But for a Slime

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Man… he's certainly much better suited towards combat than I am, although his low intelligence and wisdom really worry me! Now the real grind begins! If I'm doing my math right, it's going to be a month and a half for him to hit twenty! Joe and the boy continued diligently, stopping only for lunch. As before, Joe hit level fourteen before heading home, but he would have been comfortable pushing for fifteen except for his overwhelmed nerves. Something was scraping his nerves with an incredible sense of fear.

It was a feeling of oppressiveness that Joe was unused to, never having really felt it before. He felt in danger, or hunted. It was a very strange feeling and Joe couldn't really put a finger to it. It didn't really bother him for the first couple of hours, but it only seemed to increase in intensity and danger. Such a weird feeling. Why can I feel the amount of danger I would be in? Just… weird! Joe was able to ignore it for most of the morning and afternoon, but about the time they were ready to head home, Joe found himself jittery, hands shaking like an addict looking for their fix. Joe couldn't even hold his spear firmly without it shaking slightly. When he couldn't even hold his spear firmly, Joe decided it was time to call it a day.

Their return to the surface found the sun burning red on the horizon and the oppressive fear vanished as soon as they stepped from the dungeon. But the remembered fear still hurried Joe and Garnedell through streets emptying of work and filling with revelers, although few of them actually stayed in the street, preferring to bustle quickly to their favorite pub or other entertainment location. The evening once again found them eating a meal poor in comparison to the village innkeeper but more than made up for by the company as the two continued their language lessons. After about an hour of such efforts, they retired to the room to wash, clean their clothes, and head to bed. The routine for the night was only interrupted by Joe's efforts to record what he'd learned about the scholar job in his job notebook.

The next day found them back in the dungeon, both grinding and slaughtering sparks even with the sun almost still touching the horizon. Unlike yesterday, the feeling of tense danger cranked up almost as soon as Joe stepped foot into the dungeon. Is something happening? Something coming? Joe continued his killing, striking up a conversation to try to ask how Garnedell was feeling, but Joe realized all he was able to ask was a generic feeling of good, bad, or OK. He had no knowledge of more intricate emotional words and found himself stuck. Besides, the boy said he was feeling good and as he watched, Joe found no evidence of the itchy hair-trigger feeling that seemed to crawl all across his body and through his muscles. It left Joe grounding the spark while he strafed around it, trying to always keep an eye on his back while he slashed a bit wildly at the spark.

An hour later saw him hit level fifteen and a new level of paranoia. The itchy feeling of danger was now almost overwhelming and he almost couldn't keep himself grounded, his mind skittering across thoughts like water on a hot pan. It finally came to a head when Joe saw the three men they'd chased away yesterday charging towards them. They came quietly and quickly and almost caught Joe by surprise, but when Joe had made his last orbit around his spark, he quickly saw them as they came into view and their silence change to a thundering roar as they ripped out battle cries. Huh… they waited just till we started our next fight and for when my back was to them. These guys…

Joe was a bit worried about Garnedell because he'd jumped in surprise when their attackers cried out, but Joe felt his worry calm when Garnedell quickly and expertly orbited his spark while keeping the thing grounded with his spoon spear. Joe himself simply dropped his spoon spear after he ripped the string tying it to his good spear. He took two steps to the right while he whipped out his bow and nocked his arrow quickly. Lucky they didn't wait for us to just start clearing the room, they'd already been on us!

Joe barely had enough time to let loose his one shot, aiming for the man who seemed to be going after Garnedell, his arrow taking the man in his thigh and dropping him. Joe flipped his bow back quickly on to his back holster before ripping out his shield and grasping his spear. He ran quickly and towards the right man, wanting to keep both men on his left and keep himself between them and Garnedell. Working quickly, he took the man's strike on his shield but didn't slow and simply barreled into the man, sending the man flying back. He took three steps forward quickly and buried the spear into the meat of the man's right thigh before whipping around quickly and leaping to the wall. He wasn't sure if the last man was following him or would go after Garnedell, but when he felt the swish of the sword's strike flutter his hair, he knew his answer.

When his back hit the wall, he quickly shuffled along it back towards Garnedell to once again keep the three men in his line of sight. The first man he'd struck was struggling to get up, but seemed he was wisely keeping the arrow buried in his thigh to reduce blood loss. The second man wasn't so lucky since Joe'd taken his spear with him. The wound was bloody and he would likely bleed out quite quickly if the others didn't take care of him. Joe didn't feel like being merciful and simply stepped forward once he'd gotten all three in front of him again. Joe quickly engaged the last unhurt man.

The last man became quite a bit more diligent and cautious, probing Joe's strength and defense, but seemed shocked when Joe's strikes hit his shield and sword. His grunts were not typical of those receiving an expected strike. The man was being pushed hard. Joe stepped forward and hit with a shield bash, stumbling the man backwards before sweeping the spear around in a massive overhand horizontal sweep right at head height. The man saw the strike coming easily, but his stumble left him with very little strength in his form, and although his sword rose to protect his head, it was not enough to stop the sweep as the haft of the spear slammed into the side of the man's head.

Staggered once again, the man turtled under his shield, dropping his head down under his shield so only his dazed eyes showed over the edge of the shield, his steps a retreating mess of dizzied staggering. Joe stepped forward once again, lowering his left shoulder and pushing his shield forward as if he planned another shield bash to stagger his opponent, but Joe converted the rush into angular momentum, twisting his whole body left into a spin even as he dropped himself almost to the ground as his whole body spun in place. The spear was pulled vertically tight against his body before whipping outwards and downwards in a hard horizontal swing at the end of the full body spin to place the spear shaft coming in from the man's left aimed right at his calves skimming low just over the ground, parallel to it. The spear slammed hard into the left back side of the man's left calf and he stumbled back another few step but became entangled in Joe's spear, tumbling him down onto his back.

The man's arms spread to catch his fall, and Joe leapt forward to drop his foot down on the man's sword arm and ground it into the rocky floor. The man screeched out in pain and dropped his hold on the sword while simultaneously bringing his shield across to slam it into Joe's left leg, just below the knee. Joe slammed his spear shaft down into the ground just beside his left leg, using the spear shaft to block the strike even as he kicked the sword away from his hand.

The shield clanged against the shaft of his spear, but did no harm to him and Joe then kicked the man's shield arm away before stepping across the man's body to bring his foot down on the man's shield arm even as he pressed the spear point into the man's throat. As the spear came to rest on his throat, Joe flickered his eyes towards the other two men, and found the spear-wounded man still rolling on the ground in some pain, although he was trying to crawl towards a wall, while the arrow-shot man had frozen a half a dozen steps from him, staring at Joe in shocked surprise.

"Drop your weapons!"

The three men stared at Joe in horrified surprise, but remained frozen, uncertain of what they should do. Joe glanced towards Garnedell and noticed he was still grounding his spark but was looking at Joe with some confusion. Where's my spark… ah.. it's still floating slowly towards me.. a good dozen feet away. I'm fine. Why isn't Garnedell translat… Oh… hard words maybe.. um…

"Garnedel. Say men. No sword. No shield. No spear. No bow. No … weapon," Joe wasn't sure Garnedell would know the last word; they'd never really discussed 'weapon' if Joe could remember right, but he hoped he could have a good guess at it given the context.

Garnedell nodded quickly, catching Joe's meaning easily enough, and shouted at the other men. The three quickly divested themselves of their weapons and Joe carefully collected all of them. After pushing the men against the wall, Joe considered his options, uncertain exactly how to play this out, before deciding to simply hand them off to the authorities. I don't have time for this. Seriously! Joe shook his head with some disgust.

"Garnedell. They have rope?"

Garnedell took some time to piece together the meaning. I bet he forgot rope… not used that often! But Garnedell got it well enough, and two of the men nodded their heads, throwing out some rope. Using one of the ropes, he bound the uninjured man well enough but then cut the second rope in half and used it to bind the two bleeding legs in a tourniquet. Hope that'll keep them from bleeding out. He then pulled out his arrow accompanied by the screams of the man. But even with the man's pain, Joe wasn't going to leave a perfectly good arrow behind. He finally tied up the injured two with the rest of the first rope, tying them all together in a chain. By this time, Garnedell had already started taking out the spark Joe had first tried to kill, and Joe joined him to finish the spark off but only used his wooden spear. No way I want that thing chasing me through the whole dungeon to the entrance! Joe and Garnedell then scooped up their materials and trooped back to the three men.

"Alright, morons, Lets go visit the guards."

Garnedell looked at Joe with some confusion, but said nothing as Joe gestured for the men to stand. He then herded them all the way back to the entrance before shoving them out onto the ground before throwing their weapons and shields on the ground around them. Joe then turned towards Garnedell and gestured to the guards.

"Garnedell say guards bad men! Garnedell say guards bad men do!"

Garnedell nodded slowly but then more vigorously as he realized what Joe was tasking him to do. As for Joe, he sighed and took himself to the side before sliding to the ground and waited for the bureaucracy to have its heyday.

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