But for a Slime

Chapter Thirty Seven

Joe and Garnedell finished up clearing out the last of the sparks and came to the corner leading back to the main corridor. As they came around the corridor, they heard the sound of clashing weapons and cries of pain. Joe and Garnedell glanced towards each other before quickly dashing towards the main thoroughfare. They arrived to find several adventurers in conflict with one another and the two came to stop, uncertain of what to do. They watched and saw that there seemed to be two groups of adventurers and Joe recognized one of the groups as the lizard couple. They were struggling against another group of four adventurers: a couple of humans, a female cat like hybrid, and a tree looking thing. Things were actually quite difficult but the two were doing well by themselves, their agility and the incredibly slow but powerful movements of the tree creature allowed the pair to make it a three on two fight instead of a four on two. Despite their defense, they were in a precarious situation riddled with slashes and bleeding from the cuts all over their body.

Uncertain what was happening, Joe called out, “What’s happening here?”

That cat hybrid snarled at him, “This means nothing to you. Leave. You are no part of this!”

The young lizard man shouted over the top of the cat girl, “Joe! They just attacked us!”

Joe froze for a moment, not certain what to really do in this situation, “Can you all back off? Let’s talk about this.”

Even as he said this, he saw the relief come to the lizard couple, but one of the humans broke off and headed towards them, “Stay out of this! We told you, you have no place in this. Walk away.”

“If this was a simple conflict, I might. You have an agenda. An agenda that seems to be to harm another. What have they done that they deserve this?”

“They owe a debt. They are required…”

“Have they run away from this debt?”

The man blinked a bit, confusion coming to him as he was nonplussed by Joe’s odd interruption, “Well…. No, but they…”

“Have they fallen behind on their debt payment?”

The questions came fast, surprising the man, “Look. I don’t know! I was only told to find them and…”

“And?”

“It is no concern of yours.”

“Your poor answers are making it more and more my concern. How much do they owe?”

Again, the man seemed surprised, “I don’t know.”

“If I say I will pay their debt, will you back off?”

The man grimaced but he pulled out his weapon, squaring off against Joe. Joe’s eye’s rose at this point, and he seemed a bit surprised, “It seems that you are not here for them to pay off their debt. That makes me wonder if there is a debt at all!”

The man’s eye’s deadened, “As I said, it’s no concern of yours!” And with a quick leap, the man thrust his blade towards Joe’s gut.

Woah! The guy just seriously tried to kill me! Joe responded with a simple twist and parry, pushing the man’s sword to the side before following up with a roundhouse kick straight to the back of the man’s head. The man staggered forward, blinking stunned eyes while Joe staggered him with a powerful triple slam of palms to the back of the man’s skull. He dropped, crumpling straight to the ground as his legs gave out under him. Joe then whipped out an arrow and nocked it as he called out to the other two.

“I suggest you back off and take your friend with you, or you will start dying. I’m not in the mood to prolong this. I’m tired. I’ve been fighting all day. We’ve had to deal with a calamity somewhere in this dungeon. And we’re all tired. Leave, or die!”

The cat woman snarled and immediately leaped towards Joe, dropping low to the ground before throwing herself up against the wall and leaping off of it from all fours, coming at him from the side. Joe found tracking the rapidly moving woman difficult and had to drop his bow to bring up his shield to block her leaping strike while he whipped out his spear. She landed on his shield and actually was able to perch herself on it, Joe feeling the drag of her weight pulling his arm down. She stood and brought her claws to bear since she’d dropped her sword to leap off the wall and cling to Joe’s shield.

His shield now pulled down low and her arms clawing towards his face, Joe had no choice and simply thrust his spear straight toward her throat, bypassing her armor for she had no gorget. Her eye’s widened in shock and her claws swipe quickly came up in a hard half-parry half-block and fell back and away. His spear came up quickly as he violently swept it up in sweeps using it more like a staff than a spear. The cat woman found herself at a disadvantage, her fists quickly shifting to palm strikes as she desperately slapped away the shaft. She was able to slap the shaft away a half a dozen times as Joe settled into a pattern. As the cat woman fell into the pattern, Joe countered with an extra hard slash to the right, surprising the woman with the force of the hit before he bounced the staff off her palm and swinging the left end of the staff back towards the woman. The return strike to the left was expected, but Joe pulled the left end in and down instead of out to the left. The woman, staggered slightly by Joe’s last strike and expecting the pattern, found her right hand out of position to block the strike and Joe stepped in to hammer the butt of his spear down on the crown of her head. Joe was unconcerned to step in range since he had staggered her left hand and while her right hand was free, she had to contend with his shield, protecting most of his left side. Joe prepared to duck his head, in case she was able to react quickly enough to send a strike to his head, but Joe found the need unnecessary. The cat woman had folded directly to the floor, her whole body collapsing into a ball before unfolding to the floor. He turned to the last two.

“Seriously, guys. You will die. Two of you are already down, and I have no problem taking you out! I’m not going to let them avoid paying their debt, but you will not kill them. Back off, or die! I’m not in the mood to continue this. You can stop now, and your friends should be fine! Or, you can keep trying to fight and I’ll kill both of you, although, tree dude, I’m not too sure what to do with you except chop you up into firewood. I’ll do it if I have to. Now, make your choice.”

With the loss of two combatants, the reptile couple had gained enough of a breather to begin pressing the two back, and they looked over to find their two companions down and out. They quickly disengaged and back away, cautiously holding weapons and shields up in defense, but no longer attempting to attack.

“Alright! We’re going to leave. We’ll leave fast, so you have a chance. Pick them up and run to the nearest doctor… healer, whatever you call them, and they’ll live. But don’t start moving until we’re gone, got it?”

The two said nothing, only looking at him before nodding subtly.

“Right, come on you two. I don’t know why you get in so much trouble, but get going!” Joe shoved the couple past them and they jogged towards the stairs, “You, too, Garnedell. I’ll be right up.”

“Always, Joe,” Garnedell replied and turned to follow them up, struggling a bit more since he was carrying the bulky star stakes.

Joe backed away from them quickly and the human leapt to the cat girl’s side while the tree thing kind of slithered semi rapidly. Maybe it is fast for it? Pretty slow to me. It certainly was strange, like a moving or walking large bush or a small tree, although its branches were more tentacle like. Or… at least the branches I saw it attacking with… hmm… I don’t remember any of the attacking branches having leaves. Maybe it has two kind of branches? Joe studied the strange thing for a bit until he reached the stairs, then focused on walking backwards up the stairs until the spiral brought him out of sight, requiring him to lean to the side to see them. They were not focused on him at all, and were desperately checking their companions. The tree was picking up the man while the human was picking up the cat woman. Makes sense, the tree is too slow to carry her. They need her out of here fast.

Finally, Joe whipped around and sprinted up the steps, not wanting to leave his back to the group. He made the top to find Garnedell waiting for him and the lizard couple standing a few feet off to the side, seemingly also waiting. Joe’s glance towards them was quick but ultimately distracted as he once again saw the guards and Dragon’s Spears in full regalia, standing and ready to descend upon the dungeon. Of course, it seemed they had still been waiting for another couple of Dragon’s Spears before their attack, but this time there were a couple more than before. Obviously, they were a bit more ready than now.

Several of the guards were questioning Garnedell and the lizard couple and another guard bee lined it straight toward him when they saw him exit. The questions came hard and fast, but he claimed to know nothing but that he fled as soon as he felt safe and felt that the calamity was no longer going to harm him. He hoped it was generic enough, and the guard seemed to take it as such before he was released and joined by Garnedell a bit later. The lizard couple also drifted towards them before both heads bobbed a bow which brought a wave of the tail as it swung high over their heads. The perfect poise and identical pose of the tail by both made the tail’s posture seem to be as important as the head bow itself.

“We are grateful once again, Master Joe.”

“Please, remember? We are friends, yes? So you do not need to call me master. Nor do you need to feel indebted. Friends help one another, yes?”

The two seemed to blush with some embarrassment as they looked at each other.

* * *