Inky Dagger

We made our way to the barn. Its interior was filled with amber red slime.

A sickly sweet and rotten smell filled the air. Upon closer inspection there were animals being slowly digested in the slime. However instead of being digested fully, it seemed like their melted flesh was pulled and stretched out.

The slimes were full of a stringy, hard-looking, amber like mass. Then, round masses, pulled away from the cluster. Individual slimes began rolling towards us, their cores barely visible as a darker blob in their center.

Then, a melty mass shambled out. It was a bear. However, instead of fur, it was covered in slime of multiple colors shifting around inside.

“Enderan. That’s the colony lord, a rainbow slime!” He exclaimed. “Though I’d like to say we’re lucky, this just got extremely challenging.”

“Is it really that dangerous?” Despite his confidence, he was wary.

“It is. However try your best not to kill it. If we are going to get Yoki the greatest benefits, it needs to devour the core whole. So we can’t break it.” He opened his book again. “So I’m going to freeze it. While I’m working on this, you need focus on fighting back the amber slimes. Don’t focus on breaking their cores, you might get Yoki stuck in them. So defense is your best play.”

“How am I supposed to do that exactly?”

“Well…” Victor cursed to himself. “Never mind. We’re switching. Kill the rainbow slime if you must, but I’ll try and deal with the amber slimes as fast as I can and freeze it. Good luck!”

Victor ran off from Enderan and the air around his hand froze as mist coalesced. He began piercing the amber slimes with ice spikes.

The rainbow slime was also focused on Victor, but Enderan had run up and slashed at the Rainbow slime.

Its flesh was tougher than an average slime, causing Yoki to drag along it rather than slice through.

The rainbow slime turned back and swiped at Enderan. It warbled, then shot its paw forth. Where he stood, the ground melted. Its right limb was entirely made of poison slime.

It then lunged towards me, and its entire frame lurched forwards. I threw myself out of the way and the second I looked up, it rolled onto its side towards me.

I desprateley rolled out of the way, then it’s entire mass shifted, and it’s left paw rolled unnaturally over itself and shot out.

The left limb was made of amber slime and it’s paw snared my right leg.

“Shi- I then felt the world get turned on its side as I was yanked sideways. I hit the ground on my back, then was dragged across the dirt and into the wall of the barn. I only comprehended all that happened after being tossed, as if my mind had been left behind before returning to me.

I tried to get up but was stuck in the amber slime.

“No, no, no! Come on!” I was panicking. I felt a slight sting of the slime’s acid, but according to Victor, I knew it was slow to dissolve.

I then felt my blood run cold, watching as it lugged its poison-filled right arm towards me.

“Shit!" I desperately shouted. "Victor! Help me!”

-

Victor had impaled several slimes and was running low on mana. And despite being an adept mage, the excitement of battle and the little running he did already drained him of energy.

“Victor! Help me!”

Seeing the large rainbow slime drag its poisonous limb towards Enderan, he felt his heart sink.

“Enderan!”

He dodged a mass of flesh infused slime as he ran towards Enderan.

He opened his book and hurriedly began forming a spell in his mind. He let go of his tome. It was attached to a leather rope, so it swung to his side instead of hitting the ground.

Victor brought both hands together, a distance apart. He summoned his mana which twirled between them, causing a ball of magma to coalesce, hot spittle dripping to the ground.

He then brought his hands slowly together as it spun faster and faster.

Magma shot!

Then, it flew out and blew up the side of the rainbow slime. The blast blew the bear ribcage open and exposed it.

He hoped it was enough, but what he saw frightened him. Its core was surrounded by amber slime, and he didn’t have enough time to form another magma shot.

Luckily it caused the rainbow slime to stagger, delaying its attack.

There’s no other way.

Victor pulled up his book and opened it. The ink on the page coalesced to a dark mass at the center of a page and extended out to a dark handle. Victor grasped the handle and pulling it away from him, a curved dagger came free, ink drops coming free.

Victor ran towards the slime and drove his dagger into the amber core.

However instead of getting stuck in the amber slime, it slid through like a hot knife through butter.

The rainbow slime shook, then all the slime slid down and lost all form. Victor stepped back and away from the melting mass.

The other slimes stopped their pursuit and just waited. Amber slimes weren’t predatory by nature, merely lying in wait until animals roamed into their territory.

He breathed a sigh of relief and ran towards Enderan.

-

“Enderan! Are you alright?!” Victor knelt by my side.

I was still in awe with what I saw. “I- I’m fine.” I said before sighing. “Thanks for saving me.”

It took some yanking to pull me free, and the amber slime covered my clothes.

“Ugh, my clothes!”

“It’s fine. Yoki should easily clean away only the amber slime if you will him to.” Then my sword changed back to a clear slime and it got to work.

In a near instant, my clothes were dry and free of the sticky amber slime. I was amazed and patted Yoki. “Thanks bud.” I felt its satisfaction through the bond.

We stepped away from the barn and watched as the amber slimes made their way slowly back inside.

“I don’t have any mana left to get rid of them, so let’s go rest over there for a bit.” He gestured towards a clear plot a short walk from there.

As we walked I spoke. “I’m sorry I failed to restrain it.”

He shook his head. “I’m the one who should be sorry. And I am. I got too greedy. It was too good an opportunity to pass up that I didn’t realize we weren’t strong enough to even kill it.”

“But you did kill it. What was that by the way?”

Victor’s eyes widened in realization before turning to me. “Right. I meant to keep that hidden. Some spells, they are considered taboo or forbidden arts. And that was one of them. It is a long lost art called Inky Dagger.”

“Inky dagger? Really?” I chuckled at the name.

“Well it’s what I call it anyways.” He tisked. “It’s an assassination tool that I stumbled across. “I say long lost, but most likely it is still used by assassins, and I don’t want to tempt fate by being caught by the wrong person.”

“You know many forbidden things don’t you?”

“On my journey to break curses, I usually end up stumbling upon many things that prefer to remain secret. I hope that has been clear at this point.”

I was taken aback by how much that justified his secretive nature. His knowledge of the nightmare realm was the same, yet I didn’t think much of it. “You’re right. You’re doing so much to try and save people like me, and I’ve been probing at your secrets. Forgive me for being so nosy.”

Victor patted me on the back. “It’s fine. It’s wise to be wary and curious about everything around you. Probing where I shouldn’t and sticking my nose in people’s faces is part, if not, the sole reason I got this far. I would appreciate it if you lay off my past.” He grinned at me. “So you better make those two guesses count.”

“Right.” He smiled. “I just wish we got Yoki that rainbow core.”

“Trust me, it would have gotten us killed. Plus not all is lost, I’m sure if Yoki were to consume its corpse, he will still get stronger.” He smiled. “Plus this wasn’t a fowl-ranked job. We’re going to get a bigger reward when I tell the guild it was a rainbow infestation.”

“What rank do you think this would have been?”

“Probably a falcon-ranked job. If it was a party of them, they could have easily dealt with it. But we are the equivalent of two fowl slayers. “So it’s a much greater feat.”

I smiled, then Victor reached into his bag and handed me his water canteen. As I drank, we watched the mass of amber slimes move back into the barn.

- - -

They rested a bit before Victor was able to drink another mana potion. After replenishing his mana, he used a spell called sticky flame to get rid of the slime cloisters.

Enderan killed the slimes trying to defend their cloisters against them. Since the rainbow slime had died, the different cloisters didn’t work together. Wanting to redeem himself, Enderan dispatched the remaining slimes perfectly.

When the fighting was done, Yoki consumed the rainbow slime’s dead core and the surrounding slime. As a result he had become noticeably much more malleable and took less time to take different forms.

Had Yoki consumed the rainbow slime’s core, he would have gained the ability to manipulate and produce different slime types.

As they rode back, Victor opened his tome.

An illustration of a black dagger appeared with lines of text below it:

-Soul Siphon Dagger

-All 3 ability slots full

Slot 1: Rainbow Slime(Skill Activations Left: 3)

Skill: Command Slime

Slot 2: Baylor(Skill Activations Left: 3)

Skill: Boar Cleaver

Slot 3: Krim(Skill Activations Left: 1)

Skill: Vanish

What does ‘Command Slime’ do?

The text around the skill expanded.

Skill: Command Slime -Command any slime around you for ten seconds.

Victor sighed. He would rather have gotten Yoki to get stronger. That skill might be useful if Enderan and Yoki were separated, but otherwise its use cases left much to be desired.

He was still curious about Baylor’s skill, ‘Boar Cleaver,’ and how powerful it might be.