Ch159: Returning to the Ruins

“Still wonderin’ ‘ow Ah’m goin’ ta fight the slimes, my dearest love~?” Beryl’s playful voice dances through the darkness beyond their light, echoing across the rocky walls around them.

“Yeah, but it’ll only be a couple more minutes until I get to see the answer myself, so... I can wait.”

A damp chill fills the musty air, becoming more and more difficult to ignore as they advance, descending into the buried ruins far below.

“Ach, tha’ is no fun...” That tanned tomboy of an Elf exaggerates her disappointment, sighing deeply as she idly adjusts the bow hanging over her shoulder. “Not even goin’ ta ask why Ah’ve brought this along instead o’ leavin’ it by the entrance?”

“I’m sure you have your reasons.” Krvavy’s lips curl into a faintly teasing smile as she briefly glances back towards the Elf following close behind her.

“O’ course Ah do, but are ya really not curious about why Ah’m bringin’ a bow o’ all things down ‘ere?” Beryl prods... both verbally and physically, one of her nimble fingers pressing into that Drakling’s side. “Tha’ isn’t exactly the best weapon fer close-quarters combat. Even if this one is much shorter than my usual.”

“If I didn’t know any better, then I’d think that you’re trying to spoil your own surprise.” Krvavy comments as casually as she can. A slight smile plays at her lips as she continues ever deeper into this cave.

“So ya won’t even guess?”

“Nope.” The Drakling dryly replies, really struggling to keep a straight face. “I know that you’d just love to tease me for any wrong guess I make, but what if my guess is right?”

“My dearest love,” the tanned tomboy gently sighs, “ya are really bein’ no fun–”

“Oh, would you look at that!” Krvavy playfully cuts her Elf off, pointing ahead. “There’s that ruined room and the door in all of its rusted and warped glory! Looks like we’re finally here.”

“Aye, so it would seem.” Beryl slips the bow off her shoulder, deftly catching it in her hand. “Pass me the backpack.” She orders. “It’ll be best fer me ta carry it from ‘ere on out. Don’t want it messin’ wit’ yer Naturists Blessing, and it’s not like there’s much o’ anythin’ in it right now anyway.”

“Alright.” Krvavy easily agrees to that, shrugging off the mostly empty backpack and handing it to her Elf. “But I’ll be taking that back once we start filling it up.”

“O’ course.” The Wood Elf nods as she slings the thing over her shoulders, taking a moment to make sure that it isn’t blocking the wooden quiver hanging from her hip.

The indistinct shadow of a large and imposing axe is cast on the wall ahead as Krvavy’s Soulbound weapon manifests into reality. Krvavy rolls her shoulders and adjusts the gently glowing chunk of quartz that she is wearing like a necklace, making it sit more comfortably on her chest.

“Go on ahead, my dearest love. Ah’ve got yer back.” Beryl reassures, pulling a crude stick of an arrow from her quiver and resting it atop her bow, ready to draw it back at a moments notice.

The barbarian quirks a brow at that sight, causing her Elf’s smile to visibly become a little smug. With a shake of her head, Krvavy turns and passes through the open doorway. She has an idea as to what Beryl’s surprise is, but she still isn’t entirely certain. That mischievous Elf could just be messing with her, after all. Guess she’ll see if she’s right soon enough.

“Ah almost forgot just ‘ow massive this place is...” Beryl’s quiet muttering sounds so loud in this ancient underground panopticon. Darkness pools at the edge of their light, hardly dispelled even as they both make their crystals shine just a bit brighter. The potentially bottomless pit looms in front of them, eerily silent. “Just ‘ow deep do ya want ta go today?”

“I’d like to find out what’s at the bottom, but...” Krvavy trails off with a slightly indifferent shrug. Her curiosity has a limit, and if it turns out that this place has an annoying amount of floors to cross... Well, she’ll care a lot less about whatever might be at the bottom, if that is the case.

“Ooh~! My dearest love~!” Beryl’s cooing voice draws the Drakling’s attention. The Wood Elf smiles playfully as she dramatically gestures off to the side, pointing out a shape emerging from the darkness. “Looks like our ‘osts ‘ave come ta welcome us~! Mind if Ah take care o’ this?”

“Go ahead.” The Drakling steps aside, not particularly worried about a single medium-sized slime.

Beryl nocks her crude arrow on her slightly less crude bow, drawing it back as the air around it begins to shift and swirl. The Wood Elf aims at the slowly approaching blobby mass and lets loose her wind-wrapped projectile.

A sharp whistle cuts through these silent ruins, that magically enhanced arrow soaring through the stagnant air almost faster than the eye can follow, splashing into the muddy-coloured slime in an instant. For a split second it seems like that attack was entirely ineffective, but that impression is quickly tossed aside. The slime bulges, its gooey mass swelling and thinning, before it suddenly bursts like a balloon that was filled too full, a storm tearing it apart from the inside.

“Tada~!” Beryl curtsies as that medium-sized muddy mass splatters into nothingness. “Slimes dissolve when spread so thinly, and wha’ better way ta do tha’ then poppin’ ‘em like bubbles~? Ya impressed~? Ya –” The tanned Elf abruptly cuts herself off, her smile faltering as she narrows her eyes at her barbaric lover. “Ya don’t look surprised.”

“I am, kind of.” Krvavy plainly replies, watching the few tiny puddles created by that slime’s explosive death slowly fade away. “That was a lot more... effective than I thought it’d be. I expected it to just slice the thing apart.”

“Ach, but ya aren’t surprised by me usin’ a bow? Or wit’ ‘ow Ah sheathed tha’ ah’row in wind?”

“Not really.” The Drakling shoots her sweet berry an apologetic smiles. “Maybe I wouldn’t have guessed it if you weren’t so obvious with carrying it down here.”

“Ah could ‘ave been tryin’ ta trick ya, ta make ya think tha’ Ah was goin’ ta use it when really Ah wasn’t...” Beryl rests a hand on her hip as she grumbles just a bit.

“Yeah, I thought about that. But I figured that was less likely than you actually using it.” The Drakling pats her Elf on the head in a reassuring yet slightly condescending manner. “After all, you are amazing with a bow, so it makes sense that you’d try to find a way to make it work against these annoying blobs. Plus, you did the whole ‘slicing them with wind’ thing last time, so getting your magic involved wasn’t really a surprise either.”

“Tsk.” The tanned Elf simply clicks her tongue and does nothing about that patting hand. A very faint pout fills her face when it pulls away on its own.

“Was that a new spell?” Krvavy curiously asks. “Or did you just alter Guiding Gusts to do that?”

“Ach, and ya even guessed tha’ correctly...” Beryl dramatically shakes her head. “It’s not a new spell,” she confirms with an exaggerated sigh. “Ah suppose tha’ it was effective enough fer me ta try ta make it one though... But nah, right now Ah’m just makin’ the wind around the ah’rows more intense and manually burstin’ the slimes. Figured it’d be a bit more effective if Ah could ensure tha’ Ah’m spreadin’ them out from the very center and not just a few ‘ands away from the edge. Now,” the Wood Elf’s tone grows more serious, “enough dawdlin’ around. We shouldn’t get distracted while down ‘ere.”

“Right.” Krvavy nods her head and gives their surroundings a quick look over, checking to see is any slimes had snuck up on them during all of that. A frown makes its way onto her face as she finds herself having to turn her entire body to let the quartz hanging from her neck shine its light where she wants to see. “Can you keep watch for a moment? I’d like to... try something.”

“Aye. But be quick wit’ whatever ya’re plannin’. We aren’t exactly bein’ quiet, so it’s only a matter o’ time until some more slimes show up.”

Krvavy nods again as she lifts the necklace up above her head, squinting as its shining crystal passes in front of her eyes. But she doesn’t completely remove it. Krvavy gently bites the inside of her cheek as she tangles the string between the tips of her upper horns, tying it so that the chunk of quartz is held in place just above her forehead. The bright shining light is a little annoying, but at least it’ll illuminate whatever she’s looking at...

“Ya look a little goofy like tha’.” Beryl suppresses a giggle as she takes a step towards the barbarian. “Bend down a bit, will ya?” She softly orders, reaching towards Krvavy’s upper horns. “Got ta make sure tha’ is nice and secure. Don’t want it fallin’ off mid fight.”

The Drakling twitches slightly as she feels thin vines coiling around her horns, grown from her Elf’s apparently still-living wooden armour. The glare from just above her sight is abruptly cut off as Beryl so kindly creates a more solid housing for the quartz, directing it’s light ahead.

“There, is tha’ better now?”

“Yeah.” Krvavy glances left and then right, testing her crude crystalline headlamp. “Thanks.”

“No problem, my dearest love.” Warmth and love fills Beryl’s voice as she steps back... and suddenly squints. “Just, ahh, don’t look me in the face wit’ tha’ on yer ‘ead. Ah know, Ah know, tha’ will be so difficult fer ya ta do, but please try. Ah’d prefer ta not be blinded.”

Krvavy’s cheeks flush a bit as she turns away. “Right, sorry.” The quiet giggling of her sweet berry only serves to make that blush burn even brighter. “Now, how about we get a move on?”

“Lead the way, my fearsome lil’ lantern~.”

“Not as many slimes as I expected...” Krvavy idly comments, her gaze sweeping side to side as she and her Elf carefully cross the second floor of this buried ruin. The fact that this was, almost certainly, some sort of prison is hammered into her head as they pass by cell after cell after cell. Most of which appear to be completely empty behind those thick rusted bars.

“We’ve already seen a couple more down ‘ere than on the floor above.” Beryl plainly states, her calm tone faltering a bit as she sees into the next cell. There is another large mass of quartz growing from what was once a cot. The Elf shakes her head and turns her gaze away from those crystals.

“Yeah, but you killed all of them in seconds...” The barbarian slowly sighs. “Which... I shouldn’t complain about, I know, but that does make it a bit boring for me.”

“Ah’m sure tha’ we’ll run inta a whole flood o’ them soon enough, my dearest love~..” That tanned tomboy teasingly returns... with a degree of seriousness to her words. Somehow that contradiction sounds completely normal and natural coming from this Wood Elf.

“Mnh...” A wordless hum serves as Krvavy’s response, her emerald eyes piercing through the darkness ahead. She perks up a little as the light from her crude quartz headlamp illuminates an open doorway, only to then reveal it to be the next set of stairs, which slightly dampens her enthusiasm. That is what she was looking for, but she still would have liked to find something more exciting.

With a gentle shake of her head, Krvavy enters into the stairwell and gives it a cautious look over, checking for any slimes that could be hidden around the corners or on the ceiling. But, just like the last one, this stairwell is completely empty. Well, except for the fact that it has stairs, obviously. And, just like the last one, it also appears to only reach the floor below.

“Not gettin’ annoyed wit’ the layout o’ this place, are ya~?” Beryl playfully wonders as she follows after her Draconic lover, carefully climbing down these old stone steps.

“To be completely honest.. I am a bit, yeah.” Krvavy sighs back, gently shaking her head. “Reaching the bottom would be a lot easier if we could just use a single set of stairs rather than having to constantly cross over to the opposite end of each floor...”

“Aye, tha’ would be easier. But it’d also be a lot more borin’, don’t ya think? We’d just see plain stone walls as we spiral down inta the depths.” The Wood Elf grimaces at that thought, reaching a hand out to trail her fingers along the worn wall beside her.

“I guess...?” The Drakling weakly shrugs. “But that’s not really saying much. Walking past all those rusty cells isn’t too exciting either.”

“Aye, but at least it gives us space ta fight any slimes tha’ we run inta.”

“Fair enough.”

Silence reigns for only few seconds, long enough for them to reach the bottom of these stairs and step through the empty doorway onto the next floor.

“Huh... My dearest love, is it just me or does this all look... a little different?”

Krvavy raises an eyebrow as she looks around, the light of her crude headlamp piercing through the oppressive darkness. “Uh... Kind of...?”

The overall layout of this floor seems identical to the two above it. The pathway that they’re standing on has the same gentle bend as it curves around the same potentially bottomless pit in the center, with the outer wall lined with the same rusty cells. The only difference, if it can even be called that, is the fact that everything around them is noticeably more run down. There are far more cracks in the ground. There are quite a few chunks of rock that have long since fallen from the ceiling above. The thick metal bars isolating the cells from the rest of this place are far more rusted, with some bent and snapped outwards...

“Well, my dearest love,” the Wood Elf’s eyes twinkle as she playfully nudges her Draconic lover in the side. “Ya wanted somethin’ more interestin’, so ‘ere ya are.”

“Great...” Krvavy quietly groans. Their surroundings have definitely taken another step towards horror movie territory. Granted, that shouldn’t really be a surprise, what with the violently bent metal door that they had to pass to get in here... “As long as this place doesn’t collapse around us...”

“Ach, don’t ya tempt fate like tha’.” Beryl nudges the barbarian a little harder this time.

“Right, sorry...” The Drakling slowly trails off as she sees movement in the darkness, taking a few steps in that direction. Her lips curl into a smile as her light reveals a blue blobby mass, one significantly larger than the muddy-coloured slimes they’ve seen so far.

“Ooh, tha’ is a big one...” A twiggy arrow twirls between Beryl’s dexterous fingers as she makes that idle observation. “Not sure if Ah’d be able ta take it out wit’ a single ah’row, likely’d just splat it inta a couple smaller slimes... So, my dearest love, why don’t ya go ahead and test yer new spells on it~?”

Krvavy hardly needs permission for that. She is already approaching the sizable slime.

The dirty blue mass of this huge amorphous blob oozes over a pile of rocky rubble, slowly making its way towards the Drakling. Whether that is because it had noticed her or was already heading in this direction isn’t clear. It never is with these brainless blobs.

Krvavy isn’t quite sure how this slime compares to the previous blue one she fought, as it has been quite some time since then. If she had to guess, she’d say that this slime is a little smaller, but not by much? It is honestly pretty hard to tell, considering that it doesn’t actually have a defined shape...

With a shake of her head, Krvavy puts that thought aside. She has gotten close enough.

The stagnant air that hangs in this ruin is drawn towards the Drakling, quickly cooling as it fills her lungs. Her core pulses with a polar chill. Specks of frost begin to form on her snow-white skin, slowly spreading across her faintly glowing throat, that white light gaining a pinkish hue as it filters through her flesh. A dim pain throbs through her chest as she holds that breath for longer than is comfortable.

Abruptly and without any additional warning, Krvavy’s jaw snaps open. A frigid storm rushes free from her mouth, casting a chilly glow across this buried ruin as every drop of moisture in the air freezes into sharp specks of ice, dancing forth in swirling eddies that shine with a harsh winter light.

The glacial wind slams into the filthy blue mass of that large slime, a thousand spinning snowflakes stabbing into its watery form.

145.54 Damage dealt to [Big Blue Slime]216.49 Damage dealt to [Big Blue Slime]

The amorphous blob shudders and shivers as large swathes of its surface harden into ice. Cool mist swirls around its jiggling mass as the simple and mindless thing struggles to move as it once did, smashing parts of itself onto the rocky ground as it rolls forwards into the icy storm.

534.86 Damage dealt to [Big Blue Slime]

Frost spreads across the Drakling’s lips as she continues to exhale, releasing far more air than she took in. Her lungs and throat burn with pain, different yet similar to when she breathes out plumes of fire and flame. Any moisture that was in her mouth has been completely frozen, coating her long tongue in painfully sharp shards of ice that crackle and snap with each unconscious movement made.

432.13 Damage dealt to [Big Blue Slime]

Branches of frost spread across the ground as the slime’s increasingly icy form melds with the frigid floor. The ice covering that large amorphous blob cracks slightly as it finds itself unable to move at all, but the constant stream of glowing white wind mends those fractures in mere seconds.

246.92 Damage dealt to [Big Blue Slime]

Krvavy’s Boreal Breath ends as abruptly as it began, though the cold white light lingers a little longer as it slowly fades into chilling mist.

“Ahk...!” The Drakling painfully coughs, her dry eyes struggling to blink away the frosty cold. Each little breath she takes hurts. Her lungs feel crunchy and her throat is ragged, as if it has been torn up by a thousand little knives. But, just like when she casts Blazing Breath, Krvavy didn’t actually take a single point of damage from any of that, so she tries to push that immense discomfort aside to focus on finishing off the slime.

Her scaled fingers briefly tighten around the shaft of her Soulbound Weapon as she raises it up, spins it around, and draws it back. The ridged hammerhead gleams faintly at the edge of her light, tiny in comparison to the axehead on its opposite side. The smaller size may be a bit aesthetically off-putting, but that just makes it all the more effective as a weapon: the entirety of its weight and Krvavy’s strength will be concentrated in that bumpy rectangular surface.

1,527.41 Damage dealt to [Big Blue Slime]

An almost deafening sound of shattering ice rings through this ruin as the Drakling’s weapon slams into the solidified slime. Fractures form across that ice-covered blob in an instant, each crevice reaching deep into its glacial mass. Frozen chunks of all sizes are sent flying through the air as Krvavy’s violent swing is hardly slowed down by that moment of contact. A hail of pulverized ice surrounds the barbarian’s body as her weapon utterly demolishes her mindless foe.

[Big Blue Slime] has been slain!+1,232.5 Experience

“My dearest love~!” Beryl can’t help but cheer, excitement and joy and love all mixing together in her raised voice. “Wha’ a show o’ strength tha’ was~!”

“I... ahk...! Ahem...” Krvavy coughs and clears her throat a couple times before speaking in a clear but slightly hoarse voice. “Yeah that was... more effective than I expected.”

“Ya took tha’ slime out so quickly, my dearest love, and wit’ just one strike~!” The tomboyish Elf lovingly coos as she presses herself into her Draconic lover’s side, her wooden armour keeping her from feeling the chill of Krvavy’s skin.

“Well, the magic did a lot of the work...” The barbarian shrugs and idly kicks one of the larger frozen chunks that litter the ground around her. “Do you think these will become smaller slimes when they thaw?”

Beryl slowly sighs as she reluctantly separates herself from the Drakling’s side, walking a few steps away to reach the single biggest piece of the slime’s icy remains. The tip of one of her crude arrows taps against it, chiselling off a small frosty piece. “Probably not...?” The Elf tilts her head and glances back towards the Drakling. “Ah don’t think it’ll be meltin’ any time soon, but it seems ta already be dissolvin’ away... Still, might be best ta not leave any large chunks sittin’ around.”

“Right.” Krvavy nods her head, resting her axe over her shoulder. “Stand back.”

Beryl quickly gives the Drakling enough room to break apart the biggest pieces, though some small bits of shrapnel still fly her way, uselessly pattering against her armour. “Everythin’ alright, my dearest love?” She asks once it seems like Krvavy is done smashing the slimes frozen remains. “Ya look a little disappointed.”

“I wasn’t really expecting anything, but a part of me was kind of hoping to get some more experience from that.” Krvavy sighs and shakes her head. “Makes sense, as cutting one slime into two doesn’t get me anything, at least not until I kill both parts... But still, would have been nice.”

“Ah really don’t know ‘ow these things work, my dearest love.” Beryl honestly admits, glancing at the icy debris all around them. “Slimes are... weird. Guess yer magic must ‘ave wiped out wha’ever magic ‘olds them tagether?”

“Sounds like that could make sense.” The barbarian idly replies, rolling her shoulders as she gazes out into the surrounding darkness, looking for any more approaching slimes. Sadly, there are none. “Well... no point hanging around here, so let’s get a move on.”

Beryl’s lips spread into a soft smile as she steps aside. “Ah’ll be right behind ya, my dearest love.”