Their consumption is beyond appalling. It is generating unwell energies in the dungeon's fonts. If left unchecked, it will destroy this place. --54.6 Seconds Post-Integration.
'Need to find a weapon! Where -- where -- oh, there!' Clark spotted a piece of rebar blown out from the crevice opening up. "Cover me! Find something to fight with!" he yelled to his party as the crevice widened, and more slimes spilled forth. "I only have one purification potion, guys, so let's make it count!" Clark picked up the rebar piece then drizzled the tonic over it; he tossed the dandy to Hera, who passed it to Theo in turn. By then, Clark had already moved to intercept and confront the enemy.
Clark charged into the first group of slimes like a bull. In a violent flurry of lashes, he used the rebar piece as a sword and vented his frustrations upon the slimes. Wham, whack, bam! Slimes fell. He earned experience. Yet for every slime he destroyed, another took its place. His energy would dwindle if he couldn't hit the slimes harder. He had to find a way to take the slimes out without exerting himself so much--
When Clark was doubting his combat ability, that was when Theo waded into the battle -- like a reaver!
Theo bore a pair of crystal daggers, one in each hand; from the florescent lights above, dints sparkled off each blade, making the daggers look as though they had been forged from diamonds. "Need a hand?" Theo said it rhetorically, but Clark answered honestly: "Sure can -- take my left and jab anything which gets close!" Stab, slice, gut! More slimes fell to their combined effort; Clark had to ask what the blades were made of: Theo told him they were made from fragments of that blown-up engine cube from the Interior. "Didn't I say they would make great weapons!" Theo boasted and though he hated to admit it, he was, in fact, jealous of Theo's sleek looking weapons. It beat his piece of rebar, that was sure!
Hera entered the fray, her hands and feet coated with an astounding blue flame. She took position on his left. All it took for Hera to slay her slime attackers was to punch, kick, or generally smash her attackers with her fists or feet. Once more, Clark was jealous -- Hera had magical limbs, and he had normal limbs! What the heck?!
Fighting lasted for a solid thirty minutes.
Then, as suddenly as the many slimes had advanced, their outward flow from the dungeon interior slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether.
Clark dabbed at his forehead sweat. "Is that everything?"
Eerie silence was the answer.
SIMP filled the silence by offering some of their trademarked assistance. "Get to the fiftieth floor -- now! I'm detecting a huge crevice opening up there!"
They obeyed and rushed headlong up the stairs. Clark worried about if they would find where the crevice in time. A needless worry. Once they entered the fiftieth floor connecting zone, a huge gash appeared nearly from the bottom to the top of the floor and ceiling. Like on the floor below, monsters -- Slimes and this time larger slimes than usual, bounced from the crevice and directly at them.
"Guys! Ready? Another stamina dandy?" he asked. His friends assented. He took a swig then passed the dandy around.
"Clark. Do you have any defense dandies?" Hera asked.
"I do, actually," he said, shambling his hand around in his bag for the dandy he sought. He found it, took a swig, and hoped Hera was right about common dandy consumption not having an ill-effect on the body. Seconds after he swallowed, Clark felt his skin become thicker. He felt like he could take a beating, like he had pillows under his skin. Like he was a real fighter. "What do these actually do?" he asked, a little goofy.
"They thicken everything in your body," Hera explained. "That means you can take a better beating!"
Clark soon found out just how well of a beating he could take. It would be incorrect to say 'slime-after-slime' bounced from the Interior. It was closer to 'group-after-group' that bounced from the Interior. With such an overwhelming number standing against them, many of which shot like crossbolts at them before rebounding and flinging themselves once more at them like a ton of bricks, Clark felt his body be hit by more slimes than he ever had the displeasure of discovering. "Why are they attracted to me!"
For whatever perverse reason it could be, the slimes, were, in fact, drawn to him.
Hera came to his rescue. She bulldozed her way through the slimes; her arms were crossed, better for her to act like a plow as she smashed into the enemy ranks. "I don't know why they're attracted to you, but we should use it to our advantage. Theo! I will run a ring around Clark! Can you deal with those slimes which get through?"
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"You know it!" Theo huffed as he continued to lap away at the enemy using his daggers.
Hera showed firsthand what she meant by 'run around him.' For that was what she did -- she downed a defense dandy, as well as another stamina dandy, both in a single gulp (!), and rushed around he and Theo as if she were a dog chasing its tail. Whoosh, clatter, screeches!
Hera's super-charge decimated the enemy ranks. Theo took down most of those which survived the charge, leaving to him any stragglers who somehow survived two lines of allies fighting to destroy them with everything they had! Experience points notifications blared as if the System was broken, which only served to push Clark into a higher gear as he started to see the enemies less as slimes and more as black puddles of experience.
With patience, and another stamina dandy passed around, this time from Theo, the enemy ranks broke.
"ATTENTION! Evacuate! Everyone, please, evacuate now!" blared an autonomous robot belonging to the anti-monster league. Behind the robot was a wave of league regulars bearing their symbol. In seconds, the newcomers joined the fray and beat back the remainder of the enemies.
"Just in the nick of time -- to take credit for our hard work!" Theo mumbled.
"Please. There were still plenty of the buggers, Theo. We need to focus on what we are going to do now -- surely, the store will require us to shift duties because of the crevice. Clark?" Hera chided, then asked of him.
Defying expectations he had of himself, Clark made a snap decision. "No! We move into the crevice! We still have some dandies between us, and I am feeling the battle rush! SIMP? What are you sensing from the crevice?"
SIMP took a moment to analyze. "I sense only a handful of monsters within the crevice. I suspect the nest was emptied during the battle. Deeper within I sense an anomality. If you act now, you might be able to investigate while making it out in time before another upsurge happens."
"You heard the lady -- or man -- whoever SIMP is: into the crevice!"
Ignoring when Hera said they couldn't hear SIMP as they weren't plugged into their Systems, the group crossed the distance into the crevice. Like the crevice he had traversed with Hera, the passage took them deep into the tower. Though, Clark was happier this time, as the crevice was large enough for an entire group, instead of being barely large enough for her and Hera. At their backs, people from the anti-monster league were trying, unsuccessfully, to get their attention.
Inside, was as SIMP had told them: gray, desolate, and sparse. Several large slimes who roamed perked up at their intrusion, but otherwise did nothing to assail them. Engine cubes in structured formations pumped up and down in unpredictable columns. The walls and ceiling glowed with light rivulets which traced the whole room in wonderous, albeit interrupted patterns, as areas splotched over with black gunk shattered the flow in a thousand unseen locations. At the center of a large chamber, one they discovered after walking for down the interior space for at least fifteen minutes, battling occasionally some of the bigger slimes, they found a pulsating gunk pile of pure black ichor in the middle of a partially sunken chamber.
"Okay, I am taking it, that is where the corruption is coming from?" he asked. Neither Theo nor Hera disagreed.
"What is that?" Hera asked. Her face slackened in awe at the giant, pulsating cocoon.
SIMP responded. "That is a monster Node. They form in areas of high plague rot. Think of it as an infection on the root of a tooth, but for the Tower. Clark. It is imperative you get down there and cleanse it!"
"Sure -- guys, let's get it!" he said, leading his team deep into the large chamber, quickly.
"Take that, and that!" everyone mumbled in their own ways as they fought off the monsters which tried to intercept them. Slimes and slightly bigger slimes made for poor adversaries, however, and they managed to sweep away their interlopers without much trouble.
"How do we approach this, guys?" he asked but he thought he already knew the answer -- 'purification tonics.' The Blessing Dandies.
"The dandies!" Theo shouted.
To his surprise, SIMP countered: "Clark! No! Don't just pour the purification dandy over something like that. One tonic won't be enough -- or twenty, for that matter. Finds where the node has overlapping veins and focus purified strikes on those sensitive areas!"
He relayed the information to his team. Together, they re-doused their weapons and sought out just such places on the node. Easy to spot after a while, the calling card of the node's joints was wrinkled, scarred sinew.
Clark gave the node no quarter. He walloped the monster node with all his might. Theo did the same but to much greater efficiency as his weapons were genuine daggers. Gouts of black slime gushed from each of the wounds Theo inflicted. Seeing monsters form up en mass on their perimeter, he made an executive decision. "Theo! You focus on taking care of this node. Hera and I will protect!"
He nor Hera had the proper tools to destroy the monster node, that much he knew. Theo, did. His daggers could actually pierce the glob-like, layered flesh. What he and Hera could do was defend.
Not giving the enemy any quarter, he and Hera brought the fight to the perimeter. They spread and took opposite sides of the where Theo was slicing at the node. "Clark!" Hera would shout if a slime got past. "Your turn!" he would shout back if a monster slid past he. They worked together better than they ever had before, and it showed.
One 'dead' slime turned to a dozen -- along with another weapon enhancement dandy as well as two more defense dandies, plus a Stamina for good measure -- before the battle was won.
Or so Clark believed.
With a final whack of his rebar and a whack of Hera's hands, the final slimes infesting the perimeter were slain. What he could not account for in that second was the node exploding and sending Theo back flying. Theo slammed into Hera; thankfully, Hera held firm, and even managed to catch Theo.
Unfortunately, their trial was not yet over.
From the node's bloody remains came something more terrifying.
A shadow of flame and darkness burst forth. Wisps of inky black speckled off its body like embers from a fire. Gradually, the figure's form coalesced into an armored body. One which Clark recognized. It was none other than the plague rot's champion, the Dark Knight once more.
Do You Have a Work Rival?
