Path To Radiance; First Ascent

"You can say that again," I mutter.

The shaking subsides and nothing else happens. The party all pressed in, backs together, to watch for any enemies. Nothing moves. No sound can be heard except for our breathing.

After a long few minutes pass, I no longer feel uneasy. "That was...anticlimactic," I said straightening up from the stance of a fighter. "Guess we should split up and look for the way out. Keep your weapons out and ready."

With that, everyone splits up to different parts of the room. I go to the right corner by the far door. I find nothing out of the ordinary and no obvious switches or panels are visible. A glance at the party tells me they are experiencing the same thing. That's when I hear it.

A small plop sound comes from nearby. A few seconds later, I hear it again. The plops sound thick, not like the patter of water  They sound more like pudding being dropped on a kitchen counter. I follow the noise back to the middle of the room. A thick blue substance is falling from the ceiling to the floor.

The amount of goo is growing drastically bigger with each plop. I just watch it for a few seconds until Brick wanders over to me.

"Find anything, Jut?" He asks. "Ewe. That's disgusting. What is it?" He says when he notices the accumulating gel. The pile is more than can fit in a bathtub at this point and still growing.

I just shrug and bend down near the gel. Brick follows suit and I extend my hand. The moment my left-hand makes contact with the goo, the plop noises stop and the gel begins to jiggle in place. The molecule I had touched is clinging to my glove. Pulling my hand back, a softball-sized clump comes with it.

"Oh no. That's not good." I try to flick the gel off. It doesn't budge. Then a yellow patch appears as if an eye has opened and the gelatinous goo envelopes my entire hand.

That's when the nameplate and life bar of an enemy appears over the blue blob. A level five slime monster has my fist in its mouth. My life begins to fall one point every second and a painful tingling begins in my encased fingers. The slime is eating me!

I run my Long Dagger through the gel. It emanates a small squeal and lets go of my hand. As it falls to the ground, many nameplates and life bars begin to appear over different portions of the slime puddles. I didn't stand and gape this time, however. I begin stabbing the monsters. One hops at my face. I dodge and stab another slime in front of me. They all take more than one stab before they die, falling into a blue puddle when their HP bars reach zero.

My party gets the hint and begins to attack the goo with me until Tamos tells us all to move away. After we do, he fires his Magical Bolt into the mass. Rina follows right after. They instantly explode two slices. While they have to wait ten seconds to fire again, I activate my new skill by thinking about it.

A new sensation hits me. I feel energy within my body shift from my middle to my right hand and into my blade. It begins to glow faintly. I stab a slime that instantly pops from the extra damage, blue goo hitting my face.

Tamos calls again and we step out again. Once the last life bar disappears, we all stand at the ready in case more slime monsters were about to pop up. None come.

A loud chime sounds and the bars on the door slide back.

I am so glad I had my prompts on hold. There had been so many. I would be going through them forever.

"That wasn't too difficult." Brick said. "Great job not getting eaten by a blue slime, buddy." He lets out a playful chuckle.

"Guess I better avoid sticking my hands into weird substances from now on, huh?" I shrug and laugh with him.