Chapter 64: Mind Games

The Ruins smell old and moldy and there's a certain foulness to the air. Esofy can’t help but pinch her nose, envious of the little girl that is only represented by a body of mana. They have previously scouted out the place hours earlier and Alysara is back in the main camp even now, the little prodigy continuing the partially completed mapping work.

Esofy unrolls her map. "Let's go this way," she says, leading the group down a tunnel that will take them to the reported location of a chest. The first goal is to see if the chests are always found in the same location. The report also included a large fire slime mini-boss in that room, the chest having appeared after it was slain.

Esofy leads the party through the halls and rooms, making short work of the slimes residing within. Their materials are left behind as space in the storage items they brought is limited. After killing the slimes, Esofy guides the group into a hall and around the traps, seeing their complicated mechanisms in her [Sense Mana] sphere. There are definitely more traps here than the Glade.

The blue-grey bricks of the ruin walls have moss growing between and over them, oozing a viscous, wet, sickly green liquid that pools in places on the floor.

"This is so gross," Chyzu says, after placing her hand on the wall. She draws her hand back, strings of goo clinging to her hand and bridging to the filthy stone.

Esofy isn’t particularly squeamish, but the color and the way the goo sticks to things don’t settle well with her. It doesn’t help that the floor is covered in the stuff, rendering the footing slippery and the idea of fighting an unpleasant one.

Collapsed ceilings and rubble block their path from time to time, adding to the maze-like layout of the ruins. To make matters worse, slime monsters lie in ambush, disguised as the normal slimy puddles. Esofy isn't fooled by them, of course, their mana signature is distinct and the group is able to surprise the slimes instead, resulting in easy kills.

“Let us handle the slimes, Alysara. Tana needs more practice against them.”

“Okay,” Alysara casually says.

Tana's flame burns away the slime with ease, although their physical attacks barely do anything to the gelatinous monsters. Alysara seems quite intrigued by the flames for some reason, noting that it seems to 'drain the monsters’ vitality'. Esofy wonders how Alysara knows that. Vitality and mana aren’t the same thing… right?

Upon reaching the location of the treasure chest on the map, only a monster-filled room greets them. Over thirty level sixty slimes rush at the party, some leaping through the air and spreading out to envelop Jowaru. A fairy flies over the group's heads and an explosion rings out in the middle of the room, the mass of slimes immediately thinning.

The low-level slimes aren’t a challenge. Esofy cuts through several, their cores split in half.

Irela sends dozens of steel balls smashing through the slimes as Esofy watches over her student, giving pointers.

"Always keep an eye on your flank." Esofy says, blocking an attack from a jumping slime.

"Yes!" Tana replies and smashes down the hammer side of their axe.

Uloru swings her hammer from side to side, splashing the monsters’ viscous liquid all around, cracked and shattered slime cores flying everywhere. Klora shoots blunt arrows with deadly aim at the cores, killing the slimes instantly.

When all the slimes are slain the liquid starts flowing into the center of the room, along with broken cores of the recently slain slimes which fly together and hover in the air, melding into one.

"...So that's why..." Alysara mutters absentmindedly.

The slime flows over the core and a new, larger slime takes form. This one is a deep blue color, different from the normal sickly green slimes.

Hive Slime (Major) Level 230

Tentacles launch out and are deflected by several members of the group, but Tana and Jowaru are caught by the legs and pulled in toward the mini-boss. Small blades that Irela commands slash through the tentacles, which fall into puddles on the ground and flow back to the main mass. Tana and Jowaru quickly retreat back to the group, but Tana slips on the slimy ground and skids to Esofy’s side.

"Pay attention to your footwork and make sure you defend your legs!" Esofy chastises, extending a hand to help Tana stand up.

"Yes!" The strange-looking girl replies.

Alysara creates several decoys that spread out, but the boss ignores them and continues attacking the group's vanguard. Chyzu and Tulalo continually blast the main body of the slime with water, the wounds quickly closing up and the body growing slightly larger with each strike. The tentacles are dripping more slime, the initially jello-like substance becoming more slurry-like.

"Stop attacking, you're feeding it!" Irela yells irately.

"No, she's diluting it. The slime isn't even its body, the core is," Alysara explains calmly.

"It's growing bigger! How is that helping?!" Irela retorts.

Tana's flame spreads over the slime’s surface, like oil catching on fire, as they spray the monster with a wide jet of vitality-draining flame.

"We need to get rid of the slime, keep diluting it until it can't hold its shape anymore, then we attack the core," Alysara says, still calm in the heat of battle.

"That's stupid!" Irela says and sends a giant ball smashing through the slime, spraying burning slime everywhere. "See, just smash it apart!" The slime just flows back and rejoins the main mass around the core.

"A lot of good that did..." Alysara retorts quietly.

"Everybody SHUT UP!" Esofy shouts, projecting a commanding tone. "We need to work together! Irela, focus on disabling the tentacles, Chyzu and Tulalo dilute the main body, Jowaru, intercept any attacks and defend us. Uloru, increase the gravity around it to weaken its ability to maintain its shape and reveal the core." Esofy orders.

Alysara sends fairy after fairy into the slime, the explosions showering the area with slime, but Esofy can see the mana build-up of an ice spell being channelled. One of the benefits a caster has over a non-caster is the ability to charge up a really powerful spell over a couple of minutes but the downside is that the cast time is too long to be used in real combat. In addition to that, Alysara's spell isn't boosted by her class or race, so it's going to be weaker than if she had a class tailored for casting. However, despite those downsides, Alysara is in the unique position of not actually being present or in danger, so channelling as she is is actually viable for her.

She's going to freeze the slime. Esfoy realizes. Alysara wants as much water in the slime as possible to make the freezing more effective, although if that fails the next plan will likely be  to dilute it until it can’t hold its shape anymore. The exploding fairies serve to mix the water into the slime to speed up the process.

"I'm ready!" Alysara notifies the group.

"Give her a line of attack!" Esofy orders and the group splits. A beam of ice mana envelopes the slime, which freezes it almost instantly.

"Smash it!" Esofy commands and Uloru jumps forward with a wide grin, almost hovering in the air for a remarkable amount of time as she does a flip  and brings down her hammer with a thunderous crack. The frozen slime shatters into a million pieces from the brutal attack and Irela shoots forth a metal spear, shattering the core.

"Could have let Tana drain the vitality to keep the material intact," Alysara says, sounding a little annoyed.

Irela huffs and turns around.

"Irela, act your age," Jowaru chastises. Despite being a full-grown woman, Irela is known to be really competitive.

"There are literally two ten year olds in this group and they are better behaved than you, Irela," Tulalo says.

"Why are you taking her side?! She's not even with us physically!"

"But I am mentally!" Alysara sticks her tongue out playfully, swishing her three tails.

"Alysara, I know you're better than that." Chyzu chastises.

"One of me is." Alysara jokes, referencing her [Twin Minds].

"You're not usually like this Alysara, is there something going on?" Esofy can't help but have a bad feeling.

"First I'm told to play like a normal child and now I'm told to not? Make up your mind, I have two helping with that." Alysara giggles at her own joke.

Alysara is usually more contemplative and quiet than this. Esofy’s bad feeling is only reinforced when a treasure chest appears in the center of the room and Aly is immediately distracted. "Loot!" the immaterial girl skips over to the chest energetically, calling out some nonsense word. In sharp contrast to her usual caution she tries and fails to open the chest, seemingly forgetting that her illusion is not able to interact physically.

Why is she acting so childish all of a sudden? Esofy can’t understand, but something is clearly wrong.

"Open it! Maybe there's a magic item in it!"

Why only her? Did something happen back at the camp?

Chyzu sighs and opens the chest after checking to see if it's safe. The chest contains two vials of red liquid, full of life essence. There's an enchanted banner and an enchanted green ring. The banner is full of courage essence, Esofy doesn't need to [Analyze] it to know it helps fight fear effects. The ring is full of wind mana, [Analyze] reports that it boosts wind damage by one-hundred twenty percent.

"Looks like RNG doesn't favor us, better luck next time!" Alysara bounds out of the room.

"I've not known Alysara for long, but even I can tell something is not right." Kadona comments, looking troubled.

"She's never been like this," Tana nods.

"We should follow her, perhaps it's something in this place that's affecting her?" Jowaru asks

"I'm inclined to agree," Kadona says.

"Remember she's actually back at the main camp, so this could mean that something is happening there." Chyzu argues.

"Why are you guys thinking it's a problem at the main camp? Are you stupid?" Irela snaps, "She said 'One of me is' and 'I have two minds' earlier; that implies her other mind, back at the camp, is unaffected."

Esofy has to let that sink in. If it is only affecting one mind, then why? What is here that is causing Alysara to act weird?

"We need to follow her, perhaps she'll lead us to the problem," Chyzu says, now with more worry in her voice.

Esofy rushes after the illusory girl who is now humming playfully, the rest of the group following behind. Explosions echo throughout the hall and soon the giggles of a little girl follow. The group keeps running but somehow Alysara is faster than them... no, she's just passing through the holes in the collapsed sections meant to block paths, her body of mana simply letting her get around them.

"Hurry up slowpokes!" Alysara calls from the other side, before the sounds of more explosions reach their ears.

The group rush around the halls trying to catch up, but Alysara is only gaining distance by utilizing shortcuts.

"Last one to the floor boss is a rotten egg!" Alysara laughs again, speaking another nonsense word.

The group follows the sounds of explosions and trail of slain slimes.

"You guys are so slow! Perhaps a little motivation is in order?" Her sound magic makes her voice carry far and echo ominously. "How about this, if you aren't at the floor boss in fifteen minutes you just might get a friendly package from me. You'll find the surprise to be quite a bang!"

"Doesn't it seem like she's getting worse the farther in we go?" Tana questions. Despite the situation, they sound as determined as ever.

"Anyway, why does she want us to get to the boss so fast? That is our goal anyway." Uloru says, completely unaffected from the running, likely due to her Bond's support.

Why indeed, could that be the source? Or has she been completely influenced by whatever it is?

"Let's just keep going, this place hasn't been explored yet so the map will not be useful to us," Esofy says. The map Alysara has been making is at the main camp so they can’t use it.

They follow the explosions to a dead end, only seeing a fairy at the end of it.

"Oops, wrong way~," Alysara says from somewhere unseen in a sing-song voice "Now you get to say hello to my little friend!" The fairy rushes towards the group.

"Shit!" Jowaru jumps in front with her massive shield only to be blown back, groaning as cracking sounds come from her arms. Tana and Tulalo dash to her side to provide healing.

"Tick-tock, time's running out~" The giggling echoes throughout the ruins.

"Mind control," Kadona groans.

"The boss is a mind mage!?" Irela looks a little terrified.

"Alysara was scouting ahead, she must have been caught. The question is, are both her minds affected or just one?" Esofy questions.

"That explosion was powerful, full force even,” Jowaru reports, “but it almost seems like she didn't have her Kyhosa on."

"Regardless, this is very bad, Alysara is possibly the worst of us to be mind-controlled in this situation. We have to kill the boss as soon as possible." Esofy commands.

The group runs further, searching room after room. The explosions have stopped and instead a trail of fairies is found, each one attacking and exploding. Each time, Jowaru needs healing.

"She wasn't this strong at the tournament!" Jowaru complains.

"She was obviously holding back! We all do!" Irela retorts.

"Prepare for trouble~ And make it double~" Alysara giggles at her own joke just as two exploding fairies speed toward the group.

"Irela!" Jowaru shouts and both metal mages throw up shields. The twin explosions fling the metal back; Esofy and Tana jump forward to deflect it.

"If we don't get there soon we'll be facing many more of those!" Chyzu’s voice is verging on ‘panicked’.

Now sprinting at full speed, the group runs into dead end after dead end, each having one or more exploding fairies. Even level one hundred slimes are occupying the rooms now, not having been blown up by Alysara. Esofy and the group quickly dispatch the slimes, however, they are too late.

"Time's up! Come out, come out, wherever you are~!" They are close, Esofy just knows it... There! Nine fairies round a corner, instantly locking onto each one of them. Klora intercepts three of them with arrows, the fairies exploding prematurely, at a safe distance, and Irela follows her example with small metal balls. The explosions, however, are much, much stronger now, as if influenced by something.

Esofy turns the corner only to see a dead end, however, her [Sense Mana] sees a wall of beauty mana, an illusion.

"Another dead end!" Irela half-shouts, frustrated.

"No, it's an illusion!" Chyzu says and sprints toward the wall, vanishing through it. The rest of the group follow and run into a large cylindrical room. In front of them is Alysara's clone, now in a dark robe with blood-red trims and lines. A massive floating ball of pink slime is high above.

Mind Core Slime (Grand) Level 300

"It's time for you noobs to git gud!" Several dozen fairies descend from the ceiling, all ready to explode.