I did not say that.

Anyhow she did not listen to me, she ran directly to the giant slime, and the moment I was there, it made a sudden movement and engulfed me. I thought that was it. The second or third time this night? I even heard some cheers from the werewolf camp.

But after less than a second, it spat me out, and I got a slap on my back.

“What was the slap for?”

Flo laughed. Probably as encouragement or as direction? There is the enemy; go and fight? Or as punishment for the little bolt that escaped me out of fear inside the slime?

I'll never again look at slimes the way I did before. A temporary alliance was possible? Not being devoured by a slime is possible?

Back at the fight, the archers were a pain in the ass. Literally, as I was just hit in my butt this time, with all of Flo's jumping and avoiding. I shot back but with little chance of killing one.

“Heal the slimes that retired; heal them; they recuperate too slowly.”

“Do you think my healing would work on them?”

“Try”

It did work, and suddenly, the dynamics changed. The slimes kept now pressing on all sides. The archers had separated and went to the sides to better harass me, but now that proved to be counter-productive as they had been cut from the tunnel and had no way to retreat.

With the sudden push by the 'slimes team', the werewolf half-circle crumbled into several pieces, which were subsequently eliminated one by one.

“Level, level! I think I got a level!” Flo jumped from stone to stone happily, feeling the income of magic energy from 'our' kills. Level three!

The tools that come with the game did not seem to be available, so I got no hard confirmation of the level, but the feeling was there.

She rested a bit to replenish her mana and remove that damn painful arrow, then tried her spell. Failure again, but at least the spell seemed to work halfway.

“Probably two more levels, and we get it.”

Two more levels? I sighed. I watched around, surprised as I was surrounded by slimes.

“What does this mean? Am I a prisoner?”

“Probably they wait for healing?”

Oh? Indeed. Slime healer. Lol. I wonder if I do get any experience from it? Oh, well, whatever, come to healer bubble babies...

By the time I finished with the healing work, another giant slime had appeared, even bigger than the one I had called the king slime. Emperor slime? So there were now two kings and one emperor here in this vast cavern. Maybe it is time for the little healer to disappear.

Yes, but not before looting. I went around the cavern, keeping a respectful distance from the giant slimes that I did not 'knew' and inspected the loot. I did not find much of the fighters as the slimes dissolved a lot of things, but some pieces remained. I found one ring, a knife, an armband, several swords, belts, disparate clothes, a shield, spears, more spears, another ring, another sword and an inventory box. Also, various coins, copper and silver.

It was a rudimentary inventory box, and it contained only three slots, but I was happy with it.

The brown slimes seemed to prefer to devour flesh, leaving most items on the ground, but there were other slimes which seemed to select various things, and I had to compete with them. For instance, I found a very nice-looking knife, but after struggling with a blue slime for it, I had to give up. Its grip on it was firm, and when it had already melted part of the metal, it won. There was no use in three-quarters of a knife. When I let go, it went triumphantly with the captured knife up, looking for a quiet corner to finish it. I swear it was looking from time to time at me to make sure I did not try to snatch its prize by surprise.

I continued cleaning the slots in the inventory box; there were some herbs and some bottles inside. Oh, and one amulet. No healing potion, just some alcohol.

From the way they dressed and from their possessions, I think these were some kind of cultists. Most were males, but there were females too. I mean men and women. Humans. Werewolves.

In the end, from all my treasures, I kept the inventory box, a broad belt where I needed to make a new hole to be able to fix it on Andy's very thin waist. It went two times around, so I had to cut out most of it.

I also kept the knife that I used to cut the belt. It was a very sharp, good knife. I also kept a sword and a mantle. The sword was too heavy for me to handle, but... ok, I was a bit greedy. The spears were even heavier and did not pass in the inventory box.

I put on the two rings, the bracelet and the amulet. There were also some small books, which seemed to be copies of the same, so I took one. All other clothes were too big, too dirty or already partially decomposed, so I gave up on further improving my apparel.

I had no shoes, but I wrapped some fabric around my feet as all shoes I found were much too big for me.