But for a Slime

Joe clenched his jaw again, struggling to keep in his snicker from the over the top cheesy line, barely succeeding. Even as the slime died, another, even more massive beast, stomped onto the scene. A massive giant three times as tall as the wall itself stomped into field, and even more monsters suddenly appeared to be crushed under its feet before they faded to nothing again. The crier suddenly spoke out.

“A city killer! Run! Save yourselves as best you may! I, Allanar, shall save you!”

Allanar once again leapt off the wall, and again, a little mini version of himself followed, zipping around the monster rather ineffectually, although Allanar offered quite a bit more help to Joe’s figure as he zipped around the giant. Again, Allanar remained large and heroic throughout the fight, his figure floating around the fight while massive strikes of water blasted from him into the giant, staggering it and visibly weakening it. This fight lasted for quite some time and when the giant finally fell, Allanar turned face forward to the audience, raising his hands high to stand in a heroic pose. This time, Allanar said nothing, only standing before the audience with the massive corpse of the slime and giant behind him, felled, while the narrator spoke out.

“Thus are the deeds of Allanar, of clan Galgandar. His epic proclaimed!”

This time, Joe did not feel the need to laugh, although he did smile softly at what happened. Quite a bit of exaggeration, but still… pretty cool! With that, Joe began to recognize more and more of the people in the Epics, each of them shown to have accomplished something of merit, and it took four or five for Joe to realize that the Epics were given in recognition of defending the walls against the monster tide. Is it all of them, though? Or… just the last day?... maybe just the last bit of the last day? But… the bigger, badder, more impressive stories were at the end, which… there must be more impressive fights from other times and places… this…

Joe fell silent when the next proved to be an Epic of the Matriarch, as she defended the wall. They put quite some work into describing her efforts and much more detail in the entire work of it all, with the Matriarch beautifully destroying reams of monsters without end. Her Epic continued on for quite some time with quite a bit of loving detail put into her fights, showing off her moves and the deaths of a myriad of monsters. With her Epic complete, the lights began to dim, and Joe took a deep breath, sighing with delight, both glad for it to be done, but also quite entertained for the first time in a long time. Joe turned to look at everyone, but then stopped when he noticed everyone had frozen with even greater intensity, sitting forward to look on eagerly. Even the Matriarch had sat forward subtly and Joe blinked in surprise. Is there… more?

Suddenly, music began to swell, even as the lights returned showing the scene of the walls again, with the monsters infesting the field before it. The wall was empty but for one person, standing heroically while looking down over the monsters. The view was from the back, without any noticeable or recognizable features but the crowd reacted with shouts of joy and even greater interest, everyone silencing and leaning forward with even greater interest. Suddenly, the figure manifested a bow, somehow, and began to rapidly fire it, arrow after arrow streaking into the monsters. The arrows actually spewed out about as fast as a machine gun, the arrows spraying out in a wild wash across the whole field, but each arrow found a monster without error. The arrows were much deadlier, somehow, and simply appeared in his hands as he fired it, and Joe grimaced, trying to hide is embarrassment. That’s… supposed to be me?

Joe stifled his embarrassment and cleared his throat, looking around at everyone, but they all seemed incredibly invested in the story, so he remained silent to allow them their entertainment. That said, Joe sat back and found himself growing ever more and more embarrassed as the story went on.

Joe continued firing arrow after arrow into the monsters and Joe watched as his actions were written comically large. The arrows struck dozens of monsters at once, each strike either slicing through dozens of monsters at once or exploding in thunderous noise and knocking dozens of monsters into the air in poorly enacted ragdoll. Huh… Guess even magic lags with poor physics. What’s …

Joe brought himself back to the play, and grimaced. His actions had grown to the absurd, his minimum defensive distance where he kept the monsters back had formed a decent sized wall of monster corpses, but the play now had the monster corpse wall almost to the height of the actual city walls as well. Joe couldn’t keep his scornful laugh from slipping his lips, but he was able to keep it soft enough to not really bother anyone else. Despite that, Gwenvair seemed to have heard and looked up at Joe with a smile. When she noticed his embarrassment, it turned into a smirk, then a soft chuckle and smile while she nodded to him. Joe noticed and chuckled silently himself, then turned back to the show since Gwenvair had quickly turned back to the show as well.

His overly heroic defense of the city wall continued, the mountain of corpses growing even further to absurd proportions when his performance was suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the slime. It crashed through the mountain of corpses, eating them before coming to rest before the city wall. None of the crafters or guards were evident, but Joe watched on as his figure heroically stripped, preparing for his dive into slime. Joe blinked at that, surprised to see his body rather… amorphous. What happened to my ripped figure? Where’re my abs? My pecs? What happened?

He heard Kilniara shuffle and glanced over to see Gwenvair and Kilniara leaned in close to one another, whispering with each other. They seemed quite disappointed, and Joe stifled a grin before turning back to the fight. Ha… at least I’m not the only one annoyed by that. He hid his smile, but found his confidence boosted by quite a bit and he turned back in enough time to see himself dive from the wall, holding two strange spears in his hand. They, somehow, correctly envisioned the spirit of the spoon spears, but there was something… subtly off about them. Like… they got the spirit… purpose of the things but they’re all wrong, too… how… how do they do that? It’s…

Joe shook off his reverie and focused back on the story. He blinked, realizing he was still diving through the air. How… did the wall suddenly grow? How… the hero Joe from the play slammed into slime and began swimming through slime. Joe laughed, unable to hide his humor even as the play suddenly turned into a deep sea adventure, Joe swimming through the slime for a good minute or so before he began, inexplicably, fighting a miniature human shaped slime in the middle of the slime. The fight was ridiculous, so much so that Joe couldn’t actually laugh, only stare on in utter shock, mouth agape. The fight with the slime continued for a time, comically so, until it ended rather abruptly with a flourish.

With that, the story returned to some semblance of truth, the slime collapsing in a splash of acid and Joe’s figure appearing in a heroic stance. Joe waited, his breath held as he wondered what cheesy thing the narrator would put on his lips, but the heroic Joe of the play said nothing, simply turning back to the wall and leaping back up it, literally flying to the top of the wall. Joe’s shock only grew.

The play returned to Joe forming his massive fifty meter tall monster corpse wall before it too was destroyed by the next monster, the giant. Joe tuned out at that point, but he did notice that throughout the play, the hero Joe of the play never said anything. The fight also returned to a semblance of reality, his fight against the giant and the final tide master proved to be much more true to his original fights, and when Joe noticed, he began to really focus and soon noticed that the fights were an almost scarily perfect recreation of both fights. That realization slammed an epiphany into his brain. They couldn’t see what happened in the slime very well! That…

Joe’s interest piqued and he found himself almost as enrapt as the rest of the audience, finding the fight from a third party perspective enlightening and a bit shocking. He was quite a bit more frightened, especially when he saw how terrifying the fight with the shadow tide master had been. From his own memory, he never thought the fight was that close, but as he watched it, he saw how close the fight had been. When the fight ended, the illusion mage proved his worth as the lights surrounding the heroic Joe faded away, everything around the actor disappearing even as a spotlight like effect made it seem like they were zoom… Wait… is… he is! He’s actually getting bigger… how … how are they doing a three D zoom… that’s just!

Suddenly, the stage went black, a blackness that actually seemed to suck in the light. The entire audience began clapping with those in the standing crowd at the front as well as many of the younger kids shouted with screams of ecstatic excitement. Just as suddenly as the stage went black, it brightened again with the actors, criers, and mages all standing to accept their applause. The crowd offered it to them, in excess, a massive wave of sound that rolled over the audience. It went on for some time, the sound not decreasing in any way, simply swelling and receding in waves. The performers seemed quite ecstatic to accept the praise and it didn’t stop until the Matriarch stood and called an end for the praise with the raise of an arm. Several moments later, silence reigned and the Matriarch lowered her arm.

“As always, an excellent Epic of our recent tide and the many brave men and women who protected us in this tide. Now, as is the tradition for the final Tide’s eve, those who wish to continue to their personal evenings may do so. The Epics will continue into the night, although I offer a slight exception, for those who might wish it. Shall we watch the last Epic, once again?”

The roar of approval drowned out all conversation until the Matriarch raised her hand once again and silenced returned almost immediately. She held her hand raised for a bit, the silence held, until she finally nodded, raising her voice just a bit.

“Then, one more time, the Epic of the Eccentric!”

A great shout rose at that, the cries prolonged and echoing throughout the field they were in. They didn’t stop until the stage fell into darkness once again with Joe’s overly heroic figure came into view with the rising of the lights. The crowds began quieting at that, the susurrus of whispers and shifting of bodies still quite loud, but that all disappeared instantly into dead silence when the actor Joe drew his bow and began firing arrows. Joe found the sudden silence actually a bit unnerving, and as he’d already seen it once, he turned to Kilniara and Gwenvair to ask on this.

“So, people ar…”

Kilniara immediately shushed him loudly, with even Gwenvair looking up at him with some frustration, although she did offer some apology with her look. Joe blinked, surprised, and when he looked up at the Matriarch, she sat fully forward in her seat and utterly ignored him. With that, Joe’s attention moved away from the play and was now on the audience, and what he saw unnerved him. Everyone was so utterly focused on what was happening, Joe felt quite disconcerted. Some kind of… hypnotism? A magic … charm? But… I don’t feel anything…

Joe kept his focus on the crowd, ignoring the play for the most part, and he found their focus to be … there’s something… too much! They aren’t… wat… Hoo… wow… they aren’t watching entertainment… they… they’re… studying… They’re studying me…

Joe shifted uncomfortably with that realization and stared around the room. This time, the story took much longer, the avid attention, the utter concentration, the bated breaths, and hungry looks proved too uncomfortable. Joe held himself still, however, and simply waited. Time passed in a crawl, and when his Epic finished a second time, the roar of excitement was just as powerful as the first. While the people were crowing in excitement, Joe turned to Kilniara and Gwenvair.

“What’s… can you explain what is going on?”

Kilniara looked up at him, confused, with Gwenvair also confused, if a bit more refined in her response. Both seemed confused.

“What do you mean?” Kilniara asked.

“Why is… uh… people seem too … why are they looking at what is happening so closely?”

Gwenvair seemed to understand at that, but was also quite shocked, “We… we are studying your methods. Are you uncomfortable with this?”

* * *