But for a Slime

“Garnedell.”

“Yes, Zhoe!”

“Kargallen. Smith, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Kargallen live village, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Marcan live village, yes?”

Joe went through a list of people, naming off the various villagers and Garnedell nodded yes, his confusion only mildly evident as he realized that Joe was going through another language lesson.

“OK. Person sleep village is villager! Person from village is villager!”

Garnedell looked at Joe, not really offering any firm feedback but seeming to grasp it.

“Village… villager. Village… villager! OK, Garnedell?”

Garnedell began nodding more and more firmly as he grasped the idea, “Person stay at village is villager!”

“Yes! Yes!”

Garnedell smiled at Joe’s enthusiasm, nodding his head.

“OK, Garnedell. City person is…,” Joe shrugged his shoulders and tried to exaggerate his confusion.

Garnedell looked at him for a few moments before a bright smile came to his face and he nodded in understanding before offering a hard to pronounce three syllable word. Joe copied Garnedell several times while writing it down in his language notebook to make sure he remembered it.

“Garnedell. This is job name?”

Garnedell squinted his eyes but then his eyes flipped open and he changed the name of the word, and Joe took the time to write that down as well, practicing pronouncing it carefully. They continued this for a few moments before Joe dropped his notebook and pencil. The others would likely be best just finding an example around the city and Joe brought their language learning to an end after a productive twenty or thirty minute session.

“OK, Garnedell. Finished! One more question. Hard quest… uh… not easy question!”

Garnedell nodded in understanding, “OK, Zhoe.”

“Kargallen speak fast! Marcan speak slow! Innkeeper speak slow. Boy… many boys speak fast. Merchant speak slow. Why?”

Garnedell cocked his head, confusion painting his face with obvious lack of understanding. Joe waited, hoping Garnedell could parse the high level meaning from such poor language. However, it became clear that Garnedell wasn’t going to get it and Joe shook his head and considered another way to try to describe his issue. Epiphany took him a moment later and he quickly turned back to Garnedell.

“Oh! … Oh! Speak me. Speak me. I Kargallen. You speak me. I Kargallen. OK?”

Garnedell seemed a bit confused but nodded carefully, “Speak what?”

“Speak…. Speak … only speak!”

Garnedell nodded with more certainty then began, “Hello master Kargallen.”

“Hello Garnedell! Where you go?”

“Uh… I go city.”

“Oh! City! What city?”

“I go Coushar!”

Joe nodded and brought the conversation to an end with a wave of his hands, “OK! Now. I innkeeper! You speak me. I innkeeper. OK?”

Garnedell nodded more firmly this time and spoke again.

“Hello, innkeeper Shuleshna.”

Joe blinked with some surprise at the name. Huh… that was a bit rude of me, I didn’t learn her name! But then he shook his head slightly and put himself back into the role of the innkeeper. He stared at Garnedell with a blank face and counted slowly to ten, attempting to duplicate the innkeeper’s slow response times. After ten seconds, he smiled in exaggerated response and replied, “Hello Garnedell! Where you go?”

Garnedell replied quickly as he normally did, “I go city.”

Joe froze the smile on his face and stared at Garnedell for another ten or so seconds before replying as he did before, “Oh! City! What city?”

“I go Coushar!”

Again, Joe froze and stared for ten seconds at Garnedell before once again ending the roleplay, “See… Kargallen fast speak. Shuleshna slow speak. Why?”

Realization slammed into Garnedell, his face showing absolute clarity as he nodded, “Kargallen status high. Shuleshna low!”

Joe’s eyes widened in shock! Seriously!? The stats are… Joe ended his thoughts with a string of curses. This is bad. This is very bad! It’s not IQ… its even worse! It’s more like processing power! The innkeeper was… shrewd… and bargained well. She knew exactly… so it’s not… that’s… If that happened to me… If it was just IQ… If I were less intelligent, I would at least be happy in my simple mindedness AND I would be able to still defend myself! But with this, if I ever get into a fight, ten second response times are going to kill me! At least… people seem polite enough to wait around for those with lower status… but…

Joe stood and paced the room in agitation, uncertain worry coming to his face before he looked back at Garnedell with some confusion, “But you speak fast but low stats! Why?”

Garnedell nodded, “I … I boy… not… not man! I not…” Garnedell shook his head with some frustration then began miming, a large rotation of his hands that Joe didn’t understand. They tried several more minutes but Garnedell wasn’t able to express what was happening and Joe ended the conversation with some frustration. I’ll have to ask later after I’ve learned the language better. He flipped open his notebook and started a new page of important questions to ask later, writing this one down as the first. He slapped his notebook shut and stood, preparing to leave. Whelp, back to the leveling grind.

“Let’s go,” Joe said before standing and preparing to go.

Garnedell nodded and they packed up the room before securing it carefully once again and heading out of the inn. At the front door, Garnedell looked to Joe for his guidance and Joe slipped back into the local language.

“Joe grow job. Joe kill monster. Where monster?”

Garnedell smiled then took off in a direction with quiet confidence. Huh… he must know this one then. Wonder why? Garnedell weaved in and out of the crowds and Joe noticed that there was a general flow of traffic in the same direction they were going, but also a general increase in busyness as well as increasing amounts of businesses. We’re going someplace important! Downtown?

They came out of the large but crowded thoroughfares and blinked in surprise when he found a rather strong and thick wall in front of them. Joe first thought they would be going out of the city, but then noticed that the wall seemed to only circle a small portion of the square they had entered. It almost seemed like a bailey, or a small inner keep. They came upon the wall and walked alongside of it before taking a turn around it and found a very well-defended and well prepared gate, complete with portcullis and heavy iron bars. The whole setup seemed strange too him, including the walls, until he realized that everything was inverted! The walls had stairs on the outside of them, and the gate’s mechanisms were on the outside of the wall. Wha!! This wall was built to keep things INSIDE! What is going on!

Joe found himself following Garnedell on autopilot as he continued to stare at the strange wall setup and the guards around it. There were a significant number of guards patrolling the wall, and those exiting the wall were checked carefully by the guards. It seemed those entering, however, were allowed in after a rather cursory check. The line moved quickly and the two soon found themselves at the front of the line. Joe quickly recognized the work of boredom as the man seemed to regurgitate prepared lines to which Garnedell replied yes. Joe’s turn came, and he followed Joe’s example as well as his guidance as Garnedell stood behind the guard and hinted when Joe should reply by exaggeratedly mouthing ‘yes.’

It was only moments later and they passed through the ten meter thick wall. The gate feels like a tunnel! When they came out, Joe was startled to find that there was a heavy duty grate in place over the entire interior. A portcullis! They really, really don’t want what’s in here to get out!

Centered exactly in the middle of the courtyard sat a strange rock outcropping with a yawning cavern. Walking in and out of the cavern was a steady line of adventurers. Some of those coming out were wounded or splashed in various places with blood. Huh! Monsters inside… guess this would be… a dungeon! Heh… pretty cool, but a bit … underwhelming. I kind of expected more? Maybe?

Garnedell grabbed Joe’s hand just before they entered the dungeon, hand’s clasped. They went through and found their eye’s adjusting rather quickly. Before them was a spiraling staircase, the last adventurers to enter before them already just disappearing around the spiral with another two coming up the stairs. Joe grinned with some excitement and pulled out his spear before confidently tromping down the staircase. Joe stuck close behind one of the adventurer groups and followed them for a bit, wishing to get some information before fighting. He stayed a bit back as he trailed a young couple who weren’t quite human. They both gave off an incredibly sleek yet strong vibe, neither were overly voluptuous examples of their gender yet still very easily seen as a man and woman. They had tails that struck out from the base of the spines which were slick to appearance and scaled with fine delicate scales. This made the pants they wore an interesting construction which hung quite low to go under the tail. Pants that low on a human would go several steps past plumber’s crack and definitely borderline scandalous. Despite that, the tail covered them well enough and the pants were cut in such a way as to easily hide their modesty. Their limbs, from what he could see of them, were scaled delicately as well, including faces. Their faces were distinctly human, but sharply so. If Joe were to offer an adjective to describe their looks, the best he could give would be vicious elfen. The look was certainly unusual, and despite the odd combination of reptilian features melded with facial bone structure, he found them to be on the attractive side, despite their alien look, rather than repulsive.

They came upon their first monster, a sparkling ball of light that looked a lot like ball lightening. The boy and girl struck at the thing as it sparked off short spikes of lightening. The boy and girl were quite cautious of being struck by the lightning strikes, and Joe watched as the girl was hit by one spike, the shock throwing her back to lay paralyzed on the ground for some time before she was able to stand and rejoin the fight but the boy was easily able to hold the sparking lightning back as it drifted so slowly towards him.

The two of them kept striking at the spark and the thing finally died. When it started becoming injured, it began drifting lower and lower to the ground until it drifted too close to the ground and seemed to short out, the thing seeming to spaz as it flickered into fading oblivion. It disappeared after that and nothing was left behind. Huh… short it out. Seems easy enough! Joe flickered his eyes to the adventurer’s weaponry and noticed that they were wooden. On their backs were sheaths holding a dozen short wooden spears, almost more like javelins than full on spears, their entire length wooden without any metallic spearhead. Seeing the number of wooden weaponry they had on their back, Joe looked back at the weapons they held in their hands and saw that they had been scorched pretty black. Seems like the thing destroys their weapons as well. Why don’t I just ground the thing!

Joe glanced down at his shoes and saw that they were a decent leather with pretty thick soles although Joe worried they wouldn’t really offer enough insulating protection. Huh, I wonder if I could just ground it with something metal? Joe watched the two adventurers wander off and decided to follow them as they searched for another enemy. Are all the enemies here those electrical things? Or are there other… things? Joe wasn’t certain what he would find so he trailed them a bit more. The next three enemies were also sparks, also all single attackers versus the two adventurers. Huh… maybe it really is that easy. Just one electrical monster at a time and it seems to be lightning themed floor! After the adventurers attacked a fourth spark, Joe led Garnedell in another direction, leaving the two adventurers alone as they sought out their own enemy.