But for a Slime

Chapter Twenty Nine

Joe woke, stretched, exercised his core, and scampered down to breakfast. His excitement over the direction of the current jobs was not contagious, and Garnedell stumbled down after him with grumpy demeanor and dark circles under his eyes. Huh… why’d he loose so much sleep? Bad dreams? Bad bed? What…? Joe tried to see why Garnedell wasn’t doing so well, but the boy brushed it off or simply ignored Joe’s concerned questions, so he finally dropped it and returned his focus to learning the language. Joe’s unease settled as Garnedell soon responded well and the two began to enjoy their morning meal with decent conversation.

By the time the meal was over, the two were in quite the joyful mood, enjoying some simple jokes for the first time in the relationship as their language had developed enough that the two were able to understand each other, poorly, but enough to laugh at bad jokes. The joy of finally understanding enhancing the humor of the poor jokes much more than their worth. They left the inn in laughter and headed off to the temple district, Garnedell’s poor morning long forgotten. As they headed through town, they came upon a large crowd seemingly in the beginnings or ends of some kind of party. They couldn’t easily find a way through the crowd and they became a bit unruly when Joe and Garnedell tried to push through, forcefully shoving them back.

Joe then led Garnedell down a smaller side to a parallel street to continue on their way to the temple district. As they made the new main road, Joe realized they were on another minor market street Joe had never seen before. It was a crowded mess of markets spewing their guts out into the roadway, external cabinets and display cases artfully splayed out into the streets with almost every other surface of the street covered with some carpeting or covering on which were littered a variety of knick knacks. The markets had vomited so much of their contents out onto the street that only the smallest of aisles was left through which the crowd of customers threaded in a tortuous winding maze of merchandise and jostling people.

Joe found himself slowing down with some fascination as he looked at what was available. The ejecta from the shops was not something new to Joe, having long seen many examples of such open front shops amongst many Asian countries. It was the unusual variety of strange trinkets that he saw, completely unusual from what he was used to seeing in any form. Huh… is this just stuff from another world? Or is it stuff I wouldn’t normally see because of the adventuring aspect of this world? Maybe magical world? Or… something else? Joe saw that Garnedell had slowed down to watch him, and Joe almost considered stopping and spending some time perusing the goods but realized there would be little point only because he wouldn’t be able to ask any questions. There would be no way to even understand the explanations required to explain what all these things were. Once again, Joe was struck by the strange dichotomy of the clothed patrons in sharp contrast with quite a few of the near naked examples wandering through the market area, although Joe was quite a bit more enraptured by what he saw on sale. The two meandered a bit slowly down the narrow aisle and Joe suddenly noticed a shop that seemed to be selling predominately wooden weaponry. Spears, staves, sword like wooden sticks, and other wooden weaponry of some kind. Oh! Right! The wooden weaponry the other group was using to fight the sparks! Huh!

Joe turned to Garnedell and quickly asked, “How much spear?”

Garnedell glanced towards him then turned to the merchant, “Gala nar do cost ngar spear?”

The merchant replied, “Two bronze nagar ngar spear.”

“Huh… two bronze. Um… Let’s buy a dozen or… oops. Garnedell, buy ten spears.”

Garnedell nodded then he turned to merchant, pulling out the coin and quickly swapping for the spears. Joe divided the stack in two and gave half to Garnedell. They stacked the spears and headed onwards to the temple district. Joe had to remember which temple he’d gone to, his mind trying to think back to a week or two ago. He had to walk back to the entrance of the street he usually came in on to get his bearings and find the last temple he’d been to. They quickly headed to the next temple and Garnedell set him up with his next job. As Joe had expected, Garnedell had his job changed to educated and the two left as quickly and quietly as possible.

After, the two turned to the labyrinth and arrived quickly but slowed as they settled in line for entry, eyes flickering across the row of strange peoples, most human. Joe even saw some of the ‘hardly’ clothed people standing in line. Huh, why don’t I see them in the mornings? Seem to be a lot of them now, though? Joe sighed as their turn came and they began to wrestle with the guards and administration over the entry procedure before finally making it down to the first floor. They slipped off the main thoroughfare and into the side tunnels. Joe handed all the wooden spears to Garnedell before he took the time to clear out the tunnels till they reached a room. Joe took his spear and dragged it into the spark, grounding it. He then took out one of the wooden spears and began stabbing and slashing into the spark. He was surprised to find that the spark died in almost half the time, surprising him. After he killed the spark, he took a look at what the new job, educated, gave him. Ooh… new color.

Status

Blessings

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Status

Physical Resistances

Magical Resistances

HP

1.00

Physical:

MP

1.00

Piercing

0.00

Attack

1.00

Crushing

0.00

Defense

1.00

Slashing

0.00

Magic

1.00

Magic Defense

1.00

Strength

1.00

Dexterity

1.00

Agility

1.00

Educated

1

Speed

1.00

Endurance

1.00

IQ

5.00

Wisdom

5.00

Learning

4.00

Luck

0.00

Joe felt disappointment as his eyes slid down the numbers, the list of ones dropping his shoulders but when he saw the last few numbers his eyebrows climbed almost as fast as the Saturn Five rockets while a ridiculous grin split his face. Seriously? This is insane! I’ll have forty learning at level ten just from this job and if I have to take it to twenty for the next job, I’ll have another eight learning as a base! Except with the new boost to learning skill, I’m actually getting six learning per level and I’ll have twelve base learning if I get this job to twenty! It took another few minutes for Joe to clean out the hallway to reach a room which had another good amount of sparks in it; fifteen or twenty.

As yesterday, Joe and Garnedell split up the sparks in the room and took half each. Joe took the time to show Garnedell how to use the wooden spears in conjunction with the grounding device, but when he tried to pick up the spear and wield it, it began shaking and wobbling in his hand, leaping from it as uncontrolled and wild as Joe’s metal spear. Garnedell was unable to wield any weapon! Joe struggled for a bit trying to get Garnedell to do it, but ultimately it seemed impossible. Seriously? If you don’t have the skill to wield the weapon it’s impossible to hold it! Isn’t that a bit insane! Joe decided to simply let Garnedell continue grounding the sparks as a kill, although he had to grind the gems to dust under his feet.

Joe found himself killing a bit faster than Garnedell because he was able to add the wooden spear damage. A nice perk seemed to be the fact that with the addition of the spear stabbing the spark, it sometimes no longer seemed to drop a spark gem when he was able to hit it. Or at least, it feels like I’m hitting something in there. Dies faster, too. It should have taken two kills per level, ten total to hit five but Joe found he hit five after only eight kills, his excitement over the quick growth spilling onto his face as a huge smile. The kills only took a little under an hour and he was already level five and Garnedell was able to hit eleven about the same time. Clearing out the room had him almost at level six and the trip to the next room got him all the way to six. Clearing out his half of the room got him half way to eight and by midmorning Joe was already level ten and beginning his way through the grind towards twenty. Man! This used to take a day! The learning stat is way over the top. Joe did take a quick moment to check for any new skills at level ten but was disappointed. There wasn’t any.

Continuing the trend of explosive growth, Joe found himself at level twelve by the time the two sit down for a late lunch. Joe was wondering if he could reach fifteen by the end of the day but it seemed like, at least by the numbers he was able to quickly crunch in his head, he would be lucky to hit fourteen by the end of the day. He could only hope the extra learning with each level up would boost him just that little more. Joe pushed himself to reach at least fourteen by the end of the day, and when he left the dungeon to return home, the sun had fully set and the streets were dark on the way home. Dinner at the inn was already done for most of the patrons and now the common room was full mostly of revelers enjoying their alcohol.

Joe and Garnedell were still able to enjoy an old supper and spent an exhausted but happy day exploring their languages. The two now both able to have a rudimentary understanding of what each said and felt a bit more satisfaction at how well Joe was developing his language. The rest of the evening was less enjoyable for Joe, the sponge bath, clothes washing in a bucket, and a hard bed left him feeling a bit grumpy, but the next day still found him quite refreshed.

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