Some questions simply shouldn’t be asked, just because they dared the multiverse to answer them. Sadly, I doubted I’d ever internalise that message, I’d always ask the question and search for the answer, even if that resulted in less-than-optimal situations.

Like the one we found us in now, after leaving the primary office building of the treatment plant behind and moving towards the other building, the one that looked a little like a pool hall, wide and squat, though without any windows.

Before we managed to get there, we moved too close to one of the open treatment pools, or whatever they were called and that was when the multiverse decided to answer the question, what other than spoiled milk could be turned into a horrific slime monster.

Namely, a decently sized, maybe five metres in diameter, pool filled with sewage. I had no idea how it worked and really didn’t want to know, but the monster filled to the brim with the energies of Death and Decay started moving. Its bulk prevented high overland speed but its pseudopods were not as limited and one of them instantly tried to strike Luna.

All five of us immediately sprung into action, Luna dodging back, Lia striking out with her chain hook, trying to sever the pseudopod, Silva moving to intercept the attack if necessary and Alex tossing one of their myriad goodies into the pool the thing had come from. In the meantime, I tried to assist Lia by conjuring a blast of freezing air, hoping that the cold would hamper the pseudopod. Given that it looked to be mostly composed of some liquid or something along those lines, I hoped that freezing it would slow it down, maybe even prevent the attack in the first place.

Sadly, even I couldn’t channel enough power in an instant to accomplish that, not without activating Overflow and blasting a massive chunk of Astral Power out in an attack that might not accomplish anything. Thus, my own contributions only achieved limited results but combined with the others, it was enough. I had no idea if the grenade Alex had thrown actually dealt any damage, there was quite a bit of fire lighting up the pool now but whether it did more than cause the stench to intensify, I didn’t know. I only knew, burning shit smelled even worse than its normal counterpart.

“Yuck,” was Lia’s only comment, after she drew back her weapon, looking at the fluids coating it.

“Agreed, we should keep some distance, I doubt these things can easily climb out of their pools if there are more than this one,” I suggested, already moving back towards the building we had exited, a grin forming on my face. Slow enemies that might be vulnerable to cold? There were few things I could deal with easier, especially as they seemed to be some sort of ambush predator, somewhat similar to sea anemones, waiting for prey to drift into their reach before disposing and devouring said prey. Bottomfeeders, quite literally, and about as mobile as a rock.

After using Draconic Leap to get onto the roof of the building, I settled down for a moment, looking into the pools. I couldn’t see any evidence of the slime being there, but that didn’t matter too much, I knew it had been there, I wasn’t sure it could leave but I was fairly certain I could make it so that it couldn’t attack again. Slowly and carefully, I drew a magical circle, putting quite a bit of focus on my work. The more care I took, the longer I needed but the fewer mistakes and imprecisions snuck into my casting, improving the efficiency by a great deal. Instead of some Astral Power leaking out without accomplishing anything, more went into the actual effect, increasing what I could do.

In this case, the effect was fairly simple, I wanted to send freezing energy into the pools, with as little physical interaction as possible. Water was a great carrier, especially given that I didn’t want to simply throw chunks of Ice into the pool, that sounded like a bit of a bother. But water, supersaturated with freezing energy to the point that it would freeze the moment it gained a nucleation point? The moment it impacted the pool, all that freezingly cold water would leach the heat right out of the area, freezing everything solid. Maybe I would be able to apply the effect of the Shatter Rune I had on Mundus on the Ice afterwards, destroying everything frozen, but that might be a challenge. I hadn’t actually learned the Rune, I only knew how the concept worked and would have to brute force it using Ice Magic. Not impossible, but maybe not the most effective way to go about things.

To my amusement, the Liquid I conjured using my combined Water and Ice Rune formation was almost a perfect mimicry of the Liquid Moonlight I had thrown around on Mundus, cold enough to cause clouds of frozen gas to shroud the stream of water I conjured. Upon hitting the pool, there was a bit of a splash before the entire thing froze solid far faster than normally possible, looking almost as if somebody had put the entire thing on fast-forward.

Watching the now-frozen pool, I considered waiting until the system deigned combat over and awarded the EXP to see whether the thing in the pool had died but decided against it. There were more pools around and I already had my formation active, so I simply shifted the aim, spraying water across the dirty concrete below and instantly creating patches of ice when the water froze on contact until I hit the next pool. The same fast-forward freezing occurred and I continued spraying water into the different pools, until they were all frozen, with thin mist rising above them.

Nodding to myself, I hopped off the building, absorbing the shock of the landing with my knees and walking towards the original pool. Given that I hadn’t received a message that I gained EXP but one that told me I had gained a level each in Ice and Water Rune Mastery, I was fairly certain that the slimes hadn’t actually died, but given that I could feel the pools remaining frozen, I was confident that we were safe.

We all grouped up again and trooped over towards the large building we had been aiming for in the first place. When we walked past the first pool again, I sent some Astral Power into the Ice, forcing it to shatter into hundreds of shards. If there was an organism within, it should instantly die but again, there was no notification that I gained EXP. Luckily, there also wasn’t another attack, not that I had expected one, maybe the Slime had some sort of core in there, waiting for the rest of its mass to thaw or something. I had no idea and given what the slime was originally made of, I had no desire to deeply investigate the frozen sludge. I was just happy that it was Ice enough for me to manipulate and thanked my good fortune as we continued towards the large hall.

When we tried to open the door, it was locked just like the one in the office building had been but just like that one, magic was incredible when it came to picking old locks. It was something I should keep in mind if we ever made another base for us. If I wanted something to stay locked, a normal lock wouldn’t keep out most people, not with the rising levels of strength and the various other ways people could cheat reality these days.

This was no video game where locks could only be picked with a lockpick or opened with their respective key, brute force was always an option, especially when it came to padlocks or something similar. Those could easily be breached with a hammer or crowbar even before the change, now it would only be easier. Not something to be relied upon, even if there was a small part deep in my hindbrain that might think so.

Once inside, we stood in a small office, or maybe reception area, with some additional chemicals and reams of paperwork. Just like before, Alex happily went for the chemicals with Lia, while I briefly glanced at the papers, before raiding the office for supplies. There was no way I’d ever pass up clean paper, it might take years until people started making any new paper, to say nothing of paper as clean and nice as what we had now. I’d happily store the stuff in my magical bag for a year or five, I had a feeling it would only go up in value. Or it might get lost in the shadow realm, either way, I was fine with it.

Once we were all done, we continued deeper into the building, moving through a changing room with a few adjacent showers before we could go into the primary chamber, the one that made me think of the building as a swimming pool. The comparison was fairly apt, a normal swimming pool was filled with a mix of chlorinated water and urine, while this one was filled with a mixture of sewage and chemicals. Different concentrations, but overall, not too different.

Sadly, as we realised once Lia pushed the door open, the slime, or maybe slimes, I had driven out of the pools outside, had moved inside to escape the sudden cold snap and were now waiting for us, with dozens of pseudopods rising from the liquid.

Time for round two?