Chapter 7
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Baby’s first slime!
“You are an idiot,” Samson grits at Slate the moment after a well-placed bomb sends chunks of debris flying away from the cave entrance in the side of the mountain far back behind Slate’s emaciated lab.
It struck me when I was here the first time this morning—all the bent metal and splintered wood ripping open half the large manor home—but now that I’ve had even more time to look at it, it’s heartbreaking.
Water really is so powerful. And the distance afforded me through pixels does none of the flood damage justice.
In spite of so much loss, it’s incredible how these people have picked themselves right back up and forged on.
Proving my point, with a touch of insanity agleam in his green eyes, Slate pushes the goggles he always wears up into his dark brown hair and says, “I prefer the term mad genius.”
I giggle.
Samson’s patience snaps, and he tosses an arm out toward me. “Mad genius? Is that what you call agreeing to send this…this thing in there alone?”
My self-esteem plummets. I am breathtakingly cute now, and I even went through the trouble of drawing well water this morning to clean myself up. It was cold, but I kept an image of Samson’s hotness in my mind to warm me.
“Sammy,” Slate murmurs, subtly appalled.
“Don’t Sammy me. Look at her.”
My heart jerks, and the tiny rodent in my skull screes, shuddering at the notion of perception.
Cruel, Samson plows on, grabbing my hand and presenting it. “Soft. Small.” He shakes me. “Pretty young women with no experience shouldn’t be sent into mines, Slate.”
Pretty?
My self-esteem comes back online.
Slate lifts a brow. “Normally, I wouldn’t dream of it, but she begged.”
It’s true. I did. I begged very well a handful of hours ago, hands clasped and lip jutting. I am skipping half a dozen main story quests that could be considered the experience that makes sending a stranger into the dangerous belly of the mines logical.
But.
See.
Those quests will go so much faster with better tools.
Early game is brutal.
And I’m but a soft, small, pretty young woman.
Pitiless, Samson switches his glare to me. “You begged?”
“Well…” I bite my lip. “I said pretty please with whip cream and a cherry on top.” Then I realized cuteness held no weight with Slate, so I switched to spitting off monster facts with an accuracy that I think could count as a heart event with the crazed genius.
But. Anyway. I’ll reference my journal later. “Does that count?”
Slate smiles. “Citrus is very charismatic.”
My wee heart swells, and I place my free hand to my chest. I have never been called charismatic before. More proof that I was meant to be born in Gem Ridge, not Florida.
Samson drops my hand and puffs a breath like a bull, then he grumbles, “Fine.” He clomps toward the mouth of the cave, broad back shouldering a heavy pack of supplies he insisted were standard, sturdy hips bearing a broadsword.
No, I do not know what will happen to my vital organs when he draws that thing.
But, yes, I am willing to accept the consequences.
Once I’m struggling to keep up with his steps, he crams an enchanted ring on his finger. The classic ring emits a sphere of soft light, and when Slate sends a cheerful be careful after us, he receives a perfect view of the brightest gleam as Samson flips him off.
Samson and I cut into the pitch black darkness of the cave, and I’m so grateful for the glow ring because, realistically, having torches lit on the walls for the first fifty floors or so makes no sense.
Especially after a flood. Even if they were all blessed pyrite emanating fire magic, fire and flood waters do not mix.
Beyond the halo of Samson’s body, there is night.
He marches straight to the cage of an elevator on the far wall, fiddles with the mechanics, then grumbles, “Busted. I thought so.” Glaring over a big beautiful shoulder at me, he says, “The gems powering it at each level there’s a station probably washed away or disconnected from the mechanism that triggers their blessed power.
Same with the light sources.” He glances sidelong at a dormant sconce on the wall.
“Assuming you aren’t secretly blessed, we won’t be able to do anything with this unless we bring Aurelia what she needs to fix it. ”
Well, that’s a new process, courtesy of the realism mod I’m sure.
In game, the elevator just activates every five levels without fuss.
The mine is a tiered dungeon, full of loot and monsters.
At the start, you travel down by ladder, heightening the difficulty the deeper you go, then every five levels, the elevator works as a difficulty save point.
Needless to say, that is classic.
This is less classic. “What will she need to fix the elevator?”
“Topaz, likely.”
That makes sense. Imbued topaz is used in many electronic crafting recipes, even the street lamps in town seem to shed light from a mounted yellow gem, kind of like Samson’s glow ring, which I bet is also a blessed topaz, set to trigger whenever it’s worn.
I begin, “Did you know that pure topaz is colorless?”
Stalking to a ladder obscured in the shadows, Samson checks the stability and grumbles, “Yes.”
“Its colors are only caused by impurities.”
“Uh-huh.” He swings his body onto the rungs and descends with a single, fast leap.
I follow his light down the ladder, rambling, “And, did you know, the deeper the colors, the more expensive the gem? Isn’t that beautiful? Imperfections make some things more valuable.” I squeak when big hands circle my waist and whisk me to solid ground.
Samson’s body blocks mine a moment before he draws his sword. My heart bu-bumps in response to his muscles flexing. Something about the way his glow ring’s light dances across his tattoos does something awful to me.
Calmly squaring off against a bubbling mass of goo, he says, “I didn’t know that part.”
I remove my harlot eyes from the man protecting me and identify the…slime?
Is that a slime?
It’s totally a slime.
Oh my granite. That is so classic I am actively relieved. Screw the realism mod’s threat of dying DLC. There’s no way in any world I’m dying to a slime.
The wobbly, bulbous mass wiggles its way toward us with labored hops.
“It’s kind of cute,” I say.
Samson exhales the vague outline of a laugh. “It’s living water and gunk, held together by a toxic membrane. Breaking that membrane kills it. Getting it on your skin faintly burns. It’s only a problem if there’s a lot of them because they will join together and try to drown you.”
Yikes.
“Want to try and take it down with your training sword?” Samson asks.
I gasp.
No way.
Personal combat lessons from the retired, broody love of my life?
Maybe I am actually blessed. Just…probably not in a can fix the elevator with a shiny rock sort of way.
Too eager, I barely keep my balance as I pull my sword out of my backpack.
Samson’s concern could not be more violent—except perhaps when I barge forward, sword brandished above my head.
“You’re wide open!” he yells, but it’s too late because I have already bopped the slime thrice.
It gives up the will to live and plops into an inanimate pile at my feet.
I look back at Samson, sheepish. “Slimes on the first ten mine layers have ten HP. Pyro’s training sword deals three base, and I critted with my first blow, dealing five.”
Tense, Samson utters, “I…have no idea what you just—”
“Bug.” I pick up on the fluttering sound of dry wings and charge past Samson to knock a nayfly to the ground. Where I stab it dead.
Samson stares at me.
I nudge the large lifeless body with my boot toe and hum. It does not appear to have dropped anything lootable, unless I scoop the guts into my bag, and I will not be doing that.
Another flutter alerts me, building just like a sound effect in the game. I have trained for this, so I twist, knock another nayfly to the ground, and smile. “This is fun.”
“F-fun?” Samson stammers.
“Ooh, shiny!” I plow toward a stone mimic, pulling my pick out of my bag with my free hand as I go.
Samson jolts, swiping air when he tries to catch me. “Citrus! That’s not—”
I dodge the mimic’s initial attack—spitting a spike in the direction of the player once the player is close enough to trigger its defense—catch its mouth with my pick, and plunge my sword in. The thing collapses into lifeless stones around my blade, freeing its gem lure in a hunk atop the pile.
Swiping the quartz, I whip toward Samson. “Monster loot! My first monster loot!”
He blinks at me.
I gasp, pointing behind him. “Bug—”
He thrusts his sword back, piercing the bug through without even looking at it.
Wow.
Okay.
Hot.
I shiver, consumed by the feminine urge to jump him. It is a remarkably difficult urge to subdue.
Through sheer force of will, I refrain long enough to find a vein of raw iron ore, which is wild because these mine levels are supposed to be exclusively copper layers.
If reality doesn’t perfectly abide by level loot tier rules, I am not complaining.
I am especially not complaining when—after eviscerating a dozen coal sprites on the third level down—I locate a massive seam of coal.
A couple pick taps break off manageable chunks that I can load into my bag no problem.
Samson is quiet the entire time I’m working away on getting a good supply, since it’s here.
Game coal is a drop from stones that obviously bear the loot, but real coal occurs in layers called seams that can be up to fifteen feet thick.
I’m not exactly a professional at excavation, but I’d say I’m working on liberating a resource that’s at least ten feet dense.
I can’t wait to see Austin’s stupid face when the farmgirl he said wouldn’t tough it out for a week shows up with enough fuel to last him months, or seasons since there aren’t formal months in this world.
Somewhat tightly, Samson murmurs, “Your…bag.”