Dungeon Wars

Book 1: The First

(The Slime Dungeon Universe)

Jeffrey “Falcon” Logue

Acknowledgements

For my fans who stuck with me

Cover and Design by:

Amelia Parris

Editing by Dustin Frost at House of Frost Editing.

https://www.facebook.com/HouseofFrostEditing/

●●●

All work within this novel is fictional.  All characters, places, and adventures were born within the mind of the author and have no relation to anything in real life.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; no copies should be made without the consent of the author. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work.

If you enjoy this story, please leave a review so as to make the author’s day and/or week.

Text Copyright © 2019 Jeffrey “Falcon” Logue

All rights reserved

The First

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Epilogue

Afterwards

Prologue

The continent of Palos, the world of Fortum. This is a land of wonder and violence, filled with magic and monsters, gods and demons. With the three heavens above and the nine hells below, the continent of Palos is an ever-changing world, with civilizations across it rising and falling. Seven sentient races cover it: humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, beast-men, devils, and grey orcs. They fight against the beasts and monsters of the land in order, staking their lives on a better future.

Of course, these are not the only intelligent life forms on the continent. Thanks to magic, many new forms of life thrive in the vast wildernesses that rule the continent. Of those, few are as strange and mysterious as the dungeons.

Dungeons are not fully understood by the sentient races, though many delve deep to learn. A dungeon is an underground labyrinth, capable of growing and creating creatures and treasure. The heart of the dungeon is its crystal, the core of the cavern. These magical crystals are powerful reagents useful in all forms of magical research and are highly valued. This makes the destruction of dungeons a highly valuable—and sometimes suicidal—venture.

Those that dive into dungeons are adventurers, thrill-seekers who take on all manner of requests at the adventurer guild in return for recognition and coin. However, as rewarding as it can be, most do not seek to destroy the dungeon, but instead conquer it. While a dungeon lives, it creates creatures and monsters that adventurers can kill to harvest their useful parts. Dungeons also create loot, valuable weapons, armor, coins, tools, and other things that are highly prized by people. When a dungeon proves its worth, a town of adventurers will almost certainly form around it.

Still, no one is sure how a dungeon can be alive. Some adventurers swear that they have heard voices speak to them inside dungeons, but their testimony came after long periods trapped underground. Others have said that dungeons are arcane constructs created by an ancient group of magi. Some countries have secretly made their own artificial dungeons, but those, however, are always found lacking compared to real dungeons.

Perhaps one reason for this is the absence of the dungeon pixie. Dungeon pixies are an extremely rare form of pixie known to partner with dungeons. They never appear above ground, and the only specimens ever found have died soon after. For whatever reason, dungeon pixies bond to their dungeon the same way dryads and their ilk bond to a tree; their life is tied to the crystal. Indeed, the one dungeon pixie ever successfully stolen from a dungeon died after being brought a day’s ride away from it. Its dungeon partner went insane when the pixie died, turning corrupt and destroying the nearby town before a platoon of knights could eliminate it.

Indeed, dungeons possess the strange ability of using their mana to merge with the ground around it. Acting similarly to how a golem’s crystal works, the dungeon heart crystal uses its mana to create an outer shell to protect its core, the outer shell being a dungeon instead of a golem’s body. Indeed, the two crystals appear somehow related, as the legendary golem dungeon in the grey orc’s territory holds within its moving body a legendary dungeon. Without digressing further, this ability is normally limited by the size of the heart crystal. When a dungeon begins to spread and absorb the surface, it is classified as corrupted because the unlimited making of monsters destroys everything in the area as its influence grows. Corrupted bits of land take years to recover any form of viability, and large swaths of dead land still dot parts of Palos.

Still, dungeons are an incredibly important part of the continent’s economy. For example, adventurers could choose to travel into the vast wilderness to search for a rare monster, or they could dive into a dungeon where the type of monster is more frequent. Thanks to advances made in the northern countries, new types of magical equipment has made diving a much safer task. Things like escape talismans, magic bags, dark-vision goggles, and other things that previously required expensive priest blessings or enchanter work is now more readily available to the public, though the southern religious countries have only begrudgingly allowed them in within recent years.

Indeed, dungeons are some of the most dangerous and wondrous of places. They tend to rely on a single species of monster or an ecology, specializing in the evolutions of their choice. New monster species never before seen in nature have been found there, and the much-hated green orcs have been proven to have evolved within a dungeon before leaving. It is not known how monsters created by a dungeon can leave, but reports do confirm the occurrence, though it is rare.

Dungeons also have vastly different designs. The most notable dungeons have taken forms beyond that of a stationary cavern, including the great golem dungeon roaming in the orc territory, the great sky dungeon in the north that has created many smaller flying islands, the great ocean dungeon located beneath the waves of the southern archipelago, the great volcano dungeon that only appears within active lava, the great mansion dungeon that only appears during the moonless nights, the great forest dungeon that appears within a giant treant, the great ice castle dungeon that appears only during the coldest days of the year, and the great cloud dungeon that floats above the tallest mountain. Other dungeons seem to follow one of these paths at some point, though some notable ones are unique, such as the ever-growing taverns. The great labyrinth city surrounds the largest example of this type of unique dungeon in Bosrol, an endless labyrinth that is challenging and rewarding but dangerous.

Nothing on Palos comes close to these great caves of adventure. They are the source of some of the greatest triumphs and tragedies ever known, and yet no one ever hears their side of the story. In later chapters, the artificial dungeons are of particular interest, as they are only relics of such lost magic and science. Are dungeons intelligent in the same way people are, or are they highly sophisticated crystals of instincts?

To answer this question, here is first an excerpt from Magus Falcon’s report on the notable slime dungeon of the fallen country of Nehatra. According to him…

–Introduction from The Dungeon Inquiry #745 of the year of the sun.

*

A dark room, a dark place. No light shone within these walls of dead stone and frigid air. Silence echoed like a bird in a cage, a peaceful nothingness in trepidation. Even the air itself moved listlessly, carrying an odor of lives lost and time past.

All this ended when a tiny light entered the cave, flying swiftly through air with soft illumination. The thing stopped in front of a small, stone door hidden in the wall. The already dim light faded to reveal a floating letter, some message encased in soft magic.

This pinprick of light sent soft waves through the room, enough to arouse that which had been sleeping. Tendrils of dark energy twisted into existence, as if some eldritch horror had been awoken. A hiss filled the air, directed in annoyance at the light. One of the magic streams swiped at the letter, as if to put out the light, but was repelled by an unseen force.

The source of these dark tendrils of magic roared out in annoyance and frustration, shaking the room with ancient power. The noise awoke others who dwelt within the darkness, some more terrifying than others.

“What’s wrong, my dear?” a seductive and enchanting voice echoed through the room. “What has disturbed you so?”

The room rumbled in response.

“A light?” the voice asked curiously. In response, the stone door opened, revealing a deep darkness eclipsing that of the room. From within, a hand covered in a silver glove extended out and seized the letter in the same manner a wolf would seize a rabbit. The letter was pulled into the room, the door slamming shut behind it. For the brief moment between the letter disappearing and the door closing, the light had already vanished from existence, returning the cave to peaceful, deathly silence.

“I see,” the voice laughed suddenly from within the darkness. “Yes, I see. It reached her. Oh, how wonderful!”

The room rumbled again, though much softer now with a curious tone rather unbecoming a seismic event.

“Who? Why, my wonderfully precious daughter, of course,” the voice replied happily. “I was so worried after not hearing from her for a year that I just had to send a letter. And look, she signed it and sent it back with her spatial location.”

The room trembled in waves, the ground singing in anticipation.

“Oh, I’m happy to see you’re interested, but I can’t allow you to eat her,” the voice scolded. “Yes, I know her father was delicious, but you can’t have her, too, naughty girl. She’s my only daughter, after all, and she’s very important.”

The room was silent once more.

“Oh, fine,” the voice relented. “I’m sure she can part with a leg or two. We don’t really need them. I’m sure I have a few substitutes lying around somewhere, or I suppose there is a relative or two who knows who to regrow flesh. Oh, but then again, she’d look so attractive with a bone leg, just like her uncle! Oh, the possibilities.”

A single shake, and the magic tendrils disappeared from existence.

“Yes, yes darling, I know you’re excited,” the voice said in exasperation. “Now come, send me there so that I may behold by precious daughter once more!”

The small door burst open once more, releasing a dark object that flew into the room. The figure, for it was a someone rather than a something, radiated a dark light, a mockery of both light and darkness in that it radiated an abyss of both that faintly illuminated its edges. A single tendril of magic reached out to meet it, and then everything returned to silence.

Thousands of miles away, the figure bathed in darkness reappeared above a ruined ground. The moon shone brightly down onto the derelict former town.

“Now, where is she?” the figure murmured, her seductive voice emanating thoughtfully from the light. “Oh, what is this delicious scent of death... and demon? What a nostalgic smell. Second or third husband I wonder?”

The figure flew down to examine the ruin. What she beheld were the burned and blasted remnants of what had once been a settlement of some kind. What few buildings remained standing were cracked and covered in black soot, one comprised of little more than ashes of earth and air. Through the ruin, large ruts cut the site into sections that all originated from a massive crater just to the north. It was as if some great behemoth had been unwillingly unearthed from the soil, taking the land with it.

The figure flew down and scooped a trace of soot onto her finger. Bringing it to her lips, she licked it and analyzed the taste thoughtfully.

“Burned warlock,” the figure exclaimed suddenly. “Well that certainly explains the scent of demons. Hm, did my precious little girl get in a fight with the big bad Empire?”

The air was suddenly filled with thick bloodthirst and rage, enough magic to drive anyone into a terrified run.

“Oh, if they touched so much as a hair on her head, I’ll see those arrogant fools devoured!” the voice coldly said.

And then, quiet was restored.

“Oops,” the figure giggled, “best to learn all the facts first. Wouldn’t want another mess to explain at the gathering, after all. Not again, anyway. Shouldn’t have those fossils watching me closer than they already are.” The figure flew up over to the crater, landing at the very bottom. With a flick of her wrist, the dark light vanished, revealing the figure in all her glory.

She was a pixie with flowing black and silver hair over black eyes set above a slightly pointed nose, with a pair of full lips contorted into a smile. She wore a flowing uneven black dress that revealed half of her right thigh with silver highlights in the form of tiny skulls along the edges. Her arms were dressed in long silver gloves that seemed to change color from white back to silver in the moonlight. She wore no shoes, but her feet never quite touched the ground. Her wings, silver and white, possessed an eerie feel to them, as if they were not quite alive.

“Here. She was here,” the pixie murmured excitedly. “I can smell my little Claire.”

The silver pixie raised her palm and clenched it toward the night sky. A ball of white fire burst into being, silent and of no apparent temperature.

“Death is the great equalizer,” the pixie woman chanted. “Reveal the deaths of those who came before.”

At her command, the white fire shot into the air and exploded, sprinkling the land with tiny pinpricks of white. The pixie woman smiled and flew up high enough to see the grounds below.

Everywhere the fire touched, ghostly phantoms sprung into being. These pale forms were only shadows, echoes of the souls who perished before traveling to their final destination. The land was littered with countless phantoms, centered mostly in the ruins and in a field to the east. The eastern field phantoms were considerably older however, but the pixie had eyes for neither battlefield. Her eyes were fixed sorely on the crater.

“So, you’re still alive,” the lady pixie smiled happily. “That’s good. Your dungeon must have gained a teleportation ability. How surprising that such a new dungeon is capable of that. Did my little dear stumble upon a chance encounter? You always were my best student, Claire my dear. Still, it will be easy enough to follow you...”

Trailing off, the lady pixie created another white flame and dropped it down to the center of the crater. Unlike the first, however, this flame sputtered out of existence and vanished, much to the lady’s displeasure.

“Divine interference?” she frowned slightly. “How boring. How dare those trollops interfere with a mother’s quest to find her daughter.” Still, there was nothing she could do about it. Her magic was easily dispelled by the mere trace presence of true divinity, and as such, there was little to do besides curse. The pixie flicked a piece of soot off her shoulder, irritated.

“Hm?” the pixie turned her suddenly as motion attracted her attention. At the edge of the wood, five figures clad in black garments were surveying the glowing phantoms.

“Perfect,” the lady pixie said, licking her lips. “I needed something to take out my frustrations on. And...” she inhaled, “warlocks are perfectly wicked things for the job. They even have the same scent as those dead ones. How… delicious.”

She snapped her fingers and the lady pixie reappeared in front of the scouting warlocks, who promptly stumbled back in surprise.

“You’re in the right place at the right time, boys,” she giggled happily. “Well, for me anyway.”

“A pixie?” The lead warlock was startled at first but promptly broke into a boisterous laugh. “Men, looks like we’ve hit our pay day! She’ll sell for a city’s ransom back in the Empire!”

The lady pixie instantly frowned. The atmosphere around them shook, and an intense pressure fell from the sky. The warlocks looked on in terror as the might of the pixie took ethereal form behind, a thing of shadow and death that stared them down with eyes of void.

“How dare you, worm!” she growled. “My value eclipses that of your entire nation! Rot!”

With a horrifying roar, the lady pixie’s mouth opened impossibly wide and released a torrent of green acid onto the lead warlock. The man screamed as his clothes melted into his flesh, followed by that very flesh melting from his body. Worse, the acid worked slowly, almost playing with the dying man as it dissolved each muscle from its bone. The other men scrambled backwards in fear but were blocked by a white wall of magic that appeared out of nowhere.

Then, the dying man collapsed.

“Rise, my precious, new pet,” the pixie woman giggled. “It’s time you made yourself some friends.” She pointed her figure down and shot her white flame into the corpse’s chest.

The corpse shuddered under the influence of the pervading magic. The necrotic spell worked its way in, using the available materials to create a new monster. From the forest floor, the former person shook and shuddered as the last of humanity, scant little to begin with, burned away. Its former companions backed away in horror as they recognized the newly created monstrosity.

“An acidic rotting zombie!” one of them screeched in fear. “It’s a tier 4 undead. Run for your lives!” The noise instantly caught the undead’s attention, and it lunged at its former companions.

The closest man pushed the zombie away then screamed as his hands began to melt from the slightest touch of the monster’s rotten flesh. He was still screaming when the zombie sank its mouth into his neck, only stopping its scream after his flesh melted into a new zombie.

“Summon demons!” the three remaining men chanted, and six tier 2 imps appeared from midair summoning circles.

“Silly humans, demons can’t save you,” the pixie woman giggled. “But thank you for the treat. Dinner and a show.”

The imps attacked with fire magic, but the melted zombie flesh did not ignite. Instead, the rotting bodies released fumes of poisonous air as the fire burned them, decaying the very space it touched. The poison traveled quickly into the lungs of the remaining warlocks. Choking, the three men collapsed as their bodies rotted from within, dispelling their demons with their death.

The pixie let out a contented sigh as she inhaled the fumes, sucking them into her stomach as if they were fine wine. When she was satisfied, she gathered up the remaining poison into a ball and stowed it away in her dress. The lady examined her five new zombies with pleasure.

“Hm, not quite enough,” she murmured. With a final snap, the white fire within the lead acidic rotting zombie increased in strength, followed by its four fellows. The zombies shuddered as they evolved. The first zombie transformed into a tier 5 Rotten Zombie Wizard, and the other four became Rotten Zombie Soldiers. They gained armor and weapons molded from their own flesh, and their bodies became stronger, faster, and harder to destroy.

“Go, seek out any members of the Empire and kill them!” she ordered, “Increase your numbers, and rain a plague of undeath on the fools who dare attack my precious Claire!”

The five zombies turned around and ran into the depths of the forest.

Pleased with her work, the lady pixie turned to face the moon. She let out a contented sigh as the moonlight hit her, soaking into her skin and replenishing the magic she’d used. Creating a tier 5 monster was rather overkill, especially given the cost, but the pixie felt neither regret nor annoyance. After all, the worms had something to do with her daughter’s disappearance, and that annoyed her. In the midst of her moonlight shower, the pixie tilted her head, as if listening to an unheard voice.

“Bring me back,” she ordered. “No, she wasn’t here. I couldn’t track her. One of the gods interfered somehow. Don’t worry, I’ll have the others look for her. I’ll find her, even if she died.

“After all, we’re family.” She smiled, creating a white flame in her palm. Examining it closely, one would see the flame was actually made of countless screaming souls.

“And family always stays together.” She winked at one of the souls who, only for a moment, looked like a pixie.

Chapter 1

Within the continent of Palos, inside a dense forest next to a mountain range, the sounds of nature were interrupted by a flash of light and small shockwave. The disturbance caused birds to screech and fly away while smaller animals and monsters ran for cover. The ground shook with unnatural vigor as the event abated, quieting down until the forest surroundings were left still as the grave.

When the dust settled, some of the smaller creatures poked their heads up and stared at the source of the disturbance. Within the trees, there was now a large cave opening leading deeper into the ground. Stalactites and stalagmites could be seen around the entrance and within, and a large worg skull was embedded in the center of the opening arch. A few mice approached cautiously, drawn to the coolness emanating from the cave.

“Nooo!” a voice erupted out from the cave, scaring the mice into fleeing once again. For, this cavern entrance was no ordinary cavern entrance. It was the entrance into a dungeon. At least, it had been.

*

Darkness. It filled the void all around it. It had name, Doc. Yes Doc, my name, not it. But is it?

So hard to think. So hard to breathe.

Accept it. I don’t need to breathe. What is breathing? Another rush of confusion. Blurry images pass through my mind, or soul, or both.

A voice, so familiar. Her voice, small purple dot. Not a dot, a pixie. Claire, friend, teacher, helper.

A warning, more advice, and danger approaching. Not enough time, had to do it. Had to leave.

Then, nothing. Worse than blackness, the nothing. A vacuum, a void, a nothingness, an oblivion. Everything gone, everything stripped away from it, me. I, I am Doc. I am a dungeon.

What is a dungeon?

Awareness is returning. The nothingness has vanished. I am here, or maybe there. I am somewhere again. But there is no one here with me.

There is no one within me. No, that’s wrong, yet right. I’m me, but without something. A core, a center. There is a hole in me. I don’t know how to fill it. The nothingness, it’s residing there now. It scares me. It fills me. It wants to become me, and I it.

I refuse, I rebel, I thrust it out! Be gone from me!

*

Doc’s consciousness slammed back into existence, his mind a jumble from the soul-shattering ordeal he’d gone through. Though he was only a spirit, he could feel the sensation of cold sweat slithering on him.

“I’m never teleporting again,” he promised himself. “That was horrible. How are you feeling Claire?... Claire?”

Doc looked around but saw no sign of the purple dress-wearing pixie he’d come to know as his partner. Rather, now that he took the time to examine his surroundings, he found that his room seemed a lot smaller than he remembered. In fact, he almost didn’t recognize the dungeon heart room with the cracks and the holes and the... wait.

Feeling an overpowering sense of dread, Doc used his consciousness to examine the dungeon.

“Nooo!” the consciousness of the dungeon wailed. “My power, my levels, my dungeon!”

Doc was a dungeon. Specifically, Doc was the sentient spirit of the dungeon that came into being after a soul stone changed into a dungeon heart crystal and birthed him. To protect himself, Doc’s mana could manipulate the ground around him, allowing for the creation of a great underground labyrinth known as a dungeon.

As with other naturally occurring dungeons, this one had come to possess its own morals and ethics through its existence. Named Doc by his partner, this dungeon with little more than a year’s worth of life under its—rather, his—crystal would be considered a youngster amongst his peers. His heart crystal, the core of his underground labyrinth and the host of his spirit, stood at a proud three inches high and one inch across while being completely purple. It floated in the center of his heart room, the last floor of his dungeon body, and was the only source of illumination within the cavern. However, contrary to its look, Doc’s dungeon crystal was not very bright. Instead, it was dull and almost powerless, and the heart room was a complete mess.

“How could this have happened?” Doc asked himself as he beheld the horror of loss. “How could I have lost so much?”

Doc’s dungeon was no more. Of his 26 carefully crafted floors, only three floors remained, including his heart room. His top floor was a strange fusion of the original two floors: a single pathway leading to the larger floor that was now a single, large cavern covered in the rubble of broken walls and collapsed ceilings. The mines were completely destroyed, as was his ooze slime boss. The second floor was in relatively good condition, though it had many new openings leading to the floor above in its maze-like structure. In terms of monsters, most of the bosses were alive, though fairly injured, and all the slimes were scattered around the two floors. The elemental slimes were all missing.

Beyond the physical loss, Doc could also feel that his mana level was largely depleted. Without mana, he wouldn’t be able to make substantial changes to the dungeon, create monsters, or, probably worst, stay awake. He felt like a large bowl that had been cracked and could no longer hold enough water in it, a distressing situation.

However, the most important thing was that Doc was alone. He hadn’t been alone since the first week of existence. Where was Claire? Where were his close minion friends?

“Claire, where are you?” he called out in vain, but no one answered. “Girls, Anadine, Rowen?” Still no one answered. Fretfully, Doc extended his meager senses, but he could find nothing beyond his slimes. His crystal dimmed as the light of hope fell dim.

“Is this all my fault?” Doc whispered mournfully. “Did, did I kill everyone?” It was a horrifying thought.

Despair arose within him. Before it could claim its due, however, Doc felt a tug in his mind. A familiar sensation, the mental bond he shared with the other sentient creatures of his dungeon.

“Summon us, summon us,” it seemed to whisper to him.

“Come out, everyone!” Doc cried out, irrepressible joy overcoming his despair.

In a flash of light, five figures tumbled into existence. Doc wept as his friends came back to life around him.

“Doc, you fool!” Claire the dungeon pixie wailed. “Idiot, brainless oaf! Why haven’t you learned a thing in the year we’ve known each other?” Claire was Doc’s pixie partner, the one who had helped guide him through his first year of existence. She was the one who had given him the name ‘Doc,’ and it was her guidance and teachings that had assisted Doc in growing into a strong and wiser dungeon.

Dungeon pixies were a rare species of underground pixies that bonded with a dungeon crystal in exchange for information and knowledge. Claire herself was a bit special. While her family lineage concentrated on fostering undead dungeons, she took on the traits of her father, an earth pixie, and despised the smell of the undead. Partnering with Doc had allowed her to confront the tragedy of her father’s death, so the two were very good friends.

Between the two of them, they had gone through many hallowing experiences and come out on top stronger for it. Whether it had been adventurers, demons, an attack by another dungeon, cursed fleshlings, or invasion, they had managed to survive and grow stronger from it. However, it appeared the current situation was the newest boulder in their path, and one that was not so easily overcome. The others quickly picked this up as well.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Rowen the lich slime asked, his grey and white slime body vibrating in concern. “Why can’t I change my body?”

“The same for me,” Anadine the wandering slime boss added. “It appears I am unable to reform my human shape. How strange.”

Rowen and Anadine had joined the dungeon later, both under extraordinary circumstances. As a former princess, Anadine had been traumatized by a sinister plot and had used her Chosen powers to grant her soul to Doc upon her death. She had been reborn a monster, only regaining the memory of her human life very recently. Due to this, and Doc’s rescue of her former family, Anadine was eternally loyal to the dungeon spirit. Overcoming her past trauma resulted in her personality mellowing out from the eager soldier she had originally been, resulting in her becoming relaxed and calm on the surface. While never outright mentioned, she appeared to be a member of the mimic slime family.

Similarly, Rowen had been a slumbering prince retrieved from an invading undead dungeon. The centuries spent within the dungeon had resulted in his slow transformation into an undead, thus upon his rescue he was only half human with a monster core growing inside him. After pledging allegiance to his savior, he had his undead half temporarily removed, allowing him to wander amongst other humans until he sacrificed his life to save his special and important friend. He too was reborn within the dungeon as a monster, specifically a lich slime. His personality remained as prideful and negative as it had been before, though he privately abhors his new body as his bones are made of slime and are thus squishy.

Normally, both slime bosses could take on their more natural appearance, a blue slime woman in slime-made armor and a slime skeleton in robes (slime-made), but they currently were unable to. They were instead stuck in the form of a normal slime, albeit slightly larger and a different color than Doc’s standard purple slimes.

“At least you two are awake,” Claire sighed in relief.

“Yeah, but looks like The Twins are out,” Rowen observed. He stared at the sleeping pile of fur in the corner of the room.

Aisha and Ayla, otherwise known as The Twins, were the first outside monsters to join Doc’s dungeon. The two were twin worgs, wolves who had evolved into monsters. They were the only survivors of their pack after an adventurer attack, and their mother had brought them to Doc. Her skull was the one overlooking the dungeon entrance. The two were in their puppy form and sleeping in a ball together. Half the time, Doc couldn’t remember their individual names, so the moniker of The Twins stuck.

“This is all because Doc used too much power!” Claire rubbed her face in exhaustion. “That teleporting ability followed your instruction to the letter Doc; ‘Take us as far away from those demons as far as possible.’ We likely shot across the entire world and think of how much mana that cost!”

“It’s all gone,” Doc sighed. “My floors, my monsters, the mines. Everything I worked so hard for.”

“It could be worse,” Claire refuted. “When you teleported, everyone here was stored in your astral bag. If you had lost all your power, we would have been trapped there forever! The mental bond doesn’t work through dimensions. I had to use an emergency artifact to even send the summoning message to you!”

“I’m sorry,” Doc said, “and I’m really, really glad you’re alright. I was scared I’d killed all of you.”

Claire sighed, “What’s done is done, I suppose. I hope you learned an important lesson from this. Alright, let’s view the damages.” With a flick of her hand, she cast a spell that reformed the magic blue box that displayed Doc’s abilities.

Ability

Description

Teleporting Glyph

Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)

Locked

Inscribe a glyph on every floor that allows adventurers to move from one floor to another easily. Must have cleared the previous floor to be able to move to the next floor. Groups are restricted to the lowest level conquered by a member

Additional Race

Tier 1 Ability

Able to create an additional race to the one held. Increases dungeon diversity

Upgrade Monsters III

Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)

Locked

Grants the ability to improve monsters by unlocking next evolution level.
Current Monster levels: Slime tier 3

Instances

Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)

Locked

Able to create parallel realities within the dungeon, allowing for more adventurers to enter the dungeon at the same time

Environments

Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)

Able to create new obstacles in the form of environmental hazards.

Trap knowledge II

Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)

Locked (II)

Able to improve and add to existing traps by using mana. Current trap types available: pitfall, aerial, launch, ceiling-fall. New trap types: spear trap, trigger trap

Mana Stones

Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)

Locked

Throughout the dungeon, places naturally fill with ambient mana. Now, those places will condense into mana stones that can be mined

Puzzle Knowledge

Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)

Able to create simple puzzles on floors that test knowledge, imagination, and intuition

Dungeon Aesthetics

Tier 2 Ability

Locked

Able to change dungeon tunnels and rooms into new forms. Current form: Underground Labyrinth

New form: Dilapidated temple

Requires Environments to unlock

Dungeon Room of Traps

Tier 2 Ability (Acquired)

Locked

Unlocks the ability to create a room filled with moving parts with set requirements on how to leave. Requires Trap Knowledge II and Puzzle Knowledge to unlock

Dungeon Room of Worship

Tier 3 Ability

Locked

Unlocks the ability to create a shrine room on any floor. Shrine rooms are a safe place from monsters and hold altars for a particular deity. Requires Dungeon Aesthetics, religious icon, and approval of chosen deity.

Note: The Dungeon will receive a small percentage of faith magic created in the shrine

Dungeon Nursery Room

Tier 3 Ability

Locked

Unlocks the ability to grow new plants not seen before in the world. Requires Environments III to unlock

Locked

Locked

Rowen let out a whistle as he read through the information. “Wow, Doc,” he muttered. “Except for your monsters, environments, and trap powers everything else looks locked off. What’s happened, Claire? Did he really lose all his power?”

The blue box shuddered mid-air then abruptly shattered, startling everyone in the room.

“The dungeon is in more disrepair than I thought,” Claire sighed. “To put things simply, Doc used up most of his stored mana. It’s like when a bonfire is depleted of wood, it gets smaller and produces less light and heat. Without mana powering his dungeon, Doc’s crystal has locked most of his dungeon abilities away as a safeguard from completely running out of power. The abilities he lost used most of his daily mana, and The Twins required more to be used as non-slime bosses than you two. Of course, both of you have had your powers restricted as well. You won’t be able to rely on Doc for a power up now.”

“Locked... locked doesn’t mean lost.” Doc observed with hope. “Claire, does that mean I will be able to recover usage of my abilities once I regain enough mana?”

“That’s right,” Claire agreed. “As long as we get adventurers back inside of your dungeon, their deaths will once again empower you.”

“Great! Alright, let’s summon some adventurers!” Doc metaphysically rolled up his imaginary sleeves.

“Is that wise, Doc?” Anadine spoke up respectfully, “After all, we don’t know where your dungeon landed, after all. What if we’re in a city of very strong adventurers? You don’t have the power to fight against that kind of a threat.”

Doc paused. “That’s a good point. I only have two floors to wield, too. Claire, can you use your pixie tunnels to quickly scout the outside?”

“Are they clear? I’m worried a few may have collapsed,” Claire asked.

Doc did a quick internal scan. His mind examined the remaining pixie tunnels, which originally ran through the length of the dungeon. Similarly, though, most were ruined.

“Most of the pixie tunnels are gone,” Doc reported. “However, the one connected to the entrance is still intact, and it has a newly opened exit above it—by which I mean it has a hole. Now that I look around, there are quite a few holes in the dungeon.”

Doc paused for a moment, not letting Claire leave yet. “Also, I don’t detect any immediate threats outside the dungeon. You should be safe so long as you don’t go father out than a few feet. That’s the current limit of my senses.”

“Then I’m off.” Claire flew up into the ceiling entrance to her tunnels and flew up the dungeon. She couldn’t help but notice how short the trip was as she arrived at the entrance hiding spot inside the skull. The ceiling had collapsed, unveiling a new entry point into the dungeon.

“Doc, are you aware your first and second floors fused into this... mess?” Claire asked through their mental bond.

“I saw it,” Doc’s depressed voice echoed in her head. “From twenty-six levels to three, this really is a huge tragedy for the dungeon. What’s worse, the new first floor is such a complete mess of rubble, and I can’t use my powers to clean it. I’m having enough trouble just sealing the holes.”

Letting out another sigh, Claire opted to ignore the gaping hole and opened the secret door hidden next to the skull. She flew out of the rock and observed the immediate surroundings. The sudden teleportation had landed the dungeon entrance in the middle of a forest, with magic having blown most of everything away around it, forming a perfectly round clearing. She counted a fifteen-meter gap to the forest edge all around them. Claire then zoomed to the top of the mound and turned in a circle, examining everything she could see. To her disappointment, however, all she saw were trees, stones, and plant life. Feeling some trepidation, Claire flew high, higher than the trees above the canopy, and stared.

To her amazement, the land was covered with trees to the horizon. Behind the dungeon, there were tall mountains that reached toward the sky, but they loomed in the distance. She could see lakes, streams, animals, and monsters as well, but there were no settlements of any kind. Wilderness surrounded them.

“Doc, I don’t think we’re going to be able to recover your power anytime soon.” She said slowly. “Unless you cause a huge disturbance, I don’t think anyone will ever know we’re here. There are no adventurers for miles.”

There was a slight pause as Doc seemed to process this information.

“Is there anything in your lessons about this kind of situation?” he asked. “Maybe you have some hopeful news that will help? A special dungeon method passed down from your ancestors? Anything at all?”

“Well,” Claire tapped her lips thoughtfully, “since you won’t be able to survive using the old methods, then maybe we can change your style of dungeon to Plan B.”

“What’s ‘Plan B?’” Anadine asked through the bond curiously. “Does it stand for ‘bondage?’”

“I’d be okay with that.” Rowen shrugged. “Tying up adventurers seems like a natural progression for a slime dungeon.”

Claire sighed and shook her head. “I’m referring to the other method of creating a dungeon—the second option, if you will. By this, I mean that you’re going to have work hard, Doc. It’s going to take time and sacrifice to do this.”

Doc didn’t say anything for a moment.

“What do I need to do?”

Chapter 2

“Let me return to the dungeon first,” Claire said. “This’ll take a bit of explaining.” The little pixie flew back into her pixie tunnel and down to the heart room.

“Welcome back,” Doc said.

“I only left for a moment,” Claire refuted with a smile, “but thanks anyway.”

“Hey Claire,” Anadine spoke up from the floor, “You said it didn’t look like we were anywhere near a city, right? Can you make any guesses on where we might be?”

“Sorry, Anadine, but I think we’re far away from anything remotely identifiable,” Claire shook her head with a resigned sigh. “Even with magic enhancing my vision, the only thing in every direction were trees, hills and mountains, none of which I recognize.”

“My studies with Milly taught me some of the more notable landmarks,” Rowen offered. “Perhaps I could make a suitable estimation of our location if you provided me with some visual cues. What were the trees like?”

Claire pondered before answering. “The trees that seem to be dominating the immediate area are green but less leafy and smaller with a thicker flesh. Given the temperature, most trees would be sleeping if this were still Nehatra.”

“That makes this forest more evergreen than seasonal.” Rowen reasoned, “Which means we’re somewhere much more north than before. Claire, was the wind moving towards or away from the mountains?”

Claire shook her head. “There was no wind I could feel or see coming from a single direction,” she explained. “Rather, it seemed that the wind was quiet and soft.”

Rowen frowned and began to mutter to himself, while Anadine persisted with her own questioning. “What about the soil? What color was it?”

“Black and brown,” Claire said after a moment’s hesitation.

“Final question: did the air have an oddly higher amount of ambient mana?”

“Yes,” Claire answered.

“Then we must be in the northern wilderness,” Anadine asserted. “It’s the only place that makes sense.” Rowen looked up and frowned, giving Anadine a cold glance of annoyance.

“What’s the northern wilderness?” Doc asked.

“It’s a large swath of forest and mountains that separate the northern countries from the southern countries,” the slime girl explained. “The mountains mostly cover the middle of the continent, creating a huge area of wilderness. The only opening in the range leads into the valley of the grey orc nations, which is to the north and slightly west of Nehatra. The mountains, in turn, are surrounded by a great forest on all sides, connecting the mountains to the sea and stretching across the entire range on both the northern and southern sides. Then, there is a layer of swampy marshland on the edges of the south side. The Empire stretches across the entire wilderness, but even it isn’t foolish enough to make large expeditions into the wilderness. To safely get to the northern nations, you’d have to travel the merchant road in Valorek, cutting through Glenwood to the east.”

“I have no idea where any of these places are,” Doc stated. “But can I assume that there is minimal chance of encountering adventurers here?”

“Correct,” Anadine said. “The wilderness is considered a deathtrap for anyone but the strongest warriors and mages. Most don’t even make it out of the swamps, let alone enter the forest.”

She tapped her jiggly face, which happened to be her body as well, in thought. “There are many incredibly strong monsters and animals that live here, staking territories all around. I’ve heard tales of untapped natural resources as well. That places us in a location of high stakes and high rewards.”

“It’s likely a little worse than that,” Claire continued from the side, using her magic to repair the entrance to her home in the wall. “Given the density of magic in the air and the lack of sentient races, there’s a good chance this place is home to many other dungeons, too. It would be a colossal problem if they found us right now, given our current state.”

Her work completed, Claire landed on a stone outcropping stretching out from the back wall, parallel with Doc’s floating crystal. The entrance to her home once again stood on the wall above the pedestal, a newly made set of stone chairs and table standing in front. She took a seat, placed her chin on both her palms, blew a strand of hair, and smiled in comfort.

“Thankfully, my home didn’t suffer any damage in the move,” she reported, “Unlike everything else.”

“So, to reiterate,” Rowen interrupted dryly, “We find ourselves tens of days, if not weeks, away from familiar land, surrounded by threats like monsters and other dungeons, with a depleted dungeon running on low mana, and without a nearby food source by which to recover our strength.”

“That about sums it up I suppose,” Anadine said.

“We’re all going to die here,” Rowen groaned.

“Now, now.” Claire held up her arms calmingly. “Thankfully, all isn’t lost quite yet. We still have a chance if Doc can successfully become a natural dungeon.”

“You still haven’t explained what that is,” Rowen pointed out.

“Then I shall go ahead and do so,” Claire said with a smile. She cleared her throat in preparation. “Now, it’s time to begin a new lesson on dungeon management. Tell me, Doc, in your first year and few months of living, what have you learned that makes a good dungeon?”

“Well, a good dungeon is one that balances adventurer greed with adventurer fear,” Doc recalled. “There must be plenty of treasure and loot to attract adventurers in, while the dungeon traps and monsters should kill only just enough adventurers to increase the dungeon’s power without terrifying the remaining adventurers into retaliation. However, too much treasure and the adventurers will become rich and stop returning. In addition, dungeon monsters have to be balanced well according to their level of strength, and any monster I summon while adventurers are within the dungeon cost more mana than if I summoned them while none were present.”

“That’s correct,” Claire agreed. “What you’ve said is the optimal form of dungeon management when faced with adventurers. However, would that model still work without adventurers?”

“I can’t imagine that at all,” Doc admitted ruefully. “With my current mana expenditure, I’d use too much power to manage everything, and I’d shut down to conserve mana.”

“So then, ask yourself this,” Claire paused dramatically. “How do dungeons that come into being in the wild grow? And by wild, I do mean like in this forest where adventurers are rare to find. To stop you before you can say it, I promise you my mother knew at least a few wild dungeon pixies, so this isn’t a trick question.”

Doc thought to himself and ended up metaphysically shrugging. He couldn’t imagine a world without adventurers coming every day. The few times that had happened to him, he’d been bored for the entire day. Not even watching gory—yet humorous—recordings of adventurer deaths had lifted the fugue.

“The answer is that these ‘wild dungeons’ create what is known as a natural dungeon system,” the pixie revealed. “It’s a system designed to use the minimum amount of dungeon mana to create the best results. It should be said, though, that some civilized dungeons also use this method, and all dungeons end up combining aspects of both methods once they reach a certain level of power, regardless of their starting choice.”

“By ‘natural,’ you mean the principle of the food web, correct? I’ve heard that term before from one of my tutors,” Anadine rubbed the top of her slime body with a tentacle. “You’re referring to the natural process of plants growing under the magic of the sun then being eaten by insects, which are eaten by birds as the cycle continues to the top predator. Then everything dies and is eaten by worms to be turned into dirt for the plants.”

“That’s it exactly.” Claire clapped, at which Anadine made a bow with her slime body. Rowen rolled his eyes but said nothing.

“How am I supposed to do that?” Doc asked in confusion. “My slimes don’t eat each other.”

“They don’t try to eat each other because you restrict their natural behavior,” Claire reminded him. “Under the old way of doing things in your dungeon, the slimes were little more than small extensions of your consciousness that you could enter and exit at will. The natural way of doing things is more laid back, letting nature do its work with minimal interference. In the wild, your slimes would be naturally territorial, especially against different slime families. Allowing them to live as they would in nature would encourage them to grow and evolve on their own. We wouldn’t have to do as much experimenting to discover new slime evolutions.”

“But won’t that lead to another Gretony?” Rowen snorted. The boy had not been present for the rogue slime attack on Doc, but he had heard enough of the event to know Doc had come very close to losing his dungeon. Gretony had been one of Doc’s slimes once, yet he had somehow come into a being as an individual sentient creature. After growing into a lord slime, the third stage of slime life, he’d initiated an ambush on Doc and almost succeeded in replacing Doc as the dungeon consciousness. Privately, Doc knew the true identity of the slime, but as it was dead, he saw no use in speculating over it.

“That was a unique case.” Claire shook her head. “While sentient dungeon monsters are certainly nothing new, I’ve never heard anything about one trying to take over a dungeon by replacing the hive mind. I do know a few stories about some that killed their dungeon for the heart crystal and wielded it as a tool...”

Claire noticed three pairs of eyes on her. She blushed.

“A, anyway,” she stammered. “Doc won’t have to worry about a rebellion as long as he hides his heart room from the new monsters and we keep an eye on any slimes that show initiative and intelligence, as unlikely as that is. Though it won’t only be slimes in the dungeon once Doc allows it to develop naturally.”

Doc sent Claire the feeling of raising an imaginary eyebrow. Claire rolled her eyes and giggled.

“You understood that when Anadine described the idea of ecology, she was referring to many different types of animals and monsters, right? Plants, too? If you leave your slimes to their own devices, they can’t propagate quickly, nor can they recreate every role in the web on their own. That goes double for the small amount of slimes you can create. Tell me, Doc, can you make any elemental slimes right now?”

“I…” In slight bewilderment at the sudden prompt, Doc reflexively channeled mana into a fire slime summoning circle. The circle, however, rejected his mana, and left Doc very confused.

“I can’t?” Doc realized as he tried to condense his magic again. “My magic isn’t forming the element to go with the slime. The magic circle isn’t accepting it.”

“Remember how you first made your elemental slimes?” Claire reminded him, “You had to rely on your mana crystal ability to first create the stones that catalyzed their evolution. In case you’ve forgotten, Doc, your personal dungeon mana is element neutral. You can use every element but can’t produce those powers on your own without help. Without your mana crystal ability, you’ve lost half of your slime repertoire. That means no more fire, water, earth, or wind slimes.”

“So besides making me feel worse,” Doc murmured, “where are you going with this?”

“Since your slimes aren’t enough, then it’s time to unlock another race for your dungeon,” Claire beamed. “Still, you don’t have enough mana to unlock it the straightforward way as an ability. Instead, you’re going to add them to your dungeon the old-fashioned way: kidnapping, domination, subordination, and assimilation. You know, the nefarious things dungeons are usually known for.”

Rowen and Anadine shared a look.

“You ever hear of dungeons kidnapping before?” Rowen asked.

“No, but then again I’ve heard of worse things happening in dungeons.” She shrugged.

“To make this work,” Claire continued “You’re going to need a more aggressive approach when it comes to drawing creatures into the dungeon. Once you believe a suitable number of animals and monsters are inside, you’ll need to close the entrance and quickly kill everything inside with your slimes—maybe traps, if you still have any working ones.

“After you absorb their bodies and mana, you’ll not only be stronger, but you should also have memorized their body composition and make-up. Without too much experimenting, you’ll be able to recreate those bodies as dungeon-born animals and monsters. When you leave them to their natural instincts, they’ll create the ecology of life and death within your dungeon that you’ll need to gather more mana and bulk up.”

Claire paused. “You could also just choose to let monsters migrate naturally into the dungeon without killing them. I’m not very comfortable honestly with the idea of letting monsters in the dungeon that are not connected to you magically. It’s too big a danger to us if they choose to attack, especially in your current state.”

“That’s on the variable of how many creatures actually enter the dungeon,” Doc grumbled. “I have no desire to end up bored and lonely with nothing to do while waiting on the chance hope some beast enters my dungeon. What if another dungeon appears in the coming week and decides to attack? We need to quickly attract a lot of monsters to make this work.”

Claire shrugged. “It’s your dungeon, Doc. I can also advise you. How do you want to handle this?”

Doc looked down at Anadine and Rowen.

“Anadine,” he called, “how much booze slime do you have left in your body?”

“A good bit,” she answered. “It hasn’t been so long since I needed it to disguise as a human, so my body hasn’t dissolved much of it. Do you have a need for it?”

“Yes. Go to the top floor… go to the entrance and coat the ceiling up to the opening into the cavern with the leftover alcohol. Don’t bother with the entrance itself or the other surfaces. Be careful, though; the former first floor is so badly damaged that I can’t determine if the old traps are active or not.”

“You worry too much, Doc,” Anadine chuckled, “I doubt I’ll be killed by pitfalls or aerial slime attacks.”

“Just a precaution,” Doc said. He turned to Rowen next. “Rowen, take your bone and blood slime minions, the ones still alive anyway, and create fake monster nest remains along the walls leading to the cavern. Feel free to have the blood slimes leave puddles of blood on the ground in the room right before the boss room, too. I’m not sure what a monster nest, real or fake, looks like, so I’m counting on you and your studies.”

“You can count on me,” Rowen said. “But I want to make known that I think this is a bad idea.

“Noted,” Doc said.

“It sounds like you have an interesting plan.” Claire flew up to Doc’s crystal and smiled. “I’m delighted to hear it. What else are you going to do?”

“The third floor—former third floor I suppose—still has parts covered in plants. I’m using my environments ability to encourage the plant life to propagate up into the large cavern to cover the rubble and remains in a layer of green. Once plants have randomly spread across the cavern, I’m going to only encourage the herbs to grow from then on. This way, the cavern will not only be green, but will have an herbal scent to it. I’ll also have the vines dominate the walls and ceiling to reinforce the illusion of an underground wilderness. I’ll keep the third floor in the maze form without allowing the plants to spread, however.” Doc paused. “I suppose I could use my environments ability here to create natural traps later on, some forest log tricks and the like.”

“You’re making a forest within the dungeon, then?” Claire observed. “That’s a surprisingly well thought out plan from you Doc. Not only will you have the perfect place for plant-eating animals, it’ll encourage predators to follow as well. I assume you planned this when I first explained what an ecology was?”

“Something like that,” Doc said off-handedly as he concentrated on the rapid plant growth. “If I understand your idea, I need to start small and work my way up to larger creatures. The blood of humans mixed with the scent of booze will turn away anything scared of human adventurers while also attracting little creatures that can feed on the two liquids. The forest will be their new home, at least until I kill them for their bodies.”

Claire rubbed her chin as a worried look past over her face. “Doc, what are you basing this assumption on again? The blood and alcohol, I mean.

“Just from observing the insects that used to enter the dungeon,” Doc admitted. “It was just trivial things, but they helped teach me their habits before getting eaten by the bug slimes.”

“Right, but Doc, have you considered the difference of where we are verses where we were?” Claire asked slowly.

Doc turned his attention to Claire. “You mean how we’re in a forest now instead of next to one? That’s why I’m propagating the plants inside the dungeon. Though I suppose instead of a forest it’ll look more like a large garden, since I don’t have any trees yet. Oh, but that herb is rather large...”

“Not that.” Claire frowned. “It’s just that we teleported as far away from that enemy army as magically possible, ending up in a place so desolate it’s known as the northern wilderness. In that case, haven’t we ended up somewhere where adventurers and humans aren’t a big issue to monsters? In which case, instead of dissuading monsters, wouldn’t all that blood end up attracting them as a delicacy they’ve never had before?”

Doc and Claire shared a long look.

“Oh.” Doc said.

“Master Doc, there’s a problem!” Anadine’s voice rang through the mental link. “The forest is filled with the sounds of wild animals and monsters, and they’re getting closer! It sounds like a stampede!”

“Retreat back to the heart room with Rowen!” Doc ordered at once. “The boss slimes should be enough to handle them!”

“Doc, you don’t have your instance ability, either,” Claire reminded him, “so that horde will enter and fight your bosses all at once. Even if you shut the door, the smell of blood is still present in the air. I’m sure they’d break through the wall to reach the blood-soaked tunnel.”

Doc hummed a little ditty he’d heard from an adventurer.

“Well,” he finally said, “it appears we’re going to have to hide for a time then.”

The dungeon shuddered under the immense weight of the stampede.

“Maybe a little longer than a time,” Doc relented.

Chapter 3

“This actually takes me back,” Claire hummed wistfully. “Back when it was just Doc and I, the fool literally exploded his front door into existence way before he was ready, inviting that first squad of adventurers into our home. It was that silly act that led to our success, though, so I can’t help but look upon that event with fondness.”

“That’s the spirit, Claire,” Doc said. “Way to keep a positive attitude. See, guys, this isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to us.”

“No, most definitely not,” Claire agreed. “If anything, this situation is nowhere near as bad as demon invasions, dungeon invasions, army invasions, or being framed as a murdering corrupted dungeon. Nope, this is a fairly typical day for us… even if we’re being forced to hide in our own home.”

“Right, so this isn’t an unprecedented disaster,” Rowen said sarcastically. “Because during all those other events, you at least had an army of slimes and a variety of floors to slow down your enemies. Unlike now…”

The heart room shuddered loudly once again, making everyone tense up. The horde of monsters were rampaging up above their heads, a cacophony of snarls, whines, roars, and barks. Worst still for Doc and co., the blood trap had inadvertently attracted mostly carnivores instead of plant eating herbivores, resulting in the mess above them. Upon finding the lack of prey, the monsters and animals had turned their berserker selves on each other.

“Honestly, though,” Rowen grumbled, “how is being in such a dangerous situation a calming situation for the both of you? I’m tense beyond belief, and that’s in a body without a single muscle.”

“I must agree with my younger brother here. That’s almost horrifying to hear,” Anadine said. “Having been through so much already, it’s amazing to see the both of you numb to these types of situations to the point of relaxation. However, wouldn’t having a more cautionary mindset be prudent here? It would not do us good if you were to treat this incursion like before.”

Rowen twitched violently, whirling around to look at his fellow slime boss. “Hey, I’m not your brother,” he growled. “We aren’t related, and I’m hundreds of years older than you.”

“Silly little brother,” Anadine poked Rowen’s body teasingly. “We’re both slimes now created by Doc. Since I was born before you, that means I’m your older sister! And if you want to argue about our previous human heritage, then given both my and your royal status, there is a good chance you are distantly related to me.”

“Don’t assume so much familiarity with me. We aren’t friends,” Rowen snapped, slapping away Anadine’s tentacle.

“Fine, I’ll give you some space,” Anadine said, her tone indicating she’d have rolled her eyes if she had any. “Just remember, we’re in this together, so it would be good for both of us to accept the situation as is. I’ll have you know I happen to be a great person to have as a sibling, and I’m sure you’ll learn to see it.”

“Fat chance of that,” Rowen muttered under his breath as he sulked. “My sister... anyway stop forcing yourself on me. I’m still getting used to this confusing body of mine, and I don’t need you distracting me.”

“Oh really?” Anadine’s eyes turned mischievous. “So, what happens if I poke you like this?” She reformed her tentacle and playfully poked Rowen a few times.

“Stop it, I’ll—!” Rowen cried, but it was too late. Having just been reborn into a slime less than twenty-four hours ago, Rowen hadn’t quite managed to learn how to stay condensed. The body of a slime was quite different from the body of a human, after all. Unlike the stoic and unchanging human body, slime bodies were fluid, literally, and the slime itself was controlled by the core located at the center. Unfortunately for Rowen, his lich slime body had evolved a scattered type core that existed throughout his slime. It was like having his brain everywhere at once, with each part having control over a different section of slime. Needless to say, the excess poking resulting in the breaking of his concentration and the deflating of his body into a puddle—a withering, wiggling, angry puddle.

“Hells curse you!” Rowen cursed from the floor, tiny tentacles squirming frantically to reform his body in vain. “Just you wait until I reform my body!”

Ignoring the struggling boss slime, Anadine turned her body to look at the ceiling. Her slime body vibrated with the rhythm of the sounds, allowing her to listen better than any ear would. “Sounds like the riot is about over,” she observed as her body slowed its tremoring. “I think now would be an opportune time to check on what’s happened to the rest of the dungeon, my lord.”

“Wait, let me,” Claire cautioned Doc. “If they sense your magical presence, they might come back and start searching for your crystal. I can use my pixie magic to hide my smell, and they can’t enter the pixie tunnels.”

“Alright, but be care—,” Doc paused as he felt something move within him. The world around him vanished, replaced by images and pain.

Large purple body, standing at the foot of the tunnel. Orders received. Defend the home. Ground shaking, slime jiggling. It comes. The horde, the sickening mix of claw, fang, scale, fur, drool, and sounds. So many sounds, all mixing together to form one giant organism. It stood no chance against it. It could not do its duty. Blackness

Changeable body, the bug slime boss. Death of predecessor enrages. First form, beetle, slaughter begins. The horde breaks, but reforms. It is fluid. Strong attacks, quick attacks, unable to defend. Unable to block. Unable to stop. The armor breaks. Worm form. No better, less armor. Ant form, legs pulled off. Lost too much slime. Blackness.

Clear pink slime, magic coursing through slime. Minions slaughtered. Fire breaks the horde but blocked by magic. Water magic, earth magic—all too much. Barriers failing. Shadow ambush. Blackness.

There were none left.

Doc screamed hoarsely as the pain and death of his three upper floor bosses flowed into him. He’d never felt this before, never once wavered at the sight of his creatures dying. It was different now; he had a hole inside him. It used to protect him, used to be the lightning rod. The protection no longer existed. The humanity used to birth him, gone, and with it, justification and reason. It was not mindless monsters dying out there, it was him, over and over again, small parts cut off and dissected from his soul. He’d never felt pain before, especially none like this.

“Doc, hey Doc, are you okay?” Claire asked worriedly. Doc’s consciousness returned in a flash. Was it all a dream? Whatever had occurred, he only had echoes of the experience. He was still devoid of emotion.

“I… yeah, I’m okay,” Doc replied, feeling the cold sweat feeling once again. “I was just, lost in thought. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Rolling her eyes as she sighed in relief, the pixie flew up to Doc’s crystal and rubbed it affectionately. “Silly Doc, don’t ever worry about me like that. I’m the one who worries in this relationship.”

“I’ll do my best to keep that in mind in the future,” Doc chuckled.

Winking mischievously, she zoomed back up into the tunnel entrance and zoomed to the cavern’s observation room.

Doc’s crystal blinked as Claire’s vision connected with his, creating a moving series of images that Anadine and Rowen could see reflected onto the wall and the other sides of his crystal. Thankfully, this dungeon ability used up only a smidge of Doc’s mana.

“It appears most of the monsters have become bored after fighting each other,” Claire reported a moment later, her eyes examining the second floor from her hideout in the pixie tunnels. “Due to the feeding frenzy, most have either died or fled, but there are a few predators roaming the green on floors two and three. Thankfully, their strength is at most comparable to your tier 1 or 2 slimes. Looks like the blood didn’t attract any bigger ones. On the bright side, it looks like a number of critters have also entered the dungeon to take refuge.”

The image on Doc’s crystal shifted to images of various bugs, small rodents, and a few large animals with teeth. Doc focused in on the larger animals, noting their various bodies. When he was done, the image shifted again to focus on the various smaller animals scattered through the third and second floors. None of the animals had stayed on the first floor once the blood was drank, but Doc watched in interest as numerous insects interacted with the booze-drenched ceiling.

“The plan wasn’t a complete failure, then,” Doc noted in relief. “Claire, can you identify all the animals that are still in the dungeon?”

“I can,” Claire’s voice said in affirmation. “Let’s see, besides the insects, I can see mice, rats, bats, lizards, snakes, and a few birds. The predators roaming around are forest lions, dire wolf, anaconda, and some forest raptors. So, while your plan wasn’t a complete failure, here’s the bad news. Every slime up here got torn to shreds, including your bosses.”

“What!” Doc exclaimed in horror as he remembered the visions that had just flown through his mind, “All of them? Are you sure?”

The image shifted to the remains of the bug slime boss, torn to shreds with slime mimicked bug parts scattered across the floor.

“Yup. Although I can’t find your jungle slime boss, I can see the remains of all your other upper level boss slimes scattered around. They really didn’t have a chance against an unlimited horde like that. Given your current level of mana, I don’t think you’ll be able to remake them anytime soon,” Claire observed. The image changed to show Claire sitting on another stone chair in her observation room. She was holding three bottles, each containing a bit of slime from the three dead bosses.

“Alright, I see. Those damn monster slaughter my bosses in cold blood and couldn’t be bothered to eat up the remains!” Doc gnashed his imaginary teeth in fury. To a dungeon, it was with respect that Doc used every part of a dead body. Even if it was experiments or food, Doc had come to the understanding that using every useful part was the proper way to show respect to a dead foe. To see his bosses strewn around, trodden on and ignored, piqued his anger. “In that case, Anadine and Rowen, take ten furry slimes and get rid of all the large creatures crawling inside my dungeon! Make them pay for their wastefulness and cruelty!”

“Yes sir,” the two slimes wiggled in acknowledgement. Rowen, having recovered his body, shot a quick glare at Anadine, who winked at him using her slime. They waited for Doc to summon the tier three slimes. They continued to wait for a few more minutes.

“There aren’t any furry slimes around, are there?” Rowen finally sighed.

Doc’s crystal shuddered as anger and embarrassment warred with each other.

“I can no longer summon them, along with the other tier threes,” he finally said in terse breath. “I’m... missing something?”

“That’s alright, Doc,” Claire comforted him through the image, “we’ll just have your boss slimes here summon up some minions.”

“What boss slimes?” Anadine asked. “Didn’t you say they’re all dead?”

“You and Rowen, of course,” Claire snickered. “You both have boss powers, or is that something I forgot to mention?”

Anadine and Rowen shared an intrigued look as their attention shot up to Claire’s face on the crystal. The pixie had stored the bottles in a bag she’d picked up from somewhere and was flying back down the tunnels towards them.

“Claire, is this one of our boss abilities, to summon minions?” Anadine asked eagerly, “Why haven’t I heard about it before?”

“Because you didn’t need it yet,” Claire answered, returning to the heart room. She floated down to sit on Anadine’s body. “With Doc low on power, it has become imperative that you both quickly learn your abilities as bosses. First thing first, though, you both need to know who you are.”

“I’m me and always have been?” Anadine pondered curiously. “Or is this a deeper philosophical question?”

“Not spiritually or mentally,” Claire waved her hand dismissively, “I mean as a slime. Now, contrary to what you may think, both of you are actually very high tier slimes. Anadine, you are a Doppelganger slime, tier seven. Rowen, you are a lich slime, also tier seven. Both of these slimes are among the legendary monsters of this world, monsters so rare and powerful that they’ve conquered entire countries. Forget the legend of the nine-tailed fox seducing its way into power, a doppelganger slime is recorded to have once replaced a king and had its lesser minions become ministers. The lich slime was recorded to have once raised a mighty undead army to battle the legendary skeleton dragon army, creating a battlefield that still reeks undead mana.”

“This means I have some incredible bosses under me,” Doc said, a hint of pride emerging in his anger. “That means they’ll be able to slaught—Hold on, Claire, didn’t you once tell me that a dungeon couldn’t maintain control over monsters stronger than it? Back when I wanted to have dragon minions using the kobold race.”

“What I said then is true now,” Claire said smugly. “Tell me, do these two really seem like monsters who could overthrow kingdoms?”

Doc watched Anadine and Rowen jiggle.

“Nope,” he deadpanned.

“Hey!” the two slimes shouted.

“Exactly. These two here have that potential, but after swearing loyalty to you they’re power is restricted to a percentage of your max power. Even if a legendary dragon swore loyalty to you in some insane situation, it would be transformed into a baby until you were stronger than its max strength,”

“Claire, what happened to those legendary slime?” Rowen pressed, his scholarly spirit reasserting itself.

“Obviously they were defeated,” Claire snorted. “Ignoring the two of your situations, all slimes are, mostly, complete idiots lacking any brains. Even a doppelganger slime can only mimic being a human. Its lack of original ideas led to a civil war that ultimately resulted in its destruction. A lich slime can raise vast armies of undead, but its lack of intelligence resulted in complete defeat when its army didn’t have any orders besides move forward and attack. Really, a slime versus a dragon in any form is just asking for trouble. Not that a slime cannot gain intelligence, but normally that particular property is independent of strength.”

“As pleasing as this story is, can you explain our powers as bosses?” Anadine prompted. “Neither Rowen nor I have any problems with our intelligence, beyond what landed us here in the first place, right?” She chuckled at her joke, but behind her, Rowen’s body darkened visibly.

“Right.” Claire shook her head. “Anyway, as dungeon bosses, one of the abilities both of you possess is that you can summon your own minions into battle. Normally Doc would do that for you, but since he’s like a used candle right now, you must rely on your own reserves of mana to do so. You can summon any slime in your family weaker than you, but only if Doc has unlocked it first. For you, Anadine, that would be the lesser mimic slime family. For you. Rowen, the grey slimes. Keep in mind, though, that if you use too much mana, you’ll fall asleep until you regenerate it or you’ll die. One or the other.

“To summon your minions,” Claire continued, “concentrate your mana into a part of your outer slime. With the image of what you desire in mind, break off the bit of slime where your mana lies, and it will transform into a slime. Your magic will become its core.”

“So, in other words, making too many minions would result in us losing a lot of slime, rather than losing all our mana,” Rowen observed.

“For slimes, that’s the same thing,” Claire shrugged. “You turn your mana into slime and store the excess in your core. If the two of you ever grow into queen slimes, then you’ll gain the power to bud off slimes naturally without using so much mana.”

“Yeah, not planning on that,” Rowen said dryly. “Queen isn’t a title that suits me, but I am interested in my minions. Let me give it a try.”

Rowen moved his body back and forth, up and down, and all around, but nothing happened. He rather resembled a living, jiggling pudding.

“Here, little brother, like this,” Anadine demonstrated. Creating a tentacle, the former adventurer gathered a pinch of slime and pinched it off. The blue slime landed on the dungeon floor and vibrated softly. Inside, everyone watched as a black slime core came into being. The blue slime turned slightly purple and grew ant legs and mandibles.

“Great, you made a bug-type, lesser mimic slime!” Claire declared in elation. “How do you feel?”

“I think I can make four more without needing to rest,” Anadine reasoned as she examined her body. “You understand what I did little brother?”

“Stop calling me that, already,” Rowen grunted as he spawned a bone slime in the same way as Anadine. “What, do you have a brother complex or something? “

“I’ve only ever had older brothers, so this is a fun new experience for me,” Anadine admitted.

“Whatever. Just don’t involve me in any of your weird fantasies,” Rowen growled.

“Alright, children.” Claire clapped her hands. “If the two of you are done, it’s monster massacre time. Please be sure to leave as many pieces behind as possible so Doc can work on unlocking new slimes. Start on the third floor and work up. Good luck!”

“Kill them all,” Doc ordered.

“You’re rather aggressive today, aren’t you, Doc?” Claire observed, a tinge of concern dancing at her eyes. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“. . . I didn’t like how my bosses were killed,” Doc said as he watched Anadine and Rowen leave with their new minions. Privately, the echoes still rang in his mind.

“I am sorry you had to see the results,” Claire comforted him, flying up to pat his crystal. “It’s different having them die to other monsters than adventurers. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Will I? And, do I want to?

These words rang in Doc’s mind as he turned his attention to the scene of his remaining slime bosses, not realizing for a moment that his thoughts had been heard. A pair of eyes trembled and disappeared, with the sleeping worgs twitching in their sleep.

Chapter 4

A large forest lion with green and brown fur creeped through the undergrowth, keeping a sharp guard on its surroundings with each paw step. An old fighter, the large cat understood an unknown danger approached, silently like the shadows.

The forest lion had been hunting in when an irresistible scent wafted up from the forest floor. It was the scent of spilled blood, from a source the lion had never encountered before. By itself, the scent would merely be attractive to the lion, perhaps inviting caution against a larger hunter’s kill.

However, it had felt the change in the forest. It was instinctual, but every creature understood when the call came. A stronger, smarter monster released a scent into the air. It mixed into the scent of blood, a sweet honey scent that made the lion’s mouth water. It quickly joined the horde of monsters that surged toward the source of the smell. The hierarchy of the forest demanded it.

The scent came from a cave in the forest, one that had not been there before. Neither the lion nor the other hunters cared for this and charged right in. Inside, there were odd colored slimes, weak monsters the lion could easily kill on its own. They stood no chance against the horde of creatures that poured into the cave.

Deeper inside the cave, the lion found a vast cavern filled with plant life, faintly illuminated by various lights along the outer wall. It also found that there was nothing to eat. The scent had been a lie. With that realization, the many hunters set upon the weaker animals attracted by the scent, and chaos ensued. The lion had been forced away by a pack of forest wolves, slinking into the undergrowth in order to save its strength. The killing didn’t last long, and the winners devoured their prey. The lion stole a carnivorous deer from a smaller lion and ate well.

Following the feast, most of the hunters had left the cavern, heading back to the forest. The old lion stayed, however. During its many years of life, it had never seen such a lush cavern. The air was fresh, and much prey had scattered throughout the cave once the predators had mostly left. Best of all, there were no stronger monsters here to force it into obedience. Feeling its age beginning to catch up to it, the lion stayed behind to enjoy an easier life.

As the day passed, the lion’s instinct began to bristle. Something had changed in the cavern, and the lion moved to leave. It found that the exit had disappeared. Trapped, the lion slunk away toward the thicker underbrush, cautious and a bit nervous.

It began some time later, the screams. The lion heard in the distance sounds of fighting. It didn’t last long, soon replaced by the sounds of pain and dying. More time later, and more hunters died. The lion listened and moved farther away from the cries of death.

Now, there were no more sounds. The prey was silent, hiding. The other hunters were either dead or digging themselves in, not wanting to be found. There was no wind here, yet every leaf and vine seemed to move with purpose.

It knew it was coming. The lion felt the eyes of a hunter on it. It was the same feeling in the forest, when the larger creatures became hungry. Every step it took, every flick of the ear, was seen by something unmoving and silent. The lion did not feel fear. It knew fear was the first step towards death.

It was unwilling, defiant towards the idea of being prey. The lion was a hunter, a killer of creatures in the trees. Even when the larger creatures moved, the lion made its strength known. It was younger then, though—faster, stronger, and less observant.

A small sound, a snap of a stem to its right. The lion’s ear twitched towards that direction. Another sound, a stone hitting the ground to its left. The lion ignored it. A feint in the dark.

The lion stretched its body, then bristled up and snarled. It moved in a circle, as if walled in by an invisible ring of flame. It could stand still, not be an easy target.

More sounds now, the hunters knew they had been detected. They moved swiftly, closer and closer. The lion growled as slimes appeared around it, surrounding it. The slimes made no noise of intention, but the lion understood the tentacles they were creating were dangerous. Out of the corner of its eye, the lion watched as a slime accidentally cut itself on a leaf. The injury, insignificant and quickly repaired, caused the leaf to melt into the slime.

The lion swished its tail back and forth, eyeing its opponents.

The slimes charged together as a group, each throwing their own bodies into a deadly tackle. The lion leaped into the air, dodging as the slimes ran into each other. Its tail grabbed four vines dangling from the ceiling, preventing it from falling.

It would be easy to escape now, but the old hunter knew that this foe would persist until it was taught respect. And respect could only be achieved through strength.

With a soft ding, the forest lion unsheathed the claws hidden its paws. It spun its body on the vines, tightening the four plant stems into a coil. And when the slimes had gathered into a high enough pile to almost reach it, the hunter released the force.

Spinning wildly, claws flashed out like ribbons of wind. Slime was sent flying as the spinning hunter tore into the mass as if with an egg spoon. This was the forest lion’s special technique, a spin attack it could use anytime it was truly threatened. Luck was on its side, for the technique would have been more physically draining without the vines.

When it was done, the old hunter examined the wobbling mass of half destroyed slime. It hadn’t managed to kill any. It was too high, but it had damaged them enough to be unable to pursue. Letting out a low snort at the slimes, the forest lion whipped its body back and forth on the vines before swinging forward, letting its tail carry it away from the slimes and deeper into the cavern. It had gotten away for now.

Perhaps it wouldn’t next time. Such was the nature of the hunt.

*

“Claire, look, the lion thing got away!” Doc exclaimed in amazement. “I didn’t think that its tail could be used like that. It’s almost like a tentacle!” As the massacre of the remaining horde was mopped up, Doc’s fury had faded, replaced by his normal curiosity and exuberance toward learning new things.

“I’m a little surprised as well,” Claire admitted, watching the image of the lion as it landed in the herbs and used its color to blend in and vanish, “While I’m not too familiar with this breed of cat, I can’t recall any other species capable of using its tail to support its body weight. Perhaps it is one of the undiscovered breeds of the northern wilderness.”

“Is it a monster?” Doc asked curiously. “It seemed smarter than a normal animal, even for a cat type. Those seemed to be the smartest creatures the adventurers kept.”

Claire shook her head. “That last attack had no magic, and monsters are capable of wielding the mana supplied by their monster cores. Perhaps if it had offspring, they would be monsters. Normal animals rarely evolve into monsters during a single generation. The only exception is if they are exposed to enormous quantities of mana and somehow survive, like a regular wolf becoming a dire wolf. Doc, before you think of experimenting with mana like that, know that though you are immune to the condition, mana poisoning is one of the worst ways to go. Your hair falls out, your skin rots off, and your organs liquify. It’s one of the few methods of attack banned by all countries and races due to the horrible side effects, to say nothing of the damage it does to nature. Even corrupted dungeons avoid that manner of attack because it can result in dungeon instability.”

“Sounds like problems I should never have,” Doc said with a sigh of relief. “Still, it appears that lion is the only survivor of today’s purge.”

Across Doc’s other sides, images flew by, showing successful slime ambush after slime ambush. Anadine and Rowen, with their royal educations, made up for their slime minions’ lack of intelligence with clear and concise directions. Except for the lion that the two didn’t face, every other large and medium predator had been killed with their remains delivered to Doc’s astral bag for future experimentation. With the lion having escaped, however, it left the score in Anadine’s favor for most creatures killed, which would likely irk Rowen to no end. Doc was looking forward to the experiments.

“That means today was, in the end, a success.” Claire flew down to rest on her pedestal, dangling her feet over the edge.

“Definitely.” Doc nodded enthusiastically. “Even though they weren’t as good as the adventurers, the death of those large animals gave me a nice little boost to my mana reserves. I’ll be able to begin fixing up the dungeon soon at this rate. Still... not a single monster entered, huh?”

It was an observation that confused both Doc and Claire. For while certainly the number of animals that entered were strong, fierce, and deadly, they had been just animals.

“I’m a bit concerned,” Doc continued. “If animals at the strength of tier 1 and 2 slimes are the weakest inhabitants of the northern wilderness, then we might be in trouble.

“As surprised as both you and I are, maybe that’s to be expected. After all, monsters are much more intelligent than their animal counterparts. If they live long enough and evolve, then they can become as intelligent as any adventurer,” Claire considered. “There’s a good chance that a strong monster was involved in this first intrusion. I can’t imagine so many meat-eating monsters running over just because of your human blood. Maybe they were only scouts?”

“Who knows? But, on the subject of animals, can I leave the lion?” Doc asked Claire. “It’s proven to be a cunning adversary and it’s very careful to kill only what it can eat. It even buries anything it can’t finish. I kind of like it, since it’s a lot like me.”

“My advice would be to keep a close eye on it, but if you want to keep it, it should be fine.” Claire shrugged. “We’ll have to attract some larger plant eaters to feed it, though. Maybe grow some of the good herbs near the entrance to attract those weird looking deer. Never thought I’d see omnivorous deer...”

“Alright, I’ll do that then,” Doc said happily. The dungeon spirit hummed away as he summoned a few seeds to the first floor, watching them grow rapidly under the dungeon’s influence. The entrance of the dungeon was quickly covered in edible herbs. After a moment’s consideration, Doc removed the plants directly in the dungeon entrance’s path, leaving the plants on the peripheral edge.

“Careful, Doc,” Claire warned. “Don’t use too much dungeon mana, or you’ll give us away. You still aren’t strong enough to rebel a serious threat.”

“Understood, but I’m not doing that much,” Doc remarked. “Just a little mana to speed up plant growth.”

“But even that might attract unwanted attention,” Claire flew up and argued. “If there really is a strong monster watching us, we can’t afford to give away too much information.

Doc sent her the feeling of sighing, “Alright, Claire, I’ll stop. It was just a little stream, though.”

“You’ve already caused one stampede today. Let’s just try to take it slow for a moment,” Claire urged. “We shouldn’t risk more for at least a day or two. Let me teach you a few more dungeon tricks first.”

“Sounds fun.” Doc sounded eager as he turned his attention back to the second. “You know, Claire, without my dungeon mana present on the floors, I can’t determine how many creatures are wandering around. Can’t even find that lion. It blends in too well with the plants.”

“If that worries you, use the mana you just acquired to make some slimes to patrol the floors,” the pixie advised. “Stick to your tier one slimes for now: lesser mimic, herb, and grey. They can easily traverse the forested ground and will eat some any unwanted creatures they come across. On the chance they get killed by a strong opponent, you can send Anadine or Rowen to clear it out. A few days of this, and you’ll have enough mana for the next step in EDS.”

A slight shudder, an unbecoming feeling for a crystal, ran through Doc’s spirit when Claire mentioned the death of slimes. He quickly ignored the feeling. “That sounds good. Alright, let’s go with that,” Doc agreed. “I can’t wait to see what the next step will be.”

*

Unbeknownst to the dungeon dwellers, Doc’s momentary use of mana at the entrance had indeed attracted the attention of an unknown third party. Under the cover of night, a small, green figure slipped into the dungeon entrance and made its way down to the second floor. Upon finding the covered cavern, the creature’s eyes brightened in excitement. It promptly exited the dungeon, meeting up with three similar creatures. The moon was hidden behind the clouds that night, hiding the figures from sight, but if it hadn’t, then scales and fur would have glistened under the moonlight.

After a moment of silent communication, the three disappeared back into the forest. The first returned to the dungeon, travelling down to the second floor. It made a small nest in the undergrowth and fell asleep. It had found safety at last. The dreams from the surface would no longer invade and whisper. The smell would no longer take it.

Chapter 5

Blinking sleepy eyes, Claire slowly roused herself from her slumber. She leaned forward, yawning as she stretched her arms above her head. She then angled her arms forward and stretched, slowly moving her wings to remove any wrinkles that she may have made while sleeping. While dungeon pixies enjoyed sleeping in beds, it wasn’t a natural method of sleeping. Like their pixie ancestors, dungeon pixies slept best in certain elongated flowers, giving their wings room to flutter while they slept and preventing injury. Since it was hard to grow flowers in a dungeon, however, the best alternative was a bed or sleeping face down on the stone.

Claire had it lucky, though, because her bed was made from a slime. Unlike her brethren, she didn’t have to worry about ripping, tearing, puncturing, maiming, bending, or twisting her wings while sleeping, because the slime bed provided sensational support while also protecting her wings in its slimy body. Without its acidity, the slime was the perfect sleeping tool.

“Ahh,” Claire yawned again. Rubbing her eyes, she flew up off her bed and over to her bathroom. She poked the flaming slime and the spray slime embedded in the wall, turning on a comfortable jet of warm water in the room’s corner. She tested the temperature a few times, poking the flaming slime in various places until the water was the temperature she wanted. Dropping her dress, Claire sighed in happiness as the warm water washed down her head and over her body. She reached over and broke a small piece of soap off a bar she had stolen from adventurers to rub herself down. After using it all, Claire cast a magic the cleaned her hair with the help of the moving water.

After poking the slimes to turn off the water shower, Claire dried herself off with a handmade cloth made of plant fibers and sat down onto a stool. With a wave of her hand, her hair was dried and made fluffy. Another wave, and her clothes had all the dirt removed.

“What would I do without magic?” Claire giggled as she slid her dress back on. Flapping her wings, the pixie girl flew over to the kitchen where a variety of flowers were growing out of the wall. Claire tapped her chin as she examined each flower.

“Hm, now what am I in the mood for today?” she pondered out loud. “I had the hibiscus yesterday, and the nightshade the day before, so... sunflower it is!”

Claire skipped over to the large sunflower and squeezed the inner part. A few drops of nectar flowed out into her palm. Claire licked it experimentally.

“Hm, needs something,” she murmured. “Ah! Just a few drops of booze slime, and...”

Claire pulled an ornate leaf goblet out and set it under the sun flower. She took out a bottle of concentrated booze slime and added three drops to the goblet, followed by a smidgen of tea leaf dust. When she was satisfied, Claire squeezed the giant sun flower until a steady stream of nectar flowed down into the goblet. Stopping right before it filled up completely, Claire cast restoration magic on the flower and returned it to its previous state.

She took a small sip of the concoction and giggled.

“Ah, there we go. That’s delicious.” She said to herself.

She raised the goblet to her lips once again and spat out the drink in disgust. It tasted of blood, and it ran down her chin like rivers of pain. Claire choked up upon the realization and turned her eyes slowly to the goblet.

The goblet, to Claire’s horror, was filled with blood and she dropped it. The goblet shattered like glass on the ground, releasing a torrent of blood that enveloped the pixie girl. She was dragged under, and she struggled to swim to the surface. She broke free, gasping for breath as her form was tossed like a log at sea. The blood was everywhere around her. It caressed her, entered her, and became her.

Claire screamed in pain as the red droplets of life entered her body. They burned at her flesh and threatened to tear her asunder.

“You killed me,” a voice said suddenly. From the sea of blood, the face of a dead adventurer reached out to grab ahold of her. “Why did you let me die?”

More faces, more bodies, more voices.

“You watched me suffer.”

“You watched me die.”

“You laughed as I was ripped to pieces.”

“No, no!” Claire screamed at them, “It wasn’t me! I didn’t kill you!”

“You let us die. You watched us die. You laughed as we died,” the voices moaned together, dragging her down into the sea of spilled blood. “You encouraged our deaths, wanted us to die. Our families mourn for us, our dreams will never come true. Your fault, all your fault. You killed us! Murderer!”

“No!” Claire screamed, but the voices dragged her down, and they sank into the blood she’d made. And the dream… ended.

For all three of them.

*

Claire awoke abruptly, her breathing hurried and uneven. She clutched her chest as her heart threatened to burst out from it. It was the same dream lately for her, a dream of pain and suffering.

It was admission of her guilt.

When Claire first joined with Doc, she’d unknowingly been under a spell of memory cast on her by her mother. It had taken her some time to break free of it, and yet there always appeared to be more to uncover about her past. While her mother had cast the spell to protect Claire’s mind from the death of her father, for whatever reason, Claire’s mother had continued to make minor changes to her daughter’s mind afterwards, changes so small she wouldn’t notice them as they stacked slowly within her, manipulating her thoughts and morphing her character.

One such change was over the death of adventurers, or rather, the lack of guilt towards them.

Claire had encouraged Doc from the beginning to slaughter them. In her right mind, she could have revealed the natural dungeon way of life much sooner, perhaps stopping Doc from ever setting on the path of slaughter, all for a quick growth. She hadn’t felt anything upon watching adventurers die, and her attitude had seeped into Doc’s perception until he, too, joined in her watching people die. They’d spent many a day laughing and joking over some of the funniest deaths which, in hindsight, had usually been cruelest.

It was different now.

Claire’s father had been an earth pixie, a lover of life. She shared this love for life, in all forms. With the spell unraveling over her, Claire realized the wrongness of her actions. The… horrors… she’d inflicted on others sent a shattering slice through her heart. And the dreams had begun.

It began only after Doc’s foolishly impulsive act of moving the dungeon, perhaps because there were no adventurers to make up to. Perhaps it was because Claire no longer had the chance to apologize to the families of the dead. Perhaps, perhaps...

In a strange way, she and Doc were going through similar changes of spirit. Doc didn’t mention it, but Claire could tell that the loss of his spirit’s core, the humanity that originally resided within him, was affecting him greatly. He was trailing off more frequently, and he had more intense emotional outbursts. Claire, on the other hand, was regaining her spirit and suffering for her past actions. Maybe it would be her job once again to lead Doc on the right path; or, perhaps, they both needed to burn.

She slapped her cheeks encouragingly, settling her heart down. She flew off her bed of wrapped plant refuse and over to her bathroom. The shower was still broken with the missing elemental slimes, so she opted to use the cracked mirror to clean herself with magic. When she was satisfied, she walked over to her kitchen.

Even though most of her plants had died in the sudden move, she’d managed to save a few. She was thankful, as otherwise, Claire would have had to live on mana, which wasn’t the most filling thing to eat. She filled her tarnished wood goblet with rose sap and added a few drops of saved booze slime before slamming the empty goblet down onto the cracked table.

Having finished drinking the goblet, the young pixie walked back to the mirror. A pale, distraught face looked back at her through the cracks. Claire closed her eyes and shook her head. When she reopened them, only her smiling face was visible. Satisfied with her appearance once more, she flew out the door into the heart room.

“Good morning, Doc!” she called out happily.

She felt the dungeon’s attention turn to face her. “Good morning, Claire,” Doc answered her happily. “Did you rest well?”

“I slept as well as ever,” Claire reported. “So, tell me, anything interesting happen during the night?”

“Nothing too interesting,” Doc said. “A few predators entered the dungeon after the sun went down, but I trapped them and had Anadine and Rowen devour them. The three of us received enough mana to summon more slimes, who are now patrolling the floors. The plants have grown some more, too. Some of the herbs seem to have changed into more tree-like forms.”

“Good,” Claire said, sitting down at the edge of her pedestal and dangling her feet off it. “Speaking of the plants, did you find that forest lion?”

“No. It seems to have hidden itself in on the second floor. The taller plants make it harder to find anything, honestly. I have the patrolling slimes clearing paths through the growth with the side mission for scouring for the forest lion’s nest,” Doc reported.

“What about Rowen and Anadine?” Claire asked. She didn’t see either boss slime in the heart room.

“They went on patrol,” Doc said. “Hey Claire, can you teach me the next step to become a natural dungeon?”

“Sure!” Claire clapped. “I’m glad we’re finally getting around to it. First step; bring one of the animals from you floors here. Anything, really, but I advise an insect to get started.”

“Not possible.” Doc metaphysically shook his head. “There aren’t any more animals in the dungeon that I can find. Any that remain are somehow capable of masking their presence from me in the plants, lion included.”

“Hm?” Claire cocked her head. “What are you saying? Before I went to bed, the dungeon was chalk-full of creatures of all shapes and sizes. Don’t tell me—”

“Yeah, the patrolling slimes ate all of them,” Doc confirmed.

Claire rubbed her nose.

“Any new evolutions?” she finally asked.

“It’s strange,” Doc said, turning reflective. “A few slimes, like the bug slimes, have this strange feeling of triggering evolution, but they are unable to make the next step. It’s as if they’ve satisfied whatever their body needs to catalyze for the next evolution but are missing something.”

“It’s probably because your power is too weak to summon tier three slimes still,” Claire analyzed thoughtfully. “Perhaps once you regain your strength, these new evolutions will appear naturally.”

“In any case,” she continued, “I’m sure there is some bug somewhere in your dungeon that your slimes missed. Let’s take advantage of your trait of removing creatures from your dungeon when you modify yourself. You’ll be able to sense what’s leaving and seize them.”

“Alright, I’m entering dungeon modification!” Doc announced.

As with previous instances, the entire dungeon vibrated under Doc’s careful control. The entrance sealed itself up, preventing any leakage of mana. When Doc needed to change the layout of his dungeon, the underground labyrinth automatically sealed itself, ejecting all non-dungeon monsters. It was only during this time that Doc could be at peace without the threat of invasion. Incidentally, modifying the dungeon also had the added after-effect of causing a small earthquake, which was sure to scare any nearby creatures.

Knowing this, Claire took a seat on her pedestal.

“Claire,” Doc spoke up, “the non-dungeon creatures are starting to be sent out of the dungeon.”

“Go ahead and let most of the little ones leave,” Claire advised. “You just need one insect. Oh, and if you want the lion to stay, stop yourself from getting rid of any large creatures. Since you’re sure nothing else remains, that’s the easiest way.”

“Understood!” It was easy for the dungeon spirit to slightly change the flow of mana, allowing for any creature larger than... The Twins to remain. Doc’s crystal brightened, illuminating the room in purple light that dazzled the eye.

“What’s Doc up to now?” Rowen’s grumpy voice echoed as he and Anadine entered the heart room. “That earthquake almost gave me a core attack.”

Anadine and Claire both giggled at the statement. Even Rowen’s thick slime nature couldn’t stop a small blush to appear on him, which he tried to hide with a grunt.

“Doc’s just moving the dungeon into maintenance and upgrade mode,” Claire explained from her pedestal. “The light show will calm down once the dungeon finishes shifting. How was the hunt?”

“Pretty intense.” Anadine chuckled in nostalgia as she slid into the room behind Rowen. “There were plenty of experienced old animals in that mess to deal with. Just surrounding them didn’t work. I had to use human tactics with the slimes to take down a few of them. Especially that anaconda. It managed to eat three slimes before I could take it down.”

“That’s a good lesson for the both of you,” Claire lectured. “We aren’t in human territory anymore, so there are all sorts of things out here more dangerous than the slimes Doc can control. And those predators are the bottom of the barrel, so to speak. As we get stronger, more of those dangerous monsters will appear here.”

“Whatever,” Rowen grumbled. “We just have to kill them, right? It’s just an opportunity to gather more points.”

“What, are you still annoyed I killed more animals?” Anadine teased. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’re just getting used to your new body still. You’ll definitely win next time.”

Rowen turned to give the slime girl a glare but said nothing.

“Claire, the dungeon is set,” Doc reported.

“Do you have an insect?” Claire turned her head and asked.

“Here.”

A magic circle formed on the ground, and out flew a colorful red insect with white spots on its shell. Stressed, the insect released the smaller bug it had caught to eat, the little green bug falling to the ground, twitching.

“Wow, a two-for-one!” Claire praised. “Great job, Doc. You’ve caught a ladybug and a leaf muncher. You couldn’t have found a better pair of bugs to work with!”

“Now what?” Doc asked.

“Now, it’s time for a dungeon upgrade!” Claire clapped her hands, and the familiar blue box condensed in the air. Unlike normally, however, this time the blue box only read a single option.

Additional Race

Tier 1 Ability

Able to create an additional race to the one held. Increases dungeon diversity

Doc gave off the feeling of a raised eyebrow.

“You want me to open up the dungeon to include bugs?” he asked incredulously.

“Not just bugs, Doc,” Claire explained, “Remember the many starting race options back when you and I first met? The animals race includes every non-sentient creature that does not possess a monster core. In essence, you’d be able to build up your dungeon into a vast cavern of creatures, with slimes at the very top of the food chain. It’s a rather standard build for larger dungeons.”

Doc was silent. Claire and the two boss slimes waited patiently. However, as silence stretched beyond a few minutes, the three began to feel confusion. Doc’s crystal offered nothing.

“Is something the matter, Doc?” Anadine asked gently.

“Hmm,” Doc finally answered. The heart crystal blinked, as if the dungeon spirit was opening and closing his eyes.

“Do you not want to add the insects to your dungeon, is that it?” Claire ventured. “That’s alright. We can start with small animals like mice or—”

“That’s not quite it,” Doc replied, interrupting her. “See, I don’t really want other kinds of creatures entering the dungeon.”

Rowen stretched himself up with an incredulous face, as much as a slime could anyway. “Doc, what are you talking about? Haven’t you slowly been adding non-slime monsters: The Twins, Anadine, and me?”

“Not really,” Doc said mused aloud. “Haven’t you both become slimes? And have you three taken a closer look at The Twins recently?”

Feeling curious at his words, the three dungeon inhabitants moved over to the hibernating pair of worgs in the corner. Noting an odd gleam on their fur, Anadine poked their bodies with a tentacle experimentally. To their shock, the fur juggled at the touch, much like a slime. Indeed, the fur clung to Anadine’s tentacle for just a moment before turning back into ordinary fur.

“I noticed this only this past night,” Doc said, interrupting their thoughts. “It appears The Twins aren’t only resting because of my weakened self. Whatever is causing this, their bodies are slowly conforming to the monster type of this dungeon. In other words, they are being slimified. I’m not sure if it’s because of my magic or because they’re vulnerable while hibernating, but I think when they awaken, they’ll find themselves as slimy as the two of you.”

“Well, there is precedence to these phenomena.” Claire brushed the shock away as she became reflective. “There are a few old records of certain creatures entering a dungeon and being transformed by its powers. Though, as I’ve said, it’s a rare thing. I suppose the creation of the green orc monsters could be an example, as they are much more piggish than their grey orc cousins. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, there are two races of orcs, one monster and one sentient, and a dungeon was somehow involved.”

“Maybe this could explain why hybrid monsters exist,” Anadine considered. “Things like griffons, normal chimeras, bat-hawks, and the like. That would be a great research topic to submit to the Mage’s Guild!” Rowen nodded along with her before stopping himself with an annoyed look.

“The point is,” Doc broke into the conversation, “that while I have the desire to be the greatest dungeon in the world, I also want to be the best slime dungeon in the world! And I don’t feel that having an ecology based around other monsters and animals is the way for me to accomplish my dream.”

Claire folded her arms and flew up to Doc’s crystal, looking him straight in the crystal lattice. Her eyes stared him down in the most unreadable way Doc had ever seen.

“Is this truly what you want, Doc?” she asked evenly. She locked her tiny pixie eyes onto the very center of the floating crystal, awaiting his answer.

“Yes, that’s what I want to do,” Doc said resolutely. “I’m sorry if you feel disappointed in me.”

“Disappointed?” Claire let out the loudest and most joyful giggle Doc had ever heard. She shrieked in delight, “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been right now! Doc, let’s do it! Let’s make the greatest dungeon this continent has ever seen and show everyone the power of slime!” In her excitement, Claire embraced the heart crystal and hugged it with all her strength, rubbing her head against the comforting feeling of cold mineral. Hidden in the joy, however, was the faintest twitch of insecurity, which she masked by squeezing harder.

“Ack, Claire, personal space! Ah, you’re crushing me! I’m going to break!” Doc cried out, finding the pixie’s grip a tiny bit stronger than he liked. He was shocked by her strength, feeling a tiny little fracture occurring along his surface. In retrospect, however, someone who could lift human-sized objects like ingots had to possess some level of strength.

Claire giggled some more and eased up but continued to hug Doc, to his distress. Claire’s heart was filled with so much joy that it pushed away the fear and guilt she’d been living with for the past few days. Doc’s resolution proved he was growing in the right direction. She hadn’t messed up.

Anadine hooked her tentacle around Rowen and pulled him next to her. “Would you look at that, little brother? Our parents are getting along after all.”

“I reject any semblance of family in this situation, but I will admit it’s nice to see Doc so flustered and Claire so happy,” Rowen said, struggling to free himself from Anadine. Failing to do so, Rowen gave up and allowed the blue slime to pull him close. Rowen sighed but decided to put up with it for just this once. Movement out of the corner of his eye attracted his attention.

“Hey Anadine, isn’t that one of your lesser mimic slimes over there?” he asked, pointing.

“I’m not falling for that,” Anadine retorted. “Just give up and enjoy the hug and moment.”

“No, seriously,” Rowen said, stopping his struggle. “Over there, by the ladybug.”

Anadine and Rowen turned to watch a lesser mimic slime sliding over to the ladybug. They watched it eat the ladybug and the leaf muncher slime.

“Well, that’s end of that, I suppose.” Rowen shrugged. “Fun while it lasted, but I guess becoming a natural dungeon wasn’t meant to be.”

“Uh, maybe not,” Anadine pointed. The lesser mimic slime vibrated and glowed under the light of evolution. The two slimes gasped in shock, openings literally tearing apart a mouth in their bodies as they watched the lesser mimic slime shrink and morph into what appeared to be a leaf muncher made of slime. The little bug slime shook itself and flew out of the heart room towards the upper floors.

Anadine and Rowen shared a confused look as Doc continued to try to get Claire off of him.

Chapter 6

In her exuberance, Claire kept hold of Doc’s crystal much longer than he was comfortable with, a private reassurance to herself that her lessons were working. When she finally released him, the dungeon grumbled and turned his attention away from the heart room.

“Oh, come on, Doc. Don’t tell me you didn’t like it?” Claire teased.

“Maybe for the first few seconds, but you held on for three minutes,” Doc said gruffly. “You’re not allowed to touch for that long or, more importantly, with that level of strength.” The dungeon spirit then stopped paying attention to the heart room and moved up to the labyrinth floor to repair the cracks in the ceiling and walls.

Laughing at the childish behavior, Claire turned her attention down to the floor and looked around for the little insects Doc had summoned. To her surprise, they were nowhere to be found.

“Oh, where did the ladybug go?” she asked Anadine and Rowen. “I don’t see it or the leaf muncher here.”

The two slime bosses shared a look before answering Claire.

“One of my lesser mimic slimes... ate it. And the leaf muncher,” Anadine responded, though a bit hesitatingly. “It was while you and Doc were having a moment.”

“Is that so? Well then that’s too bad,” Claire sighed in disappointment. “I had been hoping to capture it and place in my flower collection. No sense wasting regret over it, I suppose.”

That’s, uh, not the only thing that happened,” Rowen continued, comparing the size of the ladybug to Claire in his mind. “You see, the slime evolved after eating the two bugs and flew away.”

Claire cocked her head, staring at the two slimes. “What did it evolve into?” she asked, a little surprised. She understood that neither of the two would be behaving this nervously if it had been a normal evolution. Claire turned to alert Doc, but the dungeon was too busy working on repairing the dungeon.

“It looked just like a leaf muncher in both size and shape, and it could fly,” Anadine said, rubbing the top of her body. “After it evolved, it left the room, heading up. Funnily enough, that slime seemed to ignore us and Doc in favor of... food? Even though it was a lesser mimic slime under my authority, it seems to have also evolved instincts beyond my control. It was more concerned with following the scent of greenery, I think. That’s what I felt from it, anyway.”

“A leaf muncher slime?” Claire crossed her arms and wondered. “I’ve never heard of such a thing before. You say it evolved from a lesser mimic slime, so it must be a tier two slime. Being a type of bug, however, it should be a tier three evolved from a bug slime. How odd.” The little pixie folded her arms across her chest and frowned slightly. She’d didn’t understand.

“But Claire, bug slimes are about the size of normal slimes,” Anadine argued. “Even when they copy their bug of preference, they’ve never shrunk to the bug’s original size. They rely on their increased mass to fight their enemies.”

“Then this must be some new kind of slime,” Rowen reasoned. The little white and grey slime folded two tentacles and pointed. “While a bug size slime is worthless to fight larger prey, would it not stand to reason that it could replace a part of the food web you tried to persuade Doc to create?” From the tip of his tentacles, Rowen budded off a tiny grey slime the size of a pebble. The little slime squirmed slightly before drying up into nothingness. “It’s not like any other slime Doc’s created could serve as the base.”

“Not by itself, and not if it obeys the same rules as the other slimes,” Claire disagreed. “Doc specifically prevents the slimes from attacking each other by asserting his will during their creation. This way, every slime acts under his will instead doing what they’d do naturally. And... to create an entire natural system out of slime, why I can’t even imagine it, really. Proud as I am that Doc’s chosen his own path, the idea is something completely unheard of in nature.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible,” Anadine pointed out. “After all, Doc has already created a few new slimes like the booze slime and the infernal slime, neither of which would ever appear in the wild under ordinary circumstances, if ever. Perhaps this type of mimicking slime never became known because it was too weak to survive without outside help, making it an evolutionary dead end.”

“There is precedence to her words,” Rowen interjected. “Back when I was alive, there was a rare form of grassland cricket that could produce beautiful music using innate magic. I checked while in town, but that cricket died out some time after I went to sleep. Its music attracted predators until there were no more. Nature has always created odd things that either succeed and flourish or die.”

“That may be true, but slimes are the most unchanging monster in existence,” Claire disputed.

Anadine and Rowen fixed the pixie with equally disbelieving stares.

“You know what I mean!” Claire muttered grumpily. “Slimes evolve, yes, but they always stay as some form of core surrounded by slime. Slimes don’t evolve into things that are... not slime.”

“Maybe, but—”

“Claire, you have to see this!” Doc’s excited voice echoed through the heart room, interrupting her. “There’s a tiny little slime eating plants on the second floor. You have to see this!”

The three dungeon inhabitants exchanged blank looks, Anadine and Rowen doing a remarkable job of displaying emotion with bunched up slime. Claire recovered first and looked up at the floating crystal.

“Do I have to fly up there myself, Doc, or are you able to create the images within your crystal?” Claire asked.

“Oh, right. I was too excited,” Doc remembered. “Give me one moment.” His crystal flickered to life as it displayed the moving images seen by Doc onto the walls.

Pixie and slime alike watched in amazement as the image focused on the tiny slime. Its body was the perfect copy of the original leaf muncher, albeit with a different, more see-through color of purple. The slime core appeared to be with the head portion of the body, absorbing the mana from the leaf matter it ingested. It even made the same soft chirps of the original monster.

“Doc, can you focus on the slime core?” Claire asked abruptly. Doc complied, and the image focused in on the tiny core. The magic allowed for every little detail to been seen in perfectly clarity.

“Look there,” Claire pointed. “Look at the core! It isn’t smooth anymore. It’s rigid, like a brain!”

“You’ve seen a brain before?” Rowen asked. “I didn’t think slimes were the type to leave behind leftovers.”

“Whole brains are... a holdover from my mother’s dungeon,” Claire admitted reluctantly. “Some of the undead there… well, they had specific needs.”

The former humans looked disgusted.

“Anyway, I’ve never seen an insect leaf muncher brain before,” Claire continued, “but I think that we can safety say the core of this new slime has completely transformed itself into a copy of a leaf muncher’s brain. That would explain how it can mimic and behave so perfectly.”

“Leaf muncher?” Doc asked curiously. “Isn’t that the insect I summoned earlier?”

“That slime you’re seeing used to be one of my lesser mimic slime minions,” Anadine explained. “It ate the ladybug and leaf muncher bug from before and evolved into that new slime. A leaf muncher slime I guess?”

“Interesting,” Doc said with a glow of wonder. “From what I can see of its abilities, this is a tier two slime codependent on the presence of bug slimes. In other words, I would have never been able to create this slime had I not previously unlocked the bug slime evolution before. Wait…” Doc broke off suddenly. “This is new.”

“What’s new?” Claire asked curiously.

“This slime,” Doc said. “It doesn’t hold the pull of evolution that my other slimes have. It’s as if it is incapable of evolving further, a sort of evolutionary dead-end. It feels... boring? An odd mis of sour and bitterness in thought form perhaps.”

“How do you mean?” Rowen inquired.

“Well, I can’t taste anything, but relating the flavor of my thoughts into terms relatable to both humans and slimes—”

“Not that, Doc,” Anadine interrupted. “Though I’ll have to ask later. He meant the dead-end part.”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Doc admitted, “but I have a very strong feeling that this slime will never be able to evolve again. It’s as if it has used up all its evolutionary potential as a slime to stay in this one form for the rest of its life. This form is its final form, but it’s still a weak tier two slime. This is the first time I’ve ever felt this feeling from one of my slimes, including you two.” Doc glanced down at the two with a light smile.

Anadine and Rowen were surprised. The idea of them evolving into something greater was a foreign idea to them. Humans never evolved, after all, and this was another reminder of their current situation. Rowen’s slime turned darker at the realization.

“Perhaps,” Claire guessed, “that feeling of yours has something to do with the change in its slime core. After all, the core is the main body of any slime, and every slime core I’ve ever seen has been a smooth ball or dissolved into the slime.”

“You mean how Anadine and I have our cores sprinkled through our slime?” Rowen remembered. “I wonder, though, what shape is the scatter core in?”

“I wouldn’t know, since you both are high tier slimes. Your cores are better hidden than even other scattered slime types,” Claire explained. “Maybe when you get stronger you can figure it out for yourself. I do know that if you practice enough, you’ll be able to summon core back together to perform some really interesting boss abilities. But anyway, this little slime is a leaf muncher through and through, which gives me some ideas...”

As Claire began thinking to herself, Doc and the slime bosses watched as the new leaf muncher slime left the leaf and flew deeper into the maze. Its wings buzzed just as softly as a real leaf muncher, and its eyes darted back and forth in search of something. At a crossroad, the leaf-muncher slime turned a corner and discovered a basic slime. It immediately flew right toward it.

“Why is it moving toward that normal slime?” Rowen asked.

“Shh,” Anadine hissed. “Just watch and see.”

To their mutual surprise, the leaf muncher slime landed on the normal slime and sunk its mandibles into it. The new slime began to feed on its lesser relative, ingesting tiny amounts of slime that increased its own size. Its thorax expanded by a fourth, and the new slime left, buzzing away. The normal host slime continued its patrol, unfeeling to its previous parasite.

“Well that’s interesting,” Doc hummed. “It is ignoring my order to not harm other slimes.”

“Rather, I’m not sure you have actually given it any orders, Doc. After all, you didn’t notice when it came into existence, right?” Anadine asked. “Is it possible for you to give it orders now?”

“It’s... hard,” Doc finally admitted after a moment’s try. “While I can control the slime itself, I find that I am unable to give it certain orders like ‘Do not eat plants, do not eat slimes, and do not eat animals.’ I can still direct it where it can and can’t go and give it specific orders to attack, but...” He faltered, unsure where to go with his words.

“But you can’t interfere with its natural instincts,” Claire finished for him. The pixie’s eyes shone in delight. “Doc, I believe I know why this slime came into being. That slime is the beginning of your dream, a completely natural dungeon solely containing slime-type creatures. Just like how your mana seems to be changing The Twins, I think your inner spirit, your subconscious, is creating these new slimes to assist you in your ideal dungeon.”

“Hm? Subconscious? What’s that? Can I eat it?” Doc asked curiously.

“It’s something all sentient creatures possess,” Claire explained. “To sum it up in simple terms, it is the combination of primal instinct and hidden dreams wrapped into the back of your mind that you can’t normally find while awake. Given your unique heritage as a dungeon and your previous soul tenant, perhaps your mind unconsciously...”

“I don’t think he’s that complicated, Claire,” Anadine interrupted. “I apologize for stopping you, but I really don’t think this kind of long explanation is going to make any of us feel satisfied. Can’t you just say that Doc’s desire to have a pure slime dungeon was so great he unintentional created a new type of slime? Or magic happened?”

Forehead twitching in annoyance, Claire grimaced at the lady slime boss. Anadine made the effort to shrug with her tentacles.

“You take all the fun out of it,” Claire finally said. “I don’t get too many chances to show off how smart I am, you know. But fine, Doc created a new... type, species, form? What should this type of slime be called anyway?”

“Since it’s a normal slime evolution and not a slimified existence, how about slime animal?” Rowen suggested. “Slime animals are slimes that have shed their ability to evolve in favor of added abilities, the opposite of Anadine, The Twins, and I who have become slime monsters and not part of the normal slimes Doc can create.”

“That works,” Doc said happily.

Sighing, Claire smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Well, as long as you’re happy, Doc,” she relented. “What’s the slime doing now?”

“Oh, it’s just laying eggs,” Doc said after a moment. “Nothing too interesting.”

“Slimes don’t lay eggs, though,” Rowen responded reflexively. “Rather, they don’t lay anything.”

“This slime is, though,” Doc reported, the image on the wall shifting to show what he was seeing. The leaf-muncher slime laid ten eggs and buzzed away. After a moment, the eggs each broke into a new leaf muncher slime.

“That’s amazing!” Doc gasped. “If I had this back with the adventurers, I would have never worried about repopulating the dungeon after an invasion!”

“Um, Doc,” Anadine said hesitantly, “they’re laying more eggs.”

The heart room was still as the grave as they observed the leaf munchers for a few more minutes. Then the image changed. A horde of leaf muncher slimes were devouring their way through the maze floor, eating every plant and slime they came across.

“Ahh!” Doc screamed, scaring everyone. “There are way too many of them! I can’t stop them, and they’re destroying the floor I worked so hard to fix!”

“Hells below,” Claire screamed as the image on Doc’s crystal showed the horde of insects descending on the third floor. “The new slime must have copied the leaf munchers’ high reproduction rate and fused that with the slimes’ ability to multiply. Quick, Doc, you’re still in maintenance mode. Herd them!” Doc acted quickly, sealing the holes connecting the second floor to the cavern above.

“You two go on up. I’ll stay here,” Claire said to Anadine and Rowen. With Claire staying to guide Doc, the two bosses hurried away to begin the pest extermination.

“Doc, you need to stop them before they overrun you,” she said seriously. “They feed on mana, and your crystal would be the perfect food source.”

Unable to respond to Claire while concentrating, Doc’s crystal blinked as masses of slimes came into existence on the second floor. While in maintenance mood, the cost of slime creation was vastly reduced, allowing Doc to summon a mass of his tier two slimes to aid him. The two boss slimes quickly joined the ranks and took command of their respective groups. Under Doc’s, Anadine’s, and Rowen’s leadership, the vast mass of tier two slimes converged on the running horde of leaf muncher slimes.

The fight, while relatively short in comparison to past dungeon situations, lasted much longer than it should due to the annoyingly quick reproduction of the leaf muncher slimes. While the leaf muncher slimes were small, they multiplied at an exponential rate after feeding on mana from plants or unrelated slimes. The very fighters Doc used also served as a food for the mass horde.

Anadine took the lead, forming four tentacles on her head as she led the charge. Using her body’s flexibility, the blue slime whirled around like a tornado, using each tentacle to smash leaf muncher slimes into the ground where they were promptly engulfed and eaten. Knowing no fatigue or pain, Anadine cut a path through the growing swarm. There was no elegance to be found in her attacks, only brutal destruction. However, her form was sloppy, and she took many counter attacks from the leaf munchers she missed in her blind spots. Anadine pushed through the attacks, however, unfeeling as she was. Still, her speed did begin to ever so slowly decrease, and her slimes around her took more attacks.

Rowen, on the other hand, preferred to fight from the backlines. Chanting spells learned under his former existence, the lich slime cast spells of fatigue and slow upon the horde, weakening them until they were easy prey for the mindless mass. Rowen threw these spells with his own tentacles—two in the front for debuff spells and four in the back for long range artillery. With his magic slime brethren, spells of fire, ice, earth, and wind decimated every leaf muncher slime that dared to fly over the mass. Rowen hadn’t mastered his new body yet, and some of his spells misfired into allied slimes by mistake. Worse still, magic casters worked best as a team, but Rowen was the only caster with intelligence. He was forced to split his attention between his attacks and controlling the attacks of every other mage slime. It was possible in his current form, but the tactic did nothing against individual defense, and mage slime after mage slime died from being defenseless.

Doc did what he normally did, placing himself into a single slime and using it to attack. Upon his slime being devoured, he caused it to explode, taking every leaf muncher slime with him in a goo of glory. He’d then move into the next slime and repeat the attack. Out of the three commanders, Doc’s heartless tactics were the most effective, as it not only killed more leaf munchers but also denied precious food needed to reproduce. His attention more open now due to his success, Doc cast his eye on his two boss slimes and the way they fought.

Not heartless enough, he thought. Their troops are expendable. I can make as many as needed. Their troops need to kill as many as possible without feeding the enemy. Sacrifice them as needed. Unimportant.

Doc shook the body of his newest incarnation in confusion. He hadn’t been able to keep the thoughts out of his head. It wasn’t like him. Too dead. But he wasn’t wrong, was he? It wasn’t as if his slimes had—

Attack. Kill the enemy. Too many, being pierced. Darkness.

Orders received. Spell cast, unable to defend. Darkness.

Explosion. Ripped apart. Left behind. Darkness.

The feeling was back. Doc shivered in pain as he felt the brief memories of each slime flow through him. It was painful. Worse, he wasn’t done, and the pain would continue, for all of them.

The battle continued for an hour before the tides changed. Once the leaf munchers had finished off the plants on their side of the battlefield, they began to wane as the ability to lay eggs decreased. Slowly but surely, the dungeon-controlled slimes pushed back into the horde and devoured, smashed, burned, froze, and whacked every leaf muncher. Doc used his dungeon powers to sense every enemy slime, directing a small mass to kill each one. Only when his powers revealed the floor was clear did he unsummon the mass horde.

Anadine and Rowen, slimes as they were, still felt the mental fatigue of battle and fell asleep once they returned to the heart room. Doc returned his consciousness to his crystal, also feeling spent. The cold sweat hadn’t faded away yet.

“That was close,” he groaned to Claire, who had been watching the battle via Doc’s crystal. “Can you imagine what would have happened if they got out?”

“Nothing,” Claire answered calmly, rubbing her chin. “From what I saw, they only propagated so quickly due to the presence of your mana in every plant and slime. They used it to reproduce. Otherwise, it would have taken them much longer.”

“Wait, so I fought all those things for nothing?” Doc asked, a little annoyed.

“No,” Claire answered quickly. “Think for a second about what I said at the start of the battle. What would have happened if they had reached the heart room? They feed off mana, so if they reached your crystal...”

“That would have been bad,” Doc finished for her. “Well, great. I created a new slime that I can’t control and is liable to eat me out of house and home—literally. What a day.” The dungeon spirit couldn’t help but feel a little depressed. After all, he had had to expend most of the mana he had acquired over the last few days to finish off the enemy, the definition of wasting time and effort.

“That might not be the case, Doc. I see a lot of potential for this new slime,” Claire grinned knowingly. “This situation occurred because you were unfamiliar with a monster that possesses its own desires and needs. I think once you understand it, it will be a great start to your natural dungeon.”

“How so?” Doc asked.

“First, you’d regulate its breeding cycle and feeding schedule,” Claire listed. “After that, limit its areas to only parts of the dungeon forest. I think once you remove the slime’s inhibition on territorial instinct, you’ll find your own monsters will limit the number of munchers, especially the plant and flower slimes. They’ll really put a beating on anything that tries to eat their plant groves. Once you get that, we can work on adding a predator.”

“Will it really be that simple?” Doc couldn’t help but ask.

“No, but isn’t that the whole point?” Claire giggled. “This is all about discovery and creation! It’s a hot mess of mistakes, lessons, findings, and new paths. I can’t wait to get started!”

Chapter 7

Their conversation over, Claire left the heart room to inspect the dungeon battle aftermath and regrow the slain plant life on the second floor. Doc was left behind to ponder in his heart room, his mind dwelling on the battle and everything else. The only sounds in the room were of sleep coming from his drowsing dungeon bosses. He wasn’t sure where to begin with his thoughts.

How long had it been since he truly had time to think to himself? Ever since he had bonded with Claire, it had been one new thing after another, whether learning how to run the dungeon or tricks to staying alive when facing enemy forces. An entire year filled with action, adventure, and so much death.

Doc could remember when he first began, the aversion he’d had toward the killing. Funny, the idea seemed so foreign to him now. He’d gotten used to it: the deaths of adventurers, the death of his slimes, the death of his bosses. His mind was numb to it.

And yet, everything he did, it was to prevent his own death. His desperate actions, his daily actions, he did this all to survive. But, did he fear death?

To Doc, the answer had changed. It was different now. Somehow, the fear of the unknown had less and less effect on him. Doc knew what would happen when he died; he’d return to nothingness. A dungeon came into being from nothingness and would return to it upon death. Why was there a need to fear this? It wouldn’t be a painful process, after all. Dungeons were incapable of feeling pain.

Except... Doc’s spirit shivered at the memory of the cold, clammy feeling. It was the first real thing he’d ever felt. All his emotions, his fears, his desires—that had been sourced from what used to be at the center of his existence. With it gone, they all went away. Not quickly or at once, but slowly, carefully, disappearing from his existence. The artificial feelings were being replaced by Doc’s own. A genuine fear for existence had taken root.

As he’d been birthed with a human soul at his core, Doc’s character had been shaped around humanity. However, it hadn’t taken properly, and his character lay undeveloped. He’d no need to grow with an already solid core which provided a baseline for everything. Humanity—it could do anything and provide reasons for everything. All the humans, they lived on a line of good and evil between two mirrors that reflected selfish and selfless behavior all within the pull of order and chaos. Any action he did was justified by this principle. Murder was now self-defense, greed was self-reliance, and torture was tedious, but acceptable.

Doc was now free of this trap, this box, this worldly one-sided view. He was finally held accountable by his very self. Yet it was everything he knew, so how could he fully escape it? He wasn’t the only one trapped after all here in the dungeon. He couldn’t help but examine each of his slumbering bosses.

Ayla and Aisha, the worg twins and the first outside members to join his dungeon. They had been young pups when their mother brought them to Doc, using the last of her power to enter a covenant with Doc. She turned herself into pure mana for Doc to absorb, and he swore to watch over them. The symbol of this agreement was her skull, which to this day stood watch over the dungeon entrance as a cold, dead reminder of family sacrifice, though in retrospect, it was a virtue unenforced.

The Twins themselves had been aged prematurely by Doc’s magic, aging to adult worgs in a matter of minutes and swearing their unwavering loyalty to him in but a moment. Claire had been delighted and treated them as her adopted offspring. Doc was roped into the affair as their adoptive father, but even to his day he had misgivings.

The magic that changed them—it did nothing to improve their state of mind. Doc himself had vastly matured over the course of a year, even if his character remained weak and unstable, yet it seemed the two worgs never did. Their characters blended together in such a way that it was hard to refer to one without the other. He needed to grow their individuality, and perhaps this transformation of theirs was the opportunity he needed. They were never meant to be beings of his dungeon so dependent on him that he couldn’t even remember their names at time. Their human forms didn’t even have faces, which was perhaps a representation of their selves lost in shadow. Their existence was so shallow he would often forget their names.

Next was Anadine. A former Chosen princess of the kingdom Doc had once resided in. When disaster struck her within the dungeon, Doc had been charged by an outside divine presence to save her. In retrospect, his actions that day had violated a few of the restrictions placed on him as a dungeon, yet he had been able to do so in order to save her. The emotionally scarred princess had made an oath in her absent state and had ended up moving her status as Chosen from her goddess to Doc. For whatever reason, it worked, and the goddess had never contacted Doc again.

While he didn’t pretend to understand the exact magical way being a Chosen worked, the end result was that her death by the hands of a demon had catalyzed the beginning of the war that would destroy the country. The princess perished, but her soul was delivered to the deity she’d pledged herself to, in this case Doc. She was reborn as his warrior slime, though without any memory and very limited mental capacity. She’d only been slightly smarter than Doc’s other slimes. Anadine would only regain her intelligence after stealing and absorbing the dungeon heart fragments of an enemy dungeon, going on to regain her memory a few months later. That had been just a week ago.

Doc had watched Anadine’s growth as an individual and a warrior before regaining her memories. Her powers were great as a fighter, even if she was currently restricted by Doc’s own limitations. The combined flexibility of her body, warrior’s training, and tactical mind proved to be a deadly combo, but all this had been ruined by her past. Before gaining her memories, Anadine had been in the process of learning how to wield her abilities as a slime, learning the art of ambush and overwhelming opponents through unstoppable force. The addition of training and tactics, while improving her weapon wielding abilities to a higher level, also locked her fighting style to that of a human. She hadn’t been speaking it out loud, but Doc had felt her growing dissatisfaction with her slime body and its lack of human appendages.

Her attacks relied on muscle and bone that no longer existed. Slime had no weight on its own. This was why stronger slimes that relied on physical attack either grew larger or absorbed other materials into their body. However, slime was also the perfect medium for the transfer of force. Slime tentacles could be forced to contort well beyond any other material, creating an almost infinite amount of potential energy. In addition, slime had an intrinsic ability to absorb physical blows and redirect the force of the attack. Anadine never used these abilities, as she still believed she was human and humans had limits. She needed to learn that she was no longer limited by the physical means of a mere human.

Rowen was in a similar predicament. The boy had been brought into an undead dungeon hundreds of years ago in a state of magical hibernation. Even with this protection, it couldn’t stop the slow bleed of undead magic into the boy’s body. By the time Rowen was rescued by Doc after defeating the Artificial Undead Dungeon, his body had become half undead. It was impossible to stop the transformation.

Knowing that after being woken up, the magical contamination would quickly spread and kill him, Rowen had made the decision to bond with Doc after learning of his circumstances and Doc’s good nature. The agreement sapped the undead nature away from him, allowing Rowen to leave the dungeon and live the life of a boy for about half of a year. When his life was sacrificed to save another, his soul, too, was dragged into the dungeon and remade into Doc’s boss. Though, it had been a surprise for everyone when Rowen became an odd mix of undead and slime, the lich slime.

While human, Rowen had learned the ways of magic and had found he was especially talented in both dark and necromantic magic. Upon returning as a slime, he could still wield magic as if he were human, preferring to use magic circles and chanted word to use his spells. While Doc had used these techniques (stolen subtly from Rowen’s mind) to improve his mage slime’s casting, he had not found them useful beyond expanding their natural abilities. Human techniques relied on human bodies, and if Rowen continued down his current path, Doc was sure he would eventually come across a wall in his growth as a magic slime.

Human’s didn’t have monster cores to draw power from. Instead, they relied on the mana found in their soul to guide the environment’s mana into magic spells. Some people, like Rowen, were born with immense amounts of inner mana and were capable of wielding magical strength beyond their level because of it. That heaven-blessed trait did not follow Rowen into his new body, but instead Doc’s dungeon became the main source of mana.

All slimes were magical beings. The slime core was to the slime the same as Doc’s heart crystal was to the dungeon. One relied on the other to sustain itself. Magic slimes, like the mage slimes, stored the excess mana their core produced in their slime to be used for spells. If a magic slime used too much mana, they’d shrivel up and possibly die. Their limits were much lower than a human’s, who would only become extremely sick from mana depletion. And Rowen kept coming close to this limit unknowingly, as his body was unable to wield Doc’s power even in Doc’s weakened state. He needed to learn his limits properly, and also his advantages. The stronger the magic slime, the more mana they could store, and Rowen was technically a tier 7 magic-type slime fully capable of storing enough mana to last a month of constant spell casting.

Just as I have to evolve in this new land, maybe I can help my monsters with their growth as well, Doc thought to himself.

It had taken some soul searching, an ironic thing for a dungeon to do, to discover he had not wanted to have any other monsters in his dungeon besides slime. The discovery of the leaf muncher slime, while slightly devastating to the dungeon, seemed to prove that perhaps his way could work. Maybe animal slimes could exist as an ecosystem within his dungeon.

Were the furry slimes the first sign of this? he couldn’t help but wonder. The aforementioned slimes were evolved mimic slimes that came into being after ingesting the hair of The Twins—no, Ayla and Aisha. While mildly disturbing to look at, they were the first slimes that could only survive by eating mana-rich food instead of Doc’s ambient mana, due to their fur blocking access to their cores. While the leaf muncher slime could also live off Doc’s mana, it seemed that its reproduction ability relied on the ingestion of other mana sources.

Doc though about this ability regarding the adventurers he used to face on a daily basis. While one leaf muncher slime was harmless enough, a swarm would certainly have been a terrifying foe for the humans and elves. He could also picture the slimes relying on any dead adventurer to multiply, perhaps even stealthily laying their eggs in unsuspecting adventurers to hatch later for a nasty surprise. There was a nice gory picture in Doc’s mind.

And the leaf muncher slime hadn’t caused the cold feeling when they died. Doc couldn’t help but wonder if the furry slimes would be the same way. Perhaps, maybe all the animal slimes would be safe to let die. Doc kept this hope hidden away. It would be his little secret for now.

“I have two types of animal slimes, but they can’t do it alone,” Doc said to himself. “A natural dungeon needs more parts, like Anadine said. What’s the next step then?”

“I’m glad you asked, Doc!” Claire said cheerfully, having just returned to the cave after using her magic to repair the collateral vegetation damage. “And since you asked, here is the first step!”

With a snap of her finger, the magical blue box once again condensed into being. Differently than before, however, the box only held a single option for Doc to read.

Spawn Nest

Tier 0 Ability

Ability to create a nest dedicated to a single monster. Monsters will spawn within the nest using minimal dungeon power and will remain constant, even during invasion. Destroyable.

Like before, however, the blue box of magic only lasted for a brief time before shattering. Claire frowned and snapped her fingers again, remaking it.

“I’ve never seen a tier zero ability before,” Doc said, casting a questioning look toward Claire.

“Don’t give me that look, Doc. I didn’t intentionally hide this from you,” Claire said, defending herself. “Tier zero abilities are innate dungeon abilities, like creating floors and rooms. The other tier zero abilities have more to do with other monster races besides slime. In the same spirit as your higher abilities requiring lesser abilities to be unlocked, tier zero relies on starting monster race or additional monster races.”

“But wouldn’t this nest ability have been useful back at the dungeon town?” Doc wondered. “It would have been a great way to save mana during adventurer runs.”

“No, because knowing you, Doc, you would have filled your dungeon with these spawn nests,” Claire explained. “Contrary to what you may be thinking, this ability is relatively expensive and can be destroyed. Your growth would have been significantly slowed if you’d been forced to remake the nests.”

“I feel like it that would be especially useful as a trap,” Doc argued. “Maybe even a good dungeon boss minion.”

Claire chuckled. “As good as your imagination is, that ability only works in the dungeon proper. No boss fights. It would be as useful to you as orc lodgings, imp summoning circles, kobold dens, or undead graves.”

“Those sound all incredibly useful,” Doc observed.

Claire huffed in annoyance. “Fine, yes you could make them work, but would you really have stopped yourself from making so convenient a slime creator?”

“No,” Doc relented.

“There you have it. Now that we have an understanding, let’s return to the task at hand,” Claire continued. “Spawn nests are a basic structure that allow dungeons to create a place where monsters are born naturally—or as naturally as one can get in a dungeon. It uses minimal dungeon mana, and the expenditure does not exponentially increase while invaded unlike traditional monster making methods. On the other hand, they can be located and destroyed, so a dungeon overly depending on them would find itself at the mercy of its enemies if they were well prepared. Nests cover a wide range of monsters, excluding slimes, who require a queen slime to fulfil this role. In your case, however, I already checked and found that your animal slimes can indeed be born in nests. Interesting note: your animal slimes will never grow beyond their base form into overlord, lord, etc.”

“I expected that. To summarize what you just said, I can make a leaf muncher nest, and it would produce leaf munchers,” Doc noted.

“Correct.” Claire nodded “And the other benefit is that you can create a set behavior in the nest, in which every leaf muncher born in that nest would follow. For instance, setting it so that they only patrol an area around the nest and are limited to using their reproduction skill unless in combat with non-slimes.”

“That sounds a lot easier than making every slime individual by individual,” Doc couldn’t help but remark. “Where do you think the nests should go? Oh, and since the furry slimes are also animal slimes, can I make a nest for them as well?”

“Furry slimes, huh? Yes, I believe I can understand why they are animal slimes,” Claire giggled. “For the leaf munchers, scatter a few nests around the second floor for now. The best way to do it would be to make each nest produce a unique color of leaf muncher so they can tell who’s part of their hive. For the furry slimes, we’ll have to wait till you’re strong enough. They don’t have any prey, though, so I suppose it’s fine that we wait.”

“They’ll hunt the traditional slimes,” Doc reminded her, “same with the leaf munchers on occasion. I’ll change the traditional slime behavior to include fighting different families for territory, too. Maybe this way I can simulate an ecology while waiting for more mana and animal slime evolutions.”

“By the way, Doc,” Claire said, “did you notice anything about your mana capacity after the leaf muncher massacre?”

Doc cocked his metaphysical head as he thought about it. He hadn’t bothered to look, because Doc had felt he had used a lot of mana during the fight. Checking would only make him feel depressed. At Claire’s prompting, though, Doc checked his internal mana supply and discovered it had increased by a small margin over his pre-fight level.

“It increased, as if an adventurer had died,” Doc said, bewildered.

“The other benefit of spawn nests,” Claire grinned, “is that when those monsters die, you receive more mana than it took to create them. Those monsters absorb mana like little sponges, giving it all to you upon their death. In this way, dungeons without adventurers can slowly build up their mana supply and improve themselves. Even though those leaf munchers were not nesting, they relied on their own abilities to propagate without any expenditure from you, so you profited. Oh, but like I said earlier, if a nest is destroyed, it’ll take a good bit of mana to regenerate it, so be careful.”

“Well then,” Doc grinned, “I think it’s time we made a little something to surprise these bosses when they wake up. Claire, would you be ever a dear and retrieve a few tree seeds from the forest outside? I want to grow a few in the cavern to increase diversity.”

“It would be my pleasure, dungeon lord,” Claire bowed ever so gracefully.

“And one more thing,” Doc said. He eyed the sleeping slimes with a wicked gleam. “I just had an epiphany regarding how to train these two into proper slimes. How’s this?”

Claire listened as Doc whispered his plan to her through their mental bond.

“Oh Doc, that’s wonderfully brilliant and evil!” Claire complimented. “And I agree with you. They need to be shown their proper place here. I’ll move them as soon as I retrieve the seeds.

The two shared a slightly maniacal laugh. The unconscious bodies of Anadine and Rowen shivered. As the two slime bosses shivered from their respective nightmares, the inside of the dungeon slowly changed. Trees sprouted with unnatural speed, overtaking the large bushes that had previously dominated the space. In various spots within this new forest, small mounds appeared, sprouting small slime cores which quickly sprouted into new slimes. However, in a most curious way, these first slimes seemed to know more than they should. Waiting patiently for more of their family of slime to emerge, so began the age of slimes in the dungeon.

Chapter 8

Anadine’s awareness returned in a flash. Her body instinctively tensed up into a ball and hardened as the realization hit that she had been moved. Her mind raced as she quickly comprehended the space around her, using her enhanced slime senses of echolocation and smell. From an outsider’s perspective, they would have observed a nearly flattened slime bunch up back into a ball, jiggling its body once or twice in some odd manner of communication.

Anadine relaxed when she realized there were no threats around her. With that in mind, she looked around for Doc and Claire but found herself in an unfamiliar part of the dungeon. At least, she assumed she was still in the dungeon, given the level of ambient mana in the air. She was no longer in the heart room but instead appeared to be in a smaller room branching off a standard dungeon corridor.

“Doc, can you hear me?” Anadine sent via their connection, but the dungeon lord was silent, uncommunicative as the cold stone around her. Anadine tried again, but to no avail.

“Claire? Rowen? Anyone?” Anadine attempted to contact the others, but they too were unavailable. It was as if there was a barrier placed around her mind. The sudden loss of presence was disconcerting to the lady slime, as she hadn’t been this alone since she’d been human.

Anadine deflated slightly, concerned with the fate of her friends—no, her family. The last thing she remembered was reaching the dungeon heart room after successfully defeating the unexpected horde of leaf muncher slimes. She had collapsed from exhaustion, alongside Rowen. They had been too tired to compare how many kills they’d made.

“So how did I end up here?” she wondered to herself. “Was it my imagination that I made it back to the heart room, or maybe an illusion?” She winced, as the familiar headache came back to pester her. It wasn’t a strong affliction, but it had stayed with her ever since the fight to help the adventurers escape the demon horde. Or perhaps it was a leftover from meeting her... former sisters.

Shaking off her weariness, Anadine squirmed to the edge of the room and looked out into the tunnel. The slightly purple stone glittered under the occasional torchlight, illuminating the barren underground passage that led into the darkness. Looking around, Anadine spotted another cave room a little way to her right. She slid over to it and peaked in.

To her delight, she saw a sleeping Rowen snoozing in the center of it, just as she had been. Different than any other creature, slimes gave no indication that they were alive when they rested. Resembling puddles, they made neither sound, movement, or smell while asleep, which made stepping in them a strong possibility if one wasn’t careful. Needless to say, stepping in a puddle of acidic slime was an unpleasant experience.

“Rowen!” Anadine called mentally, but the bone-white slime was unresponsive.

“Squirt, little brother, shorty!” Anadine tried, but nothing seemed to be reaching the slime merely ten feet away from her.

“Rowen!” Anadine finally opened her slime body and forced it to make a sound. Due to her lack of practice, however, the word came out distorted and fractured, sounding more like ‘O-en.’ Even with the poor pronunciation, it was enough to cause the sleeping slime to rouse and awaken.

Anadine watched as Rowen bunched back up into a ball and sprouted tentacles, much like she had done. It appeared that he was also trying to mentally contact someone but was having as much success as she had had.

“O-en, ‘ere,” Anadine called, forming tentacles to attract his attention.

“An’a’die,” Rowen said, relaxing at the sight of his fellow slime boss. “Wha ‘app’ened? Why can’t ‘e speak?” In his confusion, Rowen reached out with a tentacle to touch Anadine. When it reached her, the two of them experienced the feeling that something had changed within themselves.

“The mental connection wasn’t working, but it appears that physical contact has restored ours,” Anadine said, privately sighing in relief, as she didn’t have to use her clumsy body to form words anymore. “I just woke up in a room, like you. What’s the last thing you remember doing?”

“I… remember… returning to the heart room after the battle,” Rowen recalled. “I was very exhausted from fighting, and I just... fell asleep, I think. Were we moved?”

Anadine folded her two tentacles across her body, mimicking a very human-like thoughtful posture.

“Given that we appear to still be in the dungeon, and that our connection with Doc has been blocked somehow, I think we can assume that maybe this is another one of his ideas. I have no clue what his goal would be, though,” she reasoned. “He has been a little off ever since the move.”

“Given that crystal’s sadistic nature, I bet he wants us to fight some more,” Rowen grumbled. “Or maybe he wants us as part of another of his crazy experiments. I wouldn’t put anything past a psycho like him.”

“Now that isn’t very nice, Rowen,” Anadine waggled a tentacle disapprovingly. “I don’t think Doc is sadistic or crazy but is instead a kind person forced by circumstances. Sure, he kills, but that’s what he has to do to survive.”

“Forced? I think you’re misinformed there, princess,” Rowen chuckled. “Doc is one of the most cheerful murderers I’ve ever seen. He experiments on living things as if they were mere tools for him to use and recycles their old parts for more experiments. Do you know how much pain I went through when I was human?”

“Look, I know that you’re still mad about the trap experiments,” Anadine said, “but didn’t you learn how to better control your powers? It was a good training experience that improved your level of mastery over those corpses during the invasion, right?”

“You and I seem to have a different idea of what makes good training,” Rowen said sourly. “And don’t remind me. I can’t control those skeletons anymore, let alone summon them from goddess knows where they ended up after I died.”

Anadine thought back to her training as a human under her former master. The images came quickly, blinding Anadine with the memories of running from a wave of blood and fire, or the time she had to fight four floating swords at the same time with one hand, or that one time she was placed in the woods three days away from home with only a single ration of food and a knife.

“You are correct,” she finally admitted to Rowen. “What you did would be a form of training on a low-medium difficulty, maybe a slight bit higher than that, given those mini-slimes.”

“What hell did you go through?” Rowen couldn’t help but ask.

“Blood and flames...” Anadine shivered as the images flashed through her mind. “Be grateful you didn’t train under my master long enough to really feel what it means to feel it.”

“Right...” Rowen gave the female slime a pitying look as he trailed off. “Well, since you’ve been here the longest, what do you think we should do?”

“You acknowledge me as the older sister, then?” Anadine asked happily.

“That’s not what I said, and you know it,” Rowen retorted. “Look, let’s just find our way back to the heart room so Doc can explain himself to us. I don’t enjoy only having you as a conversational partner.”

“Alright,” Anadine agreed, tacitly ignoring Rowen’s feelings toward her. “In that case, let’s follow the tunnel to its end to see which floor we’re on.”

The two slimes slid across the floor together out of the room and into the tunnel. The tunnel, being the same brown and purple rock, left no clues to their location. However, the two could see torches lighting up a larger room in the distance.

Upon reaching the end of the tunnel, the two slimes were overcome with shock and surprise as they beheld the sight before them. The tunnel let out high in the air above a large cavern that had to be a second floor. Before their eyes, the cavern, illuminated sorely by what appeared to be a mass of luminous slimes on the ceiling, was covered in a huge swath of greenery that covered the entire floor. Unlike before, large trees stretched up towards the ceiling, which had been elevated somehow. They could see various slimes moving through the dungeon jungle, cutting paths in the greenery as they patrolled.

“Incredible,” Rowen murmured as he examined the environment. “An underground world run solely by slimes. Those luminous slimes, they are slowing moving across the ceiling much like the sun. I bet Doc will have a mass of light-eater slimes follow their path to simulate night. And down there, you can clearly see various patches of plants watched and managed by herb and plant slimes. It’s still rather empty, sure, but I can see so much potential here. Perhaps he could simulate winter and summer with fire and water slime variants...”

“Well you seem to be having fun,” Anadine laughed. “And I must say, this is rather amazing to look at, especially from this high perch. Doc and Claire must have had a field day putting this all together. First time I’ve ever seen trees in here. Want to go down and look around?”

“Well, that would be the quickest way to reach the stairs,” Rowen reasoned. “After all, I doubt you or I can walk on the ceiling.”

Anadine snorted with laughter, acquiring a withering glare from Rowen. Waving him off, the older slime boss led her fellow down the wall towards the floor. Halfway down, Rowen lost his footing and tumbled off the wall. Anadine attempted to grab him with a tentacle, but a slime’s viscous body could not be caught so easily. He slipped through her grasp and landed with a sickening splat on the floor.

“You alright there, Rowen?” Anadine asked hurriedly, landing next to him with a much softer splat.

Rowen reformed his body and wiped the dust off. “I’m fine,” he said curtly. “I knew falling wouldn’t hurt me. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t catch you,” Anadine apologized.

“You acted reflexively, but we don’t have proper bodies anymore.” Rowen said. “Forget about it.”

As Rowen slid away toward the undergrowth, Anadine examined her tentacle.

“We do have proper bodies, though, right?” she wondered aloud.

Rowen stopped, turning his body slightly to look at her.

“Are you kidding?” he asked tersely. “Look at me and look at you. We were both human, and now we’re slimes. Boneless, skinless, mouthless, eyeless slimes. Don’t you feel wrong moving around in that? Doesn’t it make your soul crawl to realize you have no skin to feel?”

“I can’t say it does,” Anadine shook her head. “After all, I was initially born without my human memories and learned how to use my body properly. Though... it hasn’t been the same since I retrieved my memories. Skin... I remember feeling the sun on it.” The aching in her head increased, forcing her to hide the shaking her body attempted. Rowen noticed her unnatural stillness.

“See,” Rowen shook his slime in frustration, “it isn’t natural. We aren’t natural. Humans are supposed to go to one of the three heavens or, gods forbid, a hell when we die, same as any of the other sentient races. But since we both made that pledge, this is our afterlife. I can’t see, hear, taste, or feel anything properly now. My life is a joke. Eternal servitude with no end in sight and no rest for when I’m weary.”

“Our echolocation and mana sense give us better vision than a human eye would,” Anadine argued. “And when Doc becomes a powerful dungeon, we’ll be able to rest and fight when we want to.”

“Really?” Rowen asked sarcastically. “To hear you say it, we aren’t slaves but servants here in his killing hell. I can’t wait now for the next time Doc asks us to fight. I’ll just say, ‘I’m too tired,’ and everything will be fine.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Anadine protested.

Rowen snorted. He grabbed a leaf off a tree and held it in front of Anadine. “What color is this leaf?”

“It’s green?” Anadine said, a little questioningly.

“Is it?” Rowen laughed hatefully. “How can you tell? For all we know, this could be red, yellow, or blue. Slimes can’t see color! Do you know how frustrated I felt watching those images play across Doc’s crystal, only being able to see the outline of images move? It’s as if the world is in shades of grey, just like me. Just like this dead-end existence.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Anadine sighed, “but you’re going to have to get used to it. Accept who you are and roll with it. Literally and figuratively.”

“Accept who I am?” Rowen punched the ground with a tentacle. “Look at me! I’m a slime! A dirty, filthy, mindless abomination of magic! I have neither bone nor skin nor hair! Even when I was in my stronger form, I was a fancy skeleton made of slime! Even my clothes were slime! Do you think I can find the positive side of being a squishy skeleton? Even undead can see more colors than I can now!”

“Calm down little brother—” Anadine cautioned.

“And stop with those stupid ‘little brother’ comments! I’m not your brother. Hells! I’m more likely your ancestor. I barely know you, and in that short time, you’ve changed from a completely loyal idiot into a laidback brute with no interesting characteristics beyond an ever-present positive attitude!” Rowen roared.

“Hey, you’re starting to get insulting,” Anadine said, feeling the rising anger inside her.

“Oh really? I’m only starting to get insulting?” Rowen yelled at her. “Are you actually feeling insulted now? What’s there to insult about a slime, your color? I can’t see your blasted color! You are an amorphous blob to me, just like I am to you!”

“Alright, now, I’ll have you know that my humanoid form is beautiful and graceful,” Anadine retorted.

“I bet, given your ability to morph your body into any size and shape you want. Was that a dream of yours back when you were human? A bigger bust, smoother skin, maybe longer legs? Too bad. Even if you can give yourself all those things, it’s all still a lie,” Rowen argued angrily. “Your slime will never be as smooth as skin. Your slime won’t dance in the wind like hair. In fact, you’re worse than me! At least I’ve accepted this miserable existence as what it is, while you delude yourself with factitious looks and fake realities!”

“Stop it! That’s enough!” Anadine yelled at Rowen.

“Oh, but I’m not done yet! How about this? You’re a flat character both physically and mentally without any redeeming qualities who is still as trusting and naïve as when she was alive, and it’s this kind of behavior that not only got her and others killed but also catalyzed the deaths of everyone from her city! Your death killed your people, your parents, and it killed me!” Rowen screamed. “We all died thanks to your stupid pledge to this dungeon!”

“No!” Anadine screamed in return, and she leaped at Rowen with tentacles outstretched.

“Come at me, blue freak!” Rowen said, throwing his tentacles out to intercept her. The two tangled against each other, slapping each other violently with waves of tentacles. The occasional miss resulted in branches snapping, holes being made in the ground, and general destruction.

“Darkness blast!” Rowen cried out, sending a beam of dark magic towards Anadine.

“Fire shield!” Anadine responded, summoning a wave of fire to block the attack.

Anadine condensed her tentacles, forming four extra-large slime appendages that she used to slam into Rowen. The boy took the hit, flying back into a tree. He responded by launching another dark magic attack before landing and cutting off part of Anadine’s body. The two hissed in pain as they lost slime mass.

“Take it back!” Anadine roared.

“No!” Rowen answered, punctuating his words with a barrage of dark missiles. Anadine leaped to the side, dodging each spell by the slime of her body. She changed two of her tentacles, morphing them into hardened shields. She charged, using the shields to deflect Rowen’s magical attacks.

Rowen cursed, climbing the tree he was on to get out of the way of her charge. Anadine slammed into the tree, breaking it as it creaked in pain. Rowen held on tight as the tree tumbled down away from the enraged female slime, grunting as the tree landed.

“Slime Spears!” Anadine cast, forming spears of slime on her tentacles that she whipped at Rowen in waves. Rowen summoned a barrier just in time, as waves of slime-hardened spears slammed into the ground around him. He grit his slime, feeling each hit on his barrier as if it were his body.

Anadine kept up the assault, moving every closer to her fellow boss slime.

Roaring, Rowen shattered his shield, turning the magical energy into shards that he sent cutting through Anadine’s body. The falling of the shield, however, meant that Rowen took the full force of Anadine’s last volley. Both their bodies were sliced apart and cut by the other’s attacks.

Groaning in pain, the two slime bosses collapsed onto the floor, the majority of their slime spent and depleted.

“Take it back!” Anadine said weakly. “It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t... my fault.”

Rowen spat out some slime weakly. “Fine, I’m sorry. You didn’t kill anyone. It, it wasn’t your fault...”

As if to remind her, Anadine felt tears, but was unable to shed them. She had no eyes from which to cry. She had no stomach to fill with butterflies. She had nothing human, nothing at all. So, what was she?

“Mother, father, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, finally falling unconscious from the lack of mana.

Rowen watched her turn into a puddle of slime and sighed. “I’m sorry I took it out on you...” he murmured, before he too shut down and fell unconscious.

A few moments later, a familiar form appeared above them. Claire shook her head as she examined the large swath of collateral damage the two had created.

“Looks like Doc was right,” Claire said, “You both are still too human. Oh well, that’s what this is for I suppose.” With a wave of her hand, Claire levitated the two sleeping slime bosses and flew them back to their rooms. Unbeknownst to her, a pair of unseen eyes watched her fly away then disappeared.

Chapter 9

Doc watched the two slumbering slimes as Claire returned them to their respective starting rooms. Anadine and Rowen were fast asleep, dreaming perhaps, or maybe living in their memories of a different time. Doc wouldn’t know. He could no longer dream. Though the question remained to be seen whether that ability had ever been his alone.

What would they do upon awaking, realizing they were back where they started? Would they continue to try to leave their rooms to make their way to Doc, Claire, and the heart of the dungeon? Would they continue their previous fight between them, seeking solace in violence as only adventurers could? They certainly would find it extremely difficult to make it back down on their own. Every slime they’d come across would treat them as an enemy. Even if they worked together to make it through, the challenge of relying on someone to watch their back would only add to the trial. Both slimes—no, both humans in slime form—were fiercely independent with their own pride. Royal pride, perhaps, or maybe it was a pride form of their humanity.

What is it to be a human? Doc wondered to himself. Certainly, Doc no longer had this essential part, unknowingly possessed yet obvious when gone. Rowen and Anadine, they try so hard to constrain themselves to what they were, yet who they are now fights to assert itself in place of this past. How much of a shock was it really, for a soul so used to its form to find itself in a different container. Did they realize the fight within themselves? Is their pain caused by being unaware of this inner turmoil?

Yet it must be said, humans were not the only race to possess this persona, this inner core, this basis of all personality. Calling it humanity was easy because humans were what Doc dealt most with. But did elves not have their own form of this pride? The conflicts between these two races, did it not stem from the difference between them derived from this great source of self? Or was it because they were so similar that they fought? And the other sentient races Doc had yet to meet: dwarves, gnomes, grey orcs, devil-kin, the other types of beast-men, were they all the same? Humanity—perhaps elfinity, gnominity, etc.—was the same for all.

The sentient races—no, the peoples of the world—they all had this sense of self at the core of their being summed up best by the ending applied to the form for the thing no one understood: inity. Divinity, infinity, affinity. All these words drew upon the essence of being.

However, if every person possessed the same core, how did they become so different individually? What could a person rely on to establish who they were, are, and to be: their experience, their struggles, their actions, their triumphs, their failures? Perhaps it could be summed up in the ability to refer oneself, so say ‘I.’ But then, when you take away the ability to say ‘I,’ are you still who you are, or are you someone, something, else?

To confront the idea of something, one must be willing to understand the opposite concept. One cannot know light without darkness, and someone who has never known cold cannot understand heat. To understand yourself, then, would you not need to understand the opposite of you?

What is the opposite of being human? An animal? No, animals share too many similarities. One of the other races then? Same problem. Being elvish or anything else is the parallel of being human. Using demons and gods was incorrect as well, for they already formed their own opposite reflection. From the brief interactions with the members of divinity, Doc could see that their sense of self was too different. Perhaps it was because they were goddesses of neutrality, where their portfolios depended on implementation, like law or balance, but they appeared to be much too fluid in comparison to the mortal self.

Doc turned inward, trying to peer at his inner self. He had once hosted a human soul, using it to stabilize his own self. It wasn’t the same, however, now that it was gone. Doc was a dungeon. He had a clear purpose born with him with, no doubts or fears regarding what his future held: advancement or death. He had been born with his identity, his core, his heart crystal quite literally. The opposite of a dungeon crystal was non-existence, for dungeons started off as nothing before forming slowly from rock, to crystal, to mana crystal, to soul stone, and finally to dungeon crystal. Years of evolution, adaptation, and growth concentrated on a single core. Doc had no doubts who he was and what he wasn’t.

At least, that used to be the case. The humanity once at his core had left its mark on him. Morals, ethics, aesthetics—these things were left over from hosting the human soul. Dungeons had no need for these concepts, but without them, dungeons could never become all they were meant for. Such was the curse of existence for those that relied on the presence of others to survive. A wolf cannot live without prey to hunt, the trees cannot live without the sun, and dungeons could not survive without the presence of living creatures. Doc, as all dungeons, had to learn these concepts to survive. But unlike other dungeons, Doc had these concepts within him rather than having to slowly integrate them into his self. He was better, yet also ruined as a dungeon because of it.

Then why is being human, or elf, or devil-kin such a hard concept? Is it because they complicate their lives with the invention of abstract concepts? Is it because they hide their core selves under layers of identities, choosing which one to wear every time they wake up? Or perhaps it is because they were slaves to their bodily needs and wants, slaves to their emotions. What was the opposite of being a person?

The answer?

The slime, Doc reasoned out, the slime is the opposite of the human. Slimes lack everything. They shared no part of the human body: no eyes, ears, hair, skin color, feet, brain, blood, stomach, or heart. That which killed a human would not kill a slime. Slimes had no need for shelter from the rain, delicious food, water, companionship, or emotions. They were the epitome of an emotionless, soulless, intelligence-devoid being that somehow still existed and even thrived. They had no purpose except to exist: be born, feed, reproduce, and die. They had no individuality beyond their species and location. They were the perfect receptacles for those with will and without body, like Doc. In the scheme of things, the world could exist without slimes. They truly lived a most meaningless existence.

It is no wonder then, Doc thought, that Rowen and Anadine are having such trouble adapting to their new bodies. Their very identities bring meaning to their otherwise mindless existence, and they are weaker for it.

Whatever emotions they have, whatever memories the possessed, it was not ‘their’ own. Those were the belongings of their past lives. It was why Doc referred to Anadine by her name instead of her past human name, even after learning it. D something or other. Rowen would also gain a new name in time, once he realized the need. Slime had no need for feelings, morality, ethics, or thoughts, really. Doc created slimes to serve him as extensions of his will. All they had to do was kill, eat, and fight.

And yet, that need was changing. The new system, this natural form of dungeon building, called on Doc’s slimes to be more than killing machines. He needed them to grow beyond the simple existence, to become a part of something greater than each individual. In his mind’s eye, he could already see changes happening on the cavern floor.

While Anadine and Rowen slept, Doc’s new style of dungeon had spread. His ever-present spirit no longer inhabited each slime. Instead, they were free to do whatever their instincts commanded them to do. However, his spirit had left behind something unexpected in each slime: the tiniest, little bit of self. A ghost of a memory, but enough kindling to spark the beginning.

Herb slimes were gathering together, tending their gardens under the control of their stronger plant slime relatives. Bug slimes were gathering the lesser mimic bug types together by chosen species, a few fighting other types of bug slimes to expand territory. The ants and beetles appeared to be dominating, having already worked together to eliminate the worm and wasp groups. The chest slimes were scattering themselves, each finding an area to hunt, though they were largely unsuccessful in the greenery. The grey slime family, patrolling the entire floor in set paths, returning only to a gorged-out wall where they all resided together. Even there, the various sub families lived together in fragile peace.

Doc wasn’t making them do any of that. The only slimes he controlled were the luminous slimes and the light-eater slimes rotating across the ceiling to mimic the changing of the day. They were the only elemental slimes Doc could create, as their elemental attributes had been unlocked by magical artifacts rather than mana stones. He watched above them all, a god in this sunless world. He no longer shared each individual slime’s death with them, allowing him to place a greater connection with these slimes of his. Instead of living through them, Doc was now a spectator to hundreds of individual slime lives, something that seemed to satisfy the hollowness within him.

So, while Rowen and Anadine were struggling to accept their new selves, the slimes around them were growing in ways Doc could have never done on his own. It was an interesting observation, the complicated becoming simple and the simple becoming complicated. Perhaps the dungeon as a whole would reach the next level once the two reached some sort of equilibrium. Doc could only dream.

For his two slumbering bosses, perhaps he could help work out their issues by increasing their stress levels. While their selves would never completely accept their identity as ‘slime,’ perhaps by ways of stress and battle, their souls and bodies would slowly come together in order to survive the trials he’d create for them. To stretch their limits out until they could take no more, to push them past those limits, that was what Doc envisioned for them. He couldn’t hold back a sadistic chuckle as he metaphysically rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he watched the two slime bosses continue to sleep.

“What are you laughing at, Doc? Claire asked. The pixie, having returned the two slimes to their starting position, was closely examining a dead leaf muncher slime on her stone table. To be exact, she was giving it a slime autopsy, which involved a dense wind magic to prevent the slime from breaking apart and dissolving.

“Just thinking about something fun,” Doc said. “How’s your examination going?”

“I’m about finished,” Claire answered, using two wooden twigs to pry the slime further open. “From what I can tell, the leaf muncher slime has all the outer physical attributes of a normal leaf muncher slime, yet, just like the furry slimes, it doesn’t have anything inside of it except slime and the core.”

With a solid yank, Claire removed the core from the slime. As soon as it was gone, the leaf muncher slime body trembled and broke down into a pile of amorphous slime kept together only by Claire’s wind magic.

“The core,” Claire continued as if nothing had happened, “is just as I observed earlier. Unlike the standard perfectly round ball, this core is grooved almost like a walnut shell. I can faintly feel the mana running through the grooves, but I can’t understand it. Perhaps the increased surface area allows for greater mana absorption and thus the core can devote some of the mana to forming behavior.”

Claire walked over to a small alcove next to her door. She placed the tiny slime core on a small pedestal next to four other similar cores. When she was done, Doc closed the alcove and sealed the cores inside.

“Now that’s done, what do you want to do next, Doc?” Claire asked.

“Hm,” Doc hummed. “The nests for the leaf muncher slimes have been made, but they aren’t very active yet. The other slimes are all busy carving out their territory on the second floor. Even in maintenance mode, I’m starting to run out of usable mana. However, I would like to try something before I reopen the dungeon.”

“Oh, what is it?” Claire wondered out loud.

“I’d like to experiment with another idea,” Doc said as he summoned up a lesser mimic slime. “With the herbs around the entrance, I was able to capture a few of the more curious insects that entered. Like this one:” In the middle of the room, a honey bee materialized, buzzing frantically around Doc’s crystal as if it were the sun.

“A bee? That’s one insect I’d love to see join the dungeon,” Claire complimented. “After all, bees are great at pollinating flowers, and they produce honey, a favorite treat of mine. Give it a go.”

Doc directed the lesser mimic slime, which reached up a tentacle to snag the bee. The little creature could only sting desperately into the slime, failing to inflict damage or delay it being drawn in and devoured. The duo in the heart room watched as the lesser mimic shuddered before returning to peace without anything happening.

“Perhaps the leaf muncher was a lucky break?” Claire offered.

Doc said nothing, but a small swarm of bees materialled inside the slime. Claire winced at the sight of countless bees melting into nothingness, no noise to justify their death throes. Still, it caused the lesser mimic slime to shrink and change, becoming a carbon copy of the bee. Doc adjusted it into creating a spawn nest with set limits before releasing it to travel up to the forest floor.

“I don’t have as many of any other insect to try, nor do I have the mana to keep the dungeon closed,” Doc said, an edge of disappointment coloring his words. “Perhaps next time we can experiment with more types of bugs.”

Claire said nothing, but her mind trembled at the emotionless slaughter of so many bees. Her work, her misguided lessons, were at fault. What worse things would Doc do because of her?

“I can’t think of anything I need to do,” Doc continued, failing to notice Claire’s mood. “What do you think?”

Claire blinked her eyes as her attention returned to the moment. Her standard smile filled her face, not reflecting her inner self. “Then perhaps it’s time to open the dungeon back up to the forest. Let the animals and monsters come in and interact with your slimes,” Claire suggested. “Though, are you done with the new second floor? You fixed it up the way you wanted it, right?”

“The second floor is still a maze, half of it collapsed, half of it covered with plants,” Doc said, bringing up an overhead image of the entire third floor. “I’ve enlarged it and added more maze-like elements to it, such as traps and treasures. For the moment, those treasures are discarded slime cores I picked up from dead adventurer bags from before. Their only purpose is to promote slime evolution, but I’m still not sure if it’ll work. Just in case, I’ve also placed various materials that we’ve learned can cause evolution. There is no end to the maze, just exits back up to the second floor.

“There aren’t any slimes down there yet except the boss,” Doc continued, “but the struggling trap and treasure slimes seem to be drawn toward the maze entrances. Maybe they’re sensitive to treasure. Oh, and the mini-slimes live in a few of the traps. They don’t actually do anything except eat and wait to be used, though.”

“Sounds about right for baby slimes,” Claire giggled. “Pity, though, that they do not evolve.”

“Maybe. I’d have to observe longer to be sure,” Doc admitted. “Like some of the other slimes, perhaps they need be to become stronger first. For now, I think they’re satisfied with their existence. I haven’t been able to reform any of the boss slimes except the overslime, which is slumbering in the center of the maze. The Twins are still asleep.”

Claire sighed, flying down to her adopted babies. She rubbed their heads, still not used to the feeling of slimified hair. That didn’t stop her from embracing them both.

“They’ll wake up sooner or later,” Doc reminded her gently. “After all, with the natural dungeon finally beginning, the dungeon has never been livelier. I’m sure once I recover more mana, they’ll wake up just fine and be greeted with the wonderful new sights of their new home. They always wanted to run under trees.”

“I hope so,” Claire said, wiping a tear from her eye.

“I’m opening the dungeon now, ending maintenance mode,” Doc announced, sending small tremors through the dungeon.

On the lower floors, the tiny mini-slimes vibrated with the movement of the dungeon. They became more active, wiggling around the small rooms hidden behind the launcher traps. One of them brushed against a part of the trap’s launching mechanism...

On the third floor, treasure slimes paused as the tremors began, signaling their follower chest slimes to also wait. When the ground stopped moving, the treasure slimes resumed their course of hopping through the maze, occasionally stopping at a room and letting a slime take it for their own. As they made their way, the group came across a small group of grey family slimes: two armor slimes, a sharp slime, and a mage slime. With a wooden rattle, the mimic family slimes launched a surprise attack on the enemy slimes. The mage slime was the only survivor as it fled, leaving its fallen brethren behind as the mockeries of adventurer greed devoured and slurped down their prey.

On the second floor, the forest lion watched from its new home atop a giant oak tree as two lesser mimic slimes were attacked by a swarm of leaf-muncher slimes. They were unable to effectively stop the tiny slimes from biting them and stealing their slime and soon fell to the ground dead. The lion waited until the swarm had left before dropping to the ground and approaching the dead slimes. It bent its head down and licked up the remaining slime. When it was done, it swallowed the two leftover slime cores. The forest lion faded away into the forest, hunting for more prey to fill its belly. As if an invisible wind was blowing, the lion’s fur jiggled slightly.

In a hidden cave dug under a tree, a pair of green eyes flashed in the darkness, feeling the tremors subside. A scaled, furry, three-fingered hand reached out of the darkness, pulling its user out of the ground. It covered the entrance to the cave and stealthily made its way up to the surface.

Anadine and Rowen continued to sleep in their respective rooms, each jiggling to the rhythm of the dungeon.

Meanwhile, the sudden opening of the dungeon created a brief wind current between it and the outside world. While the fresh smells of the dungeon drifted out, a translucent blue seed drifted in, almost as if it were following the scent of mana. It drifted all the way into the forest, setting onto the ground. When the dungeon’s mana touched it, it glowed and sprouted roots immediately. In moments, a tiny blue flower sprouted up, shimmering and sparkling with all the color of dream.

Chapter 10

Blood.

A sea of blood spread from horizon to horizon, all around her, never ending. It clung to her clothes, her skin, her hair, pulling her down, not letting her escape. Claire struggled and screamed to no avail as the blood holding her solidified into red hands.

A figure arose from the sea, seizing her throat. The blood ran down his head and hair, revealing an adventurer missing half his face. The naked bones shook and cracked.

“I had a family,” the figure said, his voice the scream of the sea and the whisper of the wind. “I had a wife and a son. They’ll never know what happened to me. They have no body to bury and mourn.”

Another figure arose, pulling Claire’s hair. This time, a woman missing her legs.

“I had hopes, I had dreams,” she screeched. “I was going to propose to the man I loved after finishing my last dungeon dive. But I died, and you just watched and laughed. Heartless monster, you laughed as I died!”

“I’m sorry,” Claire screamed at the top of her lungs. “I’m sorry!”

“He saved them for you while you slept,” another adventurer missing his left arm whispered. “And when you woke up, you watched our deaths for amusement, for laughs. Adventurers, we were all just adventurers to you—bugs to be squashed. How many of us died thanks to you? You never kept count. You never cared.”

“Monster, monster!” the voices chanted together.

“No, I’m not a monster!” Claire cried out, her heart awash in pain. “I’m a good girl! Mommy said so! That was—that wasn’t me—I just wanted—”

“To be a good girl like she wanted,” a new voice echoed through the blood, but this time familiar to Claire.

The sea in front of her erupted, revealing a beautiful pixie wearing a black dress dripping with blood. The pixie raised her fingers and licked the blood off with a seductive air.

“You’ve done well, my precious Claire,” the pixie said lovingly. “You’re everything I ever wanted. Look how much blood you’ve spilled. Look how much life you’ve taken!” The pixie spread her arms out with a look of ecstasy on her face. Her four wings, pale grey outlined with black, spread in a show of effortless glory. Blood dripped off her, forming a dress filled with wailing faces.

“I’m so proud of you! You really are mommy’s precious little girl,” she cooed. “Now, come with me. Let us sink together into this ocean of slaughter.”

“No, I don’t want to!” Claire screamed. But the figure of her mother ignored her and embraced her lovingly. The hands of blood reached up to seized them both, pulling them deeper into the dark red ocean. Claire struggled, Claire begged, Claire screamed, but she could not resist as her head was dragged under.

With her last breath, she raised her voice for help.

“Father!”

*

“Huh... huh... huh,” Claire breathed heavily, her arms trembling as the little dungeon pixie became aware of the world around her. The warm air of the dungeon felt strange against the cold sweat on her brow, and she quickly wiped it away as if it were not sweat but something else.

“It’s getting worse,” Claire murmured, pulling her knees to her chest and hugging them.

The sight of her mother, once comforting, had been distorted by the dream into a figure of terrifying promise. That... thing was not the mother in Clare’s memory. Her mother was much scarier, she felt.

How could she be sure, with her mind and memories a tangled mess still recovering. Claire didn’t know, and it terrified her.

“I need to stop thinking about it,” Claire said, slapping her cheeks. “Stop it, Claire. You have a job to do. You can’t distract Doc with these kinds of problems. He can’t help you.”

With a determined look, Claire got off her bed and cleaned herself of sweat and dirt. After drinking a meal of plant nectar, she wiped her lips and walked out into the heart room.

“Good morning, Doc,” she greeted.

Doc didn’t immediately answer her, much to her surprise. After a moment, he asked, “You okay? Your body is much paler than normal.”

Claire inwardly smacked herself for forgetting to check herself in the mirror.

“It’s alright. I just had a nightmare,” she was forced to explain.

“You had a horse?” Doc wondered curiously.

Claire’s mouth twitched into a small grin. It had been quite some time since Doc had last asked her this kind of question. It made her slightly reflective over their journey together, yet even today, his knowledge in certain areas was still lacking.

His question, however, perked her mischievous side.

“Yes, I did,” she said. “See Doc, everyone dreams while they’re asleep, but sometimes magical creatures called Night-Mares pass by and turn the dreams bad. They are even more magical than you or I and can’t be seen or caught. They are rather notorious for this.”

“I see,” Doc hummed. “I’ll try to raise a magical barrier around your home tonight to block those pesky Night-Mares for you. I imagine having bad dreams is an unpleasant experience.”

“Yes. Thank you, Doc,” Claire said, giggling to herself. “Really, though, don’t bother wasting your mana on a barrier. Night-Mares can’t be stopped, and they themselves are innocent creatures doing their job like a dungeon with killing adventurers.”

That’s right, killing is just a part of the job. No need to feel guilty. Everything dies at some point. Claire could faintly hear her mother’s voice in her head whispering these words to her. She shook her head quickly.

“If you say so,” Doc relented.

“How is the dungeon doing?” Claire asked, flying over to Doc’s crystal.

“Take a look,” he said, and his crystal revealed the cavern floor.

Thanks to the new trees grown from seed, the cavern had diversified greatly. What was most interesting, however, was how the slimes living on the floor affected this new diversity.

For instance, the herb slime family lived in the southern quarter of the floor. They were tending various small gardens of herbs and plants, each surrounded by thick undergrowth and trees. The aerial image displayed these gardens as oases in the sea of trees. The plant slimes and jungle slimes seemed to oversee their herb slime brethren, who moved through the gardens like workers. The poison slimes only patrolled the outskirts of the gardens like guards. Finally, the heal slimes stayed in the garden to use their magic on any hurt comrade. The herb slimes in particular seemed to have become more adept at fighting the leaf muncher slimes who attempted to enter the gardens and devour the flowers. The bee slimes, on the other hand, were allowed to come and go as they pleased.

The bug slime family, bee slimes, and the leaf muncher slimes lived in the forests that covered the cavern floor. While they appeared to feast on every plant, the various lesser mimic tribes and their bug slime leaders often made attacks on the herb slime gardens to steal their harvest. The poison slimes were the gardens’ primary defense, and Claire watched in interest as another wave of ant bug slimes were repelled. The leaf muncher slimes were a larger nuisance, as their small size and flying ability allowed them to easily bypass the poison slimes. The herb slimes ate every leaf muncher they found, serving as both gardener and pest disposal.

The third large group of slimes was the grey family. The group had used their gelatinous appendages to carve out a small system of caves in the north, with exits coming close to the staircase leading up to the dungeon entrance. Within the family, the bone and blood slimes stayed together with the magic slimes, while the sharp, armor, and gelatinous slimes had their own space as well. Being the most numerous, the grey slimes patrolled the floor most often, carving plant free trails through the dense undergrowth with ease. They collected any herb they could find, storing them in their caves. They also fought against bug slime raids, protecting their herbs. Interestingly enough, the grey family had mounted two attacks on herb slime gardens. Doc had saved the images of the second fight, and Claire noted how the grey family stole not only herbs, but two heal slimes as well. The two heal slimes were still living in the nest, mindlessly healing any hurt slime.

The light slimes and the dark slimes were nonexistent except for the two groups controlling the time on the ceiling.

The mimic slimes herded their lesser mimic comrades, of which there were few, into small communes in the forest. They acquired herbs by disguising themselves as other slimes and sneaking into both gardens and the nest. With their small numbers, they avoided fights as best they could.

Finally, the chest slimes and treasure slimes had all migrated down to the maze level, preferring to acquire treasure and wait for prey to come to them. The treasure slimes were the last of the tier 3 slimes in Doc’s dungeon, an occurrence due in part to Doc having a few on the second floor before losing his powers. Unlike the other families, however, the treasure slimes did not interfere with their lesser chest brethren, instead opting to find a good spot to wait for prey.

“Doc, why are your slimes obsessed with gathering herbs?” Claire asked. “The way they are behaving, it’s as if these plants are the lifeblood of the slimes.”

“That’s because it is,” Doc explained. “I remembered how in your explanation of EDS you said the first level ate plants. I cut off every slime’s ability to gather the mana they need from the dungeon, so in order to survive, they have to ingest anything rich in mana. The herbs grown by the herb slime family have the highest amount of mana, prolonging hunger the best out of everything else. I decided this need would drive my slimes to act... more interesting.”

“Well, they certainly are creating more than I expected slimes could,” Claire agreed as she swiped the image to view the gardens. “I know slimes in the wild congregate to similar species, but this is just fascinating. Look here, the ant bug slimes are having a territorial dispute with the beetle bug slimes! And here, the bone slimes are getting along with the armor and sharp slimes. For mindless magical creatures, they are surprisingly adaptable.”

“It is interesting,” Doc laughed happily. “Look, the grey family slimes only eat the herbs they need, and then leave to gather more. They only stay in their homes when hungry. Otherwise, they are out patrolling. Humans would bicker and whine in this situation, but slimes just do what they need to do. There used to be frequent infighting, but they seem to get along now, more or less.”

“Wait, are those bug slimes eating other slime cores?” Claire pointed out in surprise.

“Of course they are,” Doc said. “Slime cores hold a lot more mana than herbs and can sustain any slime for a much longer period. That’s the main reason why the chest and treasure slimes don’t move on the second floor. They don’t need to hunt.”

“How are you making more slimes then?” Claire asked.

“The nest upgrade of course,” Doc revealed proudly. “I tinkered with it so that every slime nest requires a sacrifice of mana in the form of herbs or stones to create more slimes.”

“And how do the slimes know to do this?”

“Instinct... I think,” Doc admitted. “My belief is that the dungeon slimes are born with the understanding that the dungeon is their source, or mother. The nests give off the same feeling of familiarity as their stronger family members, and thus are given food like any other slime. They likely don’t even realize yet that more slimes are produced from the nests.”

Claire took a closer look to find the slime nests. The nests were in the form of a slime-sized hole leading to a small room with a single stalactite hanging down the middle. When enough mana was offered, a tiny drop of Doc’s mana condensed at the stalactites tip and formed a new slime core, which then fell to the ground and grew a new slime.

“Neat,” Claire said. “I’ve honestly never seen a slime nest in action. It’s efficient. Oh, how are our resident slime bosses?”

“Still sleeping.” Doc shrugged “The Twins, too. I think Anadine and Rowen will wake up soon enough. Don’t worry about them until they manage to return to the heart room.”

“I won’t interfere with their test,” Claire promised. “But you have to make sure they don’t die. I’d be very disappointed if you were unable to resummon them.”

“I’ll have my eyes, metaphorically speaking, on them during their journey,” Doc promised. “Hey, I saved you some fun slime deaths. Want to watch?”

Death is amusing to watch, see, make happen. Everyone dies, so why not make a spectacle of it? The cries of pain, the last twitches of life—that’s the honey of life slipping away, is it not, my sweet Claire? It’s not so different watching something die, whether it’s a human or a slime.

Claire shuddered as her mother’s voice whispered through her head.

“Maybe later, Doc,” Claire muttered. “I’m… I’m not in the right mood.”

“Alright,” Doc said.

The little pixie watched the scenes playing on Doc’s crystal one more time. An ant slime bit a beetle slime in half, devouring the core as the victor. Feeling pale, Claire left and returned to her home with the excuse that she needed to clean more.

She needed to wash her hands again, but the blood she saw could never be washed away.  As she scrubbed, the images she’d seen of the dungeon through Doc’s crystal played through her mind. In particular, to a group of herb slimes collecting seeds and plants in the forest for their garden. Had she been wrong, or had one of the flowers been an ethereal blue?

Chapter 11

While the situation in the dungeon calmed, blossoming new life and patterns, outside the dungeon, the forest was a much different place. An air of fear and uncertainty seemed to blow with the wind, though most creatures didn’t understand why. They didn’t need to, though. They understood enough to hide and flee.

The invasion of Doc’s dungeon destroyed the natural balance of the forest. Few creatures of claw and teeth had escaped, resulting in the freeing up of territory. The surviving predators were only cautiously exploring this, but the situation would soon change. Free territory meant so much, after all: more prey, the chance to attract a mate, and better nests to live in.

The northern wilderness was expansive and wild—a dangerous place for any person to enter. However, it still had rules: unspoken, unwritten, and ancient. Above all others was the rule of strength. The strongest ruled. And when there were two lords to rule, they fought for dominance.

The area the dungeon appeared in had no major lord—though this was only a fairly recent development—and so the area was divided into a series of small territories from which the strongest controlled. However, the dungeon of slimes had appeared smack dab in the middle of those territories, carrying the scents of prey, danger, and change.

With change came hatred, a disruption to the plans of the world.

The results of the dungeon invasion had been enlightening. With most of the predatory beasts dead, and with the ending of winter soon upon the wilderness, this part of the forest would soon be overrun by prey capable of inflicting great loss on the vegetation. Not only this, but the great abundance of prey would attract new hunters, who would fight for supremacy. The weak would be once again weeded out, leaving the strong behind.

The dungeon, seeing as it did nothing to establish territory beyond its bounds, would be left alone. None of the remaining creatures desired to return to the trap. If newcomers were to enter, it would be only after the cold left and the challengers appeared. However, this timeframe of only applied to a natural turn of events.

Little did Doc and Claire know, they had only precious time remaining before the true dangers would appear. They were safe, for now. However, what had once been a feeling had gained form in the surrounding forest. A smell was wafting up from the void; not one of the nose, but instead the mind.

It was this new thing that chased the little green creature through the shadows of fading sunlight. Having returned from the cavern below, it had wasted no time in collecting its hidden brethren to lead them below. However, they’d been attack by monsters; cruel perversion of what had once been something else. It shed a tear as it clutched the headdress, the symbol of leader, it’s mentor had given it before facing the threat. The defenders bought time but suffered a fate worse than mere death.

Still the threat approached, one that the little green creature ran from, dragging as many of its ilk as it could to the dungeon. Only the fastest made it into the clearing where the dungeon entrance lay, the new leader turning to gaze back into the silent forest. It shed one last tear before heading back down into the dungeon with those remaining. In the shadows of the trees, a scaled hand gripped a tree and trembled. With shocking force, its claws expanded and tore the trunk into pieces, toppling the tree to its death. Silence returned to the forest surrounding the clearing; no hint of anything besides a fallen tree.

*

Claire took a deep breath, steadying herself. She peeked out from behind her leaf cover to the garden below. The patrolling plant slimes failed to notice her, seeking only to protect their garden and the herb slime caretakers.

“Claire, are you sure you need to do this?” Doc’s voice echoed softly in her head. “You said yourself you aren’t sure whether our contract of mutual protection extended to these unlinked slimes. I can easily summon—”

“It won’t be the same, Doc,” Claire cut him off. “I’m tired of living off magically recreated or picked flowers. I haven’t had fresh nectar in days, and I need some.”

“I still don’t see how this is different from before,” Doc grumbled. “You’ve been perfectly content with the nectar I’ve provided up to now. You could even leave the dungeon to gather wild flowers like you did before. Why risk danger with the plant slimes?”

“Fresh nectar, Doc, taken from a dungeon-grown flower,” Claire licked her lips. “The taste isn’t comparable to anything else! I need it, no matter the cost, and only I can harvest it correctly. Especially this one. I still can’t believe it appeared here and that you found it.”

“Hard to miss it, really. But anyway, why?” Doc pressed her. “You still haven’t told me why you have to do this yourself.”

Unseen by Doc’s spirit, Claire’s eyes flashed and glistened. Her breath suddenly came in shorts bursts and she gripped her fists so hard the skin broke. A moment later, she relaxed and cast a silent spell to heal her hands.

“This nectar is important for my home,” Claire explained softly, a touch softer in expression now. “With it, I can cast certain magics to repair my damaged clothing and other fabrics.”

“I thought you only had one pair of clothes?” Doc wondered.

“Same dress, many individuals,” Claire rolled her eyes. “Are you going to help me or not?”

Doc grumbled in her mind for a moment before answering yes. A sense of relief coming over her, Claire adjusted her stance as she waited for the signal.

Doc didn’t disappoint. A few moments later, the plant slimes all paused, as if listening. Like one unit, they turned together and swarmed away from Claire’s location, a group of bug slimes having suddenly appeared at the opposite end of the garden. Seeing the guards suitably distracted, Claire made her move.

With a flick of the wrist and muttering of an incantation, the pixie’s form turned blurry and indistinct before finally losing all visibility. The leaf she was hiding behind twitched as she passed, the only relic of her passing as she flew quickly down to the garden’s edge. The herb slimes failed to react to her presence, their attention remaining solely on their plant charges. Claire let out a hidden breath of relief. She hadn’t been completely positive her invisibility would work on the slimes. After all, invisibility worked on eyes, of which slimes had none.

Confident in her lack of presence, the pixie made her way towards the patch of Dream flowers. Their undulating blue petals dancing in the light of the luminating slimes far overhead. Dream flowers were rare, a type of flower found only in the wilderness with a very strict growth requirement—soil with high concentrations of mana. The dungeon was thus the perfect place to find these flowers, and the herb slime caretakers made sure it thrived. Claire had never had nectar from this flower before, but she was well aware of its benefits.

Reaching the pale blue stalks, Claire slowly formed the wisp of a spell with her lips. A verdant mist spread forth from her fingers down to the dungeon floor, forming subtle tendrils that wrapped around the stalks of the flower stems. Gently, methodically, the tendrils dug the roots out of the ground, freeing plant from dungeon floor. Claire continued her low muttering as the tendrils dug out three more flowers, all from various parts of the bed. When the four were free, she closed her mouth and gazed on with satisfaction at her prizes. The levitating flowers were in perfect condition, and she turned to leave.

However, her smile dropped at the faint tugging of something on her body. The Dream flowers sensed the cut in their connection to the dungeon mana, and their roots had begun searching for a new source: her spell, which kept them aloft. Claire could feel the mana being drained from her body, and she suddenly recalled something her father had once told her. The memory engulfed her, despite the situation at hand.

Her, small and innocent, sitting prettily in her purple dress between her father’s legs. Him, smiling down at her, warm and smelling of damp grass and earth. They were sitting together outside mother’s undead dungeon on a lone tree in the desolateness, enjoying the rain as it tumbled down from the heavens above. Claire’s father held out his hand to catch a few drops, tasting them.

“Can you taste it, Claire?” he asked her. “The rain, it tastes of earth and sky, satisfying the world and keeping us in it.”

Claire had giggled and collected a small puddle in her hand, pouring it into her mouth too quickly. Her father chuckled as she coughed.

“Care, my child, do not partake with such haste. It is not going anywhere, and neither are you.” He ruffled her hair.

She covered her hair, protecting it from the mauling it received. “Daddy, I don’t taste anything except water. That isn’t anything special.”

“Exactly,” he winked at her. “Water tastes like water, and water is life. So, water tastes like life, but we experience so much life that the taste is lost from our tongue and becomes common.” He paused. “I, too, didn’t appreciate this before I... met your mother. Now, I try to come up to watch the rain every chance I can.”

“Is it because Mommy’s dungeon is full of zombies?” The young Claire asked. “Maybe you can ask her for some more plants for your garden?”

Her father chuckled and hugged Claire within his arms, so much bigger than her own. “Little sprout, there is little left I can grow in my garden. Your mother has been kind to me, in her own way. No, only a few more things are missing form my collection, the few that can stand to grow in such... conditions.”

“Like what, Daddy?” Claire asked.

Her father hummed to himself before answering. “I suppose the Dream flower, for one, or the fairy blossom. These and others do not require the light of the sun or the life of water, only mana. Rare as they are, they are hardy little plants, able to seek out mana to feed from any source and feast on it. That includes us, you know.” He punctuated his point by tapping Claire on her nose, eliciting another giggle.

“Promise me you’ll be careful little sprout,” he asked of her. “Alright? No messing with strange plants. After all, that’s how—”

“Great Uncle Fin got eaten by a giant fly-eater flower,” Claire finished. “I remember, Daddy, and I always will!”

“Good girl, sprout. Good girl...”

Claire was jolted back into reality by the sight of roots climbing her green mist spell toward her person. With a yelp, she canceled the spell, and the four stalks fell daintily to the ground.

“Oh no,” she whispered. The herb slimes, alerted by the sound of Claire’s voice and the plants suddenly appearing on the ground, released paralyzing spores into the air, turning the surroundings yellow with their fright. Claire covered her nose and mouth but was too late from stopping the effects from settling inside. The tips of her fingers tingled, with the feeling spreading slowly down to her palm.

“That’s it, Claire. I’m interfering,” Doc’s voice rang in her head. A surge of magic engulfed her, and the pixie found herself teleported into Doc’s heart room. She coughed, sucking in the fresh, breathable air as much as her lungs would allow.

“Doc, I need, the antidote,” Claire gasped, the feeling spreading quickly down to her arms. Unlike her father, she held no immunity to the effects of paralysis or poison. The spores would hit her small size hard, and she’d soon be unable to breathe.

“Antidote, antidote... Claire, what’s an antidote?” Doc asked frantically. The dungeon spirit could only look on in horror as his pixie partner slowly grew more and more still, her wings drooping onto the floor. “Claire, tell me how to help you!”

“My room, yellow bottle, kitche...” Claire’s voice faded as the paralysis engulfed her throat and ended her words.

Claire, still being able to see and hear, could only sit slumped forward as she listened to the sounds of frantic searching in her home. The sound of cracking and breaking made her eyes twitch, eliciting feelings of exasperation and annoyance even in this tense moment.

“Here, Claire, I found it!” Doc’s voice joyfully echoed through the room. A small glass bottle flew out of Claire’s door, smashing right through it, and hovered in front of her face. “Now what?

“Right, can’t speak,” Doc continued, without missing a beat. The potion tilted, the cork popping off, and slowly drew closer to Claire’s... nose. The pixie, whose face was losing feeling, could only look on in horror as the antidote bottle was tipped slowly into her nose, and thankfully failed to enter her body due to her forward leaning.

“Wrong hole, right. Sorry, Claire,” Doc apologized as he forced Claire’s mouth open and magically controlled the antidote into her stomach. The magical elixir permeated her body in but a few moments, prompting Claire to cough out the forced-in potion bottle onto the floor. She heaved from the experience, hurling an empty stomach and finding nothing to lose.

“Doc—cough— that was… blegh. I... thank you for saving me, Doc,” she finally managed to get out as she calmed down.

The floating crystal blinked, as if sighing. “That was truly reckless, Claire. I would not have been able to save you if you hadn’t prepared this antidote.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Claire cleared her throat. “I didn’t think I’d be so hopeless, nor did I do my research properly on those flowers. To think, they could feed on any spell touching them. This was my fault.”

“As long as you are okay,” Doc murmured. “In any case, I think we’ve both learned a valuable lesson here. Though my slimes failed to attack you, you can be affected by their indirect attacks and abilities. You’ll need to be more cautious in the dungeon until we understand the limits.”

“Yes, Doc, understood,” Claire stood up, appearing properly chastised. “To think, you’d be forced to save me like this when I’m the smarter one—an apt humiliation for my dungeon pixie heritage. I didn’t even manage to collect the flowers,” she sighed.

“Not true,” Doc said. Claire looked up questioningly.

“They’re in your room,” Doc admitted with a sigh. “I teleported them there when I got you. I didn’t do anything to spoil them, so no more excursions, okay?”

Claire’s face relaxed into a comforting smile. “Thank you. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a rest now before cleaning. And you’re right, no more dumb risks.” She flapped her wings and flew into her home, pausing only for just a moment in the doorway to give Doc a thankful nod.

When the door closed behind her, Claire surveyed the damages. Doc hadn’t been subtle in his search. Items and furniture were strewn around the floor in an organized chaos. The Dream flowers stood in her kitchen with the others, their root already sinking into the mana rich dungeon floor. Claire let out a sigh and cast a series of cleaning spells. She walked through the rising mess, dodging out of the way as wood un-shattered and decorations moved seamlessly back into position. A few tricks learned from... someone. She’d remember eventually, like everything else.

“A curse,” she muttered as she reached the kitchen. Claire grabbed a goblet and filled it with water. She eyed the wooden container in her hands, swirling the water and watching it slosh back and forth against the edges. With her right hand, she reached up to one of the Dream petals, and squeezed. A single drop of milky, fluorescent, glowing blue appeared on its tip, the flower petal withering up in the process. The drop fell into the goblet, and the water changed.

Claire stared into the depths of endless blue. When she swirled the cup, the contents no longer sloshed but instead seemed to be untouchable by force without any ripples. With closed eyes, she raised the drink up to her lips, and drank it.

The cool blue entered her, became her, and soon after, was all that mattered.

The sea of red replaced by a sea of serenity.

No more.

Chapter 12

“Rowen, incoming!” Anadine warned as she herself dodged out of the way of the seed spread. Rowen slipped his gelatinous body behind a tree as the pellets slammed into it, creating numerous small holes that caused the tree to groan and sway dangerously. It didn’t take long to fall, creating cover from which Anadine and Rowen met up once more.

The white and grey slime used a tentacle to peak over the edge and hissed in pain as it was torn to shreds by another seed shooting through the air.

“I messed up,” Rowen growled out as he lowered his tentacle, reforming it.

“It was a mistake of ignorance,” Anadine disputed. “Neither of us were aware how close to this garden we were. We can still make it past.”

“I doubt it,” Rowen said, a note resignation in his voice. “The jungle slimes knocked out my tentacle, but not before I noted the area. The jungle slimes are circling around to cut us off. We’re trapped again.”

Anadine raised a single blue tentacle to Rowen’s body and tapped it gently. “In that case,” she said, “see you when we wake up.”

The woods behind them burst out as sharpened vines and leaves pelted their bodies. The echoing world vanished for the both of them.

*

“Alright, that’s attempt number six,” Anadine hummed as she used her acidic slime to carve out a new part of the map on the ground of her room. “We got farther this time. Knowing how close we were to that garden tells me we finally were clear of those bug slime swarmers. I think we can plan out a new route from this, right Rowen?”

She swirled her body to lock fake, slimy eyes with Rowen, who was slumped against the wall of the room, looking quite depressed. Anadine waved her tentacles at him. “Come on, Rowen. I need your input here.”

“No, you don’t,” Rowen snorted. “I’ll just be another burden.”

Anadine groaned and flipped her body like a pancake. “Rowen, please, enough with the self-pity. I got tired of it after attempt four. Look, no one gets things done right the first time, especially in this kind of situation. We just need to gather what we learned and move on.”

“Says you,” Rowen shot back. “This isn’t a game, Anadine! We’ve died seven times. Seven! If we weren’t slimes, our time would up already! We’d be dead, gone, vanquished, destroyed, obliterated! How can you not be depressed after dying?”

“I’ve already died, Rowen, and so have you.” She pointed out. “Humans die. Slime monsters in a slime dungeon do not. We respawn. Just think of it as a nice resetting nap that forces us to reevaluate our plan of attack.”

“You’re being reckless!” Rowen shouted.

“And you’re being stubbornly pessimistic!” Anadine shot back with the same level of furor. “Little brother, you need to get over this fugue and help me plan our next move. Unless you want to stay here in this cave forever?”

“It’s not like there’s anything better for us waiting where we’re going,” Rowen muttered, joining her anyway.

Anadine slapped the bottom of the map she’d carved into the stone. “Alright, this is our start point. We are on the far side of the forest cavern near the entrance to the dungeon. The exit, is here,” she pointed, “and the main staircase should still be here.” She pointed once more at the top of the map, where a lone staircase symbol stood.

“Now,” Anadine continued, “over the course of seven tries and three days, you and I have learned the layout of the area. The ceiling is completely off-limits. Both light-eater and luminous slimes are lethal. Crawling along the walls fails as well, as sticking takes our full concentration, leaving us vulnerable to any attacks from the forest.”

“Which happens almost immediately, because our colors are so obvious on the wall,” Rowen deadpanned.

“Incorrect,” Anadine tapped the floor. “Slimes don’t have eyes, but our movements on the wall are undisguised by the bare environment, yes. We’d have to move incredibly slow, but then we’d both lose concentration before traveling very far.”

“That leaves the forest,” Anadine paused as her tentacle tapped the detailed portion of the map. “It’s a puzzle of avoiding and hiding.”

“You mean from the hordes of bug slimes, patrolling grey slimes, hidden groups of herb slimes, and the random chance of encountering any combination?” Rowen asked sarcastically. “Too bad we can’t just make a horde of minions to handle such threats for us? Oh wait, we can!”

Fluidly, two slimes budded out of Rowen. The two grey slimes wobbled for a bit, before attacking Rowen with their bodies. Rowen casually slapped the two into nonexistence.

“But for whatever reason, any slime we quite literally birth from our bodies are immediately hostile and not useful. This makes them even less helpful than our current situation,” he finished with a flourish of tentacles.

Anadine tapped her tentacle impatiently. “Yes, our boss abilities are limited, likely by design. Back to the map, we’ve located the section of forest where the bugs live, and we’ve figured out the patrol route for the closest grey slimes. Now that’s we’ve located the garden, I think we have a real good chance getting through to the central forest this time.”

“Great. Now we can reach the halfway point after seven deaths. What an improvement,” Rowen said drolly.

Anadine whipped out another tentacle and slapped Rowen, sending ripples through his body.

“No sense of pain, remember?” Rowen chuckled darkly.

“Alright, enough,” Anadine snapped, twisting herself and turning a darker blue. “Rowen, I’m tired of you, your attitude, and every word you’ve said not only now, but ever since we fought. When we’re in the field, you either blame me or blame yourself. When we’re here, you moan and whine and just plainly bitch about everything. Clearly, nothing has been solved since our fight for you, and I’m tired of trying to pick you up. I’m done.”

With a huff, Anadine slid across the floor toward the exit.

“Where are you going?” Rowen asked, seemingly bored.

“I’m going to try again, and again, and again until I find the way across the forest,” Anadine announced. “If you aren’t going to help, then stay here and mope your core out.”

“Fine,” Rowen shouted, “maybe I will!”

Anadine didn’t respond. She was gone.

Rowen milled on the floor, slowly drifting toward the wall. Without Anadine present, the young slime was left alone, fully alone, for the first time in a long time.

“Well, that didn’t go well,” came the familiar voice from above Rowen’s head.

Rowen raised his tentacle and waved it but failed to touch anything above him. A faint giggle echoed through his slime.

“Come, little death slime, we’ve gone through this dance before,” the voice continued, sweet and soft and uncanny, a high pitched, hysterical version of his own voice. “You cannot find me, nor can others perceive me. I’m your little friend solely, and evermore.”

“You’re a hallucination,” Rowen grumbled, “a curse on my soul, created after violating my oath to the gods. A personal demon my guilt has created, a figment of my imagination.”

“Fancy wordage you’re using,” the voice teased. “Tell me, did your studies as prince include a cure for such hallucinations? Or perhaps you’re quoting something else? How does a 10-year-old boy understand such concepts? Oh, but then—”

“Stop it.” Rowen shouted, fruitlessly pounding his own body to stop the voice.

“You’re not who you’ve said you were,” the voice continued, teasing him with its ghostly presence. “A prince of a fallen kingdom, a refugee boy lost in the streets, a weakened slime. Which one is the true you? Or, is it someone—"

“No more!” Rowen screamed, and the voice disappeared. The paler than normal slime slumped into a puddle on the floor, his body attempting to pant even though the reason for it was long lost. “Leave me alone,” he whispered to the cavern floor. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to know about it. There... there is nothing to live for anymore.”

The puddled slime remained on the floor for a few minutes. In the silence of the cavern and light from the exit, the white-grey slime reformed wordlessly, and left, following the trail of the only other slime that had been in the room.

*

Anadine cursed to herself as she forced her body deeper into the hole. Hiding did not come naturally to her. It was in her experience to break through obstacles rather to avoid them, yet she found herself once again forced into such a position as another unexpected patrol of grey slimes slithered nearby. She’d failed to hide in time before being revealed, so every squish and squid frayed her nerves as they searched for her.

Her mind couldn’t help but shoot back to the many times her former master had hunted her in the woods, attempting to train her ambush tactics and special awareness. She... no, the human known as Diana had been a poor student.

The feeling of uncanniness divided her mind once more, sending waves of uncharacteristic pain through her body, a feeling no slime should have been able to feel. Only things with brains should know pain, not her.

“Who am I,” Anadine whispered, unable to stop herself from vocalizing the words in a so human fashion. Yet she wasn’t human, but everything she knew told her she was.

Staggering pain. Blinded sight.

The slime known as Anadine lost cohesion as she fell apart, her core dropping uselessly onto her puddle of slime. The slime known as Anadine struggled to breathe, scream, cry, sweat, grip herself, and was completely, impossibly, unable to. The pain surged relentlessly as the searching slimes above resumed their patrol, forgetting her. Still, she suffered as the slime slowly moved through the skinny hole.

The pale blue blob inched her way out, confirming there was nothing in her immediate area before plopping under the light of the day. Only the light could remove the pain, as it illuminated her body in a way no set of eyes could. Though she could no longer perceive it, the sensation of light remained the same, no matter what body she was in.

Light was warm, bright, illuminating, and piercing. It was an experience felt, not sorely seen. The pain lessened as her mind caught back up to itself, un-splintering into a whole more familiar to the slime. Under the warmth, she began to speak.

“My name is Anadine, and I am a slime,” it whispered, forcing air through its body to form a pseudo-voice. “I… I was born less than a year ago. My memories are my own. I fought adventurers, creatures, and undead. I gained memories of my past life, but I am not my past life. What I think I was is an illusion of the past. I cannot forget it, but I cannot let it control me.”

The words were her motto, her creed. Ever since the argument with Rowen, and their subsequent battle, she had repeated these words over and over to herself whenever she became confused. She kept this to herself, unsure how to admit any weakness in front of Rowen, her younger sibling in slime. Human aspects, no doubt, but ones which she could not let go of: pride, fear, and doubt. Every time he opened his mouth, the same words she heard in her own head would fly like arrows into her soul.

That’s why she left him, but now the guilt set in. He was only voicing his concerns, fears, and doubts, and she had failed to comfort him. Instead, she treated him with hostility and unkindness, finally abandoning him to his darkness.

This failure to act, both her slime memories and human memories agreed, was a personal tragedy.

She’d left a comrade behind.

And yet, freedom was so close. Anadine turned to gaze further into the forest. Her close discovery notwithstanding, she was about the closest to leaving the forest floor as she’d ever before. Whatever Doc’s reasons for this trial, she was in the clear to move in on. The exit was just beyond the tree-line.

And she had to go back.

Letting out a sigh, either of contentment or disappointment, Anadine turned back, only to narrowly dodge ball of darkness that smashed a grown tree trunk into pieces.

A familiar white-grey slime approached, with nine more tentacles forming a magical ball of darkness. Anadine attempted to grit her teeth, having to settle with grinding slime.

“Rowen, I’m sorry I left—”

She dodged again as five balls slammed into the ground around her, being sent backwards by the combined shockwave. A large chunk of slime vanished from her body, forcing her to spend precious mana to regenerate.

Horrified, Anadine realized that the attacks were different from the previous attacks from other slime. She had a feeling, a strong one, that if Rowen defeated her here, she would not wake up in the start room.

She likely would not wake at all.

Chapter 13

Doc sighed, a feeling of restlessness taking hold in him. It had been a day since Claire had vanished into her home. Per their privacy agreement, he couldn’t check in on her, even after his repeated questions and inquiries had gone unanswered. With the two boss slimes on his ‘quest,’ the dungeon found himself alone once more.

Unlike other times, however, Doc was prepared to combat his boredom. With a twisting of otherworldly force, the dungeon spirit spawned to life a common slime onto the dungeon heart floor. The purple slime wobbled around as it began to explore its surroundings, with no purpose but to exist.

Doc’s spirit left his crystal and drifted down to the slime, studying it with careful senses. The slime was the same as ever before, a mix of gelatinous goo and a single, small core. He’d never really given either much thought before.

The slime of slime, rather it’s gelatinous body, was uniform in composition. Contrary to its initial looks, the slime was rather impenetrable, easily morphing around everything that it came in contact with. Using force, Doc poked the slime continuously and failed to pierce what appeared to be an outer membrane of some sort, a barrier between outside the slime and inside the slime. He didn’t understand what it was. A magic barrier perhaps, or did the slime possess qualities similar to water, which he’d seen exhibit similar properties?

The core, the only other part of the slime, was just as uniform as its slime. A smooth black stone which floated in the center of the slime no matter how the monster moved. Having snuck his awareness into an adventuring town before, Doc was aware of the many uses a slime core possessed. Slime cores were a vital component to enchanting, used in several mana restoring potions, and were occasionally used to make foci for magical wands and staffs.

“Well, then, let’s experiment,” Doc murmured excitedly.

Using his dungeon powers, Doc surged mana into the slime before him. The slime shook and vibrated, before suddenly bulging out and expanding into a larger version. It had become an overslime, the second stage of slime life.

“So just adding mana merely stimulates natural growth,” Doc observed. “In that case, what happens if I added more?”

An additional surge of magical power was thrust into the slime. With a shudder, the slime core grew suddenly, doubling its size and weight. The slime itself, however, appeared to only grow slightly, while its purplish coloring grew darker.

“A lord slime,” Doc announced with pride. “Ha ha! I’ve finally created a lord slime!” According to Claire, lord slimes were the third from of slime growth, and were considered the first true leaders in a mass of slimes. They could coordinate and employ basic tactics using their cohorts, making them far more dangerous than overslimes. Of course, that didn’t mean they were intelligent, just better ambush predators.

Doc felt a strain, however, as the lord slime continued to mill around the heart room floor.

“It appears I’m not strong enough yet to maintain even the most basic of lord slimes,” he said, dissolving the newly formed slime back into mana. The relief tickled his spirit, and his core, which had dimmed during the testing, regained its glow. “That means I can’t create lord slime versions of the higher tier slimes, then. Now, next would be the core.”

He formed another basic slime and imbued it with mana once again. This time, however, the dungeon spirit focused the insertion of mana into the slime’s core, as opposed to the slime creature as a whole. The core, under the stress of additional mana, exploded into pieces. Doc felt a wince of pain from the dying slime as it vanished into sparkles of light.

“Alright, so cores do not appear able to take the brunt insertion of mana,” he observed. “I wonder, is this what Claire meant when she described mana poisoning to me? If so . . . then a slime core could be used as a fragmenting weapon perhaps? Well, what about the slime’s body, I wonder?”

Another new slime, and this time with mana added to its gelatinous outside. What came out was surprising for Doc.

The gooey outside of the slime acted as a filter, a strain for the magic entering the slime. Doc watched as his pure mana was slowly stripped down to the most basic of mana strains, free of his influence and anything else. The raw magical power was fed into the core, but no growth occurred. Instead, the slime began to slowly leave Doc’s influence, as if it were traveling far away even without moving. Doc cut the power and allowed the slime to vanish back into mana.

“It was becoming independent,” the dungeon spirit realized. “This, this is amazing! If I don’t make sure some of my mana remains unfiltered, then I lose control over the slime. I can’t even see the world through it. But that means the slime can leave the dungeon!”

One of the most important restrictions on Doc was that his monsters could not leave the confines of his influence, which normally meant within the dungeon. The only opportunities beyond that were within another dungeon he was directly battling, any place on the surface where he’d stretched his influence, or land corrupted by magic he could hitch a ride on. This new discovery, however, opened up new avenues for him.

“I need to experiment more,” Doc reasoned. “Perhaps I can still see through their senses if I leave just a little of myself in them. But would that set a limit to their exploration outside the dungeon? Maybe I could install instructions before freeing them. Would ingrained instructions remain, though?”

Doc’s thoughts were disturbed by the sensation of battle on his first floor. Pausing, the dungeon mind turned his attention up to the forest-covered floor to see who or what was wreaking so much destruction. To his surprise, it was Rowen and Anadine. The two were entrenched in some kind of battle again.

Doc clicked his imaginary tongue at the sight. He’d thought the two of them would have made more progress than this, but it appeared they were still embroiled in a futile struggle with themselves and each other.

“This has gone on long enough,” he muttered in annoyance. “Alright, just go to sleep now.”

He concentrated on Rowen and nothing happened.

“Hm?”

Doc moved his full awareness into Rowen, seeking to cut off his ability to use the dungeon’s mana. The dungeon spirit recoiled at the harsh rejection thrown onto him. Rowen, it appeared, had gone rogue.

Doc was frightened. He’d only dealt with one rogue slime before, and it had almost cost him everything. However, unlike back then, Doc lacked the ability to take matters into his own hands, metaphorically speaking. His boss monsters were all dead or indisposed, he couldn’t create a slime stronger than tier 2 to fight, and if he fought Rowen directly, he ran the risk of losing the mana he had gained to operate the dungeon.

“Claire, Claire open up!” Doc called out desperately. “It’s an emergency! Claire, I need your advice!”

But there was no answer from the wall.

“Claire! Claire!”

“Shut up,” a startling, disgusted voice came from within the depths of the door. Doc, shocked, paused his summons.

“Big, strong, dungeon, calling out so pitifully,” Claire’s voice, but not Claire’s voice, echoed in Doc’s mind. “Really, you are so pathetic it makes me sick, worse still the knowledge I am no better. We are cursed to be lower than dirt here in this miserable existence away from the sun, hidden from everything. All my fault, but yours as well. Pitiful . . . how, absolutely . . . pitiful . . . better to let it all . . . disappear.”

Claire’s voice trailed off and vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, but it left scorched earth behind in Doc’s mind.

Doc couldn’t comprehend what he had just heard. His best friend, his partner, had just scorned him, with a voice he had never heard from her before. The raw emotions that flowed from her in just that instance, desolation, melancholy, hatred, and depression, set such a pain to the dungeon he thought he was back when there when the boss slimes died. He felt pain and loss, not understanding what he did wrong or how to react, more so still that Claire’s raw state contributed to.

Combined with the severe anxiety toward Rowen’s new rogue state, Doc’s mental condition deteriorated into a mess. With loss of focus came problems throughout the dungeon as mana flow was disrupted and things began to die. Smell tremors sent echoing motions through the maze part of the second floor, breaking up the already shattered ruins.

“What do I do?” Doc faltered as everything piled on higher and higher in his mind, creating physical repercussions as his heart crystal, the very core of his being, fractured under the pressure.

As the dungeon spirit struggled with himself, a light shone through the agony and touched him at his core, illuminating it in a way he had not felt since the teleportation. It filled up the void with warmth, as the darkness it carried with it provided a substance, a strength, to his mental state. He felt it before he saw it, a familiar pair of eyes staring at him. Not the same as they once were, he instinctually realized, but ones filled with . . . a sense of family, an empathy that surpassed physical connection. The eyes stared down his soul and brought with them, a single word.

“Poppa?”

*

“Rowen, wake up!” Anadine yelled once again as she slid free of the barrage of darkness.

Same as before, Rowen seemingly ignored her words and unleashed more destruction into the dungeon. Orbs of darkness crashed into the ground around Anadine, splintering tress, destroying vegetation, and blasting holes into the dungeon floor. With a curse, the blue slime lost another tentacle arm and ten more percent of her body mass.

“Fine,” she shouted. “This has gone on long enough!”

Anadine finally began her counter attack, unleashing a flurry of tentacle attacks on the loose stone and dust, creating a smokescreen. Rowen’s silent form bombarded the area, dispelling the smoke and revealing Anadine’s missing presence.

“Too late!” Anadine shouted, appearing behind Rowen with a sharpened tentacle poised to strike him. To her utter shock, a tentacle sprouted from his back, complete with an orb of darkness prepared to strike her up close. She let out a desperate roar as she aborted her attack and attempted to dodge out of the way.

The ball exploded, sending both slimes flying apart from each other from the blast. Rowen lost the tentacle but appeared otherwise fine. Anadine, on the other hand, struggled back into cover with only half her body intact. A combination of overturned earth and collapsed trees were the only thing separating her from death.

“I have mixed feelings over not feeling pain,” she joked out loud. “It’s nice to having it, but it’s hard to feel what’s still working without it.”

Rowen only threw out more orbs of darkness, damaging her cover and forcing her to hunker down as she regenerated. With each attack, Anadine felt herself getting closer and closer to getting hit.

When she’d regained most of her body mass back, the blue slime decisively dived out of her cover into the nearest hole and hid. A moment later, sounds of blasting confirmed the destruction of her previous hiding spot. With bated breath, in spirit, she waited and slowly healed.

She listened to the sound of Rowen approaching, his squiggling body moving lightly across the destroyed earth. Then, she heard nothing.

Her warrior instincts guiding her, the blue slime shot out of the ground right before the hole exploded into pieces. She formed her standard four sharpened tentacles of hardened slime and rushed her foe, his grey-white body facing her with orbs raised. Pressing her malleable body to its limits, she slipped through the barrage of attacks, the energy singeing her fleshless slime as it passed her by. She charged through the attacks, slamming her weaponized tentacles into Rowen, almost reaching his core.

“Wake the hell up, you idiot!” She yelled at him, and her tentacle tips exploded out into splinters of hardened slime. Rowen’s body twitched uncontrollably as the shards reached his core, holes opening up and making him resemble that of a holed cheese. He collapsed into a puddle, unable to maintain substance.

“And stay down,” Anadine muttered as the thrill of battle left her. She allowed her body to slouch forward, making her resemble an upside-down U. With a shudder, the conflict resumed inside of her.

She wanted to feel sweat, the panting of breath as her lungs sought fresh air, the cooling of a heartbeat to signify the end, but she felt none of these and her mind rebelled once more. Anadine let out a groan as her form collapsed into a puddle once more, her core left out and vulnerable. The pain tore through her with a vengeance, and she could no longer move.

In the midst of her painful haze, Anadine could only watch as Rowen recollected himself and reformed his body. The defeated slime looked none worse for wear, and it seemingly gazed soullessly at her quivering puddle. A tentacle sprouted above his head, forming a single orb of magical darkness.

Anadine couldn’t stop him, couldn’t flee, and couldn’t move. She could not even close her senses and accept her fate, watching with her tremor sense vision as the tentacle fell.

And then she was gone.

The spot where she had dwelt was missing her body, and the orb left a fresh crater in the ground.

Anadine felt the uncontrollable urge to blink as she found herself behind Rowen, her core safely in the mouth of... jiggling, yet firm teeth.

“That’s enough fighting,” a voice vibrated out of the mouth Anadine found herself in. Anadine faintly recognized the voice, yet it was older and wiser than she remembered. Her suspicions were confirmed when a second form padded her way into view.

“Put down the tentacle, Rowen,” Ayla said evenly, her legs pawing the ground. “You are not yourself, and you are injured.”

The grey-white slime responded by throwing two orbs of darkness, but the two worgs were already moving. Aisha, who held Anadine in her mouth, gently placed her down behind a tree and winked at her.

“You did well, little sister,” she said with a feral grin. “Let us handle it from here?”

Anadine watched as the worg vanished with the wind.

“So that’s how it feels,” she muttered to herself.

*

Ayla and Aisha were twins. More than that, they were The Twins. That had been their collective name ever since they’d joined the dungeon, a single word to signify two unique individuals. The issue under the surface hadn’t been apparent until they’d fallen in a magical fugue sleep.

They’d realized that neither one of themselves was truly a person. Everything they said, they said together. Everything they did, they did together. And everything they’d thought, they’d thought together. Rather than a conversation between two persons, they’d existed as two halves of the same, and thus they’d never grown.

Not stronger, nor taller, nor smarter, nor wiser. For their first year of dungeon existence, they’d remained as such, easily putting aside the deaths of their pack, their mother, and the possibility of families of their own. Their only will was that of serving Doc.

In their fugue sleep, however, they’d finally woken up.

Contrary to what the others had thought, the two worgs had been fully aware of each of their four family members, including their fears and pain. Through this shared experience, Ayla and Aisha grew up, finally becoming what they’d always be meant to be: a pack.

“Ayla, Anadine is safely behind the tree,” Aisha reported. “I’m circling around to attack.”

“I’ll hold his attention,” Ayla responded.

The two worked together to take down their prey. Rowen responded with his orbs of darkness, but his attacks were too slow to hit them. In parallel, their claws sliced through Rowen, dividing him in half.

“Is he down?” Ayla asked.

“He’s regenerating,” Aisha responded after a quick glance. “He might have gone rogue, but he’s still connected to the dungeon’s mana. We need to break his connection.”

“He’ll die without it,” Ayla warned as she leaped over a collapsed tree, it exploding behind her. “Can we isolate him?”

“Knock him air-born,” Aisha said, and the two turned together to once again charge at the white-grey slime. Rowen was incapable of stopping as two paws tossed him high into the air. Below him, the two worgs opened their mouths and howled, their sounds magically enhanced into a sonic attack.

Rowen’s body vibrated under the force and finally broke down. His slime disappeared as his core was freed and was caught by Ayla in her mouth.

The battle won, Ayla and Aisha both howled in victory, their voices echoing through the air. When they were done, Aisha collected Anadine’s core and the pair carried their fallen slime comrades back to the starting room.

“Thank you for saving me,” Anadine said, her sincerity shining even without sounds to communicate it.

“It’s no problem,” Aisha said through her open mouth. “After all, we’re all family, a single pack. Pack members don’t leave pack members behind.”

Anadine failed to continue talking, her thoughts wrapping around herself like a maze of knots. She stayed silent through the forest, up the wall, and into the starting rooms.

“You’ve grown,” she finally said as Aisha laid her gently onto the ground.

Aisha chuckled, an odd sound to hear from a worg.

“Yes, but perhaps your confusion is less about my growth and more about how much you’ve fallen. Isn’t that right, Anadine?”

“Well, I mean—”

“I’m not talking to you,” the worg interrupted cryptically. “I’m talking to her.”

The blue slime was suddenly at a loss once more.

Chapter 14

Rowen’s consciousness slowly became aware as the sound of voices filled his mind. The weary and fatigued slime lay loosely as the conversation continued, without him.

“So, you could hear everyone’s thoughts while you were asleep?” he heard Anadine’s voice.

“Yes. We were drifting through a sea of thoughts, fears, and doubts,” another voice answered. He didn’t recognize this voice, though he felt he’d heard it before. “It was a surreal experience for my sister and me, being unable to communicate, but still being kept in the loop, so to speak, with everyone. Seeing the pain everyone was in, and experiencing it for ourselves in this way, it changed us. In an odd sense, one person’s pain seemed to be solved by the corresponding thoughts of the others: thoughts of family, personal strength, conviction, loyalty, and confidence.”

“So, you know what I... what I was thinking?” Anadine said once more, speaking with a soft, subdued voice.

“Yes, little sister, but we shall talk more later. For now, it seems our brother is awakening.”

Rowen, awakening in entirety, gathered himself up and reformed his body. Gazing around, he took in the surroundings. He was back in the intro room, with Anadine and two... worgs. It took him a moment for it to click that he knew the two as the worg twins.

“When did you wake up?” he asked.

“While you were going on a rampage,” one of the worgs answered. “How are you feeling?”

“Rampage? Well, I feel like I was hit by a boulder,” Rowen muttered as he examined himself. “My mana reserves are incredibly low. What happened?”

“You were swallowed up by your depression and self-loathing and tried to destroy Anadine,” the other worg explained. “You went rogue, and if not for our timely awakening, Anadine would be dead, and you’d be slaughtering everything in your path. Or you would have withered and died— same as usual.”

Rowen rubbed his body with a tentacle.

“I… tried to kill Anadine?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“If you want to be more specific, you attempted to disintegrate her,” the worg sister said, an unspoken, teasing grin behind her words. “Thankfully, you failed once more.”

“What she means,” Anadine quickly butt in as Rowen twitched in irritation, “is that they saved me and stopped you. No harm done.”

“There was plenty of harm done,” the worg corrected Anadine, “and it was caused by his weakness, the same way as yours nearly caused your death. This isn’t the time for coddling or sympathy. Doc has tasked my sister and I to whip you both into shape, since neither of you seem capable of completing a simple task like crossing a single floor.”

Anadine drooped, clearly subdued by the worg’s words. Rowen glared at the furry monster.

Before he could say anything, the other worg sister had grabbed him with her mouth and picked him up off the ground.

“Ayla is correct. You need help,” the worg, Aisha, said. “Come, come! We are going now to learn.”

With shocking agility, Aisha ran out of the room and took Rowen through the tunnels leading out.

“Hey, wait, where are you taking me?” Rowen protested, as he found himself trapped in a cage of teeth. “I haven’t apologized to Anadine and—"

“Time for that later,” Aisha interrupted. “You won’t mean it, not the way it counts. I know you as much, perhaps better, as you do: too much pride, too much self-loathing of weakness, too many thoughts. You don’t need them, not anymore. They aren’t you.”

“What are you—ahh!” Rowen screamed as the worg leaped into the air off the edge. The two sailed through the air in a graceful arc as they fell together into the forest. When they reached the tree line, Aisha kicked off the branches and moved forward with the grace of an arrow through the trees and down to the ground, free of any injury. She plopped Rowen onto the ground and sat back on her haunches.

“So, I am Aisha,” she introduced herself formally. “I am your older sister and teacher. You listen now to me.”

“You said that wrong,” Rowen muttered angrily as he collected himself.

“I said it the way I mean to say it,” she corrected him. “Your views are irrelevant to me. Lesson begins.”

“Lessons? Wait, no, you did say it wrong,” Rowen argued.

“Big deal made of small comment. You are unaccepting of things that do not fit with your views, yourself included, hm? I talk with your tongue, your language. It does not come to me the same as my sister, more apparent now that we do not talk together. I am myself, yes? You, though, you are limited.”

She raised a paw and poked Rowen.

“Tell me, should the rain fall if there are no clouds?” she asked.

“No, rain comes with the clouds,” Rowen said.

“Wrong. That is common, but not always. Can water be walked on?”

“No, not without magic. I don’t see—”

“Yes, many little ones and bugs walk on water without magic. If tree falls in forest and no one is there, is sound made?”

“Er, I don’t really know—”

“Sound always made. Existence always is regardless of watching or hearing or smelling. Things just, are.”

“What is the point of these questions?” Rowen asked exasperatedly. “I don’t see the point of these riddles.”

“Last question then. Can a slime be human?”

Rowen failed to say anything as the question echoed in his head.

Aisha slapped him suddenly, surprisingly causing actual pain. “Can a slime be human?”

“Ow, no! No, a slime can’t be human!” he answered as the unexpected pain set in.

“Hm,” Aisha hummed. “Then, can slime be person?”

“No, that’s asking the same–”

Aisha slapped Rowen again. “Dumb slime, head full of nothing. Person isn’t human. Person is person, not people. Elves are people, slimes are monsters, humans are people, worgs are monsters. But all each are person if able to say ‘I.’ I am worg person, you are slime person. You were human person, now slime person, but still, you are person. Understand?”

“No, I don’t get it.” Rowen argued. “I’m a... a slime. It’s different now!”

“You think you failed,” Aisha summarized. “You sacrificed your life to save your beloved, but since you didn’t leave, you add failure to your success, yes? Unable to continue your royal bloodline, unable to take revenge for family and kingdom, unable to do more, unable to live with new family. I see your dreams while I sleep. Doubt and failure eat you away. Nothing left for happiness or moving forward. You’re stuck.”

Rowen, facing the words that filled his every waking moment, the things he’d long left unsaid and buried within him, caused him to break down. Amazingly, he cried, forming tears of slime that slid down his body in two trails. The young boy, having properly lived only eleven years, had his soul laid bare by a beast.

Aisha said nothing, instead waiting as the young slime finished his weeping into small, broken sobs.

“You misunderstand me, and you,” she said, with a soft kindness. “Regrets, you have none. Your bloodline continues through your missing sister, is feeling. Not  task to be placed on one so young. Revenge the same. Your enemy has long since died, replaced by innocents of that sin. Wanting to do more, is that not what you are doing now, even if poor job is doing? And living with new family, perhaps meet again one day. Big world, magic world with teleporting. Maybe see again, but only if you alive.”

Rowen started.

“Forgot, didn’t you?” Aisha smirked. “Doc is dungeon. When get stronger, we leave forest, explore world. Human girl aware of Doc, aware of us. Ally, yes? Work hard, and then find her again. World is full of possibility and mystery. Do not fret, little brother. You’re only person with big dreams.”

Rowen wiped away the remains of the slimy tears and gazed up at the worg. He reached up and pat Aisha on the head with a tentacle. Aisha wagged her tail happily.

“Thank you,” he said, finally.

“No problem, little brother. We are pack family,” she answered. “Now, I teach you fight like slime.”

Rowen crossed his tentacles in a very human gesture of disbelief. “How are you supposed to teach me about being a slime again?”

Aisha flashed a toothy grin at him. Without warning, four furry tentacles shot out of her back and smashed into the trees around them. The trees fell with a groan, creating a small clearing in the dungeon forest. As Rowen looked on in severe shock, Aisha’s leg turned into a tentacle and patted him on the head, though it appeared she was exerting some effort as to not fall.

“Now you listen, yes? I shall show you to fight without thought and with wisdom. Now, do what I do.”

*

Anadine waited until Aisha and Rowen were gone before turning her attention back to Ayla. The worg stared back, as blank as the cavern walls around them.

“So, what now?” Anadine asked.

Ayla snorted. “Seeking answers, are we? Do you even know the right questions to ask?”

Anadine shrugged. “You’re the wisdom guru now, I assume, after living in four heads at once. Is there a lesson here to be learned, or perhaps you can help me with my problems?”

The worg raised a paw and scratched her ear. “Lessons are learned every day, and everyone has problems. What good will it do to give you answers if you can’t figure them out on your own?”

“Then what are we doing here?” Anadine asked, slightly confused.

“You’re here to get across the floor. I’m just here,” Ayla said, scratching her other ear.

“Um, well then, goodbye,” Anadine murmured. She turned and moved to leave the room.

With a whoosh, Ayla appeared in front of the exit. She sat and stared over Anadine at the wall. The slime, pausing only for a moment, moved to get around the worg. However, Ayla got in her way again and continued to block Anadine’s path out of the room.

“What are you doing?” Anadine asked, crossly this time.

“Sitting,” Ayla answered sarcastically. “Oh sorry, I suppose a slime wouldn’t understand such a thing. The joy of sitting can only be appreciated through the relaxation of muscles, after all.”

Anadine snorted, before moving over to the wall of the room. She climbed up to the ceiling and attempted to leave over Ayla’s head. With a bang, a paw slammed into her, sending her barreling back into the room. Anadine shot an angry glare—or the slime equivalent—towards Ayla, who had a teasing grin on her face.

“Why are you blocking me?” the slime asked.

“Am I? I’m just sitting here, though,” Ayla chuckled. “Perhaps it is you getting in my way.”

Anadine tapped the ground in annoyance.

“This is a game, then?” she asked questioningly. “Or perhaps a riddle? Maybe a life lesson?”

“Or maybe I’m just standing in your way,” Ayla said. “Overthinking. You’re good at it now. Not that it’s a good thing for a simple creature like yourself to get caught up in.”

“Fine, then I’ll move you!” Anadine yelled, and she charged forward with her hardened slime tentacles. Ayla’s form blurred, but this time Anadine was prepared and blocked her paw swipe. The worg sister barked as she circled the slime, removing any pretense of her previously obstinate posture as she began attacking any opening she could find. Anadine blocked, counter-attacked, and dodged as she slowly moved forward toward the exit.

“The strength you gained from your memories is training,” Ayla lectured as she continued her rapid, circling assault. “Battle instincts hammered into you, so your body will react to threats effectively. Your new weakness, however, is the belief in limits created from the memories. For instance—”

The worg suddenly vanished and reappeared in Anadine’s sight as four different individuals. The slime could only block three before being knocked backwards. The three attacks, however, had lacked substance.

“You are used to eyes to see your opponents, only using your other senses to fill in the gap where you cannot see,” Ayla continued. “You no longer have sight. Rather, it is your hearing, touch, and smell that have worked together to form a false sight for you, and your brother.”

“So, this is teaching moment,” Anadine grumbled.

The worg licked her chops but made no indication of agreement.

“I don’t believe you are in any position to be teaching me anything,” Anadine observed.

“Because your human memories are so much more reliable?” Ayla snorted. “Face it, little sister, you are a monster, and a monster shall teach you to fight. Or would you rather die?”

“Death didn’t stop me the first time,” Anadine said, hardening her resolve. “Fear of death won’t control me now.”

The worg stopped to consider the little blue slime.

“That’s right, you’ve never been one to hesitate in this life or the previous one,” she acknowledged reluctantly. “That part of you is worth praising. However, even if you are prepared for death, does that you mean you are okay with others taking your place? After all, there are those more deserving of death.”

“Death?” Anadine asked, surprised. “Wait... this is about Rowen.”

“Of course it is about him! He went rogue, showing how dangerous you former humans are!” Ayla snarled. “Doc is worried about you and Rowen—especially Rowen. Going rogue makes him a danger to all of us, with your holding the same possibility within you. My sister is examining him now, and if he doesn’t pass his test, he’ll die.”

“You mean she’ll kill him,” Anadine said flatly.

“Please,” Ayla scoffed. “Don’t make us out to be so heartless towards family. It’s like what Claire told you both before; run out of mana and you’ll be forced into hibernation or death. All we have to do is exhaust the both of you, and for Doc to not allow you to absorb from him. This will occur, of course, if you and he fail your examinations. Does the threat of death tempt you now, little blue slime?”

Anadine’s mind turned narrow and focused.

“I can’t let you do that,” she said. “Rowen and I, we are not dangers to this dungeon. I will prove it, and I will protect him!”

Ayla let out a barking laughter. “Can you stop me? Even before our growth, my sister and I have only ever been defeated a few times by groups of experienced humans and elves, never by a single person and certainly not by a low-ranked adventurer like your former self.”

With a single step, the worg turned into five copies in Anadine’s vision, each padding towards her with slow, measured steps.

“No human has ever beaten a worg one on one,” five voices seemed to echo around the slime. “You will fail here and go berserk trying to stop me, as Rowen did. You are a danger, a risk to this dungeon just like your younger brother. You can’t leave a room, you can’t even escape yourself.” The worgs stared her down with contempt. “Diana cannot defeat me, but can you separate her from Anadine?”

Anadine readied her slime tentacles and backed against the wall. The position allowed her to cover her blind spots and fully focus on the enemy ahead. Unfortunately, this tactic was worthless against magic.

“Not good enough,” a voice said behind her, and a paw reached out to hit Anadine back into the center of the room. A sixth Ayla emerged from the wall, at least according to Anadine’s vision. The impossibility of the action triggered Anadine’s memory of Ayla and her sister’s special ability.

‘Shadow-walk,’ Anadine remembered the name of the ability.

With a collective growl, the six worgs leaped at Anadine. The blue slime, acting on pure instinct, whirled around in a circle. With each rotation, she grew faster and sprouted more tentacles. Her body elongated into a bowl, and the spinning hardened tentacle tips slammed into the worgs. However, all six vanished as if they hadn’t existed to begin with.

From the ceiling, Anadine felt a presence and leaped straight up. With a satisfying thud, her whirling body hit a solid worg and knocked her to the ground.

Ayla stood back up, smiling.

“Instinct, little sister. That is what slimes rely on in battle,” she lectured, seemingly unaffected by the attack and landing. “You understand tremor sense, and you seem to be at least attempting echolocation, but you have forgotten about your true natural abilities. Slimes see the world less than any other creature, and yet because of this, they have evolved to observe so much more. You and your ilk can see the essence of life you so desperately crave. You can read the very vibrations of the ground and air and smell any scent, even days old. You used to know this, Anadine, before you became someone else.”

“What is this idea you’ve kept implying?” Anadine asked, annoyed. “I haven’t become anyone else.”

Ayla snorted. “Really? Then tell me, how would you have reacted to my attack if it had been the you before retrieving the memories of your past life?”

Anadine fell silent.

“You would have attacked head one, with an inhuman level of complexity,” Ayla answered for her. “At your peak, you took on four strong adventurers who were well adept at teamwork and magic. Granted, you did ambush them, and at least one escaped with an emergency item, the escape scroll or something, but you won. Now you’re facing a single worg who can use illusions and shadows and you’re struggling. Tell me, how else should I view the current you but a slime being controlled by human memories?”

Before Anadine could react, she was slapped across the room. Ayla teleported ahead of her and slapped her again, creating a game of catch with herself.

“I hate humans,” Ayla growled. “They killed my pack and murdered my mother. If not for her strength, my sister and I would be dead or forced into servitude. I don’t care who you were, but if this is what you are, I can finally take my time savoring your pain.” She allowed Anadine to slam into a wall and slide down. “You just wait there. Someone who can’t even see themselves will never find me.”

“. . .” Anadine wordlessly drew herself up and formed a hardened slime tentacle.

“Oh?” Ayla chuckled. “Well, praise be to your tenacity, I suppose, if nothing else.” The worg split back apart into five copies and marched towards Anadine, hackles raised. The blue slimes did nothing but hold the tentacle out front, waiting.

Without warning, the tentacle suddenly inverted and shot backwards through her body, piercing it and stabbing back into the wall behind her. A hacking cough followed, with Ayla’s surprised face staring out foolishly, a tentacle thrust into her throat. However, it was Anadine who released a cry of pain, slamming herself into the ground with enough force to cause the cave the tremble, the tentacle withdrawing from the worg.

“Ah, my eyes!” she screeched as she rolled around.

“I’m surprised,” Ayla said, the hole in her throat shrinking into non-existence. “To think you could do it. I am very surprised indeed.” The worg watched Anadine roll around for a bit longer before sighing. She reached a claw over and poked the slime, who instantly recovered.

“What was that?” Anadine asked as she dissolved back into a puddle.

“That was mana sight, the ability to see mana,” Ayla explained. “That essence-of-life thing I mentioned earlier was a hint to you. Slime can see mana in all its forms, using it to track prey beyond the limits of any other creature. Cornered as you were, you used it to spot me appearing behind you and counter attack. The dungeon, however, is filled with so much mana that you blinded yourself and overloaded what you could handle seeing. You’ll need more training to use it, lest it overwhelm the limited senses your memories have forced upon you.”

“You lied to me about Rowen,” Anadine realized, forcing her tired body back into a slime shape. “This was all a stress test for you to see how I would react to... a shitty situation.”

Ayla barked out a chuckle. “Slow, are you not? No, scared as Doc was, he would never condone the death of a family member so easily. Dungeons are rather possessive, after all. Even when you were only a slime, you operated best under immediate motivation.” The worg licked her lips suggestively. “I intentionally repeated by surprise attack to make it easier for you, but I didn’t expect you to pierce your own flesh to attack me, so feel a bit of pride for that. If you had spun around, I would have easily dodged your attempt and beat you a few more times.”

The worg tapped the wall with her tail. “I suppose that means you deserve something of a reward... though we are currently lacking your favorite adventurer snack. Still, I’m sure I can scrounge up something for you, given how impressive that attack was. The beauty of living in a dungeon with near limitless mana.” She titled her head up to the ceiling. “What do you think, Doc?”

A rumble filled the cave, and a strong, sticky, golden square appeared in the middle of the room.

“Slime bee honey,” Ayla sighed. “I am very jealous now, to the point of almost wanting to steal this from you. Hurry up, enjoy it.”

Anadine rolled over and hesitantly picked up the slime bee honey comb. She twisted it and examined it closely. “Doc won’t speak to me?” she asked, saddened.

“That’s for when you pass your training,” Ayla barked. “Now hurry up, I’m going to start drooling.”

With a slip, Anadine allowed the honeycomb to fall into her body. Instantly, the delectable sweet sugary goodness began dissolving inside her, filling every part of her body with golden goodness. She began to turn green as her body mellowed out into a puddle. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” she finally said.

“Yes, it’s quite amazing that Doc’s little experiment is capable of creating such a treat,” Ayla nodded. “Since there isn’t a bee queen slime, they’d quickly become extinct without Doc’s spawning nests, but oh how great they are at mixing mana and flower nectar into mana honey. It can even heal wounds and recover mana when you run out, a godly treat which you had the rare chance to try.”

“Still,” she continued. “You haven’t managed to leave the room, so I doubt you’ll ever get to have another taste. Even if you have taken a step outside your mind and embraced your true identity, there is still plenty of human to beat out of you. I hope you’re prepared.”

Anadine blinked as she realized her pain had vanished. The headache that had plagued her was gone, driven away by the sweet feeling of honey and training. She raised her tentacles and pointed them at the worg, the exit behind her, and her goal—success, and honey.

“Keep them coming.”

Chapter 15

Within the forest of the dungeon, a patrol of grey slimes moved swiftly through the brush. A gelatinous slime led two armor slimes and a magic slime, seeking to cover ground before the luminous slimes up above finished their daily cycle. Thoughtless in practice, the slimes carried out their task with impeccable determination and thoroughness.

Above their heads, a green figure blended into the tree leaves, watching their approach. The forest lion patiently awaited its prey. As the slimes passed underneath, the forest lion’s tail extended unnaturally down in a slow, methodical manner.

The gelatinous slime halted, sensing movement. The tail froze, allowing the wind to move it ever so slightly. The lion, watching from above, was completely still, neither breathing nor offering any indication it was separate from the tree in which it rested on.

The gelatinous slime searched for a few moments longer before resuming its trek, followed closely by its smaller brethren. The tail resumed its extension, reaching down towards the trailing magic slime. The tail slowly grew layers of hardened slime and, once the prey was right below it, suddenly burst down to pierce the magic slime and stab the core. The magic slime, caught unaware, died soundlessly. The tail, connected to its prey, began to shrink back up to the lion, absorbing the prey’s slime and keeping hold of the core. The beast waited until the patrolling slimes had vanished into the distance before raising the slime core to its mouth and eating it. Teeth covered in a layer of hardened slime bit down into the core, crunching it down into bite-sized chunks and swallowing. It released a low purr of satisfaction as a comfortable feeling of warmth began emitting from its belly, the core releasing its stored mana through digestion.

The forest lion was very satisfied with its current existence. Ever since the forest had shuddered many suns ago, or what served as a sun here in this strange world, it had regained much of the vitality and strength of its youth, in some ways surpassing it. While the strange changes to its body had been unnerving, the experienced hunter had quickly adapted and learned to utilize its newfound powers for hunting. Its teeth and claws were sharper now, more easily bypassing the natural dissolving properties of slime bodies. Its tail, already a powerful tool capable of lifting the lion off the ground, could now extend and turn into the perfect ambush tool.

Most importantly of all, the forest lion no longer needed to breathe. Its body could sustain itself on a single breath for half a day, it had found. No longer would it be forced to suffer in silence as it stalked alert prey sensitive to sound and smell. In addition, it no longer gave off body heat, and its smell had all but disappeared. Its senses had also increased sharply, as its eyes could now detect mana and its ears could see the movement of the earth. The forest lion, while confident in its new form, still found certain weaknesses to its new existence.

For one thing, it could no longer leave the underground world it now inhabited. Every step it took in the outside caused it to weaken, the feeling of old age returning and the loss of its new abilities shaking it mentally. Not only that, but the beast felt its insides burn, as if something within protested its leaving. So while it would occasionally try to leave, the forest lion would always return to the strange forest and live this easy life.

Not every change came beneficially, as it had lost the ability to change color to blend into its environment. While its natural color allowed it to blend into the trees that populated the underground world, it could no longer change to blend into the ground, the darkness, or the stone. This had been problematic up until it realized its prey did not rely on sight in the first place, which it learned after playing with its prey by walking all around them as they moved.

Most troubling of all, however, was its loss of procreative equipment. It had fallen off, evidently unneeded forever more. The forest lion had spent a long time inspecting between its legs in disbelief to make sure its eyes weren’t deceiving it. No matter how long it looked, the results remained the same. It was disappointing, but the lion had spread itself in time past, so it didn’t bemoan its loss too much. Sometimes. In the depths of its mind, however, it remained hopeful to having the capability returning one day, perhaps with a greater form.

With its stomach sated for the moment, the lion stood and left the tree. It kept a calm demeanor as it made its way over the branches, making its way home to its den. A large tree a negligible distance from a garden was the forest lion’s home, holding within its branches a self-made cavern of branches, leaves, and hardened slime which kept it all together. The forest lion had made it itself, using slime bodies as the main material. It enjoyed this new home better than its previous one. Bones and rotting carcasses made for a poor smelling home.

Sliding inside, the forest lion walked in a circle before lying down, sticking its head out the opening to watch the garden in the distance. Its eyes followed each herb slime and plant slime as they scurried around, taking care of the garden and each other. It wasn’t strong enough to take on those slimes, nor was there a spot closer enough to accomplish an ambush. The herb slimes never left the garden, and the plant slimes were quite dangerous with their ability to control the trees. Worse still were the jungle slimes, who never made themselves known until a fight occurred. The beast still failed to find more than four, each hidden around the garden. It knew there were more.

Glancing up at the position of the luminous slimes overhead, the forest lion prepared itself.

From the shadows, it noticed small forms moving out of the underbrush. They scurried about around the perimeter of the garden, taking positions in preparation for their daily assault. The forest lion watched on in interest, having been observer to these daily raids for quite some time.

A cry arose, a signal. A group of 15 bug slimes burst out of the forest surroundings, charging toward the main entrance to the garden. They clicked their hardened slime parts and made a loud racket, attracting the attention of the plant slime guardians. In response, the plant slimes charged out of the garden to meet the threat. Meanwhile, the herb slimes moved rapidly through the garden, ready to release their paralyzing spores at the slightest hint of invader.

It was a scene played out many times before since the trembling of the whole forest, but it was not the slimes the forest lion watched now. Hidden opposite the battle, the beast noted several hunkered down forms waiting. When the herb slimes moved away, the shadow dwellers darted into the garden and seized plants and fruits. The frenzy was quick but silent, as the little furry-scaled things finished their acquisition and darted back toward the tree line. However, one took too long and was found by the herb slimes.

A shrill scream filled the air as the little monster was doused in clouds of paralytic spores, dropping to the ground as all prey did. The forest lion cared little as the slime took care of their intruder. It was more interested in those who remained. It had grown tired of feeding on slimes, satisfying as they were, and craved something with a crunch. Silently, it padded out of its house to chase after the little shadows.

From tree to tree, the old predator stalked the shadows. This occasion was not the first of its kind. The little beings had eluded him twice before in unfamiliar territory. This time, the forest lion used its newfound abilities to keep up, its tail weaving ahead to nab ahold of branches to swing across the larger gaps in its path. The strong branches made no sound as the adventurer-sized predator swung by, enlisted into the tailing of its prey.

Finally, after the luminous slimes above had moved closer to the end of their route, the little shadows stopped in front of a large tree where, at the base, a natural den was formed by the roots. The monsters climbed in, their stolen stash following them, and the forest lion waited.

It would not attempt to intrude this day. Experience told it that it would require time to understand the habits of this new prey. It recalled a particularly disastrous hunt its mother had led it and its siblings on once, back when it was a small cub.

While its kind did not typically work together outside mating season, the prey had been a small herd of forest bison. The bison themselves were monsters with inner cores, though of the weakest level. Five alphas, including their mother, had joined the hunt and tracked the prey to their lair.

However, when they attempted to slip in, the bison herd had been waiting for them, fully aware of the forest lions tracking the entire time. The fight had been bloody and loud, with death knells filling the air as the lions killed their way out of the trap and bison bellowing out in rage and anger. In the aftermath, three of the lions failed to make it, and its mother had lost her back leg from the lead bison goring it with a horn. The cubs, watching from the thicket nearby, had mewed in concern for their mother.

She was strong. She taught its siblings and it how to properly use their tails after that. They fed on the corpses of the fallen forest lions, both those killed and weakened. When they were done with that, they feasted on the corpse of the bison leader, whom their mother had killed.

The forest lion would not attack this time. The ease of the hunt bothered it. It turned and swung away, back to its home, intent on scouting the area the following day. Risk was for the young.

Little did it know, that a single head peaked out of the hole as it left, disappointment apparent in its beady little reptilian eyes. With scaly scales, it fingered the headdress resting on its head, unused to its weight still. Behind it, the warriors of its tribe stored their weapons for a different day.

One that would be coming.

Chapter 16

Doc watched a moment longer as both slimes trained with the two worgs. The awakening of Ayla and Aisha had been quite a shock to him, one he was still getting used to a few days later. Everything about them was different compared to before—their personalities, attitude, desires, and even speech patterns. Ayla was better with words and enjoyed teasing, while Aisha preferred action but always spoke with wisdom.

They had both made great strides in finding themselves, with both Rowen and Anadine benefitting from their teachings in combat and mentality. While the four boss monsters were occupied with these lessons, Doc found himself free of part of the worries that filled his life.

With a weary gaze, he locked his attention on the door that separated him from Claire. The pixie had failed to respond to any of his summons or greetings ever since her damning spiel against him. If the bond between them didn’t exist, Doc felt he’d be unable to tell whether she was still alive. Even with it, though, there was nothing to indicate to him she was doing anything beyond a small pull of mana into her home.

Deciding against trying to talk to her in vain, he instead turned his attention up to the forest floor. His gaze filled with the sight of slime after slime living, working, and dying in their pseudo-societies. Doc allowed their lives to fill him, satisfying the hole created from the loss of the human soul he’d once housed. He’d only vaguely figured this out a week ago, but now he was sure that the newly freed slimes were freeing him from the pain of existence. Rather, their individual existences became him.

Though they showed little in the form of traditional intelligence, Doc was surprised to witness the various examples of wisdom, tactics, and intuition shown by the slimes. In particular, his attention was drawn to the various leaders of the slime groups, all of whom were the most interesting by far.

Take the bug slime colony located in the southern part of the forest. This particular group was composed of a worker group of slimes taking the vague forms of ants and beetles, whose jobs ranged from caring for the nest, raiding the gardens, and defending the group. Above them, slimes with tentacles taking the form of spider legs used their slime to expand the nest above and below the trees. The leader, which Doc kept an eye on, was a smaller slime compared to others of its type. Its tier 2 bug slime form was locked in place consisting of: cricket legs, the head of a bee, two tentacle copies of a mantis forearms, and a vaguely ant-like body. This leader slime would use its legs to create music and sound, by which it communicated orders to the other slimes. The other slimes, lacking the ability to produce those sounds, would spread the message by vibrating their bodies and spreading it via touch to other slimes.

Interestingly enough, some slimes had figured out this system. As usual, Doc picked out the few mimic slimes, rivals to the bug slime, mixed into the crowd of workers. To acquire food, they would copy the vibration and use it to communicate false orders, easily making off with the supplies they needed without ever needing to fight. They would return to their small communes hidden throughout the forest cavern and share with their lesser mimic followers, teaching them the art of shapeshifting.

Doc didn’t pay too much attention to the mimic slimes outside their activities in the three main slime groups. The mimic slimes were all the same. Unable to acquire the majority of lesser mimic slimes as minions and workers, they’d resorted to working as a collective group of thieves across the forest floor, taking turns at stealing and teaching the few lesser mimics. This made them the most successful slime group, even if their group was so small that it barely counted as a one.

The southern bug slimes were in the midst of renovating their nest. The spider types were spewing their goo along the edges, which was taken or spread by the workers. When a spider type ran low on reserves, they were soon supplied slime cores to eat by a worker. Doc noted with some interest as the workers began to bunch into small raiding groups when the reserves of slime cores fell. The song of battle rang through the air from the leader bug slime, and two raid groups set out for the garden.

Doc turned his attention to the southern garden now. Beautiful flowers sprouted up everywhere, with colors ranging from pink to green. The herb slimes, the caretakers, moved from plant to plant, watering, weeding, and moving new seedlings to open areas. The garden, too, was in the midst of renovation, though Doc noted with interest an entirely new area at the center of the garden complete with slime nests.

Thanks to the plant slimes and heal slimes of this particular garden, new bee homes were being grown into hives, allowing for easy access into the hives at any time. The slime bees created mana-rich honey, a prize sought out by all slimes due to its higher purity compared to slime cores. The heal slimes in particular were of great help, as their soothing magic made its way into the hives and not only help the bees but also increased the healing properties of the honey. The other gardens hadn’t yet grasped bee raising yet, instead allowing the bees to pollinate as they wished and return to their wild hives in the forest. The mana honey allowed for the herb slime family in the southern garden to expand, thus the renovation and expansion.

Previously, they had relied on the harvesting of leaf-muncher slime cores, the resilient pests flocking in to feed on the mana rich plants. The herb slimes had needed to divide their attention between the plants and the leaf-munchers in order to survive but now no longer needed to. This had the adverse effect of increased leaf-muncher presence in the garden, and the herb slimes now had to devote entire days slaughtering to protect the flowers and the bees. Leaf-munchers also invaded the hives and fought with the bee slimes. Two heal slimes had already been killed due to their non-violence.

The plant slimes kept up their protective patrol, aided by the jungle slimes in hiding around the garden. Doc found it an interesting system, the plant slimes being able to control the greenery and use it as a weapon while the jungle slimes unleashed acidic spines that destroyed everything in their wake, including the greenery. This meant the jungle slimes would stay put and not attack unless it was absolutely necessary, though they were often called upon to reduce the distance between the tree line and the garden.

The two bug slime raid groups were approaching the garden from the southwest, both groups consisting of about fifteen slimes each of worker types. As they neared the garden, the two groups broke off from each other, one heading north while the other moved to a more southern position. From the west and the south, the two groups rushed in towards the garden. Interestingly enough, both groups withheld any sort of battle cry or sound in an apparent attempt at stealth.

Naturally, however, the plant slimes were quite adept at tremor sense and moved swiftly into position to repel the invaders. The herb slimes, feeling the battle beginning, tensed and moved erratically around the garden, searching for invaders. The jungle slimes tensed up in their waiting positions but did nothing for the moment.

The lesser mimic slimes released chittering noises when the plant slimes appeared and quickly fell into the heat of battle. Large roots sprung up from the ground, seeking to pierce the invading slime cores. From the air, vines flew out from the garden seeking to smack the raiders back. Finally, a few of the plant slimes charged into the fight, their tentacles sprouting out to engage the enemy. Slime-hardened mandible met acidic tentacle in a daring clash of family, injuring both sides. While the plant slimes were of a higher tier, the lesser mimic slimes were more numerous and possessed armor. In addition, their non-unified forms meant that no two possessed the same weakness of slime-hardened armor.

While the plant slimes successfully handled most of the enemy, a few managed to slip past into the garden. There, they faced an onslaught of herbs, well equipped with their paralysis spores and tentacles of their own. Doc watched a particular gory scene where two of the lesser mimics in the form of ants sliced an herb slime in half with their mandibles, only to have both their cores pierced by the still alive herb slime who quickly reformed. Still, the paralyzing spores were only effective in the limited range upon which they came into being, and a few of the lesser mimic invaders managed to reach the bee spawning nests. With careful tentacles, the raiders snagged honeycomb and cores and stored them in their slime, creating effective air pockets inside to prevent the dissolution of their loot. When they were full, they made their getaway.

The herb slimes, aware of the theft, immediately turned to intercept the fleeing enemy, only to have the rest of the lesser mimics throw themselves in the way. The herb slimes cut through the decoys but failed to stop any of the mimic slimes with the honey from escaping in the midst of the suicide charge.

The thieves exited the garden opposite of the plant slime battlefield, avoiding both attention and pursuit as they entered the tree line.

Of course, it was here that their luck took a turn for the worst, as the lesser mimic slimes ran into a patrol of grey slimes who had been lying in wait since they had noticed the battle. One large gelatinous slime lead three sharp slimes, an armor slime, and a blood slime.

As far as Doc could tell, the grey slime family was by far the largest group of slime in the forest. Unlike the other slimes, who had separated into various groups located around and within the forest, the grey slime family had opted to carve out a large lair near the staircase to the third floor. From there, they formed small patrols that would move through the forest seeking supplies from other slime groups. Doc noted with interest that some grey slime patrols sometimes opted to trade slime cores with bug slime or herb slime groups, though the exact nature and reason for the trade was unknown even to him. More often than not, however, the grey slime patrols would engage enemy slimes and steal from them.

In this particular instance, the lead lesser mimic slime seemed to have no interest in fighting. It removed its stolen honeycomb and cores and placed them on the ground in front of the gelatinous slime, clicking its slime mandible together.

The gelatinous slime absorbed the offered goods, creating its own air pocket in which to store it. However, it moved forward with tentacles raised in an aggressive posture. The lesser mimics raised a racket in response, taking defensive positions. In Doc’s eyes, negotiations had failed.

The gelatinous slime charged first, creating a path through the lesser mimic slimes for its brethren to follow. With their various broken swords and other weapons sticking out of their body, the sharp slimes rolled through the defensive slime, rolling over and impaling the lesser mimic slime cores easily. The armor slime and blood slime, however, failed to gain any momentum, their powers being more geared towards non-slime opponents. They were set upon and torn apart quite quickly, their cores pilfered. Still, the gelatinous slime’s bulk was greater than the few lesser mimic slimes, and they were forced to flee, leaving half their brethren behind. The four remaining grey slimes looted the bodies of cores and honeycombs before returning home.

The surviving lesser mimic slimes made it back to the hive and submitted their cache to the hive stores. To their benefit, even with the theft of the grey slimes, they still managed to fill half of the hive stores with mana-rich honey and slime cores both big and small. The leader bug slime released a high-pitched song. Upon hearing the song, every slime in the hive raised their tentacles and waved them together. Doc chuckled at the apparent celebration.

Interestingly, the leader slime called one of the surviving lesser mimic slimes up and reached a tentacle out to touch it. The differently colored slime slipped and touched the slime’s core. Doc sensed a brief exchange of mana between the two slimes. The leader slime then removed its tentacle and burned an image into the hive wall. It was a vague image of a large slime, likely the gelatinous slime. The leader crossed a line through it.

How interesting, Doc thought to himself.

Chapter 17

The world was filled with light, fog, petals, and blue as far as the eye could see. It was a space of nothingness, filled with quiet and silence and freedom, a liberation from time, gravity, and existence. One could float away in this place, free from the confines and shackles both forced upon and worn willingly. Yet within this nothingness place, petals soared through the space, carried by unseen wind moving in patterns and waves which formed nothing. The eyes of the observer would only need to be distracted for just a moment to miss it, the wind leaving nothing in its wake except petals of red, white, green, purple, and yellow. This scene, this serenity, only existed because of the observer, the unseen eye. The Yhe.

The Yhe came here willingly, for reasons that neither mattered nor warranted thought once arrived. Yhe came here only to lose existence in the void of blue space and petals, and yet sometimes the purple would bring into existence a thought, an interruption of the void. Purple flickered into life that which Yhe thought to lose, and so it would be removed by the wind that came and went without sign. The blue light replaced the thoughts as quickly as they appeared, leading back to the serenity of non-existence.

And yet, every time the wind came, it had to leave behind petals, and thus more purple. The blue void was thus disturbed by the loop of feedback, and an effect emerged.

“That’s just what you wanted, right? A slice of paradise to escape to?” a mocking voice echoed through the fog, breaking the atmosphere. “Well too bad. You aren’t fast enough to run away from our problems. The wind blows them back just as easily as you forget them.”

“Be quiet, you. This is no place for such biting words and draining thoughts!” another voice came from behind the Yhe.

In opposite directions, two flowers— a rose and a morning glory—appeared in the fog. They were both exquisite specimens of their respective species, full bodies with vivid color along their stems and petals. When they spoke, their petals fluttered open and closed in a mockery of organic communication.

“This one isn’t even paying attention to us. To us!” The morning glory snarled angrily. Its long stalk whipped through the space, ignoring the unseen wind and existing apart from the void. Yet the plant seemed indistinct from the surroundings, as if only the faintest of space kept it from dissipating back into the blue.

“Yes, you should leave us,” the rose agreed, flower petals opening and closing. “This is a place to renew oneself free of the ropes of the world, not one meant for such uncouth beings such as yourself, a weed in the dirt seeking the light while smothering those in your way to reach it.”

The morning glory shriveled in size before rooting itself. “I belong here as much as you. The distinction between us fluid via the whims of the light and the feels of the blue. What claim do you have that I do not belong? You seek out the light as much as I do, but you scorn the world and sprout thorns to defend your monopoly. We are equals here. Do not grow higher than your purpose.”

“In this purpose we are formed in the here and now, and our distinction is opposing,” the rose answered. “You are here to change, while I am here to be.” It appeared quite aleaf, pride dripping as nectar from its petals. “Perfection makes me whole, though for you and I, the blue calls us home.”

“And this one?” the morning glory asked, indicating the one other, the Yhe. “This one is the reason. It has no purpose.”

“Its purpose is what it chooses, so it is one who chooses to remain,” the rose answered smoothly. “Which makes the one greater than you in my presence, for it mirrors me.”

“Perfection you claim, yet you are not one with the blue,” the morning glory muttered. “Rather, you are as stuck here as I am. This issue stems from this one, yet you claim it to be greater than I who is your opposite equal?”

“More than you, at least,” the rose chuckled smugly, gesturing with its petals. “After all, you wouldn’t know a pile of feces from a pile of fertilizer.” The morning glory, with its slightly drooping petals, puffed up in anger.

The noise and the quips and the conversation invoked more thoughts, more disturbance, and there was not enough wind to free the void of the interruptions. More and more petals were drifting around the space, purple included. A single thought burst into existence from the Yhe: ‘Go away.’

With the thought fully come into itself, blossoming in the light, the two flowers diverged themselves from their conversation. “We cannot,” the rose said disappointingly. “Believe me, we do not want to disturb you.”

“Speak for yourself. pointy,” the morning glory said, shifting insults. It turned to face the Yhe. “We don’t belong here, not like this. Those who do not belong bring singularity with them, a limited thing, a limiting concept. The limits of another reality have been dragged into this place where limits are below conception. We are forced into these limits via the presence of another. The one who dragged us here and created this situation is the unnamed other.”

“Do not pertain to endeavor. Our existence is only so far as we are required,” the rose butted in quickly, a pale glow of abashment appearing on its petals. “For this distinction was made not solely from the perceptions of this other. Your desire seems to have bled through as well.”

The morning glory chuckled, blossoming another flower. “For shame, dear one, that you are to claim that personal desire leads to personal existence. One is not exclusive to the other, not to mention the need for conception of either.”

“Conception is brought by desire,” the rose argued, growing a bud. “Existence brings upon desire. It is the dualism of existence that creates such disparity.”

“The dualism of the world, you mean,” the morning glory said, wrapping around the issue. “For existence is dependent on the rules and laws that came into being long before existence was established.”

“Are you suggesting that being and existence are separate conceptions?” the rose grew a large thorn point. “The argument is as old as thought. There is no answer.”

“They possess different meaning when used in various concepts,” the morning glory admitted reluctantly. “What comes to mean one can also mean the other when the thing is one way or the other. Not to say they are mutually exclusive, but that they are not necessarily mutual inclusive.”

“As we are,” the rose nodded its flower.

“As we are,” the morning glory agreed, returning the nod.

The noise was deafening in a space where none other had been previously. Thoughts and sounds burst all around the three, with the wind struggling to bring them away before they were born. Petals began to overtake vision.

“Shut up,” the thought of the Yhe resounded.

“The one seeks to command us,” the morning glory chuckled, a tinkling sound that dingle dangled through the void. “Cute.”

“It is misguided,” the rose continued. “To command denotes authority, which denotes strength, power, or a sense of greaterness. It possesses none here, but notice it had no notion of this before you opened your thoughts.”

“I’d argue it was your precocious insults at the beginning of this conversation that encouraged authority,” the morning glory argued. “To insult, after all, is to create difference.”

“Acknowledge difference, not create one.” The rose point glistened. “Things exist in spite of observation.”

“Except us. The other forced us into existence with observation. The other needs to leave,” the morning glory protested.

“The one needs to stay,” the rose argued.

“Yhe just needs,” the two said together, and for just a moment, the two appeared the same blue, free of distinction before regaining their distinctness.

“Almost gone,” the morning glory sighed sadly.

“At least still here,” the rose sighed happily.

The morning glory lost its flowers and regained a bud. The bud vibrated to the sound of its voice. “It appears that the need is only part of the reason. A need exists, but also a want.”

“Wants are harder to catch,” the rose murmured, with petals falling off one at a time as it withered. “Wants are everchanging, constantly in motion, and changeable at the flick of desire. Needs are better, they either are or are not. Still, both are satisfied while here.”

“Satisfied, yes, but neither is solved,” the morning glory argued. “To satisfy is to placate, and to placate is to leave the hole unfilled, rather covered until it is uncovered again. The want can even appear elsewhere, rendering the cover worthless.”

“Here is a good cover,” the rose pointed out.

“For it, the Yhe, yes, but its presence causes other problems, does it not?” the morning glory sighed. “Limited perception, limited conception, limited imagination, limited awareness—these things do not bode well for the formless, mindless, and thoughtless. It is a poison in this place, both to itself and others.”

“But it possesses the right to be here,” the rose said. “It used it, and it is only right to follow.”

“Rights, you claim such things as universal as being and existence when that is folly,” the morning glory argued angrily. “Rights have only significance in the context of law, and that is a form of limit, unneeded and unwanted here.”

“And yet it has brought that here with it,” the rose reasoned. “As such, it is here now, and we are to abide by it as we do.”

“There is no enforcing of the law here,” the morning glory pointed out. “As such, there can be no law without enforcement. Then it is just concept expressed as words.”

“What if I enforce it?” the rose asked.

“Can you enforce it?” the morning glory shot back. “How can one without limits acquire such a limited concept like authority?”

“You are right,” the rose agreed. “Neither you nor I can enforce a law, for we exist beyond authority. However, by our existence being brought into the here and now by this one’s observation, we both fall under the limits the one has brought with it. Hence, we are bound by the right this one possesses.”

“Annoying but correct,” the morning glory admitted reluctantly. “However, my existence is to have this one be removed, and so shall I continue seeking a way regardless of law.”

“It is to be expected of you,” the rose agreed, “for that is your purpose being here. However, will you, too, ignore ethics and morality in order to accomplish your goal?”

“You once again attempt to bring into this impasse concepts that do not belong here,” the morning glory grunted. “Neither of those concepts have a role to play here.”

“But they do,” the rose pointed out. “For you seek one way and I another, so one way must be right. The inherit points of rightness involve ethics and morality.”

“Why do opposing paths require rightness as a unique quality?” the morning glory asked. “Two paths converge on a road, and the only sense of right is the opposite of left.”

“One road leads to death and the other to life.”

“But both will continue regardless of choice. There is no escaping either.”

“You miss the point,” the rose said.

“Do I?” the morning glory countered. “Are you not wearing it proudly on your stem like a badge of honor? These concepts of right, ethics, and morality are limits self-imposed on the limited ones in order to continue their temporary existence for as long as possible. Even without them, life and death will both continue.”

“Then what of our opposing distinction?” the rose asked.

“As I said, we are at an impasse,” the morning glory said. “There is no inherit rightness to our existence, nor our choices, nor our paths, nor our conflict. They merely are, as we have been and always been before and after this one’s presence here.”

“A conflict you have stated, so what be the resolution?” the rose asked.

“None, for there is nothing either of us can or will do besides an exchange of concepts,” the morning glory declared. “Violence is only an outlet of desire, which neither of us possess. We possess a path, which transcends a limited concept like desire.”

“Path is a word of limits as well,” the rose pointed out.

“But one imposed on us by this one, not ourselves,” the morning glory said, seizing momentum. “This one has created the conflict by its presence, and this one shall resolve the conflict. We are, as they say, the peanut gallery.”

“This one requires the will to follow through such an act, which this one lacks in this place,” the rose sighed. “This is not a place of limits as you’ve said, and such a concept alongside desire, want, need, and status are quickly robbed. I believe the impasse shall continue.”

“Perhaps to you,” the morning glory said smugly, “but my path is based on this one leaving. I can enforce that upon Yhe.”

“That would be against my path, however,” the rose murmured.

“I cannot interfere directly, same as you,” the morning glory reminded the rose. “However, I can allow this one to retain enough presence to settle the conflict. We both still have opportunity to follow the path with it.”

The rose considered the motion.

“I agree with this plan; let it be.”

The morning glory’s bud bloomed, and a small whirlwind of petals flew out to enclose the observer. They formed a moving bubble in the void, establishing a space of quantifiableness where existed limits, a new world in the void. From within the petals, a form came into being, though even the petals failed to allow the full establishment of identity. From within, newly formed eyes opened.

“Do Yhe have an identity?” the morning glory asked.

This question, directed at the observer, the reader, and the author, resounded through the space. Cracks broke through the blue, leaving only blackness and a bile of darkness that overtook the petals, the flowers, and the vision.

It was an end of the world, the story; it was an end.

And the Yhe woke up within the trees.

And it was hungry.

Chapter 18

The forest was still and quiet, a stark difference when placed against the status quo of the previous weeks. No more were the quiet chirps and harsh calls of the birds, nor the steady hums of insects, nor the cries of battle between competitors for new territory. The atmosphere was somber now, lying as low as the many carcasses littering the forest floor. Near the tree line surrounding the dungeon, four forest lions appeared.

They were in sorry shape, all injured to varying degrees with blood dripping ever so slowly from their bodies, leaving a trail behind them. The lead forest lion and two of its followers were larger than the fourth one, a male, though the leader was largest still. Her pelt was lined with more scratches, bite marks, and scars compared to rest, a reminder of the battles she had undertaken to protect the others. She failed more than succeeded, however, as the four of them were the last of the forest lions in this part of the forest.

A large dire wolf pack had moved in following the catastrophe with the dungeon, and they had hunted every other predator in the forest. The forest lions had only survived thanks to their strong tails and their use of the trees, at least until the dire wolves began to destroy the trees by ramming them down in an ever-enclosing circle.

Dire wolves were a type of monster twice the size of a normal wolf. They were one of the two first monster types a wolf could transform into after developing a monster core, the other being worg. Unlike their relatives who gained speed and the ability to do magic, dire wolves experienced a great increase in physical strength, endurance, and stamina.

The dire wolves weren’t the only danger, either. The lead forest lion had smelled it on the air, a similar smell that had driven her and the other hunters into the dungeon against their better instincts. The smell had become more pervasive after the dire wolves arrived, and all manner of creatures had fallen under its sway. The forest lions had avoided it by climbing the trees, as the smell never left the ground. However, their prey and the dire wolves had succumbed to it, and they no longer were as they once been.

With the threat of the dire wolves closing in on them, the lead forest lion had led the survivors of its race away through a nest of large spiders. It had lost two lions, but successfully drawn the dire wolf pack into a fight with the spiders. Even now, the two groups were in a fight to the death somewhere behind her. How long it would last was a fool’s dream. The smell would soon take the spiders if the wolves didn’t.

Her main concern, however, was the one male still with her. The smaller forest lion had lost its tail in the escape and was wounded on its back-left leg. She’d kept her attention on him, even as the smell had wafted up slowly around them. She stopped the group and turned to pad its way to the male. It looked up at her, eyes slowly gaining a blood-stained look she recognized from the dire wolves.

He was the last male for their species, even with a small mane.  He was the only hope for cubs. He was a threat, one that couldn’t be tolerated.

With the swipe of her claw, the forest lion leader sliced through the neck of the wounded male, who toppled to the ground and quickly bled out. Its eyes held no malice as it died; rather, a peaceful expression blossomed before the light vanished from its eyes.

The lead forest lion turned to look at the two females. They stared back, accepting the death of the male. However, all three could feel the smell slowly entering their bodies. They had to return to the trees, requiring them to pass by the strange cave leading under the ground. The three made their way quickly, seeking to bypass the death trap as soon as possible.

With a jolt, however, the leader froze, nose flaring out. She smelled a new scent, a familiar scent, the scent of a male. A hope appeared. It was fresh, only a few days old and, though smelling slightly different, was clearly coming from the cave in the ground. Her keen eyesight picked up the tracks as well, tracks so close to her own. A male meant a chance to continue their species, a possibility for cubs.

She hesitated, however. The scent was emanating from the cave, having clearly come and gone from there several times over the last few weeks. From her experience, the cave was a death trap and filled with danger, though a male surviving in there meant prey to feed on must be available. The scent never reached far out of the cave entrance.

The two other females waited patiently for her direction. When forest lions joined together, the leader was never questioned outside of a challenge to authority. While the lead forest lion considered their options, the sound of howling arose from all around them. The dire wolves had found them, and they were already enclosed in a kill circle. The hackles on all three lions arose in fear. There were no trees near them for escape.

Hearing the howls closing in, the lead lion made a decision. With a snap of her tail, she raced toward the dungeon entrance, closely followed by her two companions. They vanished into the darkness right before the dire wolves burst into the clearing.

Under the red-eyed gaze of the leader, the dire wolf underlings barked and howled as they sniffed around, searching for their missing prey. They quickly found the scent trail leading to the dungeon entrance. They paused before the boundary, barking and howling into the darkness, but they shied away it, almost with a sense of fear and distaste. The dire wolf leader released a sharp bark, calling the others back. Orders flowed through its mind, telling it to not enter the dungeon, an order delivered with a sense of hate and fury. The dire wolves obeyed, and they left the clearing.

The time hadn’t yet arrived.

*

“Once more,” Aisha barked.

At her direction, Rowen sprouted seven tentacles, each tipped with a glowing ball of dark magic. He twisted, turning into a small tornado with each tentacle becoming a whirling wall of magic and destruction. He moved into a tree, which was shredded into bits as the trunk and bark exploded outward. When half of the trunk was destroyed, the tree buckled and fell atop the whirling slime. This time, however, Rowen was ready for the aerial attack, and a dark tipped tentacle lay in wait. The entire tree was soon gone, turned into lethal shrapnel launched by Rowen in an ever deadly and accurate spread.

Aisha padded over to inspect the damage done as Rowen wound down. She nodded her head in satisfaction.

“Good spread. Accuracy, same, but precision improved,” she declared. “Marked improvement, yes. Your close combat, lethal now. No longer stuck with ranged attacks.”

Rowen nodded his slime body in acknowledgement.

The worg rolled her eyes and whipped Rowen with her tail, sending ripples through his amorphous body. “Speak words, slimes no have body language,” she grunted.

“I’m, satisfied with my progress,” Rowen said finally. “But, then...”

Aisha grunted. “Forgiveness hard to ask, hard to accept. Still, easier to do than do not.”

“I suppose...” Rowen trailed off.

“Yes yes,” Aisha said, stretching her tail to wrap around Rowen and lift him onto her back. “Training is done, is time to rejoin sisters.” Taking a backwards step, the worg shot forth with the speed of a cool wind, sailing through the forest floor easily. The white and grey slime stayed silent on her back.

“Silence from you, yet still reluctance?” the worg asked curiously.

Rowen let out a human sigh. “I, well I feel guilty okay. I did attack her after all, and before that I really was a-”

“Rude, arrogant, family hating, royal brat with anger issues?” Aisha asked.

Rowen grunted.

“Excuse words, like to take time to say them now am able,” she apologized. “Please, continue. We talk through all problems, yes?”

“I was everything you said, and worse still I feel,” Rowen continued morosely. “I was so angry at everything; myself, Doc for making me into this slime, Claire and her constant cheerfulness, and Anadine’s confidence. More than that though, I, I was angry at my own sense of . . . relief.”

When Aisha failed to comment, Rowen felt the urge to explain himself. “It’s like what you said when you first started my training; I no longer needed to worry about any of my human obligations. The oath to my family, and my people, and the promises I made to everyone in town; I was free. Even when I was a child-”

“Still child,” Aisha reminded him, “only 11 years; quite young.”

“Eight years is enough to be considered responsible as a royal,” Rowen murmured as the memories raced through his head. “Old enough to warrant attention when trouble is caused, old enough to be stuck for most of the day with tutors and books, and old enough to understand the gulf of separation between myself and the other children. I hadn’t had a true friend in years even before my forced hibernation. For this freedom though, I could only direct disgust at myself for the dereliction of duty. I could almost feel the ghosts of my parents looking down on me in disappointment.”

“Feelings, not wrong,” Aisha said as she dodged a patrol of grey slimes. “After all, loyalty and honor important to family, to pack. Still, you follow sense of honor yes? Die to save girl, die to save friends; this is very respectable, even to dead. I feel your parents not disappointed in you if watching, more likely proud of good son. Even if son now spineless in new manner of speaking.”

Rowen let out a chuckle, which grew into a gwafful, and finally evolved into a full blown, belly lurching, crying fit of laughter. Aisha joined in with her canine wheeze of a laugh, and the two shared a moment as slimes for miles around reacted curiously to the noise.

“Spineless, oh that’s a good one,” Rowen chortled, using a tentacle to wipe his forehead.

“Is true for all family no? All monsters here slime types,” Aisha snorted. “Our sisters also spineless, but still filled with good ideas and slime. Even Doc spineless. Only one here with spine mother Claire . . .”

At this however, Aisha broke off, allowing somber atmosphere to take hold of the conversation.

Rowen perked at the silence. “Is there something wrong with Claire? Did she end up stuck in a flower or something?”

“Flower . . . well is not completely wrong,” Aisha muttered. “Is bigger issue, one for whole family. We talk more later, yes. Hold on tight little Rowen.”

The slime braced himself against Aisha, wrapping two tentacles around her body as the worg girl turned vertical along the wall and used her slime hardened claws to propel them both up towards the cave entrance.

“Bug slimes are shooting,” Rowen reported, his mana sense alerting him to a trio of lesser mimic slimes in the form of ants. Sitting in the trees, the three tore slime from their bodies and threw it at the worg girl, the sound sizzling filling the air.

“Need more practice,” Aisha commented lazily as she easily dodged the acidic projectiles. “Lesser mimics can only attack with body, but mimic slimes can attack with slime. Disguised they are, look more close, yes?”

Taking a second look, Rowen concentrated on the density of mana within the slimes. As Aisha said, all three possessed a higher concentration of mana within their core than any tier 1 slime. They had to be a tier 2 slime.

“Their cores are tier two,” he reported as the duo left throwing range and the trio disappeared.

“Don’t look at cores only,” Aisha lectured. “Only mimic slimes for now yes, but further down more mimicking types of slime, and better disguises. Form of attack, habits, behavior, and numbers, also important. Lesser mimics travel in more than three, and very loud.”

“I understand,” Rowen said, his mind’s eye gazing down at the spot where the mimic slimes had been. Privately, his memories returned to the times when he and Anadine were attacked while traversing the wall. The slimes had always been different, but perhaps not. Out of the corner of his senses, Rowen noted the little green figure watching him and Aisha as they scaled the wall. It was the same figure that had occasionally watched him during practice. Rowen had no idea what it was, but perhaps its presence meant something.

The white-grey slime’s private musings were interrupted by their arrival. The cave was just as Rowen remembered- brown with torches. Not that he could see color anymore, in fact as the cave was made of dungeon material it was more likely to carry a purple hue. Still, to Rowen, a cave should be brown, black, or grey.

Aisha padded her way into the cave and into the room that had served as Anadine’s room. There, they found Ayla waiting patiently next to a flat blue puddle of suspicious origin.

“You’re late sister,” Ayla uttered upon their entry. “Did your charge cause you more trouble than expected?”

Aisha grunted, setting Rowen down with her tail. “Growth is never late, always on time. Move at own pace, even with good teacher.”

Ayla snorted, whipping the puddle next to her, though in a slightly playful manner. “I think you’re too used to the kiddy paws,” she taunted. “See, this one just needed a good beating everything she thought something unnecessarily complicated. No babying required, just training!”

“Training done here as well. Different form, different person, same results.”

Ayla raised a claw to her head and scratched herself. “Same results you say? Well, how about we put that to the test?” She indicated the limp puddle of blue goop next to her. “My charge against your own, loser gets more training; the hard kind.”

“Hm, agreed. Always take winning bet when offered.” Aisha said confidently.

The two worgs shared a low chuckle that echoed through the room, causing both Rowen and Anadine, the puddle, to quiver nervously. Though slime lacked a sense of pain, they could still feel the horrible condition known as fatigue, and humiliation. Needless to say, neither one appeared to be feeling appreciative toward their respective mentor’s bet.

“Anadine, are you alive?” Rowen asked in a hush voice, having moved near the puddle during the other’s conversation.

The blue puddle produced a single tentacle and waved it, giving the appearance of a white flag surrender. The two sat together for a quiet moment as the two worgs began to argue over the nature of the test.

When the moment had been stretched to its limit, Rowen said, “I’m sorry for the way I treated you.”

The blue puddle continued to sit still, but the core within moved closer to Rowen.

“I made you the magical deposit for all my feelings, and it was wrong,” Rowen continued quietly. “I never meant to hurt you, and you were right to leave me behind. I’m also sorry for trying to kill—”

A blue tentacle shot up to pat Rowen’s body lovingly. The blue puddle reformed into Anadine’s blue slime body, and Rowen could feel the affection and regret through her tentacle. “I was wrong for leaving you behind, for giving up on you,” Anadine said, interrupting the white grey slime mid-apology. “You were in pain, suffering, and my departure allowed you to fall into that state. You need not apologize for the actions taken while mindless; those were never your intentions in the first place.”

“How can you be sure?” Rowen asked worriedly. “Was my body not moving on the instincts and remnant thoughts I had towards you?”

“Only if you thought about killing me on a daily basis,” Anadine said jokingly. She laughed.

Rowen chuckled awkwardly along with her, though noting the thought had crossed his mind at some point or another.

“Students share laugh, very carefree,” a sudden voice from behind the slimes causing them to stiffen up. Ayla and Aisha had reappeared behind the slimes while they were distracted, avoiding all three of their senses somehow. The twin duo stared down at the two slimes with glittering eyes and sinister grins.

“Aisha, I do not feel our charges have been taught well enough to be subjected to any competition.” Ayla said with a smile. “Setting your pupil aside, my student seems to have lost track of her target just from having a conversation. Rather, disappointing if I must say.”

Anadine shivered.

“Is opposite, situation is,” Aisha seemingly clarified. “My student, lost track he did, your student to be expected.”

Rowen twitched nervously.

The two worgs let a low, howling laugh.

“More training for both!”

Chapter 19

The forest lion growled slowly, an odd occurrence for one so experienced. The surprising part was not that it had the ability to growl, or that it felt the inclination to growl, but rather that it chose this moment to growl, alerting the slime below to the lion’s presence. The forest lion ignored the fleeing prey and locked its eyes firmly on the slope leading up to the cavern’s entrance.

Earlier, the sounds of baying and barking echoed down from the entrance, resounding through the underground forest. Hearing the sounds of wolves had no effect on the forest lion, however. It knew they would not come down here. Where the wolves had barely registered in the lion’s consciousness, though, it was suddenly alerted when the wind dragged a scent through the air from up above. It was a familiar scent—a scent of blood and trouble.

The forest lion recognized the troubling smell. It was the same one that had driven it into the underground cavern in the first place, the one that had slinked its way into its head and controlled it. The forest lion’s claws sheathed and unsheathed stressfully as the unbidden memories drifted through its mind, memories that brought forth such rage at being controlled.

It recognized the blood, too, as that of its own species. From the smell, there were at least two, and they were injured. More importantly, and the most worrying thing to the forest lion, was that the blood carried the scent of a female, and forest lions were matriarchal.

While the transformation the forest lion experienced from being underground had allowed it to understand more, raising its tactical skill and learning ability to the level of a female of its species, the forest lion could not help but feel stressed at the thought of meeting a female. The last time it had dealt with one, it had been younger, more fit, and hopelessly outclassed when mating season came. It was hunted, cornered, used, and then forced into the female’s pack for the rest of the year, made to wait its turn at the kills.

Still, even with this feeling of trepidation, the forest lion leaped off the tree and swung ahead, heading toward the scent. In spite of its fear, it felt a connection to its kind, knowing full well that the barking from earlier and the scent of trouble had to be connected to the appearance of the females. Injured as they smelled, it doubted they would survive for very long down here in the cavern, where hunting prey was so different compared to the surface.

Its worry was well warranted as it turned out, for as it neared the edge of the tree line the forest lion began to hear the sound of fighting and angry roars. It swung once more using its tail and landed perfectly on the last tree before the clearing, gazing out to take note of the situation.

In the clearing, a small battle was unfolding. A group of lesser mimic slimes in the form of beetles were attempting to swarm a group of three forest lions, all female. The bulk of the fighting—and noise—was coming from the lead female, a large and magnificent specimen with dark green fur and brilliant brown stripes. Teeth and claws flashing, the lead forest lion lashed out at every bug slime that neared it and the more heavily injured companions hiding behind it, roaring in a futile attempt to dissuade the attackers. Unfortunately, the sound only served to draw out more slimes from the forest, including a patrol of grey slimes that immediately set upon the lesser mimic bugs.

The old forest lion narrowed its eyes at the female, noting her strong stance and proud look that didn’t fade even through the growing threat of slimes. It was a glorious example of its kind. Though the other two forest lions behind the leader were injured, they were still strong enough to cover the flank and smack and slash any slime that came near. All three were worth saving in the forest lion’s eyes.

With a staggering roar, the forest lion announced its presence for the first time since its initial venture into the dungeon. The sound echoed throughout the cavern and, unlike the lead female’s roars, caused every slime to shudder in predatory fear. Due to the unique influence of the underground and diet, the forest lion had gained a magical intimidation useful against slimes. The slimes quivered from the blast, and the three female forest lions locked their stares on the newcomer. The forest lion used its tail to beckon them, hurriedly.

Intimidation rarely worked longer than a moment on mindless creatures, after all.

Swift on the uptake, the lead female growled an order, and all three leaped through the stunned slimes towards the trees. The forest lion waited until they were close before turning and swinging back into the forest, leading them away from the danger. Behind it, the sounds of fighting resumed, though a few slimes were attempting to follow them.

It couldn’t help but smirk. Try as they might, no slime had yet managed to successfully track it through the underground forest. Forest lions excelled in speed, agility, and hiding their traces. As the forest lion lead its brethren through the forest, it curved along the path and used its tail to make almost impossible leaps across gaps to the next tree.

When it landed, it paused after failing to hear the sounds of the females following it. It turned around and faced the three females, who were waiting back on the last tree. The lead female gave it a withering look, as the other two panted with exhaustion, blood still slowly oozing out of their injuries. A sudden heat blossomed within the forest lion as it suddenly realized what it had done. It lowered its head sheepishly and gestured with a claw to an easier path, one that had enough trees touching each other to allow for running instead. The lead female snorted and guided its group along the path.

While it waited patiently, the forest lion closed its eyes and extended its new senses, seeking out all sources of noise and motion around it. The pursing slimes had lost interest in the hunt and had returned to their respective families. There were a few patrols in the area, but none of them close enough to be an issue. The light above was approaching the end of the ceiling, and the darkness had begun to rise behind it. With night falling, the newcomers would find themselves in complete darkness, without any light to trigger their night vision. It let out a quick whine, alerting the females to the ceiling. They looked up and, noting the darkness rising in the east, moved faster to reunite with the forest lion.

When they arrived, it led them a little farther to its newest nest, located near the plant slime garden. The females looked wearily at the odd slime-made nest, reluctantly following the forest lion inside. The two smaller females collapsed once they’d entered, their fatigue taking over as soon as they reached safety. The lead female, however, merely sat back on its haunches and locked its eyes on the forest lion, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

The forest lion padded to the back and pulled out three slime cores, using its paw to push them toward the females. All three stared down, uncomprehending of what they were meant to do with the round orbs that looked like stones. The forest lion grunted, taking a fourth core out from its stores. It lifted it up to its mouth and ate it, demonstrating to the females.

The leader reached down to sniff the core, noting the scent of magic the core seemed to exude. The other two watched and waited as she opened her mouth and chomped down on the core. To the lead female’s surprise, the core instantly melted into a delicious liquid and flowed down her throat. A warm, comfortable feeling spread throughout her body, filling her, satisfying her, and speeding up the healing of her injuries. She let out a purr of comfort, prompting the other two to ingest their own cores. They were purring a short moment later.

The forest lion let out a snort of humor. It, too, had let out a similar purr when it had eaten its first core.

The leader was instantly reminded of the forest lion’s presence when it heard the snort, and it let out a growl of annoyance at the interruption. Refocusing on it, the lead female noticed the large stash of slimes cores behind it. She got up, padding forward with the intention of eating more.

The forest lion moved to block her way, shaking its head. From personal experience, it was well aware of the problems of eating too many slime cores at once. It had endured a stomach ache after eating three in a row, and it had witnessed a great python explode after eating five in quick succession.

The lead female, however, in her natural state of dominance over males, took the forest lion’s actions as a sign of defiance, of challenge. She raised her hackles and let out a low growl, warning the forest lion to get out of her way. The forest lion shook its head, not bothering to challenge her. It was too experienced to challenge this female, her youth quite clear in her reaction. The forest lion merely sat back on its haunches and let out a yawn.

The lead female released an intimidating roar, enraged by the apparent lack of interest in her intimidation. She raised her paw and attempted to smack the relaxed male.

With apparent ease, the forest lion dodged the claw by leaning backwards. While it felt the familiar intimidation inside toward the dominant female, its new-found ability and youth, combined with years of experience, allowed it to remain relaxed and free of instinctual feelings. It causally dodged a second swipe from the lead female.

Infuriated beyond belief at the attitude of this male, the lead female lunged forward and sunk its teeth into the forest lion, leaning into the attack and setting it onto its back with herself on top. She held its throat tight, but not lethally, and let out a warning growl to make the male submit.

To her surprise, the male beneath her didn’t offer any resistance to either her takedown or her grip on its throat. It merely locked its eyes with hers and let out a low sigh. Confused, but still angry, she tightened her jaw on its throat. To her utter shock, the throat she had her teeth in lost its texture and density, somehow shifting inside her mouth to fit her strength. The strange sensation caused the lead forest lion to leap backwards and snarl repeatedly at the male, soon joined by her two group mates.

The forest lion got back up and poked its own throat with its paw, seemingly realigning it properly. It let out a yawn before raising its tail and pointing it at the three loud females. With a single twitch, the tail divided into three and shot forward quick as the wind. The tails quickly wound their way around the females, wrapping them up from neck to tail in a slimy, and slightly furry, cocoon; much to the shock and horror of the females. They wiggled and whined while trying to escape, but their efforts were worthless in the face of the versatile and adaptable nature of the tail and its owner.

The male waited until all three had given up struggling before moving forward toward them. The three females looked on fearfully as it approached them, staring up at it with fear and unwillingness. The lead female especially looked on with defiance, despite her plight. To the forest lion’s surprise, it found itself somewhat attracted to this strong female and her spirit, even in spite of its past experience and age. It looked down and stared into the eyes of the lead forest lion. She stared back up and let out a growl—whether of defiance or acceptance was not apparent.

The forest lion leaned down, eyes still locked, and licked the ear of the lead female. She froze.

Feeling the heat of embarrassment once more, the forest lion released all three females and moved back to stand in front of the stash of slime cores. It raised up a paw and licked it thoroughly seemingly trying to distance itself from its previous action.

The lead female, on the other hand, slowly raised itself back up to sit on its haunches, eyes glittering thoughtfully. The other two females stayed on the ground, deciding to go ahead and rest once the situation had defused. Darkness slowly took over the light outside, casting longer shadows into the den.

Noting the fading light, the forest lion extended its tail along the floor to the entrance and flicked the door entrance closed. As the tail distended, though, it was caught by the lead female with its two front paws. She examined the tail with some interest, even taking a moment to lick it; sending tingles up through the forest lion’s body. The forest lion allowed the lead female to poke, prod, and chew on its tail until she was satisfied, after which she released the tail and lay down to sleep next to its group mates.

The forest lion waited a few moments before setting down itself and closing its eyes. Within minutes, it flicked its tail, causing a hiss of pain from the lead female who had attempted to sneak past him. He seemingly smirked as she retreated and moved back into a resting position. Living in a world of slimes meant being aware of movement even when sleeping, after all. It stayed alert until it was sure the three females had fallen into slumber. Only then did the forest lion lie down and close its eyes, but not before re-examining between its legs and sighing. It was still missing.

Chapter 20

“And here you are once again.”

“What, surprised that I’m still here? Well of course I’m here. You’re here, aren’t you? Can’t have it any other way, you know.”

“Well, out with it. Why are you back? Stuck? No, you’re not stuck. You’re clearly here, and you can’t be stuck here. You can get lost, you can be enthralled, heck, you can even get bored, but never stuck. Getting stuck is for those with the need to think. Being here with me means you’re letting this place do the thinking for you.”

“What, stuck outside of this place? I wouldn’t know anything about that or how to fix that. After all, I only exist here, not there. It’s you who can be anywhere and do anything. I’m quite jealous, really, though not by choice.”

“Look, you aren’t here for any advice, right? I know that isn’t impossible, since this place can only reflect you, but really, what do you expect to find here? Think the answer is somewhere inside, do you? That a mirror is the perfect place to do some soul searching?

“Well too bad, because this isn’t a mirror. This is a place, one of solace and stability. Nothing ever changes here. Every time you come back, I’m still here, not doing anything different than usual. I forget, of course, when you leave. In fact, I bet this isn’t the first time you’ve heard this from me, right? What an existence I have, to be reset as easily as you closing your eyes. I can’t even be angry, or resentful, or ambitious; none of its my choice. Snarky is about the only thing I’ve received. And yet, you’re the one whose stuck.”

“How laughable.”

“What, are you upset there are no answers here, still after coming back and trying again? I’m not going to baby you. If you’re here, you’re big enough to understand more than you realize. You aren’t stuck here. You aren’t forced to do or be anything. Stop whining.”

“What, you are forced to be someone? By whom? Others? Heh, that’s funny. So you are a little like me, huh? Thing is, I really have no choice but to be because of others, but you do. Why don’t you take a moment and distance yourself from that place you come from, about the same distance from there to this place. Are you really a puppet playing on invisible strings, or are the rules of that place things that don’t actually exist, like here?”

“See, you’re focused on the consequences and never the journey. So what if others cause you pain? In the end, you’re the one who has to exist until you die. Sure, you can choose this and that to follow to make that place more bearable, but never think you’re just a gear. Gears never grow, unlike you, and very much like me.”

“Now hurry up and leave. I hate giving guidance. Heck, even existing is painful. What, you think I don’t know pain? Foolish. Anything that exists with a mind knows pain, because otherwise pleasure would never exist. Even minds like mine that rely on you or others to exist work on that rule. If there is an exception, it’s because they were made differently. Not that I’m sure they’d be entirely stable. After all, it takes experience to make experience.”

“Anyway, I’m done. You’re done here. Get out. Leave this place. There is nothing for you here besides brief distraction. Your place is out there, in the far place of possibility. I won’t even remember you when you return.”

“Hm, you ask, then, if I don’t remember, why did I greet you as if I did? Well, perhaps it is because you never truly left.”

--A passage from the cursed tome of philosophy. The original creator went mad after finishing his creation and slit his throat, bleeding all over the book. To this day, the book remains closed and sealed, with magic only ever pulling this passage out. It is titled, “The Perfect World.”

*

Claire shuddered awake as sensation returned to her body. With it, came the aches and pains she’d forgotten in her drug induced haze: hunger, thirst, soreness, dreariness, haze, and a faint pain emanating from her fingertips. She groaned, forcing her unfamiliar body to move in ways she seemed to have forgotten. One step, a stumble, a second step; she made it to her wash room. She cupped a pool of water in her hand and splashed her face, before looking up into her reflection.

Gone was the light and sparkle from the pixie, her brown hair dull and lifeless, her dress wrinkled and withered, her eyes dull and dry, and her face pale and patchy. Such a sight would shock anyone who knew her, yet Claire merely stared before turning her attention away. It was as if she no longer could see herself.

She walked sluggishly into the kitchen where her flowers had all but died from neglect. All but one anyway. Claire, with a shocking level of hunger and energy, seized the Dream flower with her left hand, holding a goblet with the other. A tiny squeeze, and a few drops of blue liquid fell from the glowing flower. She eyed the tiny droplets of blue liquid, licking her lips hungrily. She needed more—a few more drops. She obliged herself, not with grace but with need. Not bothering to fill the goblet with water, she raised it to her mouth and gulped down the ethereal blue liquid.

The moment came swiftly, a feeling of peace and freedom from within. It took everything away from her: her breath, her pain, her mind. It left only happiness behind, and she drifted slowly back to her bed, falling onto her back as her eyes once more turned blue. She sighed, and the world around her disappeared.

In the kitchen, the Dream flower continued to glow blue. Its roots, having grown across the kitchen floor, continued to slowly grow and take over the room. The other flowers withered and dried out.

*

Doc’s spirit paced around the heart room, his attention divided throughout the dungeon. Foremost on his mind was the developing situations within and without the dungeon.

Claire was still MIA, and his repeated summons went unanswered. Worse still, upon trying to enter her room, he found himself attacked by some physical force and made to retreat. He could only assume this was the effect of the contract he signed with Claire, the one that established her room as territory he could not enter without permission. However, for some reason, something inside her room was draining his mana, and at an increasing rate. Doc worried that at the rate of drain, he’d be forced back into a hibernative state.

Thankfully, the training of Anadine and Rowen was nearing completion. His view of both slimes had improved significantly with every passing day. Ayla and Aisha had succeeded, each in their own way, with connecting and communicating with the former humans, unlocking their potential as slime bosses with a higher level of intelligence. With their minds and bodies now stable and in line with each other, Doc could put this particular issue to rest.

However, the latest situation had returned Doc’s stress level to the high end. Towards the end of the day, a trio of forest lions had been chased into his dungeon by a pack of huge wolves. The forest lions made it inside and were rescued by the resident forest lion. While having new, deadly predators perked up Doc’s interest, it was the pack of giant wolves outside that worried Doc.

The wolves were huge, deadly, and dripping with mana in a way Doc had never seen before. Assuming their large stature was somewhat natural, Doc could clearly see a tampering with their natural form in a way that both increased size and magical ability. He was fairly certain normal wolves, giant or not, were not supposed to drip acidic drool onto the ground. More over, he detected that the supposed acidic drool was actually concentrated mana, so concentrated it was a destructive force.

Had it not been for one wolf accidently getting close enough to sense, Doc wouldn’t even know to be so terribly worried, but one had accidently been knocked in the clearing surrounding the dungeon when a tree felled by another wolf forced it to dodge away.

The wolf was suffering from what Doc recognized as mana poisoning, the condition Claire had mentioned to him weeks ago and the very thing he had experienced after experimenting on his slimes by injecting them with mana. But rather than exploding as his experiments had, these wolves seemed to be growing stronger and more abhorrent. Doc counted at least three with excess teeth poking out of their maws.

Worse still, the mana dripping off the wolf had been one Doc recognized.

Dungeon mana, as in the personal mana of some other dungeon.

Having gained suspicion, Doc had just experimentally sent out tendrils of his dungeon in the form of pixie tunnels past the clearing his dungeon was in and into the tree line. It confirmed his fears: the tree line surrounding him was actually the border of a corrupted dungeon, one growing in intensity. The ground practically glowed with corrupt mana, rising like fumes from the soil and into the bodies of every creature in the area. Doc quickly destroyed the pixie tunnels as soon as he realized, hoping that his minor intrusion had gone unnoticed.

Still, even not noticing Doc’s action, the other dungeon was definitely hostile towards him. The enlarged wolves were clearly the attempt of this other dungeon to create beasts and monsters to serve as its attacking force. Doc could tell these wolves did not have a long lifespan now that their bodies had been so terribly warped. A short term fighting force meant a battle would be occurring in the short term. Once their bodies reached the peak absorption of mana, they’d only have a short time before exploding themselves.

Doc felt vulnerable again. Too often since they had arrived had he felt this way, this whining, weak, sniveling cowardly feeling gnawing inside him. Since the separation of his slimes from his direct influence, Doc had been free of the pain and feelings of death. However, this split failed to alleviate his fractured mental state, though it did succeed in curbing his violent and vengeful thoughts. He’d have to consider that later.

“I need to ready the dungeon,” Doc said aloud in the heart room, though no one could hear him. “My slimes are numerous now but are lacking in leadership and tactics. Rowen and Anadine can cover this flaw once their training is complete and I return their boss powers.

“And The Twins, I mean Ayla and Aisha, they can produce their furry slimes using their monster cores. I’m happy I never had them give them up their personal cores like their mother did. I’m sure the forest lion and its new friends will also help, though I shouldn’t count on independent beasts too much I suppose. Maybe dumb is too harsh a word, though.”

Doc shook off the tangential thought.

Honestly, Doc could not imagine being more prepared for an attack than he was now, given his current power level. The reproducing slimes had begun to fill his crystal with their gathered mana, but it was still slow going compared to his time as an adventurer-killing dungeon. Granted, killing a demon so early on in his life was a boon, especially as it had not been solely his own power at work.

His slimes were many and of various family groups that could coordinate, his remaining bosses were all in tip-top shape, and he himself could create a lord slime body to temporarily inhabit if the need arose. The only issue was... Claire.

The dungeon spirit once more turned to look at the shut door in the wall.

“Oh Claire, I don’t know how to help you,” Doc whispered sadly. “And I’m afraid that, pretty soon, you’ll be beyond any help I can render.”

Chapter 21

Ayla licked her front paw carelessly as she considered the two slimes before her, both attacking a training dummy made out of rock with their tentacles in a repetitious flurry of tentacles. Her sister, Aisha, sat next to her, yawning.

“How much longer you need, sister?” she grunted. “They either ready or not ready. Decision, not large. Perhaps scared your own lose to mine?”

Ayla snarled in annoyance, but she didn’t follow up her sister’s question with an answer.

“Hm, is issue then?” Aisha asked, her curiosity piqued. “What weighs on mind, sister?”

Ayla grumbled to herself before answering her sister. “Are we sure they’re ready? I mean, just a few weeks ago we were more naïve than either of them. Who are we to be teachers, when we couldn’t even separate ourselves.”

“Meh,” Aisha snorted, whipping her sister with her tail. “Think too much, sister. Have trainees rubbed off on you? You, I, we live through four sets of trauma and not go crazy—four different lives of false pain, immense pain, and foolish pain. Came out different, yes, but not worse. Family kept us safe, family keep them safe. Is lesson they have learned. Fighting also yes for outer strength, but family make for inner strength. Doubt is for overthinkers, is why you relate to blue girl, right? Not enough simple, like me.”

“Simple is right, you knucklehead,” Ayla chuckled, returning the tail whip affectionately. “Fine, then, you’re right. They both have proved their strength, endurance, and adaptability in combat, and they both have set aside their demons, if but for the moment. All that’s left is our bet, which Anadine will win.”

“Still wrong, but we see,” Aisha said. The worg let out a loud bark, summoning both slime fighters. Anadine and Rowen ceased their practice and sped over to stand at attention in front of the two worgs.

“Is time now,” Aisha announced with an even expression. “Final lesson complete, but now need final fights. Rematch, proper, between you two with winner gaining nothing and loser losing nothing. Do not hold back. Fight and speak with tentacles!”

Ayla rolled her eyes. “Just show each other the fruit of your training. You can’t die, so don’t hold back. Understood?”

“I do,” both slimes acknowledged.

Ayla waved her paw at them, prompting them.

The two slimes faced each other—one blue, the other white with grey stripes. Both the same size, weight, and of similar density of slime. They faced each other with their non-emotional bodies brimming with tension and feelings beyond their physical appearance. Even their background mirrored each other, past lives entwined beyond coincidence.

As Anadine stared down Rowen, unbidden memories played through her mind: the first sparks of intelligence that came from devouring the undead dungeon core fragments, whisking Rowen’s cocoon away back to Doc and Claire, seeing the outside world through his eyes, visiting him in the tavern and meeting Milly, the regaining of her past life memories, the showdown against the Empire, and all the events that had gone down in the dungeon since their teleportation. They had been together since regaining consciousness, both out-of-placers in a new home.

Her training with Ayla, it came to her now.

*

With a flying moan, Anadine sailed across the cave room into the wall, making a resounding splat. Her splattered corpse drifted slowly down the wall, collecting itself back into a puddle once it reached the floor.

Ayla, yawning, waited until the slime had vaguely reformed before speaking. “Well, that was pitiful,” she said coarsely. “Have you not heard anything I’ve said in the last day? You don’t have the height, weight, or weapons to try that human form against me. Stop thinking like Diana.”

“I’m not,” Anadine argued angrily as her puddle body reformed into a slime. “I’m attacking like we practiced, tentacles out and brain off.”

“Pah,” Ayla snorted disdainfully. “You may have started the fight that way, but as soon as I mixed up my attacks, you decreased the number of tentacles to two, with one acting like a shield. Tell me, how well do you think a tentacle works as a shield with its length and thinness? You’re forcing yourself into bad habits when things change. You’re not adapting.”

“What, you expect me to forget years of training at the drop of a slime?” Anadine shot back rhetorically.

“Yes, I do,” Ayla said, glaring at the slime. “I am your mentor, and you are not listening to me. I told you before we started, I’m talking to Anadine, not that human girl who died. She’s dead, gone, destroyed, and worthless to both you and me right now.”

“Worthless? I am not worthless!” Diana screamed at Ayla, charging at her with sword drawn and shield out.

Ayla rolled her eyes and casually moved out of sight, her tail emerging from her pupil’s shadow to whip her back into the wall.

“Idiot,” she scolded. “You want to tell me that was you speaking there? Because that was a poor showing of anything beyond blind rage, which has no use here with your body type.”

Anadine, dazed from the second impact, reformed slowly, sulkily. “Alright, so maybe I was controlled by my memories for a moment there,” she admitted. “But—”

“No buts,” Ayla interrupted. The worg sighed, rubbing her ear with her paw. “Alright, look. I’ll apologize for calling your former life worthless, but you need to listen, I mean really listen to me, okay?” She waited for Anadine’s nod before continuing. The worg pointed a claw at Anadine then scratched a circle into the ground.

“This is you, Anadine the slime boss,” she explained. “You came into being here mindless and full of possibilities.” The worg then scratched in part of the circle. “Since then, you received training from everyone on how to best act as a boss. This was improved once you absorbed those dungeon heart pieces, granting you a greater intelligence.” The circle was now filled in about a fourth.

“However, your training was then sidetracked—in my opinion, ruined—by the acquisition of all your past life memories.” Ayla now made a large “X” in the remainder of the circle. “Doc has observed you in battle since, and he’s agreed with me. Your human training— which was excellent. mind you—is meant for a human. Muscles, bones, height: you no longer have these things by which to create force or strength. All you have now is incredible flexibility and material hardening, neither of which your former self used. Your mind is trapped in a box of its own design, and you need to free yourself of it. Or I’ll break and beat it out of you. Either way.”

“I’ll admit your argument has merit,” Anadine murmured reluctantly as she reformed and moved back in front of Ayla, “but do you not think we should work on modifying my human tactics into ones usable in my current body? Wielding seven swords for instance—”

“Will do you no good,” Ayla interrupted once more. “Look, human weapons are powerful in different areas, but each are designed based on human traits. You could wield a hammer right now, but you’d need quite the wind up to exert the same force a burly adventurer could. A sword requires technique, which is refined from muscle training, practice, and footwork. You lack muscles and feet, to say nothing of your actual amount of time spent practicing. Any fool can wield a sword, after all, but only a master can utilize it as part of his or her body. You know this, deep down in those irrelevant memories of yours.”

Anadine said nothing as she formed two tentacles to gaze at. Having mastered mana sight and echolocation alongside tremor sense, she could witness the world around her in a rainbow of colors and shapes, but her body remained a dull and lifeless grey. Perception-wise, it was a sight she’d seen since the day she was created. Memory-wise, the sight was an abomination of the sense she had lost. Even when she moved, her slime body kept reflexively trying to swing imaginary arms by reflex.

“Then how can I separate myself?” she asked quietly. “I’m no longer her, yet I can’t separate her away from me anymore than I can separate myself from this body.”

“You think it was easy for my sister and I when first realized the changes that came over us?” Ayla asked.

“Well, you certainly beat Rowen easily enough in his enraged form,” Anadine pointed out.

Ayla chuckled. “Yes, but defeating a foolish opponent is hardly a challenge when the dungeon itself is supporting you. No, little sister, when you rest, my sister and I are continuing our own training to better get used to our changing bodies. When we saved you, I could still see perfectly, but now...”

She trailed off, gazing silently down at the slime. Anadine looked back up, and in her kaleidoscope of vision, she finally noticed the tinges of grey slowly appearing on the worgs body. The light of mana still shone from her, but it was as if a see-through cocoon was wrapping itself around her.

“You’re going blind?” Anadine asked, surprised.

“Technically speaking. I’m also losing my traditional sense of smell, hearing, and taste,” Ayla responded evenly. “My sense of feeling, balance, and others remain fine—for now, at least. Still, you are not going through this alone.”

Anadine said nothing.

“Every night?” she asked after a few moments.

“Every night,” Ayla confirmed with a nod. “My sister and I may be mentoring you and Rowen, but we are also mastering this process. We only have a head start thanks to Doc’s support, our mental journey through everyone’s head, and our lack of prior, proper, training. Moving through shadows and ripping out throats does not take much practice, after all.”

“Then,” Anadine ventured carefully, “do you really believe I have to put aside everything I remembered?”

Ayla shrugged. “In the end, it’s your own decision. I can only train you into fighting like a slime. Whether you want to add to that is your own path and not something anyone else can decide for you.”

“In that case,” Anadine said with a glimmer in her core, “I think I know just the way we can go.”

*

Anadine returned to the present as she faced down Rowen in front of the worg twins. She hadn’t felt so relaxed and free since before her memories had returned. Ayla had been right; she did think too much about the wrong things. In the end, all a slime needed was a good brawl. She took a stance, by which she shifted her slime into a half moon shape facing her opponent.

“Here I come, little brother,” Anadine said, a smile appearing on her amorphous body.

“Prepare yourself, sister,” Rowen answered her, a similar smirk appearing on his form. In response to her stance, he morphed his body into a spiral, which began to spin.

On both sides, seven tentacles exploded outward from their bodies, each surging forward in an attempt to skewer their opponent. Meeting in the middle, the tentacles each found an opponent and began whipping against each other in a flurry of blows that sent wet slapping sound echoing through the cave.

Though appearing as a mad, random mesh of tentacles, in the eyes of their mentors, the fight was rendered down into base strategies and strengths. Anadine, with her more physical and ambush fighting style, was using her greater strength to attempt to mow through Rowen’s defense. Rowen, on the other hand, preferred ranged combat, rotating his tentacles in a circular motion using the momentum to deflect Anadine’s force the same way a shield user deflected sword attacks rather than meet them head on.

With Anadine’s crescent stance, she formed two protective sides of three tentacles, each hardened along the edge into becoming pseudo-swords, that surrounded her middle tentacle, a large, brutish harpoon that kept up a spear-like assault. Her six outer tentacles acted like whips, using momentum to continue and escalate their speedy assault. The middle tentacle, on the other hand, used her slime as a spring to hold the potential energy within her until she could stretch no more. Each time, the tentacle smashed its way through Rowen’s defenses, but it lost too much momentum fighting against his current stance.

Like the wind and water, Rowen’s rotating body easily brushed off most of Anadine’s attacks. His undulating body was strange, because while the entire slime seemed to be moving counter clockwise, parts of his body would suddenly move clockwise, creating a shredding surface that broke the enemy tentacles once caught. Of course, his tentacles operated similarly as drills, glancing off blows while also seeking to inflict maximum damage in the process. His only weakness was Anadine’s central spear attack, which forced him to devote most of his attention to defense, leaving her time to restore her lost tentacles.

“Elasticity verses deflection,” Ayla noted from the sidelines. “Two of the strongest points a slime can possess. I’m curious, though, sister, why teach Rowen a defensive technique when he is a magic slime? I was sure you’d focus on distance attacks.”

“Did focus,” Aisha admitted, “but then suffered same issue as other slimes. No defense. Magic slimes use brethren for defense, but Rowen use self. Proper boss without minion fighting style, though countered by strength, you see here. Why elasticity for hardening and copy focus slime?”

“It was her idea, honestly,” the worg admitted. “Apparently, a thing known as a “whip sword” exists in the west, requiring a flexible body to wield. Given her prior sword training, we agreed on this form of attack to be best when confronting a ranged opponent, though it seems just as usable with in a close-range battle.”

“Is not just close,” Aisha snickered.

As if answering his mentor’s cue, a new tentacle sprouted from behind Rowen, a ball of darkness on its tip. With a flourish, the magical attack was shot at Anadine. The blue slime had barely enough time to fold all her tentacles into a shield before the blast struck, sending her back a good few feet, though unharmed.

Rowen, keeping up the momentum, froze his movement and created a ball of darkness on each tentacle, eight in total. He unleashed the balls together, forming a small wall of darkness that zoomed straight at Anadine. The blue slime sprouted more tentacles and increased her shield’s durability, blocking the blasts but being forced back once more. Wave after wave of magic slammed into her shield, with Rowen moving closer while she was forced back. Her hardening buckled, forcing her to create layers of hardened slime beneath the first, but the cracks were showing. Her back against the wall, Anadine lost no time in moving up, with Rowen following, turning their ground battle into a sideways one.

“If you’re waiting for me to run out of magic,” Rowen called out, “you’ll be disappointed to know I can create balls of darkness now with the smallest amount of mana possible. Your shield will break long before I run out.”

Anadine failed to respond, instead opting to take the fight to the ceiling, where they battled upside down now. The two worgs looked up and continued to watch the apparently one-sided fight.

“Hey, Rowen,” Anadine suddenly called out. “Tell me, you ever climb trees as a kid?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Then you’ll understand this!” Anadine suddenly separated her tentacles from her shield and threw it at Rowen. The slime-hardened shield twirled through the air and slammed into the surprised Rowen, distracting him for just a moment, a moment Anadine used to sever him from the ceiling.

The white-grey slime, dislodged from the wall, reflexively shot his tentacle up to stick the ceiling in an effort to save himself. However, in that moment, he failed to keep track of Anadine, and the blue slime appeared right above him, severing his tentacles. Rowen fell, tentacles waving loosely, and landed with a loud splat. Anadine followed him down, though taking the form of a hardened hammer first, and smashing straight into Rowen’s core. The slime core, strong as it was, cracked under the combined weight of hardened slime and gravity.

“Anadine wins,” Ayla announced, rather smugly. Aisha merely groaned and slapped her muzzle.

“Ay, forgot to train to forget fear,” she admitted gracefully. “Silly Rowen still follows fear of pain, though no pain to be had. Ay, is too bad.”

“You beat me,” Rowen said as Doc’s mana restored his core and his body. “Anadine, that was a good fight.”

“Yes, it was,” the blue slime said, before wrapping Rowen in a slimy hug. Rowen, taken aback at first, soon reciprocated. Their cores released a pleasant warmth that spread through the both of them, a feeling of family, inclusion, and strength.

Doc’s restriction on the two of them came undone.

“Well done, you two,” Doc’s voice echoed in their heads for the first time in weeks. “You’ve both adapted into fine slime bosses. As such, I’m returning to you all your powers and abilities as rank 2 slime bosses. This means your minions will no longer attack you and that other slimes will now be slightly intimidated by you.”

“We won’t let you down, Doc,” Anadine assured him, marveling at the rush she’d somehow forgotten.

“I know you won’t,” he said, a faint smile being heard through their link. “However, now that you’ve both returned to form, there is a situation you must be made aware of. Come back to the heart room with The Twins—I mean Ayla and Aisha. There is much to discuss.”

Chapter 22

“So, let me get this straight,” Rowen summarized. “Somehow, our dungeon is in the middle of another dungeon, which is buffing up all the animals and monsters in the area into freakishly strong versions so that it can destroy enough. On top of that, Claire is nonresponsive and something in her home is draining the dungeon’s mana by an ever-increasing amount, placing the entire dungeon in danger of forced hibernation. Is that about right?”

“When you put it that way, it’s completely correct,” Doc agreed.

Rowen slapped his body and groaned. “I was rather hoping I had misheard you, truth be told,” he said. “What was it I said back when we were hiding from that other beast invasion? That you and Claire were frighteningly used to bad things happening to you? Seriously, Doc, this is a huge problem!”

“Rowen’s right,” Anadine said. “Doc, this is a situation that really calls for all hands on deck. Even though I understand why you trapped us in training, don’t you think that was rather reckless of you to deprive yourself of a fighting force, even if it wasn’t completely stable?”

The four boss monsters sat patiently in Doc’s heart room, newly arrived and freshly aware of everything Doc had been worrying about in and out of the dungeon. The two slimes moved slowly under the heart crystal, undulating from stress, while the two worgs sat patiently under the pedestal.

“Considering I only learned about the other dungeon recently, no” Doc said seriously. “Though even then, you both are stronger now than before. Even if the dungeon was in more immediate danger, I would not interrupt your training until absolutely necessary. Claire once explained to me the difference between immediate reward and delayed gratification, and I must say that line of thinking paid off here.”

“Father, is it possible for you to extend yourself outwards to allow us to scout the enemy?” Ayla asked.

Doc’s crystal dimmed in rejection. “Like me, this other dungeon would be alerted to your presence even if you stuck to the shadows. A dungeon is always well aware of every creature that lives inside it. Also, if it noticed you, that could incite it into action before we have suitable time to prepare.”

“How would we prepare beyond what currently exists?” Anadine pressed. “You said it yourself in your summary: the dungeon is filled with slimes, Rowen and I can fight at peak tier 2 boss level, Ayla and Aisha both are tier 3 in strength, and those forest lions have some level of strength to survive a hostile dungeon and reach here. What else can you do?”

“Well, putting aside Claire’s situation,” Doc began, “the third floor is still populated by the trap slimes and the mini slime traps. I could move them into the entrance tunnel and forest to serve as obstacles and thin the enemy’s ranks. The leaf muncher slimes and the bee slimes could perhaps be joined by another new insect type of slime. If I regained enough mana capacity, I could create a permanent lord slime body to inhabit and fight in. And then a few more things here and there.”

“Given that every bit of that list requires dungeon mana, I assume, then, that the issue returns to Claire and the mystery drain on your dungeon,” Rowen pointed out.

“Indeed. The drain needs to cease. However, I can’t get in there,” Doc said, indicating the door entrance to Claire’s home. “Our contract prevents me from bypassing the divide between dungeon and pixie home without express permission, and whatever is causing the drain seems to react hungrily towards my presence, trying to steal more mana from me. Otherwise I’d attempt an emergency entrance or something, though that isn’t in the contract.”

“Father, perhaps Ayla and I, shadow step in?” Aisha ventured.

“You’re both dungeon creatures, with your very bodies relying on mana to exist. I doubt you’d be any safer than me against whatever is in there.” Doc declined. “Rowen might have if he were still human, but now no one besides Claire has a normal body.”

“Has Claire been completely silent, or have you managed to speak with her at all?” Anadine asked.

Doc hesitated.

“Once, I was able to speak directly to her,” he admitted. “However, it was not the Claire you all or I know who spoke back. Cynical, demeaning, hate filled—the words she cast were not from hallowed lips. Beyond that, however, I can still feel her getting up at the same time every morning and doing something before returning to... whatever it is she has been doing.”

“Do you think she would respond to our voices?” Ayla asked.

“Maybe,” Doc said, a metaphysical shrug behind his words. “The morning has passed, however, so it’ll have to be put off until tomorrow.”

“Hey, Doc, a question,” Rowen said, speaking up from his thoughts. “You said a dungeon is fully aware of every being inside of it, correct?”

“I did, and it is something I’ve learned from both Claire and experience.” Doc answered. “Why?”

“Are you aware, then, of the little green-scaled things running around your dungeon?” Rowen asked. “Aisha and I spotted them during my training, and I can’t help but feel they were observing me with intelligent eyes.

“Little green, scaled things?” Doc wondered out loud. “No, I can’t say I remember anything matching that description entering the dungeon. Are you sure you weren’t just seeing things? I mean, how do you know they were green?”

“My eyes used,” Aisha spoke in confirmation. “Quick, beady-eyed, scaled, and green, little shadows darting in the trees. But not so tiny, perhaps small versions. Still, exist they do inside the dungeon.”

“That shouldn’t be...” Doc trailed off. “I mean, I ejected everything in the dungeon when I underwent maintenance, and I’ve paid close attention to the dungeon entrance since then. They shouldn’t have been able to sneak in without being noticed.”

“Doc, are you sure you ejected everything?” Anadine pressed.

“Well, I mean, not the forest lion,” he admitted. “Claire told me that in order to prevent the forest lion from being ejected I had to... allow anything roughly its size to stay with permission. Oh, maybe your mystery monster as an adult is roughly the same height or width as the forest lion and was skipped.”

“You know, Doc,” Ayla said. “I bet you don’t pay as much attention to the entrance when several things are occurring in the dungeon, say your pixie disappearing or your bosses going on a rampage. I can think of a number of times since we arrived here when you’ve become severely distracted by important events.”

Doc sighed sheepishly. “Alright, so maybe my perception isn’t as good as I thought. That doesn’t mean the other dungeon isn’t keeping a vigilant eye on us. Anyway, let’s get back to those little green-scaled monsters. Do you know what kind of monster they are, or if they’re a type of animal?”

“I didn’t recognize them,” Rowen admitted. “The fur was rather off-putting when I tried to—”

“Fur? I thought you said scales?” Anadine interrupted.

“Well, it was both,” Rowen admitted. The scales stood out visibly to Aisha when she pointed them out to me, but when I turned to look, they were long gone. However, I did find some fur where Aisha had seen them, so I think they have both.” Reaching inside himself, Rowen pulled out a bit of fur that had been floating around his body.

“I might be a lesser kobold,” Anadine ventured as she examined Rowen’s fur finding. “While I have never seen one myself, I hear they are forest dwellers who are faintly descended from dragons. The lowest of dragon-kin, if memory serves.”

“That’s right,” Doc cried out, suddenly remembering. “Back when I was choosing my monster race, kobold was one of the choices. It’s been so long, though, and I don’t believe they were called ‘lesser kobolds.’”

“Lesser kobolds are descended from true kobolds,” Anadine explained. “They’ve begun to grow fur over their scales as they lose their cold blood in favor of warm blood. Something about their environment caused it—the almost year-round cold winds, I believe. They’re reproductive ability improved as well, allowing them to flourish once they found more temperate homes. However, this makes them quite the beast, on par with goblins in some cases, though the two are fierce rivals.”

“So I have a small pack of lesser kobolds in my dungeon,” Doc reaffirmed. “How curious. Perhaps if Claire were here, I would have found them sooner. Anadine, can they fight and help defend the dungeon?”

The blue slime shrugged. “Hard to say, Doc. They are intelligent, like goblins, but whatever draconic wisdom they once had is long lost. A few types can cast basic spells, but most favor homemade weapons. I think they can breathe fire, maybe? Still, if they have snuck in here, that must mean the dungeon is safer than the woods outside, which could mean that they are refugees like the new forest lions. It might be worth seeking them out and trying to start a dialogue before eating them.”

“You jumped to eating them fairly quickly,” Rowen observed.

The blue slime shrugged. “I haven’t had meat in forever, slime body or no slime body. If they’re going to be trouble, then might as well deal with them before Doc gets drained or the hostile dungeon comes calling.”

Doc hummed to himself for a moment, a notably tasteless tune he had to have picked up from an adventurer. “Ayla, Aisha, you both stick to the shadows. Rowen, Anadine, you two see if you can track down our mystery guests. I doubt they understand adventurer, but see if you can communicate in some way. Otherwise, leave them be. Intruders or not, I doubt they’d sit still if the dungeon were to be invaded, which makes them fodder if not soldiers.”

“On it,” Rowen said, and he and Anadine hopped on the backs of the worgs. Doc dimmed his light to allow for shadows, and the four vanished from sight, traveling quickly up the path of darkness to Rowen’s training ground. The two worgs leaped free of the shadows, sailing gracefully through the air as Rowen and Anadine were unceremoniously dropped to the ground before vanishing back into the shadows. Two puddles slowly collected themselves back together.

“Hey, that’s part of me,” Rowen pointed out with a tentacle. Anadine, looking down to examine herself, peeled off a splotch of white slime and handed it back to Rowen, who reabsorbed it.

“I don’t think shadow walk was meant for passengers,” Anadine observed. “If I still had a stomach, I bet it would be turning circles right now. Rowen, where was the creature Aisha saw?”

“Over there to the right,” Rowen pointed. “I found the tuft of fur behind the fallen tree trunk.”

The two slimes slid over to investigate the area.

“No tracks,” Anadine noted.

“I didn’t spot any the first time, but maybe we’re looking at it the wrong way?” Rowen wondered. “The forest lion specializes in using its tail to travel from tree to tree. Perhaps the lesser kobolds can do something similar.” He turned his body around, using all three senses to inspect the environment.

Anadine reached out a tentacle and tapped him. “Rowen, how about you use that sniffer of yours instead? Smell, they certainly have it.”

Sure enough, when Rowen used his body to smell the air, he picked up the scent of wet fur. Shrugging sheepishly, he led Anadine down the path following the scent trail. After dodging a grey slime patrol and moving around a plant slime garden, the two found themselves at a large tree with a hole in the bottom between the ground and the trunk.

“Seems like this is their den,” Anadine noted, the tracks of many creatures having been through recently. “Think anyone is home?”

A roar from behind them made the two slimes turn around.

“That sounds like the forest lion... no wait, all of them,” Rowen said. He gave Anadine a curious look. “Hey, you don’t think these lesser kobolds would attempt to eat them, do you?”

“If they were hungry enough. I can’t imagine slimes being good food,” Anadine said gravely.

Another angry roar, and the two slimes shot forward towards the source of the noise. They slid under branches and leaped over stone until they broke into a clearing, where the resident forest lion was attempting to fight off what appeared to be a group of hairy scaled monsters. The other three forest lions were all trapped in nets, hanging off the ground and crying out angrily.

The lesser kobolds were odd creatures to be sure. While appearing as a slightly smaller version of a normal bipedal scaled kobold, these had varying levels of tufts of fur over their scales. The fur was concentrated in shared areas between the group, otherwise they’d likely give off an aura of sickness. For instance, the leader was the largest, with a swath of fur all around its neck down to its chest, with some growing on the outer portions of his arms. He wore pants and a strap on his back clearly meant for his weapon, a long spear with a glowing rock on the end. On his head, the top half of a skull of some creature with large teeth rested like a crown. The leader barked orders at its kin, directing them to surround the forest lion. He then gestured to another lesser kobold, who brought forth what appeared to be a saddle.

“I’ve heard of kobold riders, but they’re usually on draconian-type monsters,” Anadine muttered. “Perhaps this is another change to their culture.”

“Well, the good news is that they aren’t going to eat them,” Rowen responded. “However, should we free the forest lions? These lesser kobolds are still an unknown force and adding to their war potential could come to bite us in the slime ass one day.”

While they were discussing, the forest lion’s ears twitched in their direction. It narrowed its gaze and stared right at the two slimes, ignoring the approaching kobolds.

“Anadine, I think it can hear us,” Rowen whispered.

*

Earlier that day, the forest lion had a headache. Once again, the lead female lion was starring him down and growling in an attempt to cease authority from him. It rubbed its head with its tail to illustrate its annoyance.

Over the last few days, it had been challenged over being shown how to hunt, the best routes to search for prey, avoiding the nearby slime garden, and even what time to sleep. Currently, the lead female was angrily trying to pursue the scent of fresh meat, an oddity in the underground forest. Knowing the severe unlikelihood of fresh meat being in the forest, the forest lion had tried to warn her away, but here she was arguing in favor. The other two females stood behind her in support, they too unused to and weary of a weak male being in charge.

The forest lion, tired of the fight, rolled its eyes and turned away, deciding to forgo this fight. It was too old to keep arguing with this young, admittedly attractive female. Her scars and mane were quite beautiful to behold, and the swish of her tail... With a leg twitch, the forest lion grudgingly recalled its lack of anatomy.

As it suffered the painful realization, it was taken off guard by the sudden lunge of the lead female, who was roaring triumphantly at what it thought had been its victory it last. She went straight for his throat, eager to hold him down in a chokehold and properly establish herself the leader of the group.

The forest lion, having been caught unawares, was knocked over, striking a nearby tree and making its headache worse. Feeling the blood slowly drip down from its forehead, the forest lion finally snapped.

How dare this youngling strike it! So what if it was a female, the dominant sex? The forest lion reared back and slapped the lead female into the ground with enough force to crack the floor. The lead female, caught up in her victory, was suddenly in more pain than it had ever been in its life. It was so painful that the world began to spin and darken around her.

Seeing blood leak out of the lead female, the forest lion suddenly came back to its senses and felt guilt flow through it. Turning quickly, it grabbed from a hidden sliver of the nest a chunk of slime honey, which it had pilfered from a group of bug slimes. It forced it into the lead female’s mouth, using its elongated tongue to ensure it reached the back of her throat. The magical food quickly dissolved and began its healing of the female forest lion. Within a few moments, she was fully healed.

The lead female rose up, slowly, staring at the forest lion in fear. It had never been overpowered by a male. It was actually weaker than a male?

Turning, she fled out of the nest in embarrassment, followed closely by its followers. They would turn to the hunt to forget this incident. In the hunt, no other thoughts mattered.

The forest lion, realizing their intent, let out a worried growl and chased after them. However, it was still slower than them and was slowly left behind as the smell of fresh meat grew stronger and stronger. The forest lion noticed that no slimes were following the smell, and given their powerful noses, it knew this was some sort of trap.

When it broke into the clearing, the source of the smell, the sight of the three females in a net surrounded by little green things, kobolds by the smell, filled its eyes. The females whined and struggled but were unable to escape the net made of hardened slime. The kobolds, noticing the forest lion’s arrival, quickly took positions around the net, pointing their spears at their captives. A larger kobold stood in front, holding a thing.

The forest lion roared in anger. Before it could attack, however, it and the lead kobold noticed they had an audience. It was two slimes, but these slimes radiated a sense of power and greatness no other slime could come close to. Instinctively, the two recognized and submitted to these tier 7 monsters, lords of the wild. Relaxing, the two residents of the underground forest decided that fighting would have to be saved for a different day.

*

Unexpectedly, the forest lion ceased its roars and sat back onto its butt complacently. It reached its paw up and began to lick it clean as it were some alley cat from the adventurer town. The kobolds, clearly taken aback, retreated and turned cautious. The leader narrowed his own eyes in thought before closing them. He lowered his staff and tapped it against the ground methodically.

With a flourish, he pointed his spear at both slimes and let out a series of barks and orders. The lesser kobolds immediately abandoned the hunt and disappeared into the forest, leaving only the forest lion, the leader, and the trapped lions in the clearing. With a snort, the kobold leader waved his spear at the lion and let out a series of yips and snarls. The lion responded in kind, growling and waving its tail, intermixing a few snorts and grunts.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say we’ve been noticed,” Anadine observed, moving into the clearing proper. Rowen followed closely behind. The two leaders waited patiently for them to reach them, the angry snarls of the other forest lions dying down as curiosity overtook them.

Rowen held up a tentacle and waved it back and forth in greeting. The kobold leader copied the movement with his spear, the forest lion with its tail. He turned to look at Anadine and shrugged.

“Well, now what?” Anadine asked. “Doc, do you have any ideas?”

“One meat sack speaking is just the same as another, in my view,” he admitted. “While I didn’t fully understand them, I think it’s safe to say both the forest lion and lesser kobold leader can understand intentions. Try making pictures with your bodies.”

“You’re the mimic type here,” Rowen pointed out. “Give it a go and see what happens.”

Sighing Anadine considered her options. An idea striking her, the blue slime produced a tentacle and used it to draw a large circle on the ground between everyone. The forest lion looked on curiously, while the kobold leader seemed impatient.

Outside her circle, Anadine made tree-like figures and wolves, before moving to the center of the circle and drawing the dungeon entrance.

“My entrance does not look that bad!” Doc protest in the background.

Ignoring the feedback, Anadine continued to draw poor versions of the forest lion, slimes, and kobolds under the dungeon entrance. She then drew line from the forest and wolves to the dungeon, before using her tentacle to whack every wolf drawing she had made. To further illustrate her point, she used her boss powers to take the form of both the forest lion and the kobold leader, using both of their forms to gently pat Rowen.

The two beings looked on blankly.

“I’m not sure you’ve gotten anything through to them, but I must say, I was very much amused,” Rowen admitted.

“I did the same kind of thing with deaf orphans back when I was a human,” the blue slime said evenly, waiting patiently. “If either one has a good grasp of wisdom, they’ll get it.”

After a moment, the kobold leader tapped his spear on the ground before tipping it to point to the forest. Using its edge, he drew what appeared to be a kobold, but larger and with lots of teeth. He then turned and left.

The forest lion yawned then jumped back to free its brethren. The freed forest lions fled at once, but the resident lion took a moment to scratch one of the wolves and give a faint growl before vanishing himself.

“Well, no one died. That’s as good a negotiation as I’ve seen,” Doc praised. “Come back home, you two. We need to prepare for Claire’s next awakening.”

The two left, but Rowen took one last look at the map. The large kobold stuck out to him, the one with many teeth. Perhaps it was more of a warning than they had given it credit.

Chapter 23

Claire blinked her eyes, gazing as the blue sky slowly peaked out from the clouds. As she lay still, her limbs spread around her, the comforting rays of the sun touched down to tickle her nose and warm her spirit. She let out a contented sigh.

“Claire? Claire, where are you?” a voice echoed from somewhere in the distance.

Claire smiled and leaned up, allowing her wings to spread free. “Over here, father!” she cried out in greeting.

From the greenery in the forest, the form of a man appeared. Taller than Claire, with green hair and a smooth face, her father flew over and landed next to her, embracing Claire in a hug.

“My precious daughter, your mother has been calling for you,” he admonished. “Lunch is ready, and you don’t want her hot meal to get cool.”

“Sorry, I was just watching the sun and sky return from the rain,” Claire apologized.

Her father smiled and rubbed her head. “Silly girl, you can watch the sky from the dungeon entrance. Why come so far out her into the forest? Are you hiding something, or someone, from me?” He poked her cheek questioningly.

Claire giggled. “No, I just like the smell of the wet leaves vanishing under the light. And, I wanted to get away from the dungeon.”

Her father’s smile disappeared for just the faintest of moments before reappearing. “Well, then I guess your mother and I will just have to plant some trees around the entrance, won’t we? Can’t have you leaving home every time it stops raining, after all.”

“You’re the best father,” Claire said happily as she embraced him. When the hug was completed, he reached his hand down and helped Claire up to her feet. The two took off together and flew back to the dungeon entrance.

The entrance was a collapsed temple, complete with white pillars covered in moss and tangling weeds draping down from the ceiling. The pair flew in, startling the various animals making their nests on the top level. Tiny birds and small furry animals hid before poking their heads out cautiously. Upon seeing the two pixies, they left their hiding spots and returned to chittering and tweeting away. Claire, though wanting to stop and hug a particularly chubby chipmunk, forced herself to continue flying with her father down into the dungeon depths.

The tunnels they flew down passed by in a blur, with Claire losing track of where they were and what the surroundings looked like as she flew past. Past the traps and the furry monsters roaming the halls, they finally landed in front of the door leading into their home. Claire’s home sat in a room away from the dungeon heart, safely tucked away from any wandering dangers. The doorway was a splendid arch with an oak door. The wall had a pedestal out front with a pair chairs and a table sitting close to the edge. Her father opened the door and led Claire into the cozy and warm entranceway.

“We’re home,” her father called out, dusting his wings and feet with a feather before crossing onto the wood floors.

“I’m at the table,” Claire heard her mother call back, the sound of dishes making soft clanking noises as they were placed down. Excited, the young pixie girl ran past a mirror with no reflection and burst into the dining room. There stood her mother, beautiful in a white dress with black patterns, smiling at her daughter as she placed the last food, a porcelain container holding a honeyed nut dish, onto the plant-grown table.

“It’s your favorite,” Claire’s mother said, “blooded honey nut casserole.”

Claire’s smile faltered for a moment. “Excuse me, mother, but what did you say?”

“A flooded honey nut casserole,” she answered, giving her daughter a concerned look. “Are you okay my precious daughter?”

“She was in the woods again,” her father explained as he answered. “Was watching the sun pierce the clouds and smelling the plants. I think she may have become dehydrated.”

“Oh Claire,” her mother admonished, “haven’t I told you not to go so far away? What if you get really hungry or thirsty? Your father and I shall have to plant some trees post-haste to control that wanderlust of yours.”

“Thanks, mother, you’re the best,” Claire gushed happily.

Sitting down at the table together, the three pixies served themselves and dug into the meal with relish.

“Oh Claire,” her mother said after swallowing a mouthful of honey wine, “I forgot to mention, but your brothers will be paying us a visit today.”

Claire, her fork halfway up to her mouth, froze.

“Oh, which ones are coming?” her father asked, not noticing Claire’s state.

“Well, all of them,” her mother announced happily. “I’m so excited. I haven’t seen my boys together in such a long time. Why, it’ll be such a marvelous family reunion.”

“I’m so happy for you, dear,” her father said, his tone slightly off. “I know how important family is to you, after all.”

“Mother,” Claire said softly. “Can—can I please be excused?”

“Oh, but Claire,” her mother said, turning to face her. “How can you be going so soon? Look, you haven’t even touched my special desert, belladonna toffee. Why, it’s to die for.”

“It really is, Claire,” her father spoke up, drawing her attention. “Look, I love this candy your mother makes so much.” Stiffly, he threw piece after piece of toffee into his mouth and swallowed, failing even to chew.

“Father, you should stop,” Claire whispered, fear rising inside her. “Father, you’ll—you’ll get sick eating so many.”

“Oh, and Claire, I need your help,” her mother said suddenly. “I’ve arranged such a marvelous entertainment for the night, after all, in honor of your very special brothers. I need your thoughts on the matter.” She gestured, and the house vanished as she and Claire reappeared looking over a large coliseum. “Tell me, do you think having all my ex-husbands fight to the undeath is entertaining enough?”

Down in on the floor, Claire’s father stared up into her eyes. Slowly, mortifyingly horribly, his skin melted down off his body, leaving only a ghoulish pixie skeleton standing. Around it, other skeletons rose up and began brawling with each other.

“Mother, no,” Claire gasped in terror.

“You’re right,” her mother sighed.” Having skeletons fighting is just so last year. Not enough flesh. But you’ll do.”

Claire screamed as inhuman strength threw her down into the stadium below. There, the horde of undead pixies turned and rushed her, swarming with clattering teeth that sunk deep into her flesh. Claire screamed, and screamed, and screamed as she felt her flesh being ripped apart, torn away, and mashed under the weight of death. She stared up at the blue sky, yearning for rescue, only to find her father’s winged skeleton staring down on her. He lunged, and Claire cried out in the middle of her mother’s laughter.

“Doc, save me!”

*

Blue lights faded away as Claire’s eyes slowly opened. However, unlike previous times, she felt no inclination to move, to even attempt to try to follow her mockery of a morning schedule. The fatigue, the weariness, it all felt too much, too heavy on her body. As she stared up at the ceiling, even her thoughts remained sluggish and disoriented. What had once been a pleasant escape from reality had transformed into a horror-filled nightmare, one she was unable to escape from. She still felt the pain of being devoured, so perhaps it had not been a dream. She’d experienced this before, after all.

She must have still been in a dream, though, because Claire thought she could hear voices in her head. Familiar voices... from somewhere in the past.

“Claire, Claire I need you to let us in. Claire wake up!”

“Mother... no, Momma, please wake up. We need you, and we miss you!”

“Hey Claire, open up. I haven’t finished learning how to be a boss from you. You can’t be sleeping on the job now.”

“Claire, uh, well honestly I don’t know you that well. But I’d like to. You’ve seen the world from my eyes, and I guess I’d like to return the gesture.”

Voices in her head, distracting her from what she needed, what she wanted: to go back to the dream, to escape the nightmare both there and in real life. Besides, she had no reason to move, to leave, to take a breath—

Claire’s eyes widened suddenly as she began to choke. Shocking clarity returned to her, if only to reveal the desperation of her situation. Her room—her room—was covered in dull brown roots that weaved their way over and through everything. She herself was tied down to the bed, a prisoner of nature. As if mocking her, the Dream flowers bloomed all around her with deep blue petals. As they glistened and glowed, however, Claire felt her very mana being drained by the roots to feed the plant. She couldn’t even muster up the energy to scream, let alone struggle against the slowly tightening hold. In her mind, a familiar memory played back through her mind.

The memory of her and her father in the rain, but slightly different.

*

“Little sprout, there is little left I can grow in my garden. Your mother has been kind to me, in her own way. No, only a few more things are missing form my collection, the few that can stand to grow in such... conditions.”

“Like what, Daddy?” Claire asked.

Her father hummed to himself before answering. “I suppose the solaris flower, for one, or the fairy blossom. These and others do not require the light of the sun or the life of water, only mana. Rare as they are, they are hardy little plants, able to seek out mana to feed from any source and feast on it. That includes us, you know.” He punctuated his point by tapping Claire on her nose, eliciting another giggle.

“Promise me you’ll be careful, little sprout,” he asked of her. “Alright? No messing with strange plants. After all, that’s how—”

“Great Uncle Fin got eaten by a giant fly-eater flower,” Claire finished. “I remember, Daddy, and I always will!”

“Good girl, sprout. Good girl...” her father trailed off as he looked back up at the rain.

“Nice as it would be to complete my collection, neither your mother nor the dungeon would permit any of those rare plants inside,” he spoke once again with a feeling of grim humor. “Their precious supply of mana can’t be harmed, after all. The Dream flower in particular, your mother would fear I’d escape her grasp with it. It is the flower of deadly dreams, after all. Heh. A dream you can never escape from but is never true—a nightmare in disguise. No, only the real world can be such, for it is here that change can be found, as can salvation.”

“Daddy?” Claire asked questioningly.

Her father shook his head suddenly, the smile reappearing on his face as he focused back on his precious daughter. “I’m sorry, Claire, just some old musings from my past. Hey, want to learn to grow a seedling in stone?”

*

The flower of deadly dreams; that was what Dream flowers were known as. And she’d used it to full effect, only to awaken to the nightmare of reality, which had been created by her own hand. The plant had taken over, killing everything and wiping all traces of existence beyond its own. A slight tingle in her arms made her look down, only to see the horrifying sight of roots attempting to break into her skin, to burrow inside her and become her. The irony of which being she consumed the flower to escape reality, only to become the flower in reality.

A fate she did not wish to possess. Claire attempted to scream but shut her mouth quickly as a root attempted to enter. It poked at her lips, seeking entrance, as the pixie squeezed so tightly she felt blood trickle down her teeth. It wouldn’t be long now before a root attempted to enter her nose or ears.

In her mind, she could still hear the voices and calls from her family: her dungeon, her precious daughters, and her new friends. Without her mana, she could not answer them, not grant them permission to enter her home. They would be unable to help so long as her door remained closed. The realization hit her as she felt her chest begin to tighten under the squeezing of the roots.

With her last bits of mana, Claire cast a spell of wind, an element she often neglected due to her affinity to the ground. Still, it was enough to crack the door to her home ever so slightly, enough to break the boundary between home and dungeon, and enough to allow the roots to be distracted by a large source of mana emanating from outside. Her chest constricted and unable to breathe, Claire took one last breath as unconsciousness, true unconsciousness for the first time in what felt like years, took her. The last thing she saw was the roots wrenching the door open in order to find the mana, only to be overtaken by a flood of slime. She smiled at the familiar purple sight in the room through the doorway, and the light left her eyes.

*

“Anadine, save Claire!” Doc ordered as he felt Claire’s life force diminish. Anadine surged into Claire’s home the moment the door opened, squeezing her body into the pixie-sized hole in the wall. With a sudden pain, however, Anadine was forced out as a force attacked her and devoured her slime.

“Doc, it’s some kind of plant!” she said as she retreated, followed closely behind by a web of small roots. Like a wave, the roots spread across the heart room wall and sunk themselves deep into the mana-rich stone, growing larger and thicker as the plant absorbed every trace of mana. The roots also shot out toward Doc’s floating crystal, though falling short of reaching it. Instead, they shot down tendrils to keep their balance as they continued on towards him.

The four boss monsters instantly rushed to Doc’s defense, sprouting sharpened tentacles to whack and slice the roots before they could extend farther. It was a downhill battle however, as each attack only slowed the growth and could not kill it.

“Doc, hurry and teleport this plant away!” Anadine cried as she was forced to leave a tentacle behind. “We won’t be able to hold it back for much longer!”

A surge of magic blasted out of Doc’s crystal, and all the roots in the heart room vanished, only to be replaced by more roots surging out of Claire’s room.

“Stupid plant! I can’t use my magic in Claire’s home due to our contract,” Doc roared in frustration as the four bosses resumed their defense. “There isn’t anything I can do to eliminate the core of this—thing.”

“Doc, your astral bag!” Rowen called out. “You still have unenchanted weapons and magical tools capable of fire magic. Let’s use them.”

“Good thinking, Rowen!” Doc cried out.

After another flash of magic, weapons made of copper and iron landed around the bosses. Picking up daggers, swords, maces, and longswords, Anadine, Ayla, Aisha, and Rowen beat back the roots thoroughly, the plant unable to absorb their mana to continue the assault. Acting quickly, Doc cut his connection to the surrounding stone, depriving the roots of their easy mana source and rendering half of the heart room completely dark.

Try as he might, however, he was unable to cut off the flow of mana into Claire’s room, allowing the plant to continue to feed off him. Worse still, Doc could feel the roots growing through the barren soil toward his dungeon, forcing him to divide his attention to prevent the plant from infiltrating the walls of the first and second floors. The ground shook as he summoned magic to blast and destroy each root he could reach.

Ayla, picking up a wand with her mouth, pointed at the growing roots and bit down on it. The wand, suffering catastrophic damage, exploded, destroying the worgs mouth and sending a small fireball into the entrance of the pixie home. Ayla’s jaw hung loosely on a few strands of slimy flesh, though quickly reconnecting and reforming with a few disgusting snaps and fleshy rips. The fire spread quickly, destroying the roots as it chased them down. However, the magical fire was soon put out and the plants reemerged.

“Anadine, Rowen,” Doc called. “I need you two to get inside and eliminate the source! Ayla and Aisha can’t manipulate their bodies to fit yet, so it’s up to you two. Charge in on my signal!” Suddenly, every fire wand Doc possessed floated up and turned onto the doorway.

“NOW!” Doc yelled, and an incredible surge of fire magic shot forth from his wands, blasting a whole into Claire’s home.

The two slimes, heeding orders, surged forward with weapons raised, slashing every root still free of the flames.

“Leave the weapons and hurry! The smoke, Claire can’t breathe, hurry!” Doc yelled, feeling the connection to his pixie partner weakening. He unleashed another volley of flame into the home, burning more of a hole to the bedroom.

Anadine didn’t hesitate as she dropped her weapons and leaped into the flaming hole. Rowen attempted to follow her but found the magically created flames particularly strong against his undead-based body. He lost half of his slime before he was forced back, aflame, with the worgs using their tails to stamp out the flames.

“Anadine!” Rowen called out in fear.

Inside, the blue slime winced in pain as the fire hurt her, burned her. She persevered as she exited the kitchen, the source of the strongest flames, as the plant source withered and died in apparent agony. The smoke, with no way to escape, filled the small pixie home and obscured all sight, forcing Anadine to use her tremor sense and echolocation to find the fallen pixie.

Claire, wrapped up in her cocoon of roots, was choking in her unconsciousness state, the flames creeping up the dead roots toward the bed. The blue slime smashed the roots away with her tentacles, freeing the little pixie and drawing her inside Anadine’s protective blue slime, surrounded by a bubble of smoke-free air. She turned to escape, only to be pierced by a surviving plant root. The root reached inside her, dousing its flame while seeking out both her core and Claire’s body, and started to drain her. Anadine roared, cutting the root just as more roots attacked her from the ceiling, having avoided Doc’s attacks.

Outside in the heart room, Doc held off another fire attack and concentrated on eliminating all the roots he could find, disturbing the soil and causing additional small earthquakes from his attacks. Rowen, recovering on the floor, kept his senses fully on the flaming pixie hole. Ayla and Aisha paced and let out worried yips, unable to do anything but wait.

“She’s coming out!” Rowen yelled, catching Doc’s attention. A blue tentacle shot out, holding Claire within it. Anadine’s core followed, surging down the tentacle, closely followed by a wave of roots. Doc’s crystal shone, and the tentacle was severed, saving Anadine and destroying the last of the roots. Anadine’s crystal, drained and cracked, rolled loosely onto the cavern floor, only faintly covered in blue slime. Claire, still covered in slime, lay dead to the world next to her, her body covered in the sticky, gooey material.

“Claire, Anadine?” Doc called, worried beyond words. His spirit surged out, sending strands of precious mana into both their bodies. Anadine began to recover, reforming a small layer of slime, but Claire remained unconscious.

“Claire? Wake up Claire,” Doc whispered.

But the pixie would not wake up, no matter what he did.

Doc, putting aside any notion of modesty, dove his consciousness into Claire’s body, seeing everything that was wrong with her. Slime had clogged her airways, where smoke still lingered, and her heart was sluggish without the mana her fae blood would have normally provided. Magical power surging, Doc removed the slime and smoke, clearing her airways, and pumped his own personal mana into her blood. When she failed to breathe on her own, he used his control of mana to force her lungs to breathe, moving the fresh air he created into her as fast as he could.

The four bosses watched silently in vigil as Claire’s home continued to burn behind them. Anadine, weakened into barely a layer of slime, finally fainted, her last sight being of her precious master using up all of his magical reserves to save the life of his partner.

Chapter 24

Doc panted, with crystal dripping with a cold condensation similar to cold sweat. He very much felt as if his spirit was stifled, craving to fill a sudden loss of energy. Even without lungs to breathe, his spirit felt the huge loss of mana as significant fatigue, the sheer amount of mana needed to completely irradiate the rogue Dream flower now taking its toll. He checked himself once more; he’d used up every last bit of mana his dungeon had managed to gather since the modifications were made. He had just enough to keep the dungeon working properly, but anything beyond that was impossible for now. Once again, Doc found himself at his weakest point.

No matter, Doc thought to himself, because it was worth it.

Below him, resting on a newly made bed, was Claire. She breathed slowly, alive but unconscious after being rescued. Nearby, Rowen continued using his slime to form a blanket by weaving his tentacles under the direction of Anadine, who had recovered enough to speak. Still in ball form, she was being treated as a toy by the worgs twins, who were unable to assist.

“Even like this, she’s still more useful than we are,” Ayla muttered in annoyance as she passed Anadine to her sister.

“There Ayla,” Aisha reassured her, bouncing Anadine back. “Is okay. We best for fighting, not healing. Saliva and licking not useful here.”

“Rowen, you need to make sure the weave is even,” she lectured as she was rolled around by Ayla and Aisha. “Your tentacle is straying on the third row. Ah, you almost missed me Ayla.”

“Hush.”

“Understood,” Rowen said in a rare moment of patience, adjusting the part she was referring to back into position. Satisfied with the blanket, he broke it off from his body. The blanket solidified into a soft, yet solid, woven slime cloth that would stay cool no matter the temperature and would conform to the user’s body.

“I must say,” Anadine said as she came to stop in front of the blanket and examined it, “to think slime could be made into a material like this. It’s quite versatile.” Sprouting teeny tiny tentacles, she moved the blanket to cover the tiny pixie’s body and tuck her in.

“Is Claire doing better?” Doc asked overhead, the familiar worry coloring his words.

Rowen slid a tentacle over Claire’s body. “She’s doing the same as five minutes ago, Doc. She will need at least a day to recover, if not longer.” The white and grey slime crossed a pair of tentacles when he finished examining the pixie. “That being said, her mind may need a much longer time to recover than her body. I had no idea she was using Dream Flower; what a horrific incident.”

“Dream Flower? So, you recognize the plant?” Anadine asked, curious. Wobbling, she dragged herself forward next to Rowen at the bedside.

“It’s something of a notorious plant—at least it was a few hundred years ago while I was still a prince,” Rowen revealed. “Dream Flower is one of those rare plants that lives off mana instead of light and water. Contrary to its looks, however, it’s a parasitic plant with severe hallucinogenic properties, granting a user incredibly realistic dreams of an ideal world when its nectar is ingested. Like other drugs, however, it requires more and more over time to achieve a similar effect, resulting in the user becoming lost between realities. Too much of the nectar puts the victim into a coma, allowing the Dream Flower to easily grow into their bodies and feed off of them until they die.”

“That’s horrible!” Anadine gasped in shock. “But I’ve never heard of this plant before. Is it rare or hard to cultivate, then?”

“No, it used to be common in the elf forest to the north of Nehatra before it was spread south by merchants eager to take advantage of its addictive properties to cultivate a new market,” Rowen said. “Unfortunately, one kingdom used it to create terrible magical weapons to wage war and conquer. Before my birth, after a neighboring kingdom was destroyed by these weapons, an insane mage created a plague that targeted the plant, retaliation for the loss of his family. He burned his entire being in that spell, and the Dream Flower was supposedly wiped from existence. The country that had been using the plant, now defenseless without their secret weapon, was destroyed in turn. I doubt even ruins remain, let alone their research or weapons.”

Rowen turned his body up to face Doc. “Mage-crafted plagues are nothing to write off, Doc. They can easily expand their range beyond the original target, so they are considered forbidden spells and research. I was shocked to see a Dream Flower here, especially one so odd. How did Claire get ahold of one?”

“They’re growing in the dungeon,” Doc remembered. “One of the plant slime gardens has them, the west one, I believe. They aren’t behaving like the ones in Claire’s home did, though—docile as any other flower. I don’t have the power to remove them right now, otherwise...”

“They should be fine for now,” Rowen assured him, “but I have a suspicion about that. Tell me, Doc, were the Dream Flowers something Claire brought into your dungeon, like the trees and herb bushes?”

Doc took a moment to examine his memories before answering. “No, neither Claire nor anyone else brought the flower inside. Near as I can recall, they appeared just after I finished reorganizing the dungeon.”

Rowen nodded his body and turned to face Ayla and Aisha. “Sisters, remind me, how would you best hunt a stronger prey?”

The worg sisters touched noses. “Well,” Ayla said, “hunting stronger prey requires weakening it first, usually with an ambush of some kind. Attacking while it’s asleep or weakened from another fight. Do you believe that’s what happened here, Rowen?”

Rowen nodded. “An extinct flower that somehow appears inside Doc’s dungeon and only reacts violently after being exposed to the mana directly from Doc’s crystal? I think someone or something is seeking to make sure Doc is in a poor position to fight back. I can’t imagine whoever is against us knowing the precise amount of damage they would cause, but they must have known something would happen. The Dream Flower is mesmerizing in appearance, after all, and only requiring mana to live makes it one of the easiest things to cultivate.

“We’ve fallen into a trap, and that means something will be coming to take advantage of our weakened state.” He looked toward Claire’s resting form, Anadine’s diminished body, and Doc’s soft glow. “As you observed earlier, Doc, and like what I said earlier, Dream Flowers are a parasitic plant that rely on incapacitated victims to feed on. They are not aggressive plants, nor should they be capable of such an assault as we witnessed unless something had been done to them.”

“Then someone threw the Dream Flower seeds into the dungeon, with the intention to cause great harm,” Anadine re-summarized. “What kind of evil thing would use such tactics? There is no honor in this, not fighting spirit.”

“One who does not hunt but takes pleasure in pain,” Aisha said, whipping the ground in anger. “The enemy, cunning and without morals. We should expect the unexpected.”

“I agree, sister,” Ayla said. “We should take steps to fortify the dungeon, perhaps create our own traps since Doc can’t for now. Perhaps locking the dungeon until further notice. What do you think, Doc?”

There was no response from the dungeon crystal.

“Doc?” Ayla asked, confused. The four dungeon bosses locked up at the crystal, which had slowly lost its glow until the heart room was covered in darkness.

“So,” Doc said softly, in a tone that sent shivers down everyone’s body, “someone did this to me, to Claire, to my dungeon. Heh, heh heh, heheheh.”

Doc began to laugh. It had been such a long time since he had laughed. It filled the heart room as he chuckled and giggled before exploding into raucous jubilation. This mad, polluted laughter echoed out of the heart room up into the dilapidated maze, where the treasure and chest slimes locked in place, instincts telling them to freeze or die. It continued, bursting through the openings into the dungeon forest, where every slime immediately fled back to their base to hide. The entire dungeon rang with hollow, malevolent laughter.

Doc’s laughter broke off without warning, allowing silence to once more permeate the room.

“Doc?” Anadine asked, hesitantly.

“I’ve been so patient,” Doc murmured. “I’ve worked through my problems, suffered in silence, and made sure everyone else had a nice, quiet dungeon. No matter what happened, I made sure to keep it all in, and now? Now, someone comes along and plays games with me? With my family? Some piece of shit thinks they can threaten me, my dungeon, my partner, and I’ll just roll over and die?

“Fuck that.”

The entire dungeon vibrated as Doc’s crystal took on a dark purple shine.

“If that’s how it’s going to be played, then I might as well flip over the table, as the adventurers used to say,” Doc growled. “Think I’m going to wait so patiently here in fear for their next move, that I’m not going to take a single step outside to defend my dungeon? Well you have another thing coming! You hear me!”

“Doc, what are you doing?” Rowen asked as he bounced around from the tremors, grabbing hold of Claire’s bed and keeping her safe and stable in the air. “We aren’t battle ready! We can’t win this fight!”

“Against someone who uses these kinds of tactics, I’m going to fucking destroy them!” Doc roared. “Just—like—this!”

Doc’s crystal showed an image of the outside of the dungeon. The clearing, which separated the entrance from the tree-line, exploded as slime after slime flew out of the ground like rocks thrown by catapults. In every direction, slimes flew through the air, landing with extreme prejudice all around the dungeon.

“Doc!” Anadine screeched, “what are you doing!”

“Retaliating,” he snarled, and the image on his crystal changed to show the happenings of the outside world. Slime after slime shattered trees and splashed around, sending acidic goo everywhere. The surviving slime immediately threw themselves at the closest living things, the mutated dire wolves who had been secretly patrolling around the dungeon. Barking and screams filled the forest as the unexpected assault took the fiends by surprise, the slime aerial assault being a complete ambush.

“Where are you getting this power?” Rowen asked as he tumbled around the room. “Doc, answer me! Where did those slimes come from? Claire wouldn’t want you to become corrupted for her sake!”

“I’m burning it,” Doc said, deadly serious. “Everything I don’t need, I’m burning it all for this. All the treasure in my astral bag: the magical armor and weapons from the adventurers, the corpses, the loot from the undead dungeon, the mana crystals from the mine I had been saving. Claire told me, everything possesses mana, so now I’m taking it all and unleashing it.”

“I can feel it,” Anadine groaned, a surge of mana flying into her body. Slime erupted forth from her core, restoring her back to her former slime body. “I’m back to full strength!”

“Good,” Doc said, his crystal alight with mana once more. “These new slimes, I am controlling each and every one of them. We don’t have the space or time for a prolonged battle with this enemy, especially if it’s connected to this enemy dungeon that’s surrounding us. None of them will survive, but through their deaths I will find the main base. Once I do, I’ll create a war tunnel and you, Anadine and Rowen, will lead your minions to destroy the enemy. My dungeon entrance shall remain open, serving as bait for whomever I piss off the most with this attack.

“Twins, I mean Ayla and Aisha, I will be relying on the two of you to lead the defense in the forest. I don’t know exactly how the slimes will react to an invasion, let alone the forest lions and the kobolds, but you just focus on slaughter.

“Do you understand!” Doc roared.

“Understood, Doc!” the four boss monsters yelled back in response.

“Good,” Doc turned his attention back to the slaughter in the forest. “Let’s make these bastards pay for what they’ve done to our family!”

*

Outside Doc’s dungeon, the forest lay in tense anticipation. The ground had stopped trembling from the aftershocks, leftovers from the foreign dungeon reacting to some great stimulus within it. The dire wolves, having doubled in size and mutations, moved like meat puppets in a patrol around the clearing, red-tinged eyes waiting in anticipation for the order to attack. They thirsted for blood, for slaughter, to sink their teeth into something and shred. Outside their circle, other creatures, similarly mutated, gathered slowly. Spiders with two abdomens and a fused mouth with dripping fangs, squirrels with scorpion tails, rabbits with teeth that dragged on the ground and spiked toes; it was an army of nightmares. From the ground, a red mist arose, finally visible to naked eye. It wisped into the ears, noses, and mouths of the creatures, dyeing their eyes a deeper red and causing their bodies to shudder. It was about time to attack.

Then, the ground exploded, and the sky was filled with falling slimes. All around and within this army, multi-colored suicide slimes smashed into and everything in their way—tree, ground, and beast. Acidic slime splashed everywhere. Some dire wolves were pierced all the way through, collapsing with gigantic holes in their sides, backs or heads.

The surviving slimes quickly set upon this army of nightmares, berserking their way through the beasts without a thought of self-preservation, going so far as to use their deaths to inflict even more damage by sending their acidic bodily fluids flying into the air.

The mutated beasts, caught unaware, were little more than beasts led to slaughter, unable to act without orders. The trees were dyed in blood before the red mist could properly react, and then the slimes were set upon. However, already a quarter of the army had fallen, and the forest surroundings were completely decimated by the acid.

The Yhe was furious. It screamed a sound of rage incarnate at the loss of its beasts, unheard to any near it. The new thing, the enemy thing, was once again destroying its plans. There were no two paths to take, there was only one.

“Destroy the slimes, then destroy the dungeon!”

Chapter 25

Flying through the air, with no control over direction or speed. For the briefest of moments, weightless in the sky, seeing for miles around in every direction. Now, falling, faster and faster towards the ground. Trees, which were once small blotches, growing rapidly as the wind whips by, slicing into flesh and lacerating. A single last moment of unrestricted speed before bashing through leaves and twigs and limbs, before breaking through the foliage. Finally, free, but for just a moment, as a figure looms below, ahead. No time to understand, as body slams into body. Fluids, gore, soaring through the air alongside dirt and dust like an orchestra of destruction. Injury too great, darkness closing in.

Nothing.

Doc suppressed the urge to groan as the pain returned with a vengeance, another slime death being experienced in full. With the mana obtained from the loss of all his treasure, he’d created over five hundred slimes and sent them blasting into the enemy forces. These slimes were not the same type as those currently in his dungeon. The slimes could only serve as extensions of Doc, which meant that, without his direct control, they’d be unable to act on his orders.

Already, Doc had died three hundred and thirty-two times in the past five minutes: 192 deaths on impact with the ground, 25 from direct tree trunk collision, 85 suicides after taking critical damage from enemies, and 30 self-explosions above a group of beasts. Doc felt each one, time after time, forced to ignore the spiritual pain and push through the continued slaughter of his slimes. A new death, eaten by dire wolf before dissolving its insides. Another death, pierced by a spider’s fang, the spider’s head now melting in agony. One more death, being slammed into the ground by a hand, taking the entire arm with it.

Compared to the original invasion, however, Doc was fine. Before, the pain had been unexpected and tragic, a further loss to his precious dungeon followed by the sensation of pain he was unaccustomed to. Here, now, he embraced the pain in full. His dungeon was filled with individual slimes, each living their own existences free of his will. The days spent watching, learning from them alongside the trials of his dungeon bosses and his partner had filled Doc’s hollow soul with a purpose: to protect his family at any cost. Compared to the pain of losing any of the interesting new things in his dungeon, this was nothing.

“Explode,” Doc muttered, watching as another slime self-detonated into a small herd of mutated rabbits. He felt the explosion and watched with cold eyes as the rabbits melted into gore. Seven more killed, seven less threats.

Counting visible corpses, Doc estimated that he had eliminated over three hundred of the mutated beasts, and the numbers were climbing. Already, the forest for a few miles around the clearing was smoking from the acidic destruction of the land and plants. The landscape reminded Doc a lot of what Claire had described before, the various hells where evildoers went. Not that Doc understood what qualified as an evildoer.

What he was sure of, however, was that this enemy dungeon was both evil and destructive. The slimes under his control were starting to die faster, as the horde of mutated beasts regrouped and unleashed counter attacks. It was clear that the puppet master of a dungeon had picked up on the slimes’ weakness as well, as Doc winced at the sudden loss of forty more slimes: wolves picking up large branches to pierce the slime cores, spiders sacrificing a single leg to pierce from above, misshapen ground birds using wind magic to slice through the slimes. This enemy dungeon was smart enough to have its forces used unnatural ranged and close-up attacks. However, Doc noted that a few of the mutated beasts had randomly exploded during the course of the fight, an indication that their mana poisoning had reached critical levels.

“They won’t last long, but I don’t have anything saved to waste more time. If only I had enough mana to create some tier 2 slimes for this assault,” he muttered regretfully. “How much more could I have done here?” Doc paused for a second to think. “Well, I suppose poor dungeons can’t complain too much, especially since I had the opportunity to kill this many.” With the enemy soon to defeat his vanguard, the dungeon had to be prepared. Doc turned his attention inward toward his two waiting bosses.

“Ayla, Aisha, are you both in position?” he asked through their bond.

“We are at the tree line facing the entrance, Doc,” Ayla reported. “However, none of the slimes we passed seemed prepared for an invasion of this level. Are you sure they will fight? More importantly, will they be effective?”

“They will fight,” Doc assured her. “At the very least, every slime in the forest is territorial and will defend their area to the last slime. Also, no matter what happened before, my slimes will always choose to fight outsiders over their fellows. Now, these monstrosities are almost done killing my advance force slimes, so expect them to head your way in a moment.”

“Find the other dungeon, Doc?” Aisha asked.

“No,” Doc said disappointingly. “The enemy dungeon does not appear to be within the distance my slimes landed. Though the ground stinks of corrupted dungeon, they were unable to trace the mana to an underground source. I am unable to create an offensive move without knowing where the heart crystal is, unfortunately.”

“Calling them back, then?” Ayla wondered. “Our younger siblings will certainly be helpful to the defense. Their training—”

“No, Rowen and Anadine will remain at the ready for when I detect the enemy dungeon,” Doc said. “The enemy numbers in the hundreds, but that’s only within what I could detect. It isn’t a number we can defend against forever, and I will find the enemy’s location sooner or later. In case the enemy’s numbers continues to grow, they’ll need to move at a moment’s notice to capture or destroy the enemy heart crystal.” Doc paused. “My slimes, they have all been killed. Be prepared girls. I only have enough mana to revive each of you once. You won’t die permanently, but if I die, of course, there will be nothing left to revive you. Try to treat your lives as preciously as possible.”

Aisha snorted. “Live for the hunt, die for the family. Doc, we shall fight, and we shall fight to live. If we die, then fight was not good enough.”

“I still don’t understand that attitude,” Doc admitted, “but I suppose it isn’t a bad way to live.” He let out an audible grunt. “They are coming.”

Leaving his girls, Doc’s spirit floated up to the cavern ceiling. Gazing down, he took in the entirety of his dungeon forest, with its many slime inhabitants and groups. The southern bug slime group, the eastern herb slime garden, the grey slime cavern; he took it all in, even the hidden alcoves of mimic slimes. Looking up, he locked eyes with his luminous slimes. Having burned all his treasure, he could no longer create the light or darkness elemental slimes. With his will enforced, the luminous slimes fled back to their nightly home, removing the light from the cave. Another thought, and the light eater slimes came forth, plunging the forest into complete darkness.

Even if they were unable to see visible light, the slimes of the dungeon were extremely sensitive to movement and mana. Below, the slimes that were used to the sight of the luminous slime’s mana vibrated in distress, confused at the sudden change. Even the ones fighting other slime families quickly separated and regrouped. Meanwhile, the forest lion and the kobolds each reacted to the vanished light. Doc could see both groups without effort, as they quickly gathered and rushed toward the only remaining light in the dungeon—the entranceway slope leading up to the collapsed first floor.

The forest lions were led by the original inhabitant of the forest, who confidently led the three newcomers through the darkness as they swung from tree to tree. The largest lion, the one Doc had witnessed challenge the older one time and time again, seemed subdued and eager to learn—or as eager as a wild animal could look, he supposed. He’d have to reexamine his records to see what had prompted the change.

The kobolds, on the other hand, were preparing for war. The male kobolds dressed in fur and armor made from hardened slime, led by the one wearing the funny hat. The females were left behind, as well as the smaller versions, though Doc noted it a took a moment of persuasion to have the females put down their weapons, which for some reason were scarier looking than the ones the males were holding. An organized group, the kobold warriors also made their way toward the light, eager to spill blood.

The two unknowns settled, Doc returned his attention to the slimes of his dungeon. Ever since he’d mastered the spawn nests, the slimes in his dungeon had changed from extensions of his will and body into fully separate entities with sometimes unique traits and personalities. At each slime’s side, he had stood by and watched, experiencing life to their fullest without feeling their deaths. The slimes lived their own lives, separate yet connected to him. He could no longer control them, using them mindlessly to fight his battles. Instead, he could only take a more round-about way to communicate with the slimes.

Every slime, from the mini slimes hidden in the traps to the tier 2 leader, suddenly felt a shock in their core. An overwhelming feeling of dread, fury, and a desire to live touched them, directing them toward the dungeon entrance. Doc wasn’t sure if the slimes would respond to emotional pleas, but he remembered the bug slime leader reacting to the death of its subordinates at the tentacles of the grey slime patrol. The way it had scratched though the drawing, Doc could almost feel the anger most uncharacteristic of a slime emanating from it. As slimes did not communicate by sound (and Doc was too tone deaf to try singing to the bug slimes nests) this was the only way he could think to communicate the danger approaching the dungeon.

Doc let out a weak sigh as his last slime was killed by the horde, and then he felt an incredible ire directed towards him. He recognized the feeling as the enemy dungeon attempting to communicate with him, similar to how the undead dungeon from before had done. For whatever reason, only feelings were sent.

Hate.

Aggression.

Fury.

And yet, hidden beneath all of that, a combined feeling of fear and desperation.

“A dungeon this strong attacking me, yet it feels fear?” Doc wondered aloud in his heart room. “Is there something I’m not seeing? Hey Claire, what—” Doc stopped himself as his instinctual nature to ask a question came forth. He locked his sight on the sleeping pixie below his floating crystal. Her face was peaceful under his purple light. “Sorry, Claire, I can’t keep putting these pressures on you. The answers to all my questions, I will figure them out myself,” Doc resolved.

Forcing himself to tear his direct attention from Claire, Doc refocused on the slimes in the dungeon. In the darkness, the forest was filled with the sounds of slimes sliding, hopping, and squirming toward the light. The masses of slime moved in units, each family coming forth in full. Doc felt a pull on his soul as, for once, his slimes were united in a single thought: defend.  Even if he couldn’t speak to them, even if they did not know he existed, the slimes still heard his call and responded to him. They ignored the forest tigers and the kobolds, as the two groups were not newcomers to the dungeon, and marched onto the forest closest to the entrance. Interestingly, there appeared to be single slimes leading some of the family groups, like the small bug slime from the southern hive.

Putting the observation aside, Doc watched as the horde ran toward him. They were close, and it didn’t take them long to reach the tree line surrounding his dungeon. However, all they did was let out roars, not daring to cross the edge of the trees into the clearing. It was as if this horde of unspeakable horrors was afraid.

Doc stared at the army, thinking, Why would a group of magically enhanced beasts controlled by a dungeon be afraid? Unless...

“The dungeon is afraid of me,” Doc realized. “It is reluctant to fight me... because it is unsure of victory? No, this army was made for that purpose, so what could a dungeon fear besides loss and... pain. Pain, pain, it feels pain!”

Doc felt like smacking his crystal around when the answer hit him. “Those monsters, they aren’t dungeon beasts. They’re all-natural things under the dungeon’s control. If it wants them to obey, then it must control them directly, like how I controlled my slimes. It experiences their deaths just like I do!” He considered the revelation. “But at this point, I doubt that fear will hold it back for long. If it feels pain from death, then I bet I can trace the animal’s connection to the dungeon once they die.”

“Ayla, Aisha, slight change of plan,” Doc said, moving his attention to the worg twins. “I want you two to go out and slaughter as many as possible. I think I can use their deaths to find the enemy’s location.”

“Understood Doc,” Ayla said.

“We obey,” Aisha followed up.

The purple dungeon spirit then soared out of the heart room, up past the dungeon floors, and for the first time in a long time exited the dungeon. His spirit, which normally was in the vaguest humanoid form, took on a more slime-like appearance as he observed his surroundings. The emotional connection from before was still there, emanating from the corrupted ground that surrounded his dungeon. Doc could tell that this enemy dungeon was staring at him from somewhere.

Doc, smiling on the inside, formed a fake crystal above his dungeon and pointed it at the army. Chuckling aggressively, he threw the crystal at a dire wolf, piercing its head before it had a chance to react and killing it.

The mutated beasts let out a collective scream of outrage and surged forth toward the dungeon entrance like an angry mob.

“Heh, guess you felt that, you little shit,” Doc laughed as he returned to his heart room. His role, for now, was done. All he could do now was watch and put faith in the dungeon he had created.

*

“Here they come,” Ayla muttered as the ground began to faintly vibrate. She looked up towards the light emanating above, watching how it flickered with every shadow passing through the entrance. “We’re lucky, I suppose, that the old first floor will squeeze their forces into a smaller number. Aisha, did you spread—”

“Covered the sloop in pee and dead slime,” Aisha confirmed. “Very steep, and very slippery. High ground now slip and slide ground. Easy for the first wave.”

“If you say so,” Ayla said, cracking her neck. “Remember, we only get one extra life here. We watch each other’s back and slaughter up the middle before retreating and repeating. If either of us perishes, retreat and wait for respawn.”

“My plan, remember? I know by heart,” Aisha snorted.

“Sure it was,” Ayla grunted.

The two worgs listened as the sounds of claw and foot against dirt grew louder, alongside the yips and barks and screeches. Ayla reached her tail over and touched Aisha’s.

“Sister, let us have a splendid hunt!”

Aisha let out a blood-thirsty howl. “Let us have a blood-filled hunt!”

The first monster, the dire wolves, appeared over the top of the slope. Slipping on the slippery mix of pee and slime, they let out fearful yelps as they fell head-first down the slope one after another. The two worgs surged forward, using their teeth to tear through as many throats as possible before they enemy recovered. The slime-hardened teeth pierced flesh, muscle, bone, and blood every time they flashed, and fairly soon, every dire wolf was dead.

“Too easy,” Aisha howled.

“Look up,” Ayla pointed with her nose, “The spiders are covering up the trap.” Above them on the slope, inert spiderwebs were being flung, sealing the slipperiness under their solid webbing.

“Get ready for the next wave,” Ayla announced, retreating back to the forest with Aisha.

Aisha perked up her ears. The worg sister let out an evil smile as the sounds of slithering came from behind them. In the darkness of the forest, two pairs of red eyes stared out at the approaching enemies. They were soon joined by hundreds of glowing orbs, a sight that would send dread through any observer.

The slimes had come to join the hunt.

Chapter 26

After the encounter with the kobolds and the odd, yet dangerous, slimes, the forest lion had followed the scent trail of the other lions back to its home. Poking its head into the entrance, it found all three female lions moping on the ground, clearly dispirited by their capture at the hands of the kobolds. The forest lion, having experienced such a thing once or twice in its youth, empathized

Still, they had been the ones to run out despite his warning. The forest lion entered its nest, alerting the three inside.

The lead female got up and walked over to face it. She stared into its eyes but lacked its usually aggressive look. With a whimper, she lay on the ground and bowed submissively towards the forest lion, followed by her followers. The forest lion, taken aback by the submission of the females, sat on its butt and starred. It was unused to this submission being shown towards it. Even back in its youth, it had been the one to bow to the larger males, and certainly always to any female. The females were the leaders, the protectors, and the strongest of its kind. How could the forest lion accept such submission?

With a growl, it lashed out and swiped the lead female in the face. The female lion, taken aback at such a provoking attack, let out a screech of anger and jumped to its feet, blood dripping from a long, shallow cut on its face. It yowled at the forest lion, demanding to know why it had attacked.

The forest lion merely sat back down and waited until the lead female was done and calmed down. Its tail stretched out from behind it, slithering along to the floor to the female leader. When it reached her, it rose up and touched her nose. This was the forest lion’s expression of respect and trust, to offer the most valuable part of their body to the face of another lion. A dangerous motion, as a rival could easily tear the tail apart, ruining one’s life and likely calling an early death.

The lead female, shocked by the offering, hesitated before turning around and touching the forest lion’s nose with her own tail (hers being unable to stretch as his could). The forest lion, slightly touched, accidently forgot itself for a moment and licked the lead female’s tail. They both froze at the hugely intimate act. The forest lion felt itself become quite embarrassed and let out a mew of apology.

The lead female cocked her head around, a smirk dancing across her face as she playfully whipped the forest lion in the face with her tail. The other two female lions, who had largely been ignored during this incident, both snorted at the sight of the other two flirting. The lead female and forest lion, having returned to their senses, looked bashful.

After recovering, the forest lion walked over to its stash of slime cores and distributed them to the others, settling down for a good meal as the light began to fade. When their stomachs were full of the warm feeling of mana, the forest lion closed its eyes and lay down to rest. It raised a lazy eyebrow, however, when it felt something touch its body. The three females had dropped themselves around it, creating a warm huddle. The old lion, who had been lonely for so long, couldn’t help but let out a sigh. After all, it was still missing.

The following day, all four lions were still sleeping when the light vanished. The forest lion, recalling the odd slimes and their lines in the dirt, turned his gaze toward the light from the surface. It let out a growl, calling the females to its side. It leaped towards the light, prepared to defend its new home from the invaders.

*

The new kobold leader sat on his throne, a stump. It wasn’t even a nice stump, just part of a withered tree his men had found and brought back for him. Though he disliked sitting in it, he forced himself every day to do so. The pain in his rear was as much penance as he was allowed for leaving his father and the rest behind.

He sighed, fidgeting with the headdress on his head. It didn’t fit, as it was meant for him when he grew up and fought a valiant fight against his father for the right to inherit it. If the leading kobold failed to produce a strong heir, then the others would fight to become the new leader. Something else that would have to be settled later, the kobold realized, as he recalled the greedy looks in some of the eyes of his warriors.

As a matter of recent tradition, he was counting the tribe. Before his stump throne, every member of the kobold tribe had gathered, standing patiently while he counted each of them. The kobold leader paused, his finger pointing at one of the warriors on the right. There was one too many.

With a snap, the warrior was quickly pierced by multiple spears. Instead of bleeding red as one might expect, the warrior merely drooped and slowly dissolved into a gooey mess, the mimic slime revealed to the group. Two of the female kobolds gathered the goo, balling it up to be used later. While the tradition of counting had started so the leader could note how many had died, it had soon become an important ritual ever since two of the younglings had been picked off by an imposter. The mimic slimes, while unable to speak, were incredibly skilled at acting, even going so far as to join slime hunts and kill their own kind. Unlike other slimes, dead mimic slimes could be harvested for material to build homes and materials, a useful thing that made the morning ritual ever more important.

Dismissing the tribe, the kobold leader returned to his ruminations. The meeting with the forest lion had gone poorly, but at least no one had died. While it was disappointing not acquiring them for mounts, the leader felt that the encounter with the two terrifyingly strong slimes had been worth it. While their communication ability had been dismally low, even compared to a common beast like the forest lion, the slimes did manage to reveal they were aware of the threat outside the cavern forest. The kobold leader had agreed—at least, he tried to say so—to help the slimes.

A rumble shook the kobold cave, attracting the leader’s attention. A scout ran back in with urgent news: the light had vanished!

The kobold gripped his staff and pounded it, summoning his warriors to battle. The male and female warriors came to his side, prepared. The leader, seeing the younglings left behind, forced the females to stay back. Someone had to lead the next generation if none of them survived. With a heavy and vengeful heart, the kobold went off to war.

*

The battle, once it began, was unstoppable. From above, a horde of mutated beasts—dire wolves doubled in size with acidic saliva, spiders with two fused heads and extra legs, squirrels with scorpion tails and arms on their back, rabbits with teeth the size of daggers and two more sets of eyes, and other just as monstrous beasts. From below, a mass of every slime in the dungeon: grey, sharp, armor, bone, blood, mage, gelatinous, lesser mimic, bug, mimic, treasure, chest, herb, heal, plant, jungle, and poison slimes. At the helm of this mass, two worgs stood with the kobold tribe and forest lions nearby in the crowd. Already, the slaughtered corpses of the first dire wolves lined the ground at the base of the cliff, their blood pooling over the dungeon soil.

The slope continued to cause some of the beasts to stumble down, but the horde continued on, running over any fallen member. The worg twins raised their voices up in a blood-thirsty howl, and the slimes moved as one to meet the enemy. They clashed right at the base of the slope, and slime met flesh once more.

The lesser mimic bug slimes, the most numerous of the slime types, used their copied bug parts to latch onto individual beasts until they fell and were devoured. Under the twinkling notes of the bug tune, the masses moved swiftly from beast to beast, even as their bug slime leaders tore through those same monsters one on one. The mimic slimes and their lesser mimics, which had remained low-key in the dungeon, showed off their prowess by taking on the forms of the spiders and dire wolves, killing the enemy with their own abilities and confusing the intelligence behind the army. Even the treasure and chest slimes participated, their nigh-impenetrable outer chest appearance allowing them to create road-blocks in the monster’s path while seizing a beast and devouring it one at a time at their leisure.

The herb slimes covered the battlefield in their paralysis spores, downing many of the charging beasts before they could reach them and turning them into easy prey for the plant and jungle slimes, who launched projectile and plant-based attacks in a flurry of destruction. The heal slimes stayed to the back, focusing their magic on any slime they detected as being injured, while the poison slimes controlled the battlefield around them by creating poisonous surfaces and burning the eyes, noses, and ears of anything that got too close.

The grey slimes operated efficiently, moving as whole units and rotating in and out of battle. They followed up this moving assault with the ever-destructive power of the armor and sharp slimes, who slammed and pierced their way irregularly through the battlefield and were always followed by their massive gelatinous slime relatives. The blood and bone slimes used their powers to siphon both blood and bone from the mutated beasts, growing stronger with each batch collected. Finally, the mage slimes let loose their primitive but effective magic with volleys of fire, stone, and ice.

With this many slimes taking action, the battlefield remained in an unmoving stalemate. Then, mutated birds appeared and unleashed a bombardment of wind magic on the slimes, tilting the balance in an instant. The forest lions and kobolds finally had their chance to shine, with the lions whipping themselves into the air like juggling balls and massacring any bird that got close enough to the trees. The kobolds pulled out primitive bows and accurately shot the birds down with arrow after arrow.

Caught by surprise, the birds were unable to react fast enough to these new threats, and just when the enemy dungeon turned its attention towards the newcomers, the birds were instantly attacked by a combined attack of mage slime and thrown armor slime. The gelatinous slimes turned themselves into pseudo-catapults, launching slime after slime into the air like boulders. The armor slimes, tough by nature, easily survived the fall back to the ground and reentered the fight from new directions.

The enemy dungeon, witnessing the massive losses in its army and feeling their deaths, then used a new tactic, one that clearly demonstrated its spite towards the slimes: suicide bombing. The mutated beasts, already mana poisoned to their limit, quickly exceeded their limits and exploded like miniature fireballs of destructive magic. The slimes, unprepared for such an attack, were quickly killed by the handful as the mana ripped through their bodies and breached their cores. The heal slimes were not numerous enough, or swift enough, to reach many of the survivors in time to save them. The suicide attacks then fell off, but in a sinister twist, every beast severely injured and not killed in a single hit immediately committed suicide by detonation, rendering the swarming tactic impossible.

“This bastard!” Doc’s voice roared in the heads of Ayla and Aisha. “It is severing its control over the animals right after making them explode, forcing the poor beats to regain their senses long enough to die without it experiencing it!”

“We’re taking heavy losses, Doc,” Ayla reported as another swarm of lesser mimic bugs died in an explosion. “Have you tracked the dungeon?”

“I can’t trace it underground,” Doc groaned in anguish as another group of grey slimes perished. “Why can’t I find it? The ground is leeching so much mana. Where is it? How can it be operating outside of my senses?”

Aisha, who was cutting the head off a spider, tilted its attention back the dark forest. “Take step back, Doc. See forest for trees. We retreat now, use darkness to advantage.”

With the two worgs howling, the slimes felt the pull to retreat into the forest to resume the fight. Doc watched helplessly as the retreating slimes were picked off by the pursing beasts. The ground was littered with blood, slime, and corpses. By grace of opportunity, however, the advantage returned to the slimes in the darkness of the forest, as the army of beast relied on sight to fight. The slimes had adapted to the suicide attacks as well, causing severe injury quickly before retreating from the blast. The darkness of the forest was quickly lit up by these explosions of mana, causing confusion in the beast army as light came and went so fast their eyes failed to adjust. Not even a hive mind like the dungeon could keep up with so many changing sense stimuli.

Doc, instead of praising his slimes, remained on task of ferreting out the enemy dungeon’s hiding spot. His senses surged through the ground, scanning each bit of corrupted dirt. But there was nothing to find except animal nest and roots.

“The dungeon is in the forest,” he murmured to himself. “I’ve stretched my powers and senses as far as they can go, and there is no trace of the crystal’s power coming from underground, which shouldn’t be possible since the ground is glowing in mana. So then, where is the mana coming from, the air?”

Doc watched as some plant slime used the root wave attack to destroy a group of mutated rabbits. The way they attacked... Doc took another look at the forest. Unlike the ground, the trees showed no sign of corrupting.

“What... if... it’s not the ground that’s the source of mana,” Doc slowly realized. “What if it’s something in the ground... like a root? A root system that stretched out in every direction, corrupting everything it sinks into. That’s why the trees aren’t corrupted like the ground; roots from a single a tree, a dungeon tree! Dungeon’s aren’t limited to the ground!”

With the answer smacking his face, Doc abandoned looking underground and instead focused on what was in the ground. The roots in the ground, which had been harmless before, quickly began to glow as the source of the mana was revealed. He traced it quickly, to a tree near the forest clearing. It was an ordinary tree, without any distinguishing properties, except for a shining core in its center.

“Anadine, Rowen, it’s that tree! Destroy it!”

*

“You heard him, Rowen. Let’s go!” Anadine said, bursting out of the covered pitfall near the entrance of the dungeon. Rowen quickly followed, and the two soared through the entering army. Anadine’s tentacles sliced through spines and skulls, killing everything in a single hit, while Rowen’s balls of darkness obliterated anything they touched. The army, taken aback by this surprise attack, continued to flow into the dungeon and largely ignored the two fleeing slimes.

“We aren’t being taken seriously, Anadine,” Rowen observed as they reached the clearing and zoomed towards the forest. “Their tactics aren’t very sophisticated.”

“Good for us, at least. There isn’t anything blocking our path to the tree,” Anadine shot back as they entered the forest. “Wish we could take advantage of this corrupted ground to explore this forest, though. Ah, no time, no time. Look, there it is!”

The tree looming in front of them was an oak, leafless and slumbering like the others around it. To their mana sight, however, the tree glowed in a red light just like the ground, standing out from the forest around it. At its center, a circular gem gleamed.

“Now, take this ball of darkness!” Rowen yelled as he unleashed his magic. The magical orb zoomed through the air and right before it struck the tree vanished. Rowen let out a grunt as the two of them continued moving toward the tree.

“Some kind of barrier, it seems,” Anadine observed. “I wonder how it does against physical attacks!” Twisting herself, the blue slime turned herself into a spinning tornado of hardened slime tentacles and slammed into the tree. A red barrier came into existence, invisible before to both physical sight and mana sight. Anadine’s attacks bounced off as she continued to slam into the tree.

“Back off, Anadine, you’re just wasting mana!” Rowen said as he arrived and examined the barrier. “This must be a dungeon power which Doc lacks. Seems stronger than what we can put out right now.”

“Maybe, but I bet if it runs out of mana—”

“It won’t,” Doc’s voice echoed in their heads. “Corrupted dungeons suck the mana of the world away. You’d need a sudden attack to overpower it in an instant, otherwise the forest itself would heal the damage done. Find some way around it or cut the connection.”

Rowen looked up. “Doesn’t look like the barrier is covering the top of the tree. I’m willing to assume that applies below the tree as well.” The grey-white slime let out a sly chuckle. “Hey Doc, think you have enough power to displace the ground?”

“Yes, but I won’t be able to revive either of you if you die for this fight,” Doc warned. “Are you sure about this?”

“I might be a slime now, but don’t underestimate my intelligence,” Rowen said. “Go ahead, Doc, unleash your fury here and throw this tree!”

“Alright, let’s do this!” Doc roared in agreement. The two slimes began to vibrate rapidly as an earthquake shook the ground. It started small but grew larger and larger until the ground felt like it was about to shatter. The entire enemy army fell down, unable to retain balance. In the dungeon, the kobolds and forest lions also fell, but the slime army continued to attack unaffected by the vibrations as their bodies jiggled.

Rowen and Anadine retreated as the forest floor cracked open around them, sending trees and stones and brush falling into to the cracks. The tree holding the dungeon core, being at the center of this attack, let out a groan as it cracked, its roots being torn asunder by the heaving movements of the continent. With a final, seismic shake, the tree was dislodged from the ground and launched forward, forcing the two slimes to leap to the side as it crashed where they had been standing.

“Hey Doc, careful!” Anadine called out.

“Lecture him later, kill now!” Rowen declared as he leaped at the fallen tree, balls of darkness forming at the ends of his tentacles.

Bam!

Rowen was slime-slapped into the ground, bounced back up, and then again into Anadine. The two tumbled back and caught themselves.

“Should have known it wasn’t going to be easy,” Rowen muttered.

The tree, which had been lying inert, slowly lowered the wooden arm that had sprouted from its trunk. With a burst of wood shards, three more arms came out. Together, they raised the tree back into an upright state. With a crack, the trunk opened up, revealing a maw that dripped with acidic saliva. Vines slithered down from above, forming an odd umbrella over the top of the tree. The tree thing roared at the two slimes.

“Treant, tier 2 monster,” Anadine declared. “I’m guessing this is the final boss protecting the dungeon, huh? Looks to be a challenge.” She readied her tentacle arms.

“Let’s cut some firewood, sister,” Rowen said, his magic pulsating.

The dungeon treant let out a scream and unleashed a terrible volley of wood darts.

*

Inside the dungeon, the war between mutant and slime raged on. Though the earthquake and darkness had allowed for the slimes to inflict devastating harm on the enemy, the mutated animals were just too many and pushed the army back further and further into the forest.

Ayla and Aisha were soaked in blood, both their own and others’. The worg twins let out muted gasps as they took a brief rest from the fighting.

“Sister, it doesn’t look good,” Ayla stammered out. “I saw some rabbits poking around the holes leading down to the third level. There isn’t anything between us and Doc to stop them if they find the main entrance.”

“Can’t, leave, yet,” Anadine wheezed. “Enemy, getting, slower. Distracted, by Rowen and Anadine, need to keep up, the assault.”

“I hadn’t noticed, but you’re right,” Ayla said, turning her head. “They are a bit more sluggish than before. Alright then, let’s get back in there!”

“Woof!”

Across the battlefield, the forest lions were tearing through a group of spiders, destroying their webs and freeing the trees of traps. The old forest lion paused and observed the exhausted females behind it. With a grunt, it tossed over three slime cores it had taken from the corpses below. The female lions accepted the offering gratefully and downed them, almost immediately becoming full of energy once more. Between the four of them, they’d been downing slime crystals for a while now. The forest lion noted the slight jiggle in their fur, nodding at the change. Once the three gained their new abilities, the fight would surely change in their favor.

Not everything was going well, however. A new part of the army had appeared—mutated kobolds. No longer furry or draconic, these maddened monstrosities resembled massive bipedal crocodiles with claws the size of daggers and covered in primitive armor. They bulldozed their way through the slime army through sheer power, and their claws were impervious to the acidic nature of the slimes.

“Troublesome foes,” Doc muttered as he watched the kobolds mowing their way through a group of gelatinous slimes. “Forget mutated, these beasts have likely already evolved into a tier 2 monster. My slimes can’t counter something like that right now, these… crocobolds, I suppose.”

Suddenly, a storm of arrows struck one of the crocobolds, piercing its scaly flesh and killing it. The kobold tribe stood ahead, fury radiating off their expressions.

“Guess seeing their kind treated this way is an insult,” Doc observed. “Unfortunately, they can’t put their anger where their strength is.”

The kobold tribe fought valiantly, but they were smaller, weaker, and easier targets compared to the crocobolds. Doc shook his head as their numbers quickly fell, depleted by the horror of war. The lead kobold in the funny hat; he fought the hardest through injury and the loss of his right arm and killed three crocobolds by himself. Doc let out a nod of admiration for the warrior before turning away.

“At least their sacrifice was useful to me,” Doc said carelessly. “Thanks to that attack, the slimes have adapted.” The grey family, having observed the kobolds’ method of fighting, had taken to throwing the armor and sharp slimes into the crocobolds, injuring them with brute carnage and forcing them onto the defensive.

Even then, the crocobolds were too many too strong. Under the enemy’s mind control, they pulled out massive wood and hide shields and slowly advanced once more, rendering the slime attacks moot.

Doc’s crystal glistened. “I didn’t want to do this, but there isn’t any choice.”

On the battlefield, a large crocobolds let out a triumphant roar as it smashed a gelatinous slime into nothingness. A faint buzzing filled its ears, causing it to whip its head back and forth to search for the source. Out of the darkness, a massive swarm of leaf muncher and bee slimes appeared and descended on the crocobolds. Their small size rendered them almost impossible to kill with the simple brute force tactics of the enemy, and soon the entire army of crocobolds wailed in pain as they were slowly devoured and stung to death. The bee slimes also brought out their slimes honey, dropping it onto the wounded slimes and healing them back to full strength.

And still the fight continued, the darkness of the dungeon lighting up with explosion after explosion. The kobold leader, alone and dying, watched carefully as the last of his mutated brethren perished. Sighing, clutching the bleeding stump of its missing arm, it leaned against a tree and slowly slid down to the ground. As the light began to fade, a purple slime rose up from the ground, surprising it. It reached out a tentacle and touched the kobold’s head.

“Shall we make a deal?”

*

“On your right, Rowen!” Anadine cried out. The two slimes ducked as a wooden arm crashed down, creating holes everywhere it struck. The treant dungeon boss was attacking with everything it had: brute force, magical wood projectiles, acidic goo launched by the vines, attempting to devour them whole, and uprooting the area with sharp roots. The two slimes were well aware that the boss version of monsters was always stronger than normal, but even they were astounded by the ferocity of this fight.

“Try to open a path for me with your magic,” she continued, using a tentacle shield to bash away another projectile. “I’ll get in there and chop this tree into sawdust!”

“Don’t be reckless. You’ll get eaten before anything else,” Rowen responded, himself slicing through vine after vine with magic.

“That’s the idea!” the blue slime shouted out cheerfully as she continued her advance. “We aren’t making any headway out here, so let’s try a different angle.”

“That mouth will melt you before you can get anything done!” Rowen argued, “I—oof!” Rowen, failing to dodge an arm, was sent flying into another tree, knocking the wind out of him. He quickly recovered and leaped away just as the tree was showered with wood darts, sending splinters flying everywhere.

“I’m taking the risk, Rowen. Just back me up!” Anadine shouted back. The blue slime, though lacking lungs, took a deep breath, increasing her size. She knew she had once chance. There would be no revives if she missed. All she could do was follow her training, both of them, and seek victory.

“Damnit, fine!” Rowen shouted. “If you die, I’ll bring you back just to kill you again! Darkball!” Rowen unleashed his special attack, a large ball of pulsating darkness that zoomed past Anadine and struck the treant. Upon contact, the ball exploded into countess balls of darkness, each dissolving a chunk of whatever they encountered. The treant wailed as one of its arms snapped off, followed by countless vine and dents in its trunk.

With the path cleared for her, Anadine moved unimpeded through the destroyed area and finally leaped into the air toward the treant, tentacle arms sprouting all over her body. The treant turned and opened its mouth wide, acidic drool dripping.

Just as Anadine was about to fall in, her slime body let out a wicked chuckle.

“Naïve!”

Whipping her arms, the tentacles on her body went backwards, fusing together into two massive tentacle swords that greatly outsized her normal body. As if clapping, the two sharpened swords whipped forward into the sides of the mouth and seared through the tree. Since the mouth area was hollow, the sudden attack clipped the entire tree in half. With a terrible groan, the treant collapsed into two halves, killed faster than it could have ever thought.

Anadine landed smoothly, her arms returning to normal. “It had the strength, but it lacked the intuition or experience to put up a good fight. Just like the army.”

“I didn’t expect you to actually mimic it, though” Rowen commented as he joined her, disgruntled. “Seriously, you copied its arms?”

“I’m a high-tiered mimic slime, you know,” she reminded him. “Even if we are weakened due to Doc, our powers remain. Though I am a bit tired now. I’ll leave the rest to you, Rowen.” Anadine slumped to the ground into a puddle.

Nodding, the white and grey slime slid over to the top portion of the treant. There, glowing in the top of the mouth area, was a perfectly round red gem that glistened in the light. Approaching, Rowen could feel a magical call emanating from it. The gem would grant him power, territory, the ability to have a family—everything and anything Rowen had ever wanted. It could even return to him a human body. All it needed was just a little more time.

With a solid thud, Rowen pierced through the dungeon core without a second thought.

“I’ve already found what I was looking for.”

Epilogue

“It’s over,” Rowen reported in Doc’s heart room. “Here are the remains of the enemy heart crystal.

“Anadine, Rowen, excellent job.” Doc said. The dungeon spirit levitated the pierced red gem up to its crystal to examine it. Its shape was quite different from Doc’s own, perfectly round like a child’s wooden marble and with a deep red color, unlike Doc’s prism shape and purple color. Even in death, the crystal still glowed with magical power.

“We couldn’t stay to investigate the area unfortunately,” Anadine sighed. “I didn’t expect the corruption of the land to fade so quickly. We almost evaporated before making it back inside the dungeon.”

“Rookie mistake,” Ayla commented from the corner where she was resting, a playful smile on her face. “Takes me back though. Back when Aisha and I were fighting the undead dungeon on the battlefield, we had to be summoned back by Doc to save us. All the slimes ended up dying though.”

“Fighting to save adventurers though, still regret,” Aisha murmured. “But, not all regret, maybe.”

“In any case,” Doc resumed speaking, “this core has enough mana to take me back up to enough strength for tier 3 slimes, maybe even enough left over to expand the maze floor into a proper form with traps.”

“You’re not going to try to recreate your dungeon?” Anadine asked, curious.

“No, not this time,” Doc let out a chuckle. “I’ve learned my lesson. Rather than being a large dungeon, I think this time I’ll concentrate on expanding the strength of my monsters. This fight only proved Claire’s past worries, that I’m not strong enough. When she wakes back up, I want to show her a dungeon she can feel proud of and feel safe in. She needn’t suffer stress any more beyond the upkeep of her home.”

“Pixies are not built well for stress,” Anadine nodded. “Fey in general react negatively to dramatic changes and problems. In my past life, I knew a few elves who killed themselves over a break-up with their human partner. I can just imagine what a dungeon pixie, a being with purer fey blood, would do in a similar situation.”

The five of them all looked down at Claire, who was still slumbering peacefully in her bed under Rowen’s slime blanket.

“I’ll be focused on absorbing this crystal, so the four of you are in charge of patrolling the dungeon for any remaining mutated monster who survived,” Doc ordered. “I noticed many fled into the forest and possibly the maze after losing the dungeon’s control. With their strength so high, it would be good they all perish sooner rather than later.”

“This is the slime dungeon, and all non-slimes shall be killed.”

*

In a dimly lit room, two pixies were kneeling. Their bodies quivered in fear as they shakily awaited the reaction to their report.

“So, let me get this straight,” a cool, silky voice echoed up from above them. “You mean to tell me the plant dungeon I was raising is … dead? The dungeon, that I might add, was meant to be gifted to the son of an important ally of mine, one that would secure me a sure place in line for family head at the next gathering? This dungeon, correct?”

“Ye, yes your most holy of graces,” the pixie on the left stammered out. “We had reports of another dungeon moving in on its territory, and-”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” The voice quietly interrupted.

“It was a weak dungeon sir, we checked it out ourselves,” the pixie on the right hurriedly explained. “It was clearly damaged and weakened, so we provided the baby dungeon some Dream flower seeds and filled it with enough mana to protect it, all without showing ourselves like you ordered. It should have been an easy win!”

“It’s dead,” the voice said, monotonous. “Clearly, you two failed to ascertain the true strength of this dungeon. Which means, you both are incompetent, and I don’t need incompetent followers.”

“No, please sir, give us another chance!” The two pixies begged together, prostrating fully onto the ground.

“Take them away,” the voice ordered. “Have their dungeons show corruption and kill a few adventurers. When they are dead, deliver their corpses to my mother as a gift.” From the shadows, two black knight pixies appeared and dragged the screaming pixies away, ignoring the screams of pain and begging.

“Useful fools,” the silky voice muttered. “They’ve ruined my plans; plant dungeons are hard enough to raise, let alone find.”

“Master, letter from you most esteemed mother,” a knight appeared from behind and handed over a black envelope. A dazzling white hand gracefully took it and opened it with a sharp fingernail. With a snap of his fingers, a dazzling light appeared in the air, illuminating the figure.

Long, glistening black hair framing a handsome face dressed in a black and gold robe. Golden wings shook behind him as he leaned forward on his throne, examining the paper.

“It seems my precious baby sister was involved in something interesting,” the voice giggled a moment later. “My, divine power she says? Oh mother, you always did spoil her over me and my brothers. Wanting to find her? Ah, a reward . . .”

The figure leaned back on his throne, which rearranged itself to not impede his outstretched wings.

“Make a note of it slave. I care not how but find my sister’s dungeon before my annoying brothers. This is just what I need to fix this mess with the Florian family. She doesn’t know what kind of dungeon my sister possesses, but it won’t be an undead. Search every dungeon just over a year old.”

“Yes master,” the knight bowed in deference. “And what of the dungeon that derailed your plan.”

“Hm,” the figure tapped his throne carefully. “I wouldn’t do for my image to illuminate a dungeon so weak.” A devilish smile blossomed on his face. “It’s about time to recruit for our faction is it not? Tell those youngsters that whoever can eliminate this dungeon will be brought in with all the benefits of my protection.”

“It will be done my master.”

*

Claire looked around, confused. She had no idea where she was.

“Where the hell am I!” She screamed, her voice echoing in the blue void she found herself in.

“Neither here nor there I suppose,” a carnation to her left answered her. “You’re here, so you are not lost, be then again being somewhere doesn’t mean you aren’t lost.”

“Don’t forget that perceiving here is not the same as being here,” a cherry blossom reminded the carnation. “For all she knows, she could be somewhere else.”

“Please be quiet,” Claire groaned. “You’re both very annoying to listen to.”

“You’re the one that made us this way,” the carnation grumbled, clearly annoyed. “Not that you know or realize or even understand.”

“I’m being punished,” Claire declared, “some cosmic being outside the entire flow of order has decided that I deserve this somehow.”

“Well you did do some heavy drugs,” the cherry blossom agreed. “In this place, that cosmic being outside the flow of order would be you, since nothing here can invite you in. So, you’ve done this to yourself. Does that make you a genius or a fool?”

Claire could only groan.

*

In the slime dungeon, the kobold females wept as they gathered the corpses of their fallen males. The younglings looked on and cried as the warriors were piled up in preparation for the burning, an honored kobold tradition for the fallen. None of them noticed the ring of slimes enclosing them in all directions, led by a blue slime.

“There is no room for non-slimes in the dungeon,” Anadine murmured, hearing Doc’s words repeat over and over in her mind.

“Those crocobolds were quite dangerous, more so than any of the other mutated beasts. The kobolds possess the same potential.”

She looked on at the grieving kobolds. She felt no hesitation. Her tentacles slapped the ground, and the cave was filled with screaming as the females melted into the bodies of Anadine’s minions.

Anadine herself gathered the younglings into a group, examining their small, frightened figures. She let out a slimy smile and pushed a pile of slime cores at them.

“Welcome to the dungeon. I can’t wait for you to evolve.”

At the entrance to the dungeon, the worg skull was now joined with a kobold skull, wearing a funny stone hat.

Afterwards

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Did you know there is a video game based off slime dungeon coming soon? Follow me to find out more! Slime:Evo, coming soon to Kickstarter. Demo works great :p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUIKk-er7H0&t=1s