The sudden teleportation reminded Blaze of the stupid gods and bamfing between their realms, or what they called the character creation. And just like the teleportation earlier, this one left him dry-heaving, almost wishing he could throw up. A thought occurred to him, ‘As realistic as the game is, can you throw up? Can you’ve sex? If you can, why did Teach have to make us look like ourselves, I could be tall and handsome, instead of short and handsome? Good thing I enhanced a certain part, hehe. I wonder what Ainsley look underneath that tight leather armour. Or K—’

“Are you okay there, Blaze?” Robin placed a hand on his back, interrupting his daydream.

“Sure thing, beautiful. But a kiss would make me feel even better,” Blaze cockily said, trying to act all suave.

“Piss off,” was her immediate response.

‘She’s just acting coy in front of the others,’ Blaze thought with a chuckle. Certain that if they had been alone, she would be all over him.

“Okay, listen up,” Ed asked with authority, not something Blaze would get used to. To him Ed would always be the shy gamer. Totally opposite the smooth ladies’ man he himself was.

“I’m going to summon an elemental to act as a tank. Blaze I need you to show Robin how to pull mobs. Though the slimes should only be level one, we’re only level zero. So be careful,” Ed instructed.

‘This is my chance for some alone time with Ainsley,’ Blaze jumped up and down, on the inside. On the outside he just smiled at Robin. A creepy lecherous smile, he thought was charming. Full of swagger, he stepped forward, “Come on, I’ll show you how to pull mobs. The first thing to be careful about is not ending up pulling a train, hehe.”

“Are you serious?” Kira shouted and took two steps menacingly towards him. Blaze looked uncomprehendingly on her, before looking back at Robin. Who was staring daggers at him.

‘What did I do?’ he thought dejectedly.

“He didn’t mean it like that. In gaming terms, pulling a train is when you aggravate too many mobs to handle, and have to run away. With a whole train of mobs trailing behind you. Like a train,” Ed explained with a sigh.

“Fine, but keep the innuendo and double entendres to zero, I’m tired of this shit,” Robin huffed and turned back to the path in front of them.

“What the fuck did I do?” Blaze asked One-Eye, confused why the ladies was mad at him.

“You’re doing just fine,” One-Eye chuckled. Blaze could not figure if he was sincere or not.

“Thanks?” he hesitantly said, before hurrying after Robin and finally taking a look at his surroundings. They were in what he had come to expect from a sewer in a fantasy world. Made from grey bricks, each tunnel had walkways on either side, while the canal in the middle was filled with water. Clean water it seemed. And it did not stink. There were a small arches crossing the five meter wide canal every twenty meter or so.

The sewer itself was surprisingly bright, Blaze had expected it to be dank and dark. Instead the middle row of bricks above the canal was lit up by some kind of magic, almost like fluorescent light bulbs.

“It’s not so bad down here,” Robin commented, just as they came to an intersection. Left or right were their only choice. Looking down either side he could see slimes. To the left there seemed to be a red and two brown slimes, while the right offered up a single translucent slime. All of the slimes were small blobs of liquid the size of a basketball. Flat on the bottom, and rounded on the top.

“Okay, pulling is when you attract a mob’s attention. Lure it away from the others, and back to your party,” Blaze explained and proceeded to cast Icedart at the translucent slime. Stretching his right arm, he pointed his palm at the slime. Glowing magical symbols started to appear in the air in front of his palm. After three seconds, a small dart made of ice formed and shot towards the slime.

With a soft plop it impacted with the slime. The slime slightly quivered, but beside that there did not seem to have any effect. Frowning Blaze pulled up the event log, looking at the latest entry.

>You’ve cast Icedart: 3 mana spent.<

>You’ve hit a Slime, Air Element Variant with Icedart: 3 frost damage inflicted.<

>You’ve gained 6 Icedart XP.<

>You’ve gained 1 Combat Magic XP.<

The damage was on the high end of what to expect from his level zero spell. However, he did not understand why it did not attack. Since Icedart was still on cooldown, he started to cast Force Missile. Three second later, a small globule of crackling energy shot towards the slime. According to the log, it only did 1 damage.

“It isn’t moving, shouldn’t it attack to retaliate or something?” Robin asked.

“It must be a bug. Free XP,” Blaze shrugged and fired another Icedart when it came off cooldown. Followed by Force Missile. After three rotations, the slime had still not moved. Nonchalantly, Blaze kept up his barrage of spells.

“Behind you!” Ed suddenly shouted from down the tunnel they had come from. Looking back, Blaze saw the three slimes from left tunnel was crawling out of the water near them.

“Lower your aggro!” Ed commanded.

“What?” Robin shouted confused, as she drew an arrow, aiming for one of the slimes just a few meters away.

“Terrifying Shriek,” Ed called out, as him, his air elemental, Kira and One-Eye was running towards them.

“I got this,” Blaze said and let loose a shrill shriek. The slimes stopped for a split second, but then continued moving towards them. Looking at the log, he saw that it had succeeded. Unfortunately, aggro did not work like in other games he had played. Damian had explained that any creature could ignore aggro generating skills, it would just inflict them with a penalty to their damage.

So even though the ability had succeeded, the slimes continued towards them. If they attacked Blaze for the next three seconds though, they would do 5% lower damage. Deciding to show Robin what he was worth, Blaze brandished his staff and stepped in between her and the three slimes. He swung down on one of the earth slimes. A loud thunk sounded, as if he had hit a rock instead of a squishy slime. The staff vibrated, making his hands feel numb.

“Fuck, more adds!” Ed growled, as his elemental barrelled into the slimes in front of Blaze, “The air slime must be calling them. Blaze and Robin concentrate on the air slime.”

Looking up, Blaze saw that two blue slimes were crawling out of the water, behind the red one. Moving away from the slimes in front of him, he turned to face the air slime. An arrow whizzed past him, hitting the slime. The arrow stuck, but he could see it was slowly being dissolved.

“Hey, that arrow cost money!” Robin complained, but fired another arrow anyway, just as he sent another Icedart at it.

“One-Eye, Kira. Stay away from the red one, it got a damage aura. Concentrate on the blue ones, they’re healing the others,” he could hear Ed instruct the others behind him.

After a minute, the slime in front of them was filled with arrows and finally died. It just lost cohesiveness, and like bowl of water being emptied on the ground, it formed a pool. A small round object was all that was left behind, surrounded by all of Robin’s arrows. Blaze had noticed that it could only dissolve one arrow at a time, so Robin would get all, except one, of her arrows back.

Turning around, he saw three puddles in front of the others, however, the amount of slimes had increased. Right now they were fighting one blue, one red and four brown slimes. Kira was bashing the blue one with her tonfas, while One-Eye kept two brown ones in check. The air elemental seemed less solid than earlier, and it was tanking the rest of the slimes. Ed was also slamming his staff down on one of the brown slimes tanked by the air elemental.

Ed looked at them for a short second, “DPS on the blue, then the red. Then alternate between the browns on the air elemental and One-Eye.”

Seeing Robin’s blank look, Blaze quickly said, “Shoot the blue one first, when it dies you concentrate on the red.”

“Got it,” she nodded with a determined look, and immediately fired off an arrow, threading a small gap between Ed and the air elemental, before hitting the blue slime. Blaze was a bit amazed, he pondered briefly of doing the same, but reckoned he would just hit one of his teammates. Instead he circled the fight, until he had a clear shot on the blue one.

After firing an Icedart, he went on to fire a Force Missile by shouting “Die!”

Only, nothing happened. Blinking confused, he tried once more, thinking he had gotten the activation wrong somehow. Nothing happened. Which was weird, because the cooldown should have ended. With a frown, he looked at his mana bar and saw it was empty. Immediately he shouted, “I’m out of mana. Sorry Kira, can’t help anymore.”

“Yes you can. Get in there and hit it with your staff!” Kira growled loudly. One of her tonfas glowing with a red light as she activated Siphon Strike.

‘That’ll be a nasty ability when it’s levelled up, draining attributes from the target, to boost her agility for a short period,’ he thought as he moved into position to hit the blue slime with his staff. After Kira’s hit landed, she began hitting faster. It was not much, but it looked faster to him.

He swung down his staff as hard as he could, but instead of hitting the slime, he got tangled with Kira’s tonfas. Her reaction was instantaneous, “Goddamnit Blaze, stop interfering with my strikes.”

“You’re hitting so fast. It’s not my fault,” Blaze protested and backed up.

“I see why Damian want us to train,” One-Eye called out, “This is just fucking embarrassing.”

“Red one down, my elemental will be dead in five seconds or so,” Ed informed them.

“Stop fucking standing around like a dweeb,” Kira snapped at Blaze, “Go take over for the elemental.”

“But I’m not a physical fighter.”

“Are you out of stamina as well?”

“No.”

Ed jumped in on the discussion, “Then get over there, and use your shriek.”

Blaze was horrified at the thought of being the focus of two earth slimes, “Bu—”

“No fucking buts, just do it,” Ed interrupted him.

“Fine,” he muttered under his breath and hurried into the melee. Just as the air elemental died, he swung down hard on one of the slimes. It turned its attention to him. Before he could react, it crawled up to his foot. He did not think it was very dangerous, and prepared to strike again. Next he knew, he felt an immense pain in his left foot. Almost as if someone had crushed his foot with a rock.

Screaming in pain, probably more than was warranted, he stumbled back. While screaming, it took on a shrill quality, as he reflectively activated Terrifying Shriek. The other earth slime which had also closed in on him, turned around to find a new target. However, the bastard that had chomped on his foot followed him relentlessly.

“Back the fuck off, damnit. Back! Motherfucker,” he cursed and started landing blow after blow on the slime. Not caring about dealing damage, just wanting to hit the thing that had hurt him as often as possible.

After four minutes of this, the final slime died. All of them let out a sigh of relief. Ed was the first to speak, “Well, in the future we need to pile on DPS on the air slimes. We can’t handle the continuous adds.”

“What’s adds?” One-Eye asked with a confused look on his face.

“Obviously, it’s when they call for backup,” Kira said while looking at her tonfas, “Damnit, got slime on my tonfas, seems to be eating away at the durability, they’re already down to ten.”

“My club as well,” One-Eye frowned.

“Did you buy some of the Equipment Maintenance Kits, as Damian suggested?” Ed questioned, as he pulled out a rag from his inventory, wiping off the slime from his own weapon.

“Sure, but what’s that gonna help?” Blaze frowned, and started looking for his own.

With a groan Ed asked, “Didn’t you listen when he explained it?”

“No, I was busy loo—” Blaze started while casting a glance at Robin, before stopping momentarily, “—looking up something important online.”

After a quick look at each other, the three non-gamers shrugged. Robin spoke up for them, “We didn’t understand it. It was a bit complicated.”

“Okay, weapons and equipment got a lot of different stats. Two of them are Durability and Structure. Think of durability like a force shield. It can sustain a certain amount of damage before the damage spills over into the Structure. When Structure falls to zero, the weapon is done.

“Durability will regenerate when the equipment is clean and not being used. That takes a few points of structure. By using this maintenance kit, you get a small boost to the rate of regeneration. So remember to use them after each fight, if your equipment is covered in blood or something like that. Each kit has ten uses. And that’s per item, so a pair of boots are two uses,” Ed explained and looked down at the loot.

Robin was also looking at the loot around them, since she was picking up her arrows, “Will it take one use per arrow as well?”

“You shouldn’t use the normal maintenance kits for that, there should be a special one for things like arrows and bolts, with a lot more uses.”

“There is, I didn’t understand what he said, but I bought what he said,” she bent down to pick up the arrows she had used on one of the earth slimes, “Hey, there’s a silver here.”

“What?” the four others exclaimed, more or less at the same time.

“This brown slime dropped a coin, as well as that weird stone— thing they all dropped. Oh and look, this other brown one dropped something that looks like a small empty bottle.”

Ed and Blaze quickly started looking around, “Did any of the other slimes drop anything?”

“No, just the cores,” Blaze piped up.

“Okay, so it seems we might get extra loot from the earth slimes. Anyway, gather our loot, and regenerate your pools. Anyone damaged call out how much health you’ve lost. If anyone got mana left, help by casting Lay on Hands. You all picked that like Damian instructed, right?” Ed ordered, before starting to heal himself.

“I’m missing like thirty four health here,” Blaze pitifully said as he stopped next to Robin, staring at her hopefully.

“I’m still cleaning my arrows,” she rebuffed him.

“Damnit, these cores are only worth seven coppers each. Meaning we’ve only earned three silver and ten coppers on this fight. And I used a freaking manastone which cost one gold,” Ed started cursing, “This is totally not worth it.”

“There’s nothing we can do, we signed a contract. We’ve to do what Damian wants for the first month. We’ll have freer reins after that,” Robin shrugged.

“You’re right, it just irritates me. I don’t know what the hell he’s thinking.”

Blaze nodded, agreeing with them. Yet he still spoke up, “Guys, we’ve to trust Mr. Pryce. He chose us out of all his students. There are a lot of his former students going into boxes and being packed away. It could’ve been us. Sure it might still be us, but we got two months in game, because of the time dilation. We’ll have enough time. If you don’t believe that, then logout and go to the nearest facility.”

Silence reigned for a minute, before Kira finally said, “Blaze is right. We need to trust there’s a plan, and that it’ll work out. Now, I suggest we rest up and hurry to finish this Dungeon five times. Just because it doesn’t stink and is nicer than I thought, I don’t find sewers an exciting place to hang out.”

“You’re right. Rest up,” Ed conceded and went back to healing Blaze.