Haunted house

The challenge was simple - cleanse the haunted house. According to Votr, somewhere inside it should be three rooms, each containing an unfinished ritual. He didn’t tell me what kind of rituals those were, but completing the right one should cleanse the house and the area around it, completing the challenge. Of course, choosing the wrong one would be equal to opening a gate to hell. Moreover, the wraith was a separate being that had to be dealt with by using other means.

Somehow, I couldn’t see how the slimes would come into play with this scenario. The fact that I didn’t have my Three Answers was depressing. There were also the words that Votr had said to me right before I and Xeli went towards the house.

‘It’s a nice house, would be good if you didn’t bring the mud inside.’

But how was I supposed to cleanse it, without going inside?

“Wooden lightning reports completing its objective!”

“What?”

“Wooden lightning, that’s the name I gave this cart.”

Xeli cheerfully patted the four-wheeler behind her. In my opinion, this depilated, barely holding together pile of wood didn’t even deserve to be called a wooden despair. The wheels didn't even turn, she had simply dragged it all the way with brute force.

“Hey! What should I do now?”

“That’s what I would like to know.”

I was sitting on the cart’s back with my back against the slime’s aquarium.

A few meters in front of us stood the haunted mansion. It wasn’t especially big.

It was a one-story wooden building with boarded windows - hindering the attempts to escape from the inside.

Made out of wood that was blackish and partially rotten - yet seemed to be surprisingly durable.

And surrounded by the dark, murky swamp and its twisted trees - perfectly blending with this environment.

*AAAAAaaaaAAaaaaaauuuuUUUUUUuuuuUWWWWWAaaaWWAARRRrrrGGGGG*

We heard a long, loud wailing coming from the haunted house depths.

“Someone’s hungry!”

“Yes, probably in a perfect mood for some Victor.”

I soooooo don’t want to go inside.

I noticed a dim red light coming from the side. It emanated from under Xeli’s feet, she moved from the front of the cart to stand closer to me.

Xeli was still catching her breath. Drops of sweat were trying to drip from her nose, but they either evaporated on their way there or a shifting strand of fiery hair intercepted them lazily. Dragging the cart here had certainly taken its toll.

“You’re not going inside?”

“Is there a time limit?”

“Umm… I don’t think so.”

“Want to talk with me in that case?”

“Sure! But can we release the slimes first? It must be hard for them to stay inside the aquarium.”

I can’t control them, there’s no way we can get them inside through that narrow door, touching them is a bad idea and I really don’t see a way of using them.

Letting them run free is the only thing worth trying.

“Yeah, we can do that, but won’t they attack you?”

Both of her tails, wrapped around the legs akin to thin serpents, twitched nervously.

“Don’t worry! They’re cute, but I won’t try to pet them ever again. I will just silently watch them grow from the distance.”

Silently?

Now that I think about it...

“Alright, the temporary demon of cart pulling, please release your cargo.”

“Roger!”

She clapped her hands happily and instantly sprung into action, but stopped after taking two steps.

“Hmm? Something’s wrong?”

“No… it’s just that, could you please move away first?”

She gave me a slightly wary, curious stare and waited till I moved a few meters from the cart. As soon as there was a proper buffer zone between us, she resumed her actions. However, instead of the expected careful taking off the aquarium, Xeli unwrapped one of her tails and used it like a whip to shatter the glass.

Right after that, she quickly moved away. It was done almost soundlessly thanks to the red panels of light she was stepping on. I saw her grinning widely and giving me a thumbs up with one hand, while the other was used in a cute ‘sshhh’ gesture.

The slimes went into an overdrive, one of them shot like a bullet and dived into the mud to the left and the other instantly submerged itself to the right.

“___ _____,”

Xeli tried to whisper something to me, but with her keeping the safe distance between us, I couldn’t hear anything.

Nothing happened in the next five minutes.

I made a glass free spot and moved to sit down on the cart.

Nothing happened in the next ten minutes.

I started thinking about how to survive inside the haunted house.

Nothing happened in the next fifteen minutes.

Xeli was simply looking around and brought a few of the lanterns closer to us.

Nothing happened in the next twenty minutes.

She brought enough to make a circle around the cart.

Nothing happened in the next thirty minutes.

Maybe I can just run my way through it, finish the ritual and-

*WaaWWWaaRRRrrrrAAAAAaaaaHHHhhhaaawwwwWWWwAAAAA*

As soon as the wailing started to reverberate in the area, there was a change both on the left and on the right. A few mouse-sized slimes emerged from the mud and were slowly sliming their way in the house direction.

Xeli found a long stick and started poking one of them, the stick melted soon after that.

They were unable to climb the two steps in front of the house door and gathered around it. Part of the first step became a melted pool of green goo, soon the slimes lost their interest in it due to a renewed period of silence and went back inside the mud.

“___ ______ ____ __ _____ __ ___ _ ____ ____ ______ ___ _____ _____ ______ ______ ____ __ _ ___.”

“Good that I can hear you.”

She puffed her cheeks displeased and walked off, searching for something.

I was wondering how long staying out of the wraith aggro zone would work before it decided to check what was going on outside.

Xeli found another stick and this time she tried to write something in the mud as a way of communication… but she was using some strange letters and I had no idea what they meant. I shrugged my arms and gestured for her to come closer to me if she wanted to talk. She wavered but ultimately went back to mud watching.

After a few minutes, another wailing sound shook the air surrounding the haunted house, it was the loudest one yet. I immediately turned towards its source and a cold shiver run down my spine. On the first floor, behind a gap in the boards blocking the window, I saw a pair of glowing red eyes. The wraith was wailing while watching me.

The reaction from the slimes side was way bigger and intense than before. Behind tens of mouse-sized ones were a few cat-sized and finally each side has produced one the size of a big dog. Excited Xeli was jumping silently in the background with her fiery hair moving faster and more jauntily.

Both streams of slimes joined into one small river and melted their way inside the house. I couldn’t see what was happening inside, but mixed with the squelching of ooze was an empty sound of crackling bones.

A skeleton?

Then the sound of bones stopped and an irresistible drowsiness made it hard to keep my head upright...

Shit, the penalt-

… I fell back on the cart unconscious.

Something was poking my mud covered cheek. With great difficulty, I opened eyes and saw Xeli’s tail.

“Wake up. Come on. Wake up. You will miss all the fun.”

She was standing close enough for me to hear her fleeting whisper.

“Xeli?”

“Oooo~ it’s me, quickly, look, look, it’s going to fall down any time now.”

I supported myself on the elbows and looked the way her tail was pointing…

Whoa.

… the entire haunted house was covered with wriggling green ooze. There were huge holes everywhere, but the first award for the most breathtaking sight went to two tank-sized slimes, one on the left and one on the right, that were devouring the house together with everything inside it.

*WWWWRRRRRRAAAAAAAAA*

An angry howl came from the direction of the roof, on it stood a two meters tall shadowy creature with glowing red eyes. It was desperately using its razor-sharp claws to fight with an army of slimes. It sliced them in half, it cut them in thin slices, it sliced and cut and carved in ooze, all in vain. The slimes were simply pushed back for a second only to return in another, bigger wave.

Slimes are op.

In short breaks between the attacks, the wraith tried to murder me with its glare. It was scary as hell, but I realized something, a thing that I probably owed my life to.

“It can’t move away from the house?”

I asked in disbelief.

“Nope. It’s bound to it.”

Xeli answered silently while grinning widely and gazing awestruck upon the slime’s army. The smile on my face quickly grew beneath the muddy shell, till it reached a grin on par with hers.

“Ha… hahaha… hahahahahaha! This is so sweet!”

‘It’s a nice house, would be nice if you didn’t bring the mud inside.’

So that’s it!

“Are you going to do it now? Hurry up, it’s the best moment before the slimes start devouring each other.”

“Do what?”

“Eh? You don’t know?”

She looked at me genuinely surprised. Seeing my blank expression Xeli followed with an explanation:

“The burning part, it’s going to be sooo pretty.”

Her answer was emphasized by pointing the tips of both her tails towards the lanterns gathered around.

I moved to grab one while Xeli jumped away to recreated a safe distance between us. Inside the glass lantern was a thick burning knot and a small oil container. There was nothing to lose by following Xeli advice as the furious wraith would probably throw itself at me the moment I went closer to the house.

Though a problem appeared when I tried to accomplish the set on fire part.

The lantern I threw into the mud, from where the slimes were still coming from, didn’t break and just sank into it. Getting closer to the slimes to set them ablaze was a bad idea. The speed of their combustion was still fresh in my mind and I was worried that the bigger ones would explode instead.

I looked around for a way to bypass this hurdle and quickly found one. Using most of the lanterns gathered by Xeli, I spilled the oil and created a long path similar to a fuse.

“Xeli, do big slimes explode?”

“___.”

I couldn’t hear her answer but saw her nodding. Following this affirmation, the fuse grew as long as the oil allowed it to. All that was left was to use the last lantern and create a burning chain reaction.

Something poked my back, Xeli was stretching her tail and gesturing for me to hurry up. Her orange eyes burned with anticipation which was a perfect fit for the fiery storm of hair. I noticed that each time she grew excited and wanted someone to share her happiness with - she temporarily reduced the distance between us.

“Three, two, one, ignite. RUN!”

Watching explosions wasn’t my style, especially when they were too close to me, so I turned back and ran with all I had towards the place where Votr was waiting for us.

After a short while of running, a loud noise almost made me turn my head, but I decided to ignore it. Strangely, it was still dark, I was expecting a huge fireball to lit the entire area.

Any moment now.

When there was no change after another minute of running I stopped and turned to check what was happening. The loud noise from before was caused by the collapsing haunted house.

Bad news, thanks to the burning oily trail lightening the area nearby the cart I noticed that most of the slimes could be separated into two groups, dark green and light green ones and they were fighting with each other. Two enormous slimes were slowly emerging from the left and the right side of the swamp, those were probably the originals I had summoned, but their color changed and they grew so big that the tank-sized ones could be easily parked inside.

Very bad news, only a few of the ones that didn't change the color burned out or were still burning and it was just a drop in the sea of slimes consuming the remains of the haunted house. On top of that, they were being quickly devoured by the non-combustible ones.

Extremely bad news, in the distance, using her two long tails as whips, Xeli was standing on the cart - defending herself against an unbelievably pissed off wraith.

Apparently, it wasn’t bound to the house anymore.