Slimes & Magic

12. The sounds in a cave

The following day the group continues traveling, this time towards the border between Edris and the neighbouring country Bardonia.

Around mid day Alex spots a cave opening some ways in the distance between the trees and hills. Interested in what such a cave might look like on the inside Alex barks to get the attention of the others, "*What's up Alex?*" May asks. Alex walks to the side of the path in the direction of the cave and looks back at the others motioning them to follow. "*Did you see something?*" May asks again with a nod from Alex as reply. Leading the trio through the thick of the jungle bushes and a thin spread of trees they arrive in front of the cave after 20 minutes of walking. "*Doesn't look like any people have been here yet.*" Carl says as he peeks inside the dark cave. "*I say we go have a look what's inside.*" May and Elvan agree as well, who holds up a little magical fire in his hand to light the way. Looking around seemingly worried May speaks up, "*Alex, could you stop us if there are any signs of creatures further down the cave?*" The fire Elvan is holding up is casting an orange glow on the rocky walls of the cave. As they slowly walk further down the cave Alex periodically checks if they see any signs of magic coming from creatures living in the cave. Together they turn a corner in the cave and find themselves standing in a larger open area. Alex finally senses a couple sources of magic coming from the other end of the area where the cave leads on, still some distance away. Growling and looking at the continuing cave, Alex makes it clear that there are creatures there. Elvan stops the group in the middle of the room, "*Guys, take a closer look at this room.*" he says and brightens the flame he's holding. All around the room the fire light is glinting back at them from crystals that are growing out of the walls. "*Woah, if we could take these with us we'd make a small fortune selling them.*" Carl says as he steps to the wall to take a closer look. "*Too bad we didn't bring any mining tools with us.*" Alex also takes a closer look at the crystals, "***Would it be possible to dig these out with magic maybe... Creating a pickaxe would not be possible with my current magic capacity. hmm, what if...***" They walk up to a small pillar of stone that has a whole bunch of crystals growing around its outside. Concentrating on their magic Alex tries to cast a spell on the stone, "***disappear stone***". Nothing happens, no magic flowing out even though the mental image Alex has is very clear, "***Maybe I can't just make things disappear like that. Then how about this... Become sand.***" Creating the mental image of the stone that is holding the crystals turning in to sand, as if it had been crushed to dust, magic is pulled out to cast the spell. Once the spell finished casting and Alex released the magic, the stone in the pillar in front of them turned completely in to sand. No longer being able to stay in a pillar everything sinks down in to a pile of sand and crystals, some rolling down the pile some ways away. Everyone was watching Alex as they stared at the pillar, having turned it to sand they all come forwards crouching down next to Alex saying "woah" in amazement. Elvan sifts his hands through the pile picking up the crystals "*I'd never have thought to break the rock in to sand using magic... though I imagine that took quite a bit of magic.*" Looking at their magic capacity Alex sees that maybe a quarter of their magic was used in turning the rock to sand. Elvan places his hand on a larger hunk of crystal coming out of the wall. "*We wont have the perfect crystals like you made, but like this should use far less magic.*" Barely moments later Elvan pulls the crystals away from the wall, only a very small amount of sand sprinkles down on to the ground. "*If you leave the crystals in the rock, and only turn a small amount of the rock to sand around the base of the crystals we can pull it out of the wall like this.*" He holds out the crystals for Alex to look at. The base of the crystals that was embedded in to the wall is still stuck inside of the stone, however the stone looks like it has been sliced a couple times to release it from the wall. It even looks like none of the crystals have been sliced by the magic cutting away the stone either. Carl steps over to where the cave continues, "*I'll watch the cave, try and get as much as you can out of the walls, we can sell it when we get to the next village.*" May stands up and puts her hand on Alex's back, "*Ill help you Alex with picking up the crystals you dig out.*"
"*Once you only have about a quarter of your magic left you should stop, best if we have some left over in case of an emergency.*" Elvan tells Alex, as he sends his flame light to float in the air in the centre of the cave.

Once both of their magic capacities had reached around a quarter they had excavated enough crystals to be able to completely fill one of their large camping bags. Alex stores it all in their stomach ready to move on. "*Good work Alex. Do you think the creatures you sensed earlier are any dangerous?*" Elvan asks. Checking again with the skill; magic sense the magic signatures haven't moved since, they seem to be quite small as well. Shaking their head Alex indicates that it feels safe enough to keep moving. Elvan steps forward pulling his firelight back to hover above his hand, "*You two ok to go in further?*" He asks looking at Carl and May who both nod. May stays close to Alex, keeping her hand on their fur, and her knife in the other. As a group they walk further in to the cave towards the mystery creatures. Just as they reach another larger opening in the cave four large bats drop down, screeching, from the ceiling on the other side. Everyone covers their ears trying to shut out the loud screeching, Carl indicates to Alex and himself with his sword and steps forwards towards the incoming bats. Carl takes a swing at the bats who are now flapping and screaming around the heads of the group. As fast as the bats are Carl misses twice before landing a hit on one of the bats wings making it veer of course and crash in to the wall. Meanwhile Alex jumps trying to bite the bats as they fly past, narrowly missing one they swipe at it with their paw activating the skill; claw slash. Two of the bats are taken out by the slashes ripping up their wings [Exp gained from kills. Slime is now at lvl 11]. Carl Manages to hit the last bat down hard on to the ground with the flat side of his sword knocking it out cold. No longer bothered by the flapping bats May goes around each of the bats slicing their necks to make sure they are dead. "*Thanks Carl, Alex.*" She says bringing back the four bats to the group. Elvan holds up his flame a bit higher, "*Everyone's ears doing ok?*" Collective nods and yeah as May and Carl put their weapons away. "*Out of these four I think we can only sell the ones Carl hit, Alex's slash there ripped up the wings a bit too much.*" Elvan continues as he takes a look at the bats. "*I don't think that we should eat the bats ourselves, so I say Alex can have them.*" May holds on to the bats and starts walking back in the direction they came with a hurried expression on her face, "*Lets get out of this cave before anything else, I don't like it much.*"

Together they hurriedly follow May back outside in to the sun, where she lies down on the grass to enjoy the sun and open air. Carl takes the bats from May and leaves her lying, coming over to Alex, "*Alright then, these two in to storage please. Then these two are for you to absorb, lets see if you get anything new from these guys.*" Having previously told the group about the potential of learning new skills from absorbing creatures, Alex is also curious to find out. [Skill acquired; Sound waves]. "***NO WAY! I CAN TALK WITH THIS!?!***" Alex's eyes widen in surprise. "*Guys?*" Alex says carefully. May sits up and all three of them turn their heads to look at Alex in surprise. "*Alex? Did you just speak?*" May asks as she crawls closer. "*I can talk now! I got the sound waves skill from the bats!*" Alex says jumping around the group in joy, simply projecting their thoughts while activating the skill, "*I can create sound waves as if I'm speaking!*" May grabs on to Alex as they stop in front of her, "*That's amazing!*" Elvan scratches his chin, thinking, "*If the bats had the skill, how come we have never heard of a talking bat?*" Alex turns to look up at Elvan, "*The skill says I need at least an intelligence of 150 to be able to mimic speech.*"
"*Ah, that would be quite difficult for any regular bat to achieve.*" Elvan replies, "*Either way, this will make talking so much easier from now on.*" Carl steps closer to Alex and holds out his hand, "*Gimme 5 man, you are incredible.*" Alex low-five's Carl (instead of high-five its down low) and continues prancing around the trio. "*Lets keep going to the border.*" Alex says taking off in to the bush, occasionally turning around and running back to the group.