MAZE - The Endless Quest

Betty had said that the monsters lived southeast of the town, but she never mentioned the distance. Hera looked at the shadows from the trees. They never changed. The light in the sky was the same too, even though Hera couldn"t see the sun.

After spending a few hours walking around, this place had lost its charm. Sure, it was still beautiful, but there were many problems with the area. The repet.i.tiveness of it, the lack of sun, the sound that didn"t match what was going on around her. The more Hera looked around, the more she found things to nitpick about.

"Look, that branch there. It"s completely different from the others. Instead of some natural jagged shape, it"s almost like a curved line. And why is it bent to the side? There is no wind to do that," She said to herself.

Hera had embraced the idea of talking to herself. Not only did it help her organize her own thoughts, but it was also a nice change from the constant wind sound she kept hearing in a loop.

With her tablet in hand, she opened the map once again, to make sure she wasn"t deviating from her path. If the creek followed a straight line south, she would be meeting it soon.

"Maybe Peaches took a stroll, and we end up meeting down here. Peaches was the one... Person?... Creature? Let"s go with NPC. The one NPC who seemed more natural. Betty had a lot of expressions, but what she could say was limited. Peaches, on the other hand, was very lifelike, at least for a talking green apple. I swear that is the only reason I wanted to talk to him again. Not because he is so cute," Hera said.

Distracted by her thoughts, she failed to notice a yellow puddle in front of her. She slipped on the yellow liquid, making her do a one-legged split on top of the puddle.

"Ewww, please tell me this is not pee," Hera groaned after seeing the color of the liquid.

While getting up, it only took her a moment to realize that there was something wrong. The liquid had a dark yellow color, and it was viscous, it felt almost like honey. She rubbed the goo between her fingers, trying to understand what it was when she felt a burning sensation covering her hand.

She quickly got up, shaking her hand hoping to remove the liquid from it, when she realized that the thick sludge was still stuck to the puddle, and now to her legs as well.

Using her nails, she sc.r.a.ped the goo from her body. The burning sensation was increasing with each pa.s.sing moment. She grabbed the thick strand of the sludge going from her hand to her legs and tried to pull it out with all her strength. While doing so, she felt something hard in her palm.

Suddenly, the goo started to move. It let go of her arm and legs and wrapped around the hand that had just started pulling it. The sludge burned Hera"s skin even more. The feeling before was comparable to being in the sun for too long, but now it was like holding out her hand above an open flame.

Hera jerked her hand back and shook it with all she had, but the liquid seemed to grasp her even harder.She made a swinging motion, trying to make the sludge drop to the floor. As Hera thrashed her arm around, part of the goo hit the floor and splattered away. At the same time, the grip it held in her hand loosened. Realizing that, Hera whacked her hand into a tree.

It hurt to do so, but with each strike, the sludge seemed weaker, and the pain became more tolerable.

"Get. Off. Me," Hera yelled while hitting the goo into the tree.

Her hand was hurting. She wasn"t sure if it was by the impact against the bark or by the burning of the goo. But she couldn"t stop. Each swing had to be stronger than the last, or that sludge would end up burning her hand off. After a few moments, that hard object inside her hand seemed to crack, and the goo lost all viscosity, falling into the ground as if it was nothing more than water.

Unsure of what just happened, Hera stepped away from the liquid. The sludge dissolved in thin air, leaving only a wet spot where it landed. She looked at her hand. There were some light burns and scaring, and a few of the hairs she had on her arm were gone. She also had that thing inside her hand. It was a round sh.e.l.l with some fissures. It looked just like a hazelnut seed, but it had a bright yellow color. Staring at it, Hera activated her [Inspect].

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Broken slime core (Simulation)Type: Yellow

The core of a slime creature. It controls how the rest of the body moves. In most cases, the core stays in the center of the slime"s ma.s.s, even when it changes shape.The quickest way of defeating a slime is to destroy its core.

Yellow cores come from a highly acidic slime. All slimes break down their prey inside their body to absorb the nutrients. However, yellow ones can do it at an accelerated rate.

The simulated version shares the instinct of its real counterpart. The version created by the simulation is weaker than the ones that live inside the MAZE.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hera stared at the core for a moment. That thing wasn"t burning her. It was trying to dissolve. The thought made Hera shiver. Being melted down by gastric fluids would be nightmarish.

"Are those the monsters Betty talked about?"

She looked back towards the wet spot on the ground, where the sludge had dissolved.

"They are slimy, slithery, and can easily give haunt someone"s dreams. I guess it matches the description," Hera said.

Looking around, she scanned the area for more of those creatures. First looking for more puddles, she wasn"t able to find any of them. Then Hera looked for other places where the slimes could be hidden.

She found nothing on the ground or in the bushes. Even the trunks of the trees seemed to be empty. Only when Hera looked above, towards the leaves of the trees, that she found what she was looking for.

Sitting in one of the twigs, lay a large green blob. It even had some jagged parts that made it look like part of the foliage. Hera slowly stepped away from it, worried that the creature would jump on her. Realizing that the slimes camouflaged themselves in the environment, she looked around once again. To her dismay, she found half a dozen slimes spread around the forest. Hera moved back to the path she took, always searching for the slimes.

She quickly grabbed her tablet and marked the point where the slimes appeared. She was close to where the creek should be, and since the slimes were liquid, maybe the water could help her. But at the same time, it could also make things worse. What if the water made them bigger and stronger?

She decided to go to the creek and try to see if there were any slimes around. She also wanted to wash her hand. There was not only a sticky feeling on it, but it still hurt from the acid.

Hera activated her [Hide] skill and started walking towards the creek. Luckily, the stream was exactly where she expected. It seemed to make a straight line south. She looked around, searching for the monsters, but found nothing. Feeling a bit more relaxed, she proceeded to wash her hands.

The water stung her hand, but it was refreshing. Hera noticed a small stream of red leaving one of her fingers. The slime ended up hurting her more than she realized, or it happened when she bashed her hand repeatedly against the tree. For a moment, her eyes went wide, thinking about what would happen if there were more slimes on the tree she hit.

Hera brushed off those thoughts and finished cleaning herself. She grabbed the handaxe and the chakram and walked toward the forest where the slimes were. It didn"t take long to find the creatures. Now that she understood how they hid, she could focus on that. The first one she found was a green slime on the edge of some bushes. Getting ready to attack, she stopped and activated her [Inspect]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Slime (Simulation)Type: Green

A sentient gelatinous goo. It hunts by trapping its prey inside its body and slowly breaking it down with its digestive juices. It is a slow creature that use the environment in order to hunt. The green variety secrets a fluid that puts its prey to sleep while it is being eaten.

The simulated version shares the instinct of its real counterpart. The version created by the simulation is weaker than the ones that live inside the MAZE.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Great, so each one will do something different," Hera sighed.

She walked closer to the slime, trying to find its core. It was hard to see inside the creature. Hera had to get closer to even understand its full shape. Unable to find the core by looking at it, she remembered what the description said about it staying in the center of ma.s.s.

With no other option in her mind, Hera took a chance. Holding her handaxe tightly, she slashed the slime aiming at its middle.

Almost half of the slime fell to the side, motionless. The rest of it bounced off to the side at a speed that Hera wasn"t expecting. She quickly took a step back and stared at the creature. It went back to its motionless state, but Hera could have sworn it was staring at her. She moved quickly towards the slime, ready to strike it once more.

The monster was ready for the attack. When Hera got close, the slime pulled itself back and lounged like a snake. Surprised, Hera smacked the creature to the side using the chakram. This time only a small piece of its body was severed from it.

Stepping back, Hera circled the creature before striking again. However, she was meet with the same response. It was nearly impossible to see where the slime was looking at.

"Maybe it"s not about sight," she thought.

Without looking away from her prey, Hera searched for a rock in the ground. At that moment, she felt something wet. Before she could react, a second green slime snapped at her hand.

Hera smashed the slime into the ground and hacked away at it, trying to hit its core.

"That will not work a second time!"

She kept hacking away at the slime, pulling it apart with each slash of the handaxe. The first slime started to move towards her. Hera"s eyes kept darting back and forth between the slimes.

Cutting enough of the slime off her hand, Hera pulled her arm away from it. The creature seemed to have problems with keeping its shape. It was almost like a puddle, with a moss green pebble in the middle of it. The small stone seemed to spin, pulling some of the liquid to cover itself.

Hera quickly attacked the slime"s core. It took her a few tries, but she broke it before the first slime reached her. She turned around and prepared for her attack. She charged, using her chakram as a feint. When the slime lunged at her, she stepped to the side and slashed the creature with her handaxe, cutting another good chunk of it.

She repeated the process a few times until the slime lost the ability to maintain its form. With a cold smile, Hera stared at the creature.

"I won," she said just before slashing the core.

Her back was already starting to hurt. Fighting a creature that moves so close to the floor was troublesome. She looked at the wet spots that showed where the creatures died.

"I guess I went a bit overboard," Hera said.

She picked the cores, one of them was cut in two pieces, while the other had cut in the middle, but it was still a single piece. Placing both cores inside her satchel, Hera noticed a slight silver glow on the ground. It was smaller than a leaf, and it seemed thinner. Hera picked it up, and it felt like holding a piece of a plastic bag. It stuck to her hand and wrapped around her fingers. Worried that was another slime, she quickly activated her [Inspect].

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Liquid metalBiomineral

A compound generated by a slime that ate many minerals. Blacksmiths use it to make lightweight equipment. It can also be used to produce electronic components due to its high conductivity. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Oh, so this is the metal Betty needs,"

Hera looked back at the forest. So far, it had a one in three chance to drop. It wasn"t so bad.

"Ok, Let"s do this, maybe I can finish it all before nightfall. Well... if there is night here."