Chapter Fifteen: Innovation Award

  No, of course I didn’t leave the other dogs behind. What kind of apex predator do you think I am?

  Hint: I’m the kind that brings other predators with me to do the dirty work.

  Seriously, though, my decision was pragmatic. I was going to be hunting for human survivors in a swamp. None of my dogs were Search & Rescue trained, but all of them would be better at searching a swamp than me.

  I also changed my clothes first, and put a pair of my dad’s old waders on over my shoes. Okay, maybe it was overkill, but the Thorn’s Edge rift didn’t include a shoe store and I didn’t want to lose my only hiking boots to a swamp.

  I clipped lights to the dogs’ collars, put Riley and Bear on leash, and we headed into Instance #3 of Rift 486.

  It stank.

  Not metaphorically, although maybe that, too. No, it smelled, like mold and mud and dead things. I made an involuntary face, waving my hand in front of my nose.

  “Ugh.”

  Bear tugged at her leash, eager to explore. I say ‘explore,’ but knowing Bear, she probably just wanted to roll in the dead things. Either way, I didn’t let go, just wound the leash around my hand a little tighter while I took a look around.

  Without thinking much about it, I’d been expecting mangroves. I guess they were my idea of a brackish swamp environment.

  But there were no mangroves in sight. And this “brackish swamp environment” must have been related more to the breach that led to another planet than to Earth, because it was like nothing I’d ever seen before.

  There were trees, of a sort, or at least there were tall, skinny, gray tubes topped with puffs of purple that looked enough like trees I was willing to assume that’s what they were. The ground was carpeted in dense, leafy growth, more purple than green. I could feel the dampness in the air, but from where I stood, I couldn’t see any free-flowing water. Overhead, the night sky held such an immense moon that blue moonlight made it as light as full day, possibly helped by the mana sense that gave everything a faint glow of color.

  It was sort of beautiful. Not quite awed wonder or spectacular level beautiful, but much like a lovely, unusual garden.

  I looked down at Zelda. “What do you think?”

  I saw her nostrils twitching as she sniffed the air, but her response was more of a shrug than anything insightful. Riley was equally alert, and just as unexpressive. Bear, though, was still quivering at the end of her leash, ready to go.

  Her class was Scout, after all. I should probably let her do her job.

  “All right, eyes on me.” I fumbled in the treat bag until I found the actual treats in the quick access slot, and pulled them out. Riley and Zelda promptly sat and looked up at me, eyes locked on my face. They knew this game. Bear took a moment longer, giving a little anxious whine before turning away from the trees and giving me her attention.

  “There are monsters in here,” I told the dogs, using my most serious voice. “I don’t know what kind they are, and I don’t know what they look like, but I know they’re here. We fight them as a team, right? You see a monster, you immediately call for help. Your loudest barks.”

  I met each dogs’ eyes in turn, wondering if they understood me, or if I was just imagining it. “There’s also a person in here. He might be killing monsters and doing just fine, but he might be freaked out, too. We don’t want to take any chances. He might be scared enough to attack us. But we do want to help him if he’s in trouble, okay? Again, if you find him, loudest barks. Right?”

  I wanted them to nod, like a little group of preschoolers, obediently bobbing their heads up and down when the teacher warns them to hold hands crossing the road as if they actually comprehend the dangers. It was just about as likely that they really understood me.

  They didn’t, but Riley dropped his jaw in a doggie laugh; Zelda tilted an ear in my direction in a clear, if lightly scornful, You worry too much; and Bear’s hips and leg muscles went taut in a plea to Go, go, go! Let’s go!

  I sighed, then took off their leashes and handed out the treats. Bear managed to wait until I gave her the release signal, but then she bounded off. After a few happy bounces, she dropped into a lope and before she was out of sight, I could see her slowing to a stalk.

  “Shall we follow her?” I said to the others. Riley was sniffing the base of the nearest gray tube, but Zelda was at my side, head up and alert. Even before they could respond, though, Bear began to bark.

  It wasn’t a frenzied bark. She wasn’t panicking. Instead it was informational. Bark, pause, bark, pause, bark, pause. It was like she was saying, “Hey! Over here! I found something cool!”

  We didn’t hesitate, though. All three of us ran in her direction: Riley first, Zelda next, me last. The dogs outpaced me in no time, of course, but my run was unquestionably faster and longer than it would have been a week ago. Agility and Endurance, maybe?

  We wound our way through the things that weren’t quite tree trunks and burst into a clearing where Bear stood, hackles raised, in front of… something.

  “Ew,” I said involuntarily. A mound on the ground, maybe person-sized, was covered with sludge. The smell was revolting and the sludge was moving, as if it was alive.

  God, I hoped that wasn’t Jerrold Jessup’s remains. Because I was not recovering his body, if so.

  The sludge began to slither in Bear’s direction. Bear’s bark grew a little more anxious, but she didn’t back away.

  I stepped up next to her and put my hand on her neck, stroking her raised hackles. “Good job, girl. Let’s see what we can do, okay?”

  In my HUD, I mentally tapped [Analyze].

  The floating text, [Swamp Slime - Level 2], appeared above the sludge. I waited, looking at the words, until more text began scrolling beneath it.

  Classification: Putrefactive ooze

  Traits: Absorptive, amorphous, putrefactive

  Abilities: Accelerated Decay, Rotting Grasp

  Condition: Optimal

  Ick. No wonder it smelled so bad.

  I reached into the treat bag and pulled out the unlikeliest of my weapons: the kitty litter. Did I think it would work? Eh… I thought it was worth a try. And hey, it was the deodorizing kind of kitty litter, so at least it might improve the stench.

  “Don’t let it touch you, Bear,” I told her as I took my hand off her neck. The other dogs weren’t coming any closer. Riley was still checking out the bases of the gray tubes and Zelda had circled around the slime and was sniffing at the mound behind it.

  Bear was giving a low growl, the kind that said, I don’t like this strange thing, but not the kind that said, I’m gonna kill this strange thing, so I let her be while I uncapped the kitty litter jug and dumped a generous quantity onto the oozing slime.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  It did not immediately combust. I’d never thought it would, though, so that wasn’t a surprise. But the kitty litter clumped up, absorbing some of the goop. The slime paused mid-creep.

  It looked confused. Okay, yeah, I’m doing some serious anthropomorphizing to claim that a moving batch of sewage had an expression, but bits of goop were coagulating around the clumps of litter, and then parts of the slime started to break off like it was clumping up, too.

  I checked my notifications—no mentions of slime death—and then tapped [Analyze] again. [Clay Slime - Level 1], [Clay Slime - Level 1], [Clay Slime - Level 1], [Swamp Slime - Level 2].

  Great, it had spawned a family. Kitty litter, bad idea. I put the cap back on the litter and returned the jug to the treat bag.

  I was not going to mix the bleach and ammonia. Not unless I managed to contain the slimes in an enclosed space of some sort. I’d been thinking of a hole, of course. When your best weapon is a shovel, digging holes always seems like the first line of attack. But given that the slimes were right here and multiplying, I didn’t feel like I had time for any complicated trap-building.

  Did I really need to make poison gas, though? Did slimes even breathe? Maybe they just… osmosised? So maybe the bleach could destroy the slime on its own. Bleach disinfects by breaking down biological structures, and the slime had to be some kind of biological structure, no matter how weird it was.

  I rummaged around in the treat bag until the bleach came to hand, then pulled it out, opened it, and poured a generous amount over the swamp slime, being careful not to splash.

  Its reaction wasn’t dramatic, at least not at first. Where the bleach touched, the sludge paled, turning gray, then stiffened, like a skin forming on the surface. A moment later, the skin started cracking.

  The slime did not like that at all. Little tendrils formed, reaching out of the slime like grabbing pseudopods, while a horrific odor gurgled up from the mass, like rot and chlorine and something ten days dead.

  “Back up, Bear, back up,” I ordered, retreating myself while raising an arm to cover my mouth and nose. The sharp reek of the bleach in my hand cut through the death stench, but not enough.

  Ugh, I needed a gas mask for this place. Were slimes part ammonia? Had I just accidentally created the poison gas I’d been trying to avoid?

  The slime writhed, tendrils curling and flailing, until finally—after what felt like forever but was probably twenty seconds—it stilled.

  The notification dot blinked.

  Yeah, the swamp slime was dead.

  And the System had very generously given me some XP. Not for the death, but for the experimentation. The notification read:

  Congratulations! You have successfully discovered an effective weapon against Swamp Slime and related entities. Innovation award: 300 XP.

  All right, so bleach worked. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to be using a weapon that made the atmosphere quite so toxic, but it was better than nothing.

  Stepping forward, I confidently poured a splash of bleach onto each of the little clay slimes in turn.

  They continued wiggling along the ground as if I’d given them a refreshing drink of water.

  “Huh.” I didn’t put the cap back on the bleach, but I eyed the clay slimes warily. I guess I didn’t need to kill them. They seemed harmless enough. They certainly weren’t capable of doing damage to me or the dogs. If I wanted to clear the rift, I might have to kill them, though. Maybe I should try burying them? But if they were made of clay, they’d probably be perfectly happy underground.

  Zelda gave a sharp bark. She was still next to the mound of… whatever… and it was oozing again. I joined her and looked down at it, fighting my own gag reflex.

  I didn’t think it was human remains. In fact, it might be something like a spawn point? I’d never seen where the goblins came from. They just seemed to pop into existence like they were being teleported into the scenario. But this thing looked as if it might be a slime creation mechanism.

  Without pausing for the briefest thought of “hey, that first one smelled incredibly nasty, maybe don’t do that again?” — not even a split second of hesitation from that incredibly obvious thought! — I upended the bleach bottle on top of it.

  It convulsed. A shudder ran through it, like Jello in an earthquake. And no, I haven’t actually ever seen Jello in an earthquake, but you get the idea. It wobbled, but not in a friendly Weebles-wobble-but-they-don’t-fall-down kind of way: more in a hostile this-thing-is-about-to-explode kind of way.

  “Z, get away, get away!” I shrieked, skittering away myself, as the mound burst open and glistening ooze whooshed out of it, forming a four-foot tall sewage monster.

  All right, it wasn’t all that big. But it had a disgust factor that went so far beyond its height. It reeked. The smell was beyond revolting and into putrid.

  All three dogs were barking at it, Zelda with the determined ferocity of a terrier, Riley’s deep and commanding from the full force of his powerful Rottweiler chest, and Bear’s with an unmistakeable note of I told you, I told you in it.

  None of them seemed as bothered by the smell as I was, fortunately. My eyes were watering, my nose stinging, but they were doing a pack hunting dance around the creature just as if it was one of the bugs we’d been slaughtering all day.

  A quick [Analyze] told me it was a [Swamp Creature - Level 6], well within our capabilities, but it lashed out with a tendril that was more of a tentacle, slapping Riley across the flank with a hit that smoked when it landed.

  His shocked whimper triggered every primal dog mom instinct I had.

  I screamed at the monster. I’m not sure what I screamed, or if it even had words. It was just rage turned into noise.

  Warden’s Edge was in my hand suddenly—I missed the part where I pulled it out of the quick access slot on the pouch—and I was between the monster and my dogs in a heartbeat.

  I slammed Warden’s Edge into the monster like it was made of the Jello I’d compared it to, smacking it again and again in a frenzy of pent-up fury.

  The slime hit back, or tried to. Its surface heaved, throwing up globs of filth that splattered when they hit the ground. Warden’s Edge connected with a wet whump that jolted through my arms, and [Rebound] flared. Its own energy snapped back into the slime like a breaking rubber band.

  It shuddered violently, folding inward, every strike ricocheting through its body. I didn’t stop. I kept swinging, again and again, until the air was full of the stink of bleach and rot and decay.

  Zelda was beside me, no longer barking but still poised to jump. Bear and Riley were farther away, Riley having dropped to the ground, licking at his wound like he was desperate to clean it, Bear standing over him protectively.

  The creature’s tendrils whipped once more, blindly, then sagged. Its bulk deflated, slumping into a steaming puddle that spread across the leafy ground cover.

  The notification dot blinked in the corner of my vision.

  I stood panting, shovel still raised. “Yeah,” I said, voice rough from screaming. “That’s what you get for hitting my dog. Asshole.”

  The smell was so awful I wanted to hold my breath, but instead I took one deep gulp of air, closing my eyes for a second, fighting the need to shake from the adrenaline and fear still rushing through me, my hands tight around the handle of Warden’s Edge.

  Riley.

  I turned toward him. Bear was still standing over him, her body tense, hackles raised. I started toward them, already opening my mouth to snap at Bear to move, when I stopped myself.

  Bear wasn’t being a jerk. She wasn’t getting in my way just to cause trouble.

  She wasn’t an obstacle.

  She was doing her job, protecting her friend. Her pack mate. She needed reassurance and comfort, and I couldn’t let my fear for Riley override my care for her.

  “Good girl,” I said, my voice soft and warm. “Good choices. Thank you for keeping Riley safe.” I held my hand out to her as I approached, palm up, keeping it low and unthreatening, then dropped to my knees when I’d reached them.

  “You gonna let me see him?” I kept the words soft, as I rubbed her jaw, gently scratching the soft spot below her ear.

  Her eyes met mine, then—in a move so startling my own eyes widened with shock—her long tongue lapped out at my wrist, in a wet caress that held both command and compliment.

  Fix him, she was saying. I know you can. She shifted her weight to give me space, her body relaxing.

  “Thank you, good girl.” I turned my attention to Riley, keeping one hand on Bear’s shoulder as I leaned in to examine his flank.

  The wound looked bad. Really bad. The fur was gone in a welt an inch wide and six inches long, the exposed skin mottled brown and black at the edges, discolored in a way that made my stomach clench.

  But the damage seemed mostly superficial. No blood, no exposed muscle or bone. The discoloration was alarming, sure, but it didn’t look like it went deep.

  Riley had stopped licking at it when I got close. He looked at me, brown eyes worried but trusting.

  “What do you think, sweet boy?” I asked him, not expecting a response.

  He immediately licked at it again. Off, he was saying. Feels bad. Smells bad. Off.

  I had a bag full of cleaning supplies: bleach, Windex, baking soda, even salt. Had I brought any basic antiseptic wipes? No, of course not.

  But I had picked up three health potions from the jar in the RMI, each one worth five credits. Half a rift clear. Three potions, because I’d thought I might need one for each person potentially trapped in an instance of Rift #486.

  So complacent, so sure we wouldn’t get hurt. And why? Z and I out-leveled the creatures in this rift, but Riley was only Level 4. That swamp creature could have been Level 10. It might have killed him with a single swat of its disgusting corrupted oozy self. What had I been thinking?

  Answer: I hadn’t been, obviously.

  I was gonna have to do better.