Chapter Text
Of all the unbelievable things you'd come to learn about in your time spent in the Valley, the mines had always captivated you the most. You were insatiably curious ever since you were a free-spirited little kid, spending the Summers with your grandpa on his bustling farm. A single unassuming doorway beckoning with promises of treasure, weathered artifacts, unseen wildlife, even perhaps an entire secretive race of Dwarves, way too many unproven mysteries. . . Grandpa had told you all about the rumors passed along to him from adventurous friends; stories about a lake of lava, grottos full of fragile crystal pillars, pitch black winding tunnels that were home to mystical creatures made of pure shadow. It all sounded so intensely interesting to you, so beyond anything you could contrive on your own, and your young imagination ran wild with possibilities.
As an adult, you still couldn't really wrap your head around it, even after at least a dozen trips down. Everyone in town just knowingly lives next door to endless exploration and resources, and yet nobody has been able to tell you how deep it went, or why time seemed to almost flow differently the deeper you ventured, or just what type of life existed down there. Honestly no one even seemed all that curious, which was unbelievable, in your opinion. If the local Guild knew much, they kept pretty tight-lipped to discourage folks from possibly getting themselves killed or lost. You were granted permission to explore at your own peril by the Guild leader, warning that there wasn't much he could do to help you if anything were to happen, which you didn't mind so long as you didn’t think about it for too long. Cave diving on its own was dangerous before you added ecosystems that weren't all that well-researched into the mix, but that hadn’t seemed to deter you from yearning to explore the depths yourself, maybe being the one to discover something no one had ever seen before, or to find something so valuable you’d never have to eat your sad instant pancakes ever again.
It had always been the one place in the Valley your grandfather sternly told you to stay away from. . . And standing where you were now–a chilly, wide-open cavern all around you, dotted with suspicious moving things– you fully understood why he was so adamant about keeping you well clear of that ancient creaky elevator.
You quietly swore to yourself. You'd encountered a fair few creepies and crawlies on your spelunking trips to date. There were hostile, uncomfortably large flying insects that aggressively bounced off your flimsy wooden sword over and over, their transparent wings buzzing so loudly it haunted your dreams. It took a lot to smack them down, but you'd managed to make a bit of a game out of timing your swings. Not too challenging, although they were pretty disgusting and you truly and thoroughly hated them. You frequently shuddered at the thought of some of the massive grubs you'd seen crawling amongst overgrown weeds, suspecting those were just babies. You avoided those. No thank you.
You'd dealt with strange little moles–at least mole-adjacent things, anyway– who liked to propel themselves into your worn boots from below you, burrowed into the soft, muddy earth and eagerly awaiting any slight vibration. They were quick and stubborn, and you'd taken out a few but learned to simply avoid patches of darkened ground. They seemed territorial rather than malicious. You'd almost think they were kind of cute if they weren't trying to impale you on their metallic head spikes.
A few times you'd been caught off-guard by crablike creatures not unlike a hermit crab, except instead of a seashell they disguised themselves inside of rock-like chitin, perfectly concealed amongst the many rocks and crevices littering the mine floors. . . And instead of being small and harmless they were huge and had a nasty pinch. You found knocking them around with your pickaxe usually sent them scuttling away quickly. They didn't much care for their shells being broken, go figure.
Most abundant and most frustrating of all were the slimes. You didn't really know what they were, exactly, but they looked and moved like balls of–well–slime. Surprisingly agile, bouncy and by far the most annoying creatures you'd ever encountered, not to mention their tendency to hang out in groups. . . Packs? Parties? They were unpredictable in their movements and getting too close often meant you were slashing in every direction as they crowded you, bouncing off rocks, your sword, your body, until you'd finally swing hard enough to smush them into jelly-like chunks of yuck. You'd gotten some of their jelly guts on you a couple of times and it stung like it was acidic, leaving angry red burns and welts you had to nurse for days afterwards. You ruined some of your favorite comfy clothes dealing with those little shits. It seemed like they were present on nearly every floor you made it down to, and they came in an array of colors, some more determined and harder to kill than others.
The blue ones seemed like the nastiest ones you'd met so far, and here you were, like some kind of cosmic joke, standing in a vast cave crawling with them. You'd yet to see anything like this. The floor was absolutely infested. They'd eaten away at anything previously decorating the area, leaving nothing to hide behind and certainly nothing worth mining. Ugh. This was quite a tragic turn of events. Just you, your beat-up wooden sword you'd stumbled across that felt more like a glorified branch, and a fuckload of blue boogery slimes. You found yourself wishing you’d listened to the tv this morning when the Fortune Teller said your luck would be shit. You wished you’d have ponied up the gold for a better weapon, at the very least.
You were set upon almost immediately after dismounting the ladder some wayward miner of the past left behind. Two slimes with their beady little red eyes threw themselves towards you, and you clumsily tried to roll out of the way. Swinging your sword in the direction of the closest one as you righted yourself, you managed to make contact with its malleable body and sent it careening backwards. Barely affected, it simply bounced back in your direction as the other slime collided with your leg, immediately soaking your pants with goo. You gave an unflattering yelp and stomped down on it as hard as you could, rendering it a pile of mush. Your boots were probably ruined now, but you didn't have time to think about it as the dead one's buddy came flying at you once again.
It took way more swings than you were expecting to kill the little bastard, but you managed without further incident. Panting from exertion, you realized you were much further away from where you entered than you wanted to be, and that maybe it was time for you to call it quits for the night. Your bag was hefty and loaded with stones, ores and trinkets, your butt and leg hurt and your pants were steaming slightly and fraying away where the slime had hit you, and you were actually really tired. It had to be at least 10p.m., and you were getting pretty hungry. Time slipped away from you sometimes and often before you knew it you had spent the better part of 12 hours exploring deeper and deeper, determined to see every biome and everything the unsettling mines had to offer. The idea of eventually reaching a bottom floor always kept you going, but even you weren't stupid enough to get careless. You knew pushing yourself too far and too hard could mean not making it back, and there was a slim-to-none chance you'd ever be found, even by adventure veteran Marlon who supposedly patrolled some of the floors from time to time.
Since you somehow hadn't been noticed by any other slimes that were milling around, you hastily made your way toward the rickety elevator, thankful the lonely bulb above it was flickering faintly. Light meant power, and power meant a painfully long but much needed ascent, and that meant you were one step closer to your unmade and almost-but-not-quite-comfortable old bed. You couldn't wait to peel off your goopy and ruined pants and cuddle up with your fat orange cat, whom you'd affectionately named Biscuit.
The blessing of the elevator being in working order was quickly dashed by a moving obstacle in your path. You stopped dead in your tracks just out of its line of sight. This slime was different than any other you'd seen. You don't know how you could have missed it before. This one looked more solid than transparent. At first it seemed blue, but then if you didn't know better you'd swear it shifted to pink. . .? Then orange, then green, then purple, all in quick succession. Shimmering like a gas puddle, the light of the dingy lantern on your hip reflected off its ever changing form. You may have never seen one like this before, but you just knew it wasn't one to fuck with. You glanced disdainfully at the wooden sword in your hand, knowing it would essentially be like brandishing a toothpick at something like whatever that was. Unfortunately for you, it was directly between you and your precious exit. Fuck. You watched it slugging around as you decided what to do.
In your experience slimes typically seemed a little dumb, only really becoming aggressive if they caught sight of you. There was a decent chance that if you could keep yourself behind it you wouldn’t need to engage it. You consider yourself sneaky enough when you need to be, though in this instance getting so close to something you’d never seen before was a particularly risky move. Though you didn’t really have much of a choice, did you? Sweeping the cavern didn’t immediately reveal any ladder holes, aside from the one you came through. Even if you did go back up that way, the ladder was ironically only a short distance from the elevator, which was completely unhelpful. The creature could still see you if you made a break for it, and you didn’t know how quick the rainbow snot ball might be. You weren’t exactly in tip-top shape right now after your exhausting day, and your stinging leg was getting hard to ignore. There was a chance you wouldn’t outrun it. Shit shit shit. Okay.
There was nothing for it; you would just have to be your stealthiest self and pray you could skirt by it. You hoped it was as unobservant as the others as you took a deep breath inward and crept on the toes of your boots towards the monster. It was facing away from you for the moment, slowly patrolling a few meters away from the elevator. You were going to sneak up until the very last second and then make a mad sprint for the doors. You were never more thankful than in this moment for the fact you never had to wait for the elevator to come to you, since you were really the only one silly enough to be down here. You just hoped the door would open promptly.
You managed to inch closer and closer to the exit, the slime mercifully staying turned away from you. You silently cheered; you were almost free to drag your ass all the way down the mountain trail and to your cozy little cottage. You could almost taste the errant cat hair floating through the small space you shared with your orange roommate. You were thinking about how you might even sleep in tomorrow, something you never let yourself do since you moved, when your left foot slipped out from under you rather rudely. You were too busy daydreaming to notice the gelatinous corpse of the slime you had killed smeared out right in front of you, and you couldn’t stifle a stunned cry as you fell backwards right onto your sore backside.
You snapped your head up instantly to see if the slime noticed your little outburst, and you paled as you realized it definitely had. It rotated almost in place to investigate the source of the racket, and the moment you met its line of sight it attacked. You’d been right to suspect that it would behave differently than the others; its speed was unreal. It practically flew at you, violently shifting colors faster than your eyes could keep up with. You scrabbled backwards before you could think, but it connected with your flailing arm. The pain instantly radiated to your elbow, but you knew you couldn’t stop moving to really let it register. You shook your arm fiercely, your adrenaline kicking into overdrive. The rainbow nightmare let go with considerable resistance, soaking your arm as it launched back several feet before coming right back for round two. It was too fucking fast, you barely had a second to get back on your feet before it crashed into your midsection, sticking to your shirt like a glob of possessed gelatin. You squealed and smacked it with the hilt of your pathetic sword as hard as you could, disconnecting it from your side and onto the floor at your feet.
Without thinking you darted for the elevator, not even bothering to check where it might be. Fuck! This! You practically skidded into the elevator as you slammed the button with all your might. The door began to creak open, and you were urging it to hurry up when you heard the sound of the slime bouncing towards you with a horrid squelch. You braced for impact but by some miracle it missed and connected with the craggy wall next to you, rebounding backwards somewhere behind you. You strongly doubted you’d be charmed twice, so you started pulling the door open with more effort than you really had in you. Turns out life-or-death situations made you stupid strong and you managed to pry it open just enough to squeeze your battered body through. You didn’t give a shit where that thing was, you just slammed the button and waited for the door to budge closed.
Finally, after what felt like minutes the door connected shut and you heard a muffled thump against it as the elevator began its whiny ascent up to freedom and fresh air. You had to be 40-something floors deep and you knew it would be a while yet before you reached outside, and so you let yourself crumple to the dusty floor, letting out an aching sob you didn’t know you were holding back. Holy shit. Oh my god.
After what felt like an eternity you finally shuddered to a halt at the top of the mines. You let out a quivering gasp of relief. That was way too close. You'd never been more scared than on that infested floor. You promised yourself that you'd take a nice long break from delving for the time being. Even if it nearly cost you your life you did manage to find some quality resources, and some pretty gems you might even be able to make some gold off of if you could convince that awkward blacksmith to buy them off you.
You felt like you got hit by a train or two. You were sure you'd be covered in cuts and bruises for some time after this. The spots where the slimes had slammed into you itched and burned. Your clothes were partially melted in those areas, and your skin was puffy and a deep shade of red. And you were absolutely wasted, you hadn't ever been this tired, even after working triples at your old shitty job. And where that glittering abomination had stuck to you. . . well, the spots weren't exactly red like the others. You could see that the skin on your ribs and your arm was glimmering faintly, like a kaleidoscope bruise. Despite looking remarkably better than the spot on your leg, the pain was doubly worse. It seemed to radiate all the way into your lower abdomen, and you felt your muscles cramping uncomfortably. That was certainly worrying, but you told yourself if you'd been poisoned you'd probably have kicked it back in the elevator in the ride up.
But still, this was most likely something you didn't have any useful balms or herbs for. You doubted any medical professional would be able to treat this. You didn't even know how you were going to explain to anyone what had happened to you without sounding like a nutjob. People around the Valley were at the very least aware of what lived in the mines, seeing as how there was even a dedicated adventure guild with multiple branches from here to the Gem Sea, but most folks with a sense of self-preservation kept well away from potentially meeting such critters. You idly wondered if Dr. Harvey had medicine stocked for such unique afflictions.
You decided with tired resolution that this would be a problem for Tomorrow You; all you cared about right then was getting home, getting rid of your ruined clothes, and going the fuck to sleep for the next good while.