"Malcolm, just shoot the ones in the back!" Ms. Gwyn calls out from between Carlos and Fred, using her wand to stab slimes from between their bodies while they held of eight mucus mobs by themselves. When they noticed the size of this group filled the entire tunnel, Ms. Gwyn had called a tactical retreat to draw them further and further away from the slimes still deeper into the tunnel.
While retreating, she came up with the simple plan to use our own wall of bodies and her access to flame magic to contain these giant slimes. With a wall of people in the front and a wall of fire behind them, I could actually see through most of their bodies will enough to pick out the cores. After receiving the order to fire, I drew my revolver and picked the furthest slime to aim at because of its proximity to the bright yellow flames.
Lining the top barrel of my revolver up with the dark knot of tissues inside the slime's body, I fire the first shot to reduce the mass in my way before quickly firing a second trio of bullets into the slime's body. The second set of bullets managed to pass all of the way through, sputtering the wall of fire with a spray of gel and fluids. The core was also destroyed, which meant as much as fifty contribution points went down the drain.
I continued firing down the same side of the tunnel, allowing the others to focus their efforts on the other side while our tanker held the middle lane. Each slime seemed to require two shots apiece, one shot to soften their bodies around the cores and another in the same general area to actually strike their only vital point.
The others had managed to kill two slimes on their own from around the tanker, which brought the enemy numbers low enough for Carlos and I to switch styles. Because I only needed to focus on one slime while Ms. Gwyn and Fred paired one and Carlos dealt with the other, I focused on speed over power and drew my saber to slash back and forth from my slime's side. Tentacles and thicker arms alike fell away with spurts and sprays of transparent acidic mucus with every pass of my arm.
When I finally had to change position to avoid the acidic slime pooling around me I harshly chopped my saber straight down the back of the snail-like slime's upper body to drain their remaining limbs.
Hopping back to make space for drawing my big sword as whole gallons of slime sprays out, I easily leap back across the ten feet of distance and chop my sword down through most of their body. Most of the slime's insides sprayed out once again, providing me with a perfect opportunity to reach in and just snatch the softball sized core. By the time we finished gathering up these cores we had two large bags full of different sized organic mana cores.
While these F and E grade cores could be used by mage Protectors to empower artifacts and equipment, this was usually reserved for higher grade cores. These low grade cores were usually scrapped into large mana generators that converted MP into electricity like fueling a turbine with coal. However, one F grade core had enough MP to power a small town for several days.
Just the cores we currently carried could keep the lights on in a small city for a month or two. By the end of this assignment, we should have enough cores to power that same small city for a whole year. Inorganic or 'unnatural' mana cores could be used in the same way but their mana quality was higher and thus were mostly reserved for making weapons and equipment.
Because of all that, slime cores had the highest contribution value of most F and E ranked portals even though the carapaces and hides or other parts of monsters were used to make some armor and weapons from.
"We'll take a break here," Ms. Gwyn informs the group suddenly, reaching into a bag on her back to take out a collapsible canvas stool and sit down on the spot. The air here was actually becoming a little hard to breathe with my cheaper model of mask, causing me to breathe slowly and evenly to keep from pulling too many gases and chemicals through the small filters of powdered carbon and diatomaceous earth.
However, I kept my complaints to myself and simply hunkered down by the wall to let my legs rest. We had been moving and fighting through this dungeon for the better part of an hour and even though half of my ammo supply was missing I was still starting to feel the weight of all of my gear. Sadly, if I went without either the heavy sword or revolver our clearing speed would not be as fast as it already was.
After a few minutes of resting in which everybody ate or drank something to replenish their energy, Ms. Gwyn decides to strategize by saying, "We're going to reach a point, soon, where using fire magic or firing a gun will probably cause a gas explosion from all the rot and fumes built up at the back of the tunnel. My mask is already starting to lose its effectiveness, too, so Malcolm's smaller mask is probably already at its limits. You can tell just by how he's breathing."
"Then what's the plan? I ask softly, trying not to strain my air filters with too much talking and irregular breathing.
"We'll keep going until the particle counter I've got shows me the numbers I want to see," she replies simply, reaching into a satchel at her hip to take out a small handheld pollution meter and checking its small screen. "Which, at this rater, will be another hundred yards or so. Then, we blow the bastards to kingdom come using their own trash."
While using the gasses thickening in the air to turn this tunnel into a natural firebomb would effectively weaken or even kill most slimes, being trapped in an enclosed underground area with the explosion was basically committing suicide. Seeing the incredulous look I was giving her, Ms. Gwyn simply chuckles softly and says, "I know you're thinking I'm an idiot, but we have a way to deal with such things. We came here prepared, remember?"
Thinking back to my last assignment, I simply shrug and say, "Our lives are in your hands, team leader."
Smiling brightly as if she had just received a compliment, Ms. Gwyn says, "And don't you forget it!"
Shortly after that we were once again moving forward on our way until my eyes actually started to water under my mask only a fifty or so yards further down. I had to stop and softly say, "I can't go further." This caused Ms. Gwyn who was holding onto the back of Fred's armor to stop in an instant, which stopped the tanker and thus the whole party.
After a few checks by resetting her meter, Gwyn had Carlos and I retreat a dozen yards or so with the lantern before taking the tanker further in before stopping. Fred then knelt down behind his large round shield and planted a few inches of the bottom into the cracked floor of the tunnel. "Shield Wall," Fred yells suddenly, vocally activating some property of his equipment to suddenly project a large wall of blurred transparent light.
This wall spread out from his shield and closed off the other side of the tunnel completely. However, maintaining her grip on Fred's shoulder, Ms. Gwyn simply held up her tall wand that began burning with an ethereal yellow flame around the crystal. This flame then flowed into a single point at the top center of the flower and grew into a small baseball of fire.
Swinging her arm down a little, Ms. Gwyn threw the fireball through the wall and deeper into the tunnel. Even though the Shield Wall was blurred we could still track the process of the fireball for a few dozen feet before the air around it suddenly burst with ethereal blue gas flames that swiftly expanded into uncontrolled reddish orange flash fire. The Shield Wall was soon assaulted by expanding and burning gasses, causing it to slowly started to clear up so the flames became visible.
Until Ms. Gwyn simply dropped her extremely valuable wand and held both of Fred's shoulders. A short moment later, the Shield Wall began to thicken and blur once more as she fed her own power into the shield. After a while, the flames burning on the opposite side began to thin and recede but the tunnel still remained bright and burning as it receded for almost a full minute.
Then, the world on the other side of the Shield Wall gradually lost all light. Even crystals in the walls and ceiling were now further dimmed by soot from the gas flames carbonizing the air. Ms. Gwyn and Fred still maintained the shield, however, and even began slowly retracting it to break the seal on the tunnel and allow for the rush of hot air in and out of the tunnel.
Once the initial release in pressure in the tunnel was settled and the air around Carlos and I rose to around ninety degrees, the Shield wall was once again expanded to allow the air on our side to settle. The hot air soon passed to leave behind a cooled breeze of inflow around the passage of heat. Then they once again exchanged more of the air on the opposite side of the tunnel.
After ten minutes and a small bottle of some transparent blue and vaporous liquid, Ms Gwyn was dripping sweat from her face and sleeves. When the tunnel was finally cooled enough to open once again, she immediately had everybody turn around and used Fred's shield to cover herself while opening her proto-suit. And cooling off to some extent.
Due to being on the other side of the shield, at least she received most of the airflow to help coot her sweat. Not long after, she returned while putting a towel away in her bag to have everybody rest and drink water again. Both she and Fred needed the rest the most after having spent so much of their energy protecting us.
Carlos and I and I took it upon ourselves to scout ahead a bit, knowing anything made of mucus that was big enough to survive would be on its way down the tunnel. Just as expected, two minutes after we posted up with the lantern fifty yards ahead the darkened and awkwardly lurching or rolling bodies of numerous large slimes began filling the tunnel.
Thanks to the fire they had survived, their outer skins that had bled enough slime to protect their cores were now one incredibly thick and bouncy rubber-like layer of cell wall.
*