Better Than One - Chapter 10 Finger Painting.

The following morning I awoke to an unfamiliar face looking at us. She was standing at the foot of our bed armed with Globba’s new sword. Though the intruder looked dangerous, she didn’t appear to be hostile. I studied her, she stared back, Estra jolted with a yelp of startled panic and my [Inspect+] window popped up.

Globba. [Nether Demon]

Weight: 195 lbs

Height: 6’0″

Total Essence: around 43,000

“Good morning!” she said in cheery as sunshine voice, and brushed a strand of auburn hair from her smiling face with pointed teeth. Estra hastily scooted our legs away from the Nether Demon in front. It was Globba, but she was no longer hideous looking, nor was she a cave troll. The previously rough as roots horns on her head were now refined, creamy smooth, shiny and black like obsidian.

“Mornin” I grumbled with relief. “Calm down Estra, it’s just Globba,” but she didn’t look convinced.

“Oh. Are you sure? Is it … Is it the [Evolve] thing, right?” Estra asked nervously, and I assured her that it was exactly that. It must have happened overnight after she received the sizable portion of Essence from killing the orc chief.

“Ahh, what a wonderful day!” Globba bubbled with delight, and pranced around the room, naked. It should be illegal to be so happy in the morning. Her new hooved feet clonked on the stone floor, and the previously blobby figure had been replaced by muscle. It was getting hard to watch her.

I hate mornings, especially without coffee. What a cruel world I found myself in. Our breakfast ran away at the sight of Globba, so we had to come out of our room and fetch it directly. We also had to assure the populace that the new Globba didn’t mean any harm (I hoped), and get her some clothes because it didn’t appear that she had any modesty.

Outside the tunnel to our chief’s quarters, in the large central cavern, the kobolds were up in arms as if a demon was let loose in their midst. Wow, I thought, word sure spreads fast here! Or not. Strange; the Kobolds were primarily leaving from one side and fleeing in the opposite direction.

Lan showed up, weapon out and looking alarmed with almost half of our standing army in tow, which was five kobolds. Kuuz and another smith were dragging a large shield behind them, carrying our newly crafted armor. They stopped short and I had to assure them, that it was Globba before they approached any closer.

“We got slimes coming.” He said with a hint of urgency in his voice.

I had the smith fetch our gauntlets from the room while we hastily threw on a linen shirt that looked more like a dress or a night gown. On top of that we put on a beige gambeson; it was like a thick padded t-shirt. Finally was the heavy chainmail that got tied below our gut with a leather belt. Added to this were the hard leather arm guards and our gauntlets, and it was starting to get warm and heavy under all these layers. For our noggins he brought a couple of chain coifs, but before we put those on, we had to wear some real goofy looking cloth hats with flaps; it created padding. They looked like aviator hats that got stung by bees.

We may not have been rocking in style, but I felt as cushioned as a sofa. I picked up the rectangular shield and realized that my arm will get sore lugging it around. It weighed exactly 16.7 pounds. It wasn’t flat like the previous ‘door’ shield, but had a convex shape to it. To finish it up, we just needed some boots made, but seeing how kobolds don’t wear any, it would take a while. For the time being, from the knees down we had our ogre’s natural thick skin, and feet in desperate need of a pedicure that could double as weapons.

Dressing up took longer than I imagined, and the normally disciplined Lan was getting impatient. We were ready for battle, and so was Globba by the look of her eagerness, armed only with her large sword and wearing nothing but freckles on her face. We formed up a party of nine. The smiths had taken leave. Bring on the slimes!

And as if on cue, a wittle wee slime rolled into view; it was an adorable looking thing. Granted, I never fought a slime before, but they have always been the lowest of the low in video games I played. A quick [Inspect+] assured me that at only 3k essence it must be mostly harmless. What was all the alarm about anyways? We’ll just stomp them or something.

A much larger slime flew out of the tunnel like a sewer pipe that was suddenly unclogged blurting out its contents. Immersed inside the large viscous blob was a melting kobold. A moment later a myriad of slimes of various sizes and colors spilled out like someone emptied out a bag of M&M’s. There were dozens of them!

A [Fireball] flew out and Globba charged in with a crazed giggle, sword held high. I admired her toned bare ass for an appropriate amount of time that one should, in a midst of a battle, and then focused on the deadly projectiles coming our way. The slimes hurled bolts of magic of various elements, and the bigger they were, the bigger the magic. The kobolds moved back behind me, and the place descended into chaos. One moment my shield was hot, and the next it was freezing. I felt a stinging burn on my ankle as something splashed on the ground next to my feet.

Though initially apprehensive, once past all the flashy lights of their magic, killing them proved simple and fast. Their elemental bolts were less than deadly. Globba was lightning fast and her swordwork cleaved right through them, while Estra’s [Fireballs] turned several of them into steam. In short order, only a single slime remained, the one with a kobold inside. This slime’s normally blue hue was slowly turning purple with the addition of blood from its victim.

Medium Blue Slime.

Weight: 2,000 lbs

Height: 4′ diameter

Total Essence: around 13,000

It rolled around the room like a 2,000 pound wrecking ball of goo, bouncing against the walls, and occasionally spurting out a large bolt of ice. Globba lined up the approaching ball like a batter on a home plate, and with a razor like accuracy sliced it cleanly in two. What should have been a yummy Essence Gained message, instead turned into two new slimes half in size, munching on their respective halves of the kobold inside. I wondered how much longed this could go on after we had four of them, I hoped it wasn’t going to be slimes all the way down. Globba was having way too much fun, running around popping them like large bubble wrap.

Finally, it stopped dividing after sixteen remnants. It looked like the gained Essence was divided up between all nine party members, regardless of contribution to the kills. Aside from the Essence there wasn’t any loot.

Essence gained: +1,277 [Current: 1,309. Total: 29,118]

Nobody was killed, except the kobold who was now in sixteen parts, I hoped it wasn’t Rocks. The place was a mess, or a masterpiece abstract painting, it was like someone threw a box of crayons into a washing machine spinning on high. Estra [Healed] a few burns and we were as good as new. We spent the rest of the morning rooting out any stray slimes.

Essence gained: +319 [Current: 1,628. Total: 29,437]

During lunch we met with Lan and Rocks. Something had to be done, we couldn’t afford to lose kobolds to a bunch of slimes. The kobold that had been gobbled up and cut into sixteen was actually the guard posted to warn of an attack.

“I have failed, chief.” Lan said with a dead serious look on his face, and I hoped it wasn’t followed up with a seppuku. I almost felt uncomfortable at his sense of duty.

“It’s alright, we’re going to fix it,” I assured him. Except for the quad quartered kobold, he’s gone now.

The solution for the time being was simple: more light to see them coming from a distance, a simple barricaded wooden gate that would make lots of noise if broken through, and two guards. It would give us enough time to get ready and meet them out for battle. Also, any tunnels leading from the Slime Dungeon ‘entrance’ to the main chamber were also closed off and rerouted, so as to funnel the slimes to the main cavern where we’d slaughter them.

After that we needed to get Globba dressed up in armor, so we went to see Kuuz. It was going to be a little bit tricky, because she had a thick tail, four horns and hooves. Thankfully, with a few minor adjustments of leather straps, Kuuz was able to gear up Globba with the previous orc chief’s armor, helm included. He was distraught about the state of the new shield he made for me – the front had a multicolored pattern on it, like a drunken toddler’s doodles.

Globba was giddy with her new outfit, parading and clapping her hands like she was trying out a wedding dress. Once Kuuz had sharpened and cleaned up her sword, she grabbed it and promptly hoofed it in the direction of the Slime Dungeon. I was tempted to run after her and do a bit of dungeon crawling myself, but I had some responsibilities to take care of first. The first was ensuring that we’d have food through the winter. Then I needed to see about getting some boots made. I also wanted to increase the ventilation in these caves, which meant I needed to a source of power, such as a stream of water. I wanted to examine the quicklime production, and see how they were harvesting honey. Supposedly they also had a mushroom farm and a mana vent somewhere.

But those things were what I wanted. Estra had other ideas in mind.

“Let’s go outside, I can’t stay cooped up in here all day!” She complained. I left the shield in the smithy and we headed outdoors right into a blizzard. Seems like every winter comes unexpectedly. It was snowing sideways. Estra insisted that we take a short stroll despite the conditions. It was like walking a dog in bad weather, and we weren’t done until we were thoroughly covered in snow. Back inside under cover, I was amazed how well the cave system held its temperature, maybe a cold winter wouldn’t be so bad for us after all.

Lan found us just as we got back inside.

“Chief, we have visitors,” he said with a worried look on his face.