He then turned to Tillamook before asking him. "Do you as well desire to participate in this extermination of slimes?"
"Yes!" The goblin's glasses just about fell off as he almost leapt with excitement at joining the fight. The wolf-man didn't ask further about a promise to not blame them for any injury incurred. I couldn't help but wonder if that said more about their fear of my backer or their trust in Tillamook. Shaking my head at the inconsequential details, I excitedly took an already primed and loaded tube from an offering soldier.
Calling back to the providing soldier, the leader inquired. "How may spare tubes does that leave us with?" "Three Sir, with enough charges for half of our tubes to be refilled with wind energy if the need arises." With an accepting nod, the leader resumed the procession through the sewers.
It wasn't long after that point, that we came upon what was considered an overflow of slimes. From about 50 meters away, the lit passageway revealed a larger than average grouping of slimes. Reaching to almost halfway up the two meter-deep depression between the walkways on either side, a pile of slimes slunk around and embraced the expulsion pipe. Layers and layers of light-colored slimes gave me a mental imagery of a massive pile of melted mega gummy bears clumped together, that were somehow alive and moving, albeit slowly.
As the leader held up his hand in a stop gesture, our party of criminals, soldiers, and wide-eyed Travelers came to a halt before this new development. Then he began barking out orders. "Alright! This is the first of likely many overgrown infestations that we will be dealing with today. As it is an easily manageable one from first glance, I want to get these two Travelers some experience before we move on to the more-messy ones."
"Andrew!" He called out to me in a militaristic tone. "We'll have you go first!"
Holding up his wrist, he gestured at a bracelet that looked similar to the ones given to the convicts. "This here is enough to provide protection for you, Tillamook, and myself, from splash-back from the slimes. What I want you to do, on my order, is to aim your tube at the center mass of the slimes. Once in position, you will brace yourself for the feedback of the canister as you press the trigger node. I will guide you through this once we get closer."
Once again, taking the lead until we were no more than 10 meters from the slimes, the wolf-man called us to a halt. Tillamook stood back a couple of feet while the leading wolf-man stood by my side.
Guiding me to a half kneeling position, he had me grip the tube with my left hand grasped loosely around the exit nozzle with my leading fingers no closer than an inch from the very end of where the discharge would occur. Then I was guided to firmly plant the base of the canister against my shoulder and pectoral, much like you'd experience if you'd ever wielded a rife. There was no trigger in the form of a simple hand grip like that on a firearm, but instead, integrated with the tube itself, was a nodule that was to be pressed for activation. The right hand was used to grip the tube near the rights shoulder and upon centering my aim, I was to press that to activate the weapon.
Following those instructions, I struggled to aim at center mass. I had wielded a hand gun and rifle only a few times in my life while with my father at the shooting range. As such, even with aiming sights, which this tube lacked, my skill at aiming left much to be desired. Even so, I took careful aim at the oblivious mass of slimes and pressed the nodule.
*Fwooomp!!* The tube shot out a dense and highspeed shot of rock salt into the massing pile of slimes. Several things happened at once from that point. A large transparent semi-dome formed from the bracelet on the wolf-man's wrist. Pushing out rapidly, it grew to fully encompass the three of us from the front against the fallout of the slimes.
What happened to the slimes themselves was incredible to say the least. I hadn't been able to fully observe the trajectory of the high velocity rock salt, but I was able to see a large series of deep ripples shudder across the pile of slimes.
For a moment, all was still. Then, as if struck by a localized 9.0 scale earthquake that only the slimes could feel, they began spasming out like a full-on episode of epilepsy. To be honest, I kind of felt sorry for the little guys at this moment. That thought however was lost as wet explosions burst out near simultaneously across their entire mass. THAT did cause some shaking that could be felt from the ground, and a deluge of slime liquid and torn membranes splashed across various parts of the shield, protecting us from the fallout.
A satisfied smile crossed the wolf-man's face as he watched the last remnants of slime rain drizzle away. However, a grunt soon sounded out from him.
Following his gaze to see what caused his annoyance, I saw a few still living slimes scattered about as well as a decent sized mound left over to the side of where I had been aiming. Either my aim hadn't been as good as I hoped, or the spread range of the salt shot wasn't able to adequately cover the entire mass of slimes.
Without making a comment on my failure to take down all the slimes, the leader began guiding Tillamook just as he did me in getting into a stable firing position. Soon after another loud *Fwooomp!!* another explosion of slime rocked through the air and then settled down.
After all was quiet, the soldiers then began jointly working with the convicts to slash at the few remaining and scattered slimes with their edged weapons. No explosions rocked out this time, but rather just slow leaking slimes with torn membranes.
With the last slime dispatched, we were invited to harvest what gains we could find among the residue of dead carcasses. Although I felt it was unnecessary to inform us of such due to the fallout that we just experienced, the leader called out to warn us to not kneel down on the now slimy ground and to watch our step.
I headed in the direction of the main blast to see what treasures I could find. The convicts had apparently decided to search the outskirts, as if avoiding my general area. With a shrug at their behavior, I continued my search.
Scattered across the ground were several bits and pieces of torn membranes that out of curiosity I now handled with care. Holding it in my gloved hand I squeezing and tugged at it gently. I didn't want to be too violent with it in case it splashed some residual acid onto me with my handling. It felt thick and rubbery when pressed upon. As I then began tugging it between my two hands, I felt the decreasing integrity as I continued to apply pressure, resulting in it beginning to tear. I wondered if this was a natural break down of their tissue that occurred shortly after their death.
Finished, with my curiosity decently satisfied, I now began my hunt for cores, or their nuclei as they were called. Appearing like a darker blue sphere, about a quarter the size of my fist, I saw that the majority of them scattered about, were cracked and leaking some sort of liquid. Apparently, exploding slimes with salt didn't do a good job of preserving salvageable material. I was still lucky enough, likely due to the sheer number of slimes, to find about five intact cores amidst the scattered remains.
Some of the convicts had been lucky to find some undamaged cores flung about the outer reaches of the general area we were hunting in. The slimes which had been personally dispatched with cold weapons, appeared to all have left an intact core. It made sense that more risky involvement, as well as up close damage dealing, resulted in better loot. For when the soldiers were slashing at the slimes, even at my distance, I could see them avoiding the area that the core floated around in.
Amidst it all Tillamook looked a little forlorn at the many gathering slime cores. "Hey man, how come you aren't getting some cores for yourself?" I asked.
Holding his gloved hands out as if to show their emptiness, he explained. "I don't have a bag that can safely hold the cores in them."
"Hah! Why didn't you tell me before I went searching? I can hold them for you for now and you can come by later to the Apothecary to pick them up once you get something to carry them safely in."
His eyes lit up in excitement at my offer. "That would be great! Thank you!"
"Bahh." I muttered in embarrassment. "It's the least of which we should do as fellow Travelers."
With the awkwardness now resolved, we waited for the last of the convicts to finish their searching, which didn't take long.
Once back in formation, we continued our trek down the slimy depths of the sewers.
As we traversed, it was Tillamook that broke the silence with a question that I too had been contemplating. "What happens now that we decimated all those slimes down to the last one? Do we have to worry about a buildup of waste now?"
At being directed the question, the leader responded. "No, there are always slimes that will congregate to this area within a timely manner. We left the slimes upstream in the sewer system alone since they were at a manageable level. In addition to taking care of the waste at their local discharge point, quite frequently one or two slimes will get swept away by the flow of waste water. With little effort on their part, they end up landing at a now competition free discharge point, further down the stream. There, they will chow down on the fresh waste and continue to build up and split into more slimes to handle the volume of edible substances."
Wow! I loved the way that waste was handled here. It really is too bad that we didn't have such a thing back on Earth. Or wait, I now recall that Millennial Enterprises was working on something involved nano-technology to disperse within the sewers to battle the problem of waste buildup. I had also heard about how congress was holding them up in legal tape, as they were concerned about the mass release of nanobots into the general populous. I felt I could see the point from both sides and I didn't believe that I knew enough on the subject to make a reasonable judgment call of my own.
Admittedly, as it was my corporate Idol and considering their amazing track record up till now, I was willing to err on the side of Millennial Enterprises. However, with the fallout of WWIII and the history we had of numerous movies and TV shows on being dominated by technology overwhelming their human warlords, I could see their concerns.
Pushing away that humored thought, I focused more on my immediate surroundings to see if I could spot any errant slimes. Nothing really showed up for about another 100 meters but shortly after that, we came upon an even more massive gathering of slimes.
This time, the leader kept us back and motioned the soldiers and convicts forward. A satisfied smile shone on his face as he spoke. "Now you'll get to see how it's truly done."
Positioning themselves on both sides of the canal or ditch in the ground, they made a staggered formation on both sides. Each of the soldiers was slightly preceded by a convict that held up their shield bracelet. Then in practiced motion, they jointly half knelt and shifted into position. Kneeling there frozen, they waited.