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The Questing Parties- Chapter 3: The Paladin
🕑 Added 2022-12-01 06:42:09 +0000 UTCAt the moment, Rollem and Zenith were resting in a dark hallway a safe distance away from the cavern, each bent over and breathing heavily from their ordeal. Zenith had placed a torch at the entrance of the hallway so that he could see if any of the slimes were following him. “That went… poorly.” Zenith said. Rollem sat on a set of stone stairs and examined his burned leg, then pick up his lute and began to cast a healing spell on himself.
“Those men are probably dead.” Rollem shook his head and slung his lute back over his shoulder.
“Most li-” Zenith’s words were cut short by the feint sounds of rustling metal and something approaching from behind them, opposite of the way they had been expecting the slimes to come from. “Something’s coming!” Rollem jumped up, and pulled his lute into his hands, looking nervous. Both men stood ready, Rollem straining his eyes to see just a bit further, only to eventually be greeted by the sight of his brother stepping out of the darkness.
“Rollem! There you are! You couldn’t have waited twenty more minutes? You just had to go off on your own!” The paladin, Roklem Throk, shouted. Rollem and Zenith both sighed, but for very different reasons. Roklem stepped into the light of Zenith’s torch. “Who’s your friend?”
“Zenith.” The dragon-born answered.
“I’m Roklem Throk, sorry if my brother got you into trouble.” Roklem looked up at the tall dragon-born, and reached his hand out to Zenith, but Zenith’s hand remained on his rapier. Roklem nodded his head, understanding the meaning, and pulled his hand back. Roklem had seen men like Zenith before, both on the battlefield, and in the mirror at one point of his life. “The two men outside told me there were still people waiting to be rescued. Have you found them yet?”
“We think their dead.” Rollem answered.
“Where are the bodies then?”
“There are slimes in there, we think they took care of them.” Zenith said.
“But you don’t know?” Roklem asked. Rollem shook his head.
“It’s obvious.” Zenith said.
“Maybe.” Roklem acknowledged and started walking down the hallway, towards where they said the slimes were.
“Where are you going?” Rollem asked.
“To find out.” Roklem answered, and drew his longsword.
Rollem groaned and followed after his brother. “I hate when you do this.”
“Enjoy dying.” Zenith said.
“Enjoy not getting paid.” Rollem called out as he and his brother turned the corner. Zenith stopped, scowled, shook his head, and followed the two brothers.
The three men walked down the stone hallways back to the area they had retreated from earlier. All three were on guard, but both Zenith and Rollem were on full alert, knowing what was waiting just ahead. Once again, they passed the large stone doorway, and entered the cavern. “Did you see that doorway?” Roklem whispered to his brother.
Rollem turned to Zenith, and very quietly said, “See…” Zenith exhaled, deeply exasperated, and did not reply.
“I don’t see any slimes.” Roklem stated and lowered his longsword to his side.
“This happened last time too.” Rollem said.
“Slimes are attracted to heat right? Hold on.” Roklem reached into the small pack he kept under his cloak. From it, he pulled out four torches, and lit them, just as Zenith had done earlier. Then, he spread them around the area in a wide circular shape. “Now we wait.” Zenith nodded, satisfied that he could finally see around the room, even if it was dimly lit.
“By the way, the slimes aren’t normal. They’re Prison Slimes.” Rollem said as they waited.
“Are you serious?” Roklem asked, surprised.
“Yeah.”
“You should have said that earlier.” He said, sounding annoyed.
“Does it really matter? A slime is a slime.” Zenith said.
“Prison Slimes are undead; we didn’t even need to set this trap. All paladins have the ability to sense the presence of undead, and find their location.” Roklem explained.
“Useful.” Zenith said simply.
“One moment.” Roklem grabbed the holy symbol around his neck with his free hand, and uttered a prayer. Seconds later, a white light pulsed out from his body, and he covered his nose and started coughing hard enough to make the end of long braided beard shake.
“Does that spell take a toll on your body?” Zenith wondered.
“No, it just tunes my senses to search for them, and they stink. The smell is coming from behind this wall, and another, smaller one, is through that hallway.” Roklem gestured to the locations as he spoke. “I think they are coming this way.”
“Should we take up a formation?” Rollem suggested.
“We tried one on one earlier, and it didn’t work well. When I cut one in half, it just split into two and made the problem worse.” Zenith said.
“Normally I’d say that a formation would be a good idea, but slimes are different. They don’t really fight, they just try to envelop you. Even if you stab it, gouge it, or burn it, it won’t slow down.” Roklem said.
“So huddling up is a bad idea?” Rollem asked.
“We could try surrounding it on all sides.” Zenith suggested. “But there were two, so that might not work.”
“Ten seconds.” Roklem urged.
“We try to corral them!” Rollem said.
“Fine, just try not to get close. If you can attack from range, do it.” Zenith said and pulled out his short-bow. Roklem removed the shield from his back, and fixed it to his arm, then took a stance. Rollem was already channeling magic into his lute by the time the slimes came into view. As soon as they were in view, Zenith started firing arrows. While Zenith fired, Rollem used magic to improve his focus and aim. The arrows, now glowing with light, lodged themselves deeply into the slimes one after the other.
Despite Zenith’s attacks, and Rollem’s enhancement, the slimes kept coming, and were face to gelatinous face with the three in a matter of moments. Roklem slammed his shield into one of the slimes, then used his longsword to slash off a large chunk of the slime’s body. It fell to the ground with a splat, but quickly reformed and began attacking Roklem from the side, independent of its main body. Even through Roklem’s chainmail, he could still feel the acidic slime beginning to burn away at his flesh. “Uhg!” He cried out.
Zenith continued firing arrows one after the other as he moved away from the monsters. The slime’s main body began to overpower Roklem, and it forced him to the ground. Roklem pulled his shield close to his body as the slime rolled on top of him, burning his exposed legs and shoulders. Rollem rushed forwards, getting into range, and strummed his lute violently, causing a blast wave to explode from him. The thunderous blast hit the slime, and sent the bulk of it flying off of Roklem. Rollem dragged his brother’s burned body away from the reforming slime, and cast a quick healing spell. Their impromptu formation had been broken, leaving an injured Roklem and Rollem to fight the biggest of the two slimes, and Zenith to fight the smaller one on his own.
The smaller slime chased Zenith, who was slowly filling its body with arrows. He tried to keep a safe distance from it, but this smaller slime moved much faster that the lumbering larger one the other two were fighting. His found himself vaulting over construction equipment, trying to hide behind pillars, and taking shots with his arrows whenever he got the chance. However, no matter what obstacle Zenith put between himself and the monster, it simply moved forwards, sometimes even engulfing the obstacle from the front, and spitting it out its back. Zenith leapt atop a fallen pillar, and reach for another arrow, but found his quiver empty. He growled, then dropped his bow to pull out his rapier with his right hand, and a dagger with his left.
“You’re moving slower that you were…” Zenith said, not really talking to the slime, but thinking out loud. He launched himself from the pillar, and jumped over the slime, landing behind it. It the blink of an eye, he plunged both of his blades into the slime, hitting and cracking the skull floating inside of it. The slime’s body began to burn away at Zenith’s clawed hand, and he pulled back. Stepping back as the slime drew closer, he continued to hack and slash at the slime, being burned all the while as the slime tried to envelope him.
On the other side of the room, Rollem had just been able to heal Roklem enough that he could continue fighting. “Rok, I’m nearly tapped.” Rollem said.
“Yup.” Roklem agreed.
“The skull! Hit the skull!” Zenith yelled to the two brothers. The two brothers looked closely at the slime’s reforming body, now smaller thanks to Rollem’s spell, and saw the portion with the skull.
“How much you got left?” Roklem asked.
“One spell, maybe, and it can’t be big.”
“What about a spell chant?”
“I could do spell chant’s all day, but it’s immune to psychic attacks; I tried earlier.”
“Fine, just distract it, and I’ll hit the skull as hard as I can.” Roklem said and moved to the side of the slime. Rollem moved to the other side, and cast a spell on his brother’s sword; a dull purple light enveloped Roklem’s sword and shield. Rollem picked up one of the torches and started waving it around near the slime, then threw it at the slime. The skull slowly turned towards Rollem, and the slime encasing it started moving his way. Seeing his opportunity, Roklem rushed forwards, and thrust his longsword into the skull, shattering it completely.
“Ah… ah!” Zenith shouted as he finally managed to destroy the slime’s skull. He pulled out his blades and watched as the slime melted to the floor, and the skull turned to ash. “Finally…” Zenith mumbled.
“Are you alive, dragon-born?” Roklem called out.
“Yes.” Zenith called out from the other side of the cavern, and the three rejoined each other in the circle of torches, half of which had been snuffed out in the fight. “Zenith examined his mangled hands, which were now covered in acid burns. “You mind?” He asked Rollem.
“Sorry, I’m spent.” Rollem shook his head, still breathing heavily. Zenith winced, and he nodded his head.
“Hold on, I can’t do it as well as Rollem, but let me try.” Roklem said, and took Zeniths hands in his. Despite the large size difference between the two’s stature, Zenith being nearly double both Roklem and Rollem’s heights, their hands were about the same size. He started to say a prayer, and a soft white light emanated from Zenith’s hands. When the light faded, most of his burns had been healed over, but not all.
“That’s better, thank you.” Zenith said.
“I guess we should try to find those workers now.” Rollem said.
“Are you serious? After all that, you still think they’re alive?” Zenith asked.
“No.”
“Neither do I.” Roklem admitted. Without a word, Roklem pulled out his holy symbol, and performed the prayer he had done earlier to locate the slimes. “There’s no smell; I think the area is safe now. We might as well try to find the bodies.”
“I’m going to go check on the workers, I can’t stand not being able to see anyway.” Zenith said, picking up a torch and leaving.
“Let’s have a look around, if you see anything, shout.” Roklem said.
“I imagine that won’t be an issue. Do you prefer curses or just screams of pain?” Rollem joked. Roklem chuckled. The two split up for a moment and inspected the area. Eventually, Rollem found the body of one of the construction workers, half melted and digested by the slime’s acidic bodies. “Hey Rok! I found them!” Rollem looked down at the bodies, then away again in disgust. “Most of them,” He mumbled to himself. Walking up to the area Rollem had been investigating, Roklem saw the remains.
“Uhg… gross.” He looked over the remains for a second then looked confused. The only thing left was half of a melted torso, one leg, a shoulder, and part of the head. “Okay, there’s only one body here. Where is the other one?”
“How can you tell?”
“Slimes digest stuff pretty quickly, but not ‘one and a half persons in half an hour’ quickly.”
“Oh yeah, and they came from two directions. This probably is only one.” Rollem looked down at the remains again, and felt his stomach turn. “So, what do we do with him?” The two brothers looked at the body for a moment, then glanced at each other. “I’m not touching him.”
“I don’t want to touch him either… but we can’t just leave him here.”
“You’re a paladin, can’t you just bless the body or something, and then we can bury him with rocks?”
“… That’s not a bad idea… go find some rocks.” With that, Rollem began to cover what was left of the body with stones from around the dig site, and Roklem started saying an arcane prayer over the body to lay the soul to rest, and to prevent it from becoming undead. A few minutes later, the two finished up. “Okay, which way did you see the other slime come from?”
“The collapsed area near that stone doorway.” Rollem said.
“Okay, me first.”
“You know I’m the older brother, right?”
“You know I’m the one in chainmail and carrying a shield, right?” Roklem asked. The two walked into the old crumbling temple, with Roklem leading the way; his shield in hand. It didn’t take long to find a blood trail and follow it to the remains of the other worker. Just like the last one, this worker had been mostly melted by the slime, so the two brothers laid him to rest as well.
“What kind of temple is this?” Rollem wondered. They started examining the runes and etchings on the walls. Both were experts on masonry, most dwarves are, and between the two of them, they concluded two things. First, that it was very old, and second, that it was, in fact, a temple; they came up with nothing of value except the deity that the temple was built to was no longer worshiped in the modern era.
They opened a few ancient doors, and looked through the rooms one by one. One room held within is a strange statue, and a pile of debris. Roklem examined the statue, taking note of the ornate carvings and pattern, then he walked over to the debris on the opposite side of the room. A moment later, Rollem took his place, and started to examine the statue, then he noticed something shining. “There’s some kind of green gem in the side here.” Rollem said and began trying to turn the statue to see it better. Roklem started to sift through what was left of the wreckage, and noticed green dust, and chunks of rock with the same carvings.
“Rollem, get away from-!” The statue suddenly exploded, and a thunderous blast sent Rollem flying across the room, only to slam into the wall with a meaty thud.
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