Chapter 15 [Crystal Flame | Leah]

Leah skidded to a halt a few yards away from a massive translucent gray Slime—just outside where Kyle estimated its perception limit would be. Across from her, where she could barely see him through the murky ooze, her husband gave her a thumbs up and started calmly walking forward, stomping on the ground to make sure that the beast sensed him. As expected, the seven-foot-tall monster’s membrane shivered, and it started dragging itself toward its newfound target.

How can he keep doing this? Leah thought while shuffling forward, trying to stay as close as possible without alerting the creature to her presence. Her eyes darted around the swiftly darkening clearing, first making sure her children were safe before counting the few scattered Slimes that remained.

There were no threats remaining—other than the one in front of her. Between her and Kyle, they’d slaughtered what had to have been nearly a thousand of the disgusting creatures, and at least that many more had dragged themselves over the hills and off to who knew where.

Thanks to her husband tanking the brunt of the attacks, she’d hardly taken any damage while fighting the Stage Fours and Fives. In fact, other than her Energy being much lower than she would have liked, all the fighting had done wonders for her. Leah saw Kyle sidestep a boulder the size of his head, but he didn’t give her the signal to move in. Seeing this, she took the time to look over her Attributes.

[Leah | Stage 4]

[Race | Humanoid]

[Genus | Human]

[Tier | 3]

[Exp | 10,613/10,800 | 12/cycle]

[Health | 178/265 | 56/cycle]

[Energy | 96/495 | 56/cycle]

[Mana | 300/400 | 20/cycle]

[Resilience | 5]

[Vigor | 14]

[Vitality | 14]

[Force | 33]

[Intuition | 9]

[Acuity | 5]

[AP | 0 (Attribute Points)]

[AAP | 5 (Active Ability Points)]

[IAP | 3 (Innate Ability Points)]

[AAT | 7 (Active Ability Token)]

[IAT | 7 (Innate Ability Token)]

It would be nice to know if this exhaustion is because of the low Energy, or if it’s from all the fighting we’ve been doing. She waved her Grimoire to the side and continued to watch her husband, who should have been passed out by this point. He’s been bottomed out for a while and he’s still going.

They’d been worried about their Health draining if they reached zero Energy, but luckily, that never happened. Kyle was panting at this point, and barely managed to move out of the way in time as another boulder flew toward him. He stumbled back and fell to his ass.

“Wheewww!” he waved his arm toward the creature. Panting, he forced out, “Mana’s… gone. S’all yers… darlin’! Kick… its ass!”

Without Mana, the projectiles had stopped, and the gigantic Slime began to ooze its way toward its now motionless target. It stopped short and its membrane twitched as Leah stepped into its zone of perception. The creature ceased to pursue its original target and instead focused on the imminent threat.

Like her husband, Leah avoided sprinting toward the beast. After observing how much faster their Energy depleted the lower it dropped, they’d both slowed their pace. She walked calmly until the monstrous blob was within striking distance, then swung her weapon down at the lowest section of sludge she could reach without having to stoop.

The head of the club sunk into the Slime’s body before bursting through, tearing a wide gash in its strange membrane. Leah backed away, holding her weapon at the ready and glancing at Kyle, waiting for confirmation.

“We got a tough’n here. That there did a bit under thirty. S’gonna take…” He wiped the sweat from his brow and scrunched his eyes. Him not just spitting out the number showed her just how tired he was. “Least another thirteen hits. If’n ya want, I can—”

“You stay right there,” Leah demanded. “You’re exhausted. If you want to do anything, grab the kids and wait by the entrance.”

“Haha. Ma’am, yes ma’am!” Kyle saluted jokingly, then pushed himself from the ground, stumbling slightly before catching himself and walking toward Maeve and Rowan.

That man. If he even tried to help, I’d be digging him out of the beast by the end of it. She shook her head, then stepped in and swung her weapon twice before circling around to an uninjured side of the Slime. Parts of its membrane stretched in an attempt to grab her, but they were slow, and she had no trouble moving in and out of its reach while delivering blows.

This was where she and Kyle differed. After discovering the Stage Five Slimes’ ability to alter their bodies and create limbs, she had to change her rudimentary tactics. What was worse was that unlike the lower Stages, there was no set pattern she could follow, so she still got hit occasionally.

Her husband, on the other hand, would just stand still and pound the creatures until they collapsed, completely ignoring the searing grime that covered his skin. Having felt the pain herself more than once by this point, she couldn’t stand seeing him do it. Still, he insisted it wasn’t that bad and flashed her that goofy grin. He’d only stopped once his Energy had bottomed out, saying that his punches were doing less damage than before and that it would be more efficient for her to kill them after he drained their Mana.

“Ahh, shit!” she cursed when one of the clammy appendages brushed against her ankle, burning and startling her. She swatted it with her weapon, severing it, then dashed around to smack another side. The gray Slimes were slow to react, and she could hit them two to three times before they managed to adjust.

Thirteen hits and still not down. Damnit, I wish I could see its Health. Leah hopped back and took a minute to catch her breath. The bottom of the giant blob bubbled and squirmed on the ground, and she assumed it was turning toward her.Wish I knew which side was its front, too. These things are so weird. At least they can’t recover… or, maybe they just recover like Kyle thinks we do—once a day.

Well… that’s not entirely true. She grimaced as she thought of one of their earlier fights. It was against a Stage Five Heat Slime—the only one that Kyle remained wary of, even after having reached fifty Resilience. They didn’t have any long-ranged attacks, but it was the only type that could drain his Health so quickly. According to him, at a rate of one per second.

Luckily, even the higher Stage Heat Slimes had low Health and she could hit them for almost as much as her base damage with her weapon—which was nearing fifty. They’d faced three at Stage Five, she could kill them in four to five quick hits while Kyle let them burn his arm. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to have enough control to focus on more than one moving target.

That third one, though… while they were killing it, they found out what the faster moving milky-white Slimes could do. A Stage Two Mitos Slime dove into the brick-red monstrosity they were fighting, and the Heat Slime’s Health shot up by nearly a hundred points, according to Kyle. More were already crawling toward it, and it took the both of them beating it wildly to kill it before another of the white ones could heal it.

After a brief rest, they went around killing every Mitos Slime they could see before getting back to the grind. Leah took a deep breath and rubbed her left shoulder before moving back in to finish the job. It only took a few more hits before the Mineral Slime collapsed, and she hurriedly located its Core and dug it out before she could take too much damage from the waste.

Ooh, another one! Leah sat the Core down, wiped away the burning sludge that covered her arms and legs, then grinned when she picked it back up. It was slightly larger than a normal Core and gave off a dull, gray shimmer.

She palmed the loot and walked toward the cave entrance, where Kyle was waiting. He had Rowan in one arm and was holding Maeve’s hand to keep her from going in on her own. Their daughter was already leaning forward trying to peek around the boulders.

“Ya alright?” Kyle asked when she got closer. “I seen it catch yer foot there near the end.”

“I’m okay.” She smiled and held up the loot. “Lost more Health digging this out than I did from it grabbing me.”

Her husband’s eyes widened. “Well look’a there. Now we got six of ‘em. Ought to be able to put ‘em to good use now we’re here. Stick it in the ol’ sqwallet. Don’t wanna let go o’ the lil’un here an’ her run off on ‘er own. I know all o’ this is real, but I still ain’t gon’ trust it not to lock ‘er inside like some kinda dungeon in a game. We’re gonna go in together, just in case.”

“I was only gonna look…” Maeve pouted but stopped pulling on his hand.

Leah held back a laugh as she unzipped the weird pouch on her husband’s side and slipped the Core in before closing it. “Your father’s right. We don’t know what’s going to happen, so we need to stay together for now. Here, you take this and let me have Rowan. Maeve, give me your other hand so we’re all touching when we walk in.”

“Reckon I’ll go first.” Kyle winked, then pushed Maeve slightly behind him, holding her hand with his left and Leah’s weapon with his right. Leah held onto her daughter’s other hand and walked close behind, keeping the little girl tight between them. They were all quiet, their footsteps and Rowan’s light breaths against her shoulder were all that broke the silence.

They walked past the boulders and into the gaping maw of the dark tunnel. Leah could hear the familiar squelching of Slimes up ahead, but it was quiet, and she couldn’t imagine there to be more than two or three of the creatures. Luckily, it had already been getting dark outside, so it didn’t take long for her eyes to adjust.

What’s so special about this..? she thought as she studied the cave walls. They’d gone to the mountains often when money wasn’t tight, so walking down into the sloped tunnel wasn’t an unfamiliar experience. What struck her as odd was that it all looked so… natural.

She knew better than that. Kyle’s father ran a small business that worked with heavy equipment and hauled rocks and dirt to different construction sites. On the weekends while they were dating, and while out of a job when one of his employees called out sick or took a vacation, Kyle would run equipment or go on runs for parts if something broke down.

Leah had gone with him more than once before they had kids and crammed herself behind the excavator seat with a book. It had been more entertaining than sitting around the house, and she liked being with him. It was thanks to those days and the questions she’d asked that she knew something was off.

In their area, structures like these just didn’t exist. She’d been to quarries that were several hundred feet deep and still hadn’t encountered stone. Yet this natural-looking cave system started in a hill right on the surface? It didn’t make any sense.

It’s like someone carved out a piece of mountain and dropped it in a hole before covering it with dirt. She squinted, trying to better see the closest wall. It’s not damp like the caves we went to… but we’re still going down. This area’s a flood zone… so shouldn’t we already be below the river? If this place is safe to stay and bring others, would we have to worry about the tunnels flooding during hurricane season?

She nearly gasped but managed to keep the noise to herself. If the world is ten times bigger… does that mean the storms will be that much worse?

That thought brought back memories and made her sick to her stomach. They’d lost a home due to one such storm—Hurricane Florence. When it hit, she’d been in the hospital giving birth to Rowan. They’d been released early so that they could get home before the usual flooding after the storm trapped them but found that they didn’t have a home to get back to. When they’d pulled in the driveway, they could see that a large section of the roof was missing, along with most of the siding on one end.

Kat—Greyson’s mom and Kyle’s ex-wife—lived just down the road and let them stay until the floods had receded. Once the winds had calmed down, their husbands went to check out the damage and salvage as much as possible, but they’d lost almost everything. Old pictures, books, diplomas, furniture, electronics, toys, clothes… all gone, just like that. Insurance would only cover a quarter of the cost to repair the damage—which was more than the value of the old house—and after nearly a month of back and forth there was so much mold growth that they refused to move back even if it was fixed. They found another place and just stopped making the payments.

Assholes. Leah squeezed Rowan lightly. If they hadn’t been in the hospital, there was a strong chance that Maeve would have been hurt by the damage—or worse. She looked down at the little girl, who was bravely walking along behind her father, looking around him to try and see what was up ahead. Ha! All that work to get back on our feet and now we’re naked in a cave. We went from poor, to middle-class, to neanderthals.

At least we’re together… mostly. I hope Greyson’s doing okay. She started to worry again, but before her mood could turn sour, Kyle slowed and gestured forward. His movements were hard to follow, but when she looked around his shoulder, Leah could see a dim blue light coming from further down the slope. Shadows flickered on the cave wall and the sounds of squelching had gotten louder.

“Stay low,” Kyle whispered, then crouched and pulled them to the side so they were walking along the craggy wall. They followed his lead, the sounds of their bare feet nearly silent on the smooth slope. Leah found herself thankful for whatever had carved this path.

As they walked down, they came across two small brown Slimes that were making their way up the tunnel. Thankfully, there was more than enough space to avoid their range of perception, and the encounter ended without incident. The flickering blue light grew brighter as they traveled down the gently spiraling slope, and they eventually found its source.

Embedded in the wall on either side of the tunnel, around her eye level, were two medieval-looking sconces—a term she remembered from decorating her house on Skyrim. Torches with wooden bases and metal, cage-like cups on the top were slotted into either one. Kyle looked back at her with one eye raised, and Maeve was squirming to try and free her hands—likely wanting to point or run toward them.

“They’re so pretty…” Maeve whispered and bounced on her toes.

“Shh!” Kyle tapped her on the head gently with Leah’s weapon before moving on. When they were almost under the nearest torch, he slowed and examined it.

Like Maeve, Leah, too was enthralled by the strange object. It wasn’t the torch itself, though it was finely crafted, and she’d always loved gothic décor. No, for all of them, it was the beautiful, crystal blue flame that burned steadily within the cage. Its center was sky blue while lilac tongues licked the air above it.

She stared into the flame for several seconds… then, suddenly, she could feel something moving in the space around her. Leah jerked her head and found that Kyle was also squinting his eyes in confusion. He looked at his Grimoire—likely searching for answers—while she opted to look around the open space.

There’s nothing—no… There it is again. She closed her eyes and focused on that strange feeling. It’s like a light breeze… no, a breeze is stronger than this. And it’s like it’s coming from all over, not just from one place.

Leah felt as if she was standing in the center of a room of fans, all on the lowest possible setting, and all blowing directly at her. Then, she saw a flicker of blue in the darkness. Her eyes fluttered open almost instinctually, and she cursed as the feeling vanished. Kyle, however, was grinning broadly and gestured for her to look at her Grimoire. She was confused but did as he asked.

[Achievement | Host has advanced True Sight Mastery by one]

Just below that…

[Ya done good, lass. Ya took yer first step toward survivin’ this blasted world.]