But for a Slime

Garnedell smiled then grew serious, “Thank you, Joe.”

Joe smiled back but wasn’t sure how to respond, so simply nodded before returning to checking Garnedell carefully. His checkup was interrupted by another yowl and Joe looked up in surprise to see another cat sliding around the corner before slamming into the wall to come at him.

Joe leapt up and forward and choked up on his spear as a cat came scrambled straight for him then leapt. Well… at least this one is easy! He brought his spear forward and directly into the path of the leaping cat and it skewered itself on his spear. Joe wiggled his spear around, ravaging the cat’s innards with his spear blade before whipping the cat off his spear, ready for the next monster. Pretty sure there were two… yep…

A shadow bear appeared next and glided around the corner in supernatural agility but this time Joe had placed himself almost perfectly and the shadow bear slammed into his spear before it could control its movement. A mana point shot from his side into the spear head and the shadow bear shuddered, yowling and pulling back before stiffening and suddenly shrinking in on itself into a fading wisp of black fog. Crap… gotta remember to infuse with everything as well… Joe berated himself for failing to infuse the spear with the cat but maintained his readiness. He waited a few more moments but found no other monsters and returned to Garnedell’s side, but this time stayed in front to protect him. The danger of immediate death was now gone. OK… time to prepare… what can…

Joe looked back at Garnedell and saw him looking up with a wan smile. Garnedell nodded with a confidence Joe knew was hollow but he nodded back and ran out into the corridor. He grabbed the star weapons, some of which had tumbled down the corridor further because of the rushing monsters, and gathered them at the entrance. He stacked up for of them in a way that created a short half wall that would force the creatures into a narrower passageway into their corridor. He waffled on putting it on the side where the creatures were coming from or on the opposite side before deciding to put it on the side the creatures would come from. If they came later in a massive wave, the monsters in the rear would push them further down and if they didn’t, they had rushed so far and had taken to sliding around the corner and slamming into the wall. If he could put the star weaponry just a half meter or so back in from the corridor entrance, he might be able to catch them by surprise and force them to change and even ram into the wall, giving him free shots at the flailing monsters. In a moment of inspiration, he did lay one star weapon down against the wall the monsters would slam into in such a way as to have the creatures impale themselves on the makeshift caltrop. Way too big for a caltrop… but if they slide around the corner and tumble into it… not too sharp, but probably enough for them to puncture abdomens…

With his defensive measures prepared, he turned his focus back to Garnedell and decided to practice how he would heal him while still facing forward to fight any monsters that would come. He glanced back carefully before then looking forward and slid a foot back until it pressed into Garnedell’s upper thigh, although he did pause and make sure to look down as he did so before he pressed his foot into Garnedell’s side. Garnedell hid his grimace well, and Joe frowned, annoyed at himself before changing to slide his foot into Garnedell’s side instead.

“Better?”

Garnedell sighed and nodded.

Joe grimaced in chagrin, “Sorry… Let me test.”

Joe focused on healing, and the heal went through his boots, into Garnedell’s clothing and down into the thigh just fine although the amount of mana was miniscule and it did almost nothing. Joe sighed in relief but his curiosity reared before being tamped down firmly. Later… test later… heal now… although… Joe pulled his foot away and opened his status to look at his MP. The MP ticked up a single point and Joe tried again. The heal failed, however, and Joe grunted. OK… need touch… alright…

He glanced up at Garnedell, “Right. If more monsters come and I need to fight, I’ll slide my foot back like this so I can touch you or your leg and keep casting heal on it. Here! Like this.”

Joe stopped explaining and showed what he was doing, sending a meaninglessly small magic heal into Garnedell’s leg although he did take some time to think carefully before deciding to focus the healing on the damage done to Garnedell’s bone. Again, his mana evaporated under the effort, and Joe hardly noticed a change. This… is going to be … a long…

“So… this looks like it’s going to take a lot of mana, but I can recover mana as I fight and then I’ll slide a leg back to heal you… Oh! Wait… just reach out and grab my leg. That would work better. Make sure you lay a hand… or I guess your leg… up against it and I’ll heal when you do. Don’t hold onto my leg. Just push against it, in case I need to move fast, but I’ll slowly heal you, OK?”

Garnedell grimaced but nodded, “My legs… they will be…”

Joe grinned, “They should be fine. And your blood vessels are reconnected. You will not lose blood, now. But… it’s still gonna hurt a lot. I’m sorry.”

Garnedell offered a very poor smile and chuckle, “I live and still have my legs!”

Joe sighed deeply at that before nodding softly, “That you do! I’m not going to let any monster through, OK?”

A massive thrumb shuddered through the dungeon, followed by a half dozen growls, yowls, and hoots. Joe glanced back to the entrance then to Garnedell.

“I’m going to be fighting a lot, aren’t I?”

Garnedell stared before nodding, “A dungeon break has every monster in the dungeon ejected from the dungeon. There are many many floors and each floor has hundreds of monsters. It will…”

Garnedell trailed off and worried slithered across his face and Joe waved off his fear, “Garnedell. How many monsters did I fight in the monster tide?”

That brought back good cheer to Garnedell and Joe turned back to the tide, ready to face any beast that would come.

* * *

Gwenvair and Kilniara quickly headed back to the stairs to the second floor of the inn with Kilniara pulling Gwenvair up by the hand. Gwenvair looked back out the door, mind obviously on what was happening outside, but Kilniara only cared about protecting Joe. Gwenvair was pulled in and turned to look at Kilniara with pleading eyes. Kilniara smiled softly before she finally nodded.

“Go! But be safe. Remember, come back safe.”

Gwenvair’s pleading eyes gave way to immense relief as she leapt forward and wrapped her arms around Kilniara.

“Thank you! Thank you. I’ll be right back!”

* * *

Many beasts came. So very many beasts came and Joe found himself growing ever more and more exhausted. His mana had recovered to half several times already, and Joe had slipped back to slide his foot cautiously into Garnedell before quickly dumping a magic heal into Garnedell and returning to the entrance of the corridor, preferring to fight the monsters as they struggled to take the corner. And every single one took the corner. Absolutely every monster sought out only them, ignoring the way back to the surface and the exit to the dungeon.

After the third heal, Joe took a quick glance back and frowned when he saw that the wound had almost no change. Joe returned to his defense but called back to Garnedell.

“Sorry I’m not healing it very fast, Garnedell.”

Garnedell quickly rejected his apology, “You have healed a lot of it, actually. The wound is much shallower, but I am getting cold.”

Joe nodded, “You’re sitting and can’t move. Floor’s probably a bit cool. Yeah… you would probably be cold. Take out my cloak and wrap yourself, but do not allow it to touch your wound at all! If you can, sit on the bag. That might keep you warm as well. I… I can’t help you get up, sorry. Oh… just take out a second or third cloak and use them to warm and sit on. In fact, use all the cloaks and sit on them… and don’t touch the dungeon wall either.”

Garnedell began shuffling around, and Joe heard the sound of his bag being emptied, “Thank you, Joe.”

Joe chuckled, “You’re doing all the work. No need to thank me.”

The two fell silent again after that, especially as a surge of monsters had Joe struggling to keep the monsters back, but as always, Joe found the fight tense yet quickly repetitive. New monsters were a struggle, but any monster he’d faced before seemed to attack in almost identical patterns. His mind quickly categorized and quickly memorized their attack patterns and methods, focusing mostly on ways that killed and incapacitated the fastest. Several of the monsters were small enough to come at him two or three at once, and he needed to rapidly deal with them. It wasn’t often as the larger monsters usually stomped over anything smaller in the way, but the one or two times when he had to fight two or three, things got quite dicey.

He solved that problem by focusing on throwing the beasts back into the wall of monsters in the back so he could focus on just one or two, but it wasn’t something he really liked to do as the monsters came back quite quickly, now often on the backs of other larger monsters.

Still, Joe fought well enough and had several micro breaks in which he slithered back quickly to dump the mana he’d accumulated into healing Garnedell. Each time, the mana seemed to evaporate like cotton candy in water, soaked up by the wound. That did cause him some worry, but as long as Garnedell kept accepting a heal, Joe knew he was still alive and he continued to fight with confidence and growing calm, now certain that Garnedell would be fine, if in a bit of pain for the next few hours until the healing was complete. Garendell also calmed down, the huffing pants and the shuffling moans of pain faded and were soon replaced by calm deep breaths. Heh… better not be sleeping, the punk… too scary to be sleeping.

Joe’s worries calmed immensely and he soon fell into the flow of destroying monster after monster before slipping back to shuffle a foot back to Garnedell before dumping ever more healing mana into him. Sometimes Joe would press his foot into Garnedell, but soon Garnedell was more regularly reaching out to press a palm into his leg before pulling away once the mana flow was done. The afternoon continued in this way as Joe slaughtered monster after monster, sliding forward and back to offer heals. After awhile, Garnedell stopped reaching out to him, his breathing deep and calm and Joe let him sleep, only cautiously pressing a foot into his side to continually heal him. He grew less and less cautious as time went on, Garnedell no longer protesting when he slid a foot back. That, and being able to simply shove a leg into the corner where the floor and wall met and slide it back till he hit Garnedell’s side was simply easier and also made it certain he didn’t accidently hit a leg as he dumped all his mana into healing.

Joe offered cheerful banter and encouragement as he did so, and Garnedell replied while engaging in his jokes and replies but he soon grew tired and fell asleep. Joe grew concerned and in a moment of reprieve, he glanced back to make sure he was fine and noticed his deep breathing. He sighed in relief before glancing down at his thighs. Joe’s relief turned to a grimace, the wounds on both legs were no longer bleeding and significantly healed, but still incredibly deep and horrifying. Joe did find Garnedell’s wounds strikingly strange as the blood in his wounds had been cleared out somehow. Maybe by my healing? Cleaning out the wound, that would… Joe ripped his thoughts back to studying the wound, making sure all was well.

The wound was shallower, now covering the open bone from before, but it was still incredibly deep and easy to see into now that the wound was empty of any fluids. Should I try to squeeze them back together? Bandage it someh… Joe frowned and his eyes slid across to the other leg and sighed with a bit more relief to see that wound was remarkably better. Joe turned to put a hand on Garnedell’s shoulder but a roaring screech jerked him away, and he quickly turned to look at the corner. No monster yet, but… Joe patted Garendell’s shoulder but did not look at him, already rising to head back to the entrance. Right… time to kill some more.

* * *