Syl-Chapter 221: Sneaky Slime

Before our outing, we first returned to the inn to prepare. While I kept most of my supplies and such on hand, I potentially had ten problems I would need to handle for optimal sneaking. And so, I needed to make a dropoff if we were going to do this, one that I was incredibly reluctant to do. When we reached the safe confines of my room, I sighed and began slowly extracting my [Sub-Cores].

Vee looked curiously at me, while Trixie looked horrified.

"Syl... What are those!?" Trixie demanded.

"[Sub-Cores]..." I answered hesitantly.

"I thought we talked about this! No becoming a Slime Queen and taking over the world!" Trixie shrieked.

"What?" I replied in shock, then looked at the core in my hand and felt like crawling into a hole to hide my embarrassment. "No! No, no, no. These are not my children!"

"Aren't they just the cores you've been collecting?" Vee asked curiously. "Although they seem a lot more... Refined than those, and are those engravings?"

"Syl..." Trixie repeated with concern on her face. She probably would have been tapping her foot impatiently if she wasn't floating. "What the heck have you been doing?"

I couldn't help but frown. I thought for sure I had told Trixie about my [Sub-Cores]. Either I was misremembering, or she had forgotten.

"These are my [Sub-Cores], like mini-helpers that cast spells, manipulate slime, and so forth," I explained.

"Is that why you eat so many of them?" Vee gasped.

"No, those I really did eat. I made these ones myself," I elaborated.

"Making slime cores?" Trixie asked with an accusatory tone. "That's sounding very Queenish to me."

"I've been able to do this since... Forever," I defended myself. "I've just increased their quantity... A lot. I've also enchanted them for protection and defense.

I began pulling out a few more cores. Vee looked at them curiously, while Trixie looked especially concerned.

"Why?" Vee asked, breaking the silence.

"Well, they're costly to make and replace; even repairing them can be painful," I explained.

"I see... But why are you suddenly removing them?" Vee questioned.

"Well, I can't exactly go sneaking around with ten of these jingling inside me," I answered. "If I want to take on much smaller and compact forms, I sadly need to temporarily remove them."

"Can you not just poof them into storage?" Vee questioned.

"Nope, I can't," I sighed. "Which is kinda odd since I can store dead slime cores in my storage, but not these."

Vee gingerly poked one, causing it to roll.

"So these aren't children?" Trixie questioned.

"No, they can't even function when outside of my connected slime," I answered honestly.

That answer caused the pixie to genuinely sigh with relief and ease up.

"I'm surprised you have so many..." Vee murmured.

I grinned. "I could technically have more; I haven't found the limit yet, and it just costs a trait point and slime. They are invaluable; who do you think has been helping you train or casting shield spells on you?"

"Wait! Really?" Vee exclaimed.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't just hear that..." Trixie whined.

I shrugged at Trixie before returning to Vee, "Yeah. I can set commands on them. I've had some commands to protect me, or you, or make it look like I'm bleeding if attacked, and so forth."

"Woah, that sounds brilliant!" Vee exclaimed. "Shouldn't you not be doing this then? It feels really dumb to leave them behind."

"I'll take one or two..." I replied, scratching my chin. "But I can't see me needing them for this. The objective is to be as sneaky as possible, after all."

"No offense, but I hope you'll bring the one you ordered to protect me," Vee giggled.

"Sure, why not," I agreed.

Trixie seemed to be mulling something over. If she didn't come out of it, I would give her a good poke, but she eventually sighed and seemed to mostly return to her old demeanor. She did give some of the [Sub-Cores] a poke and, at some point, even sat on one, which seemed to provide her some much-needed reassurance.

"Are you checking to see if they have Mana?" I asked.

Trixie flinched slightly at my accusation and sighed, "Yes... It was one way for me to confirm they weren't alive."

I gave a teasing wink before touching one of the inert cores with a finger. Trixie frowned deeply, no doubt realizing that it now had Mana as it was linked to my own pool.

"Well... At least it needs to be connected to you," Trixie mumbled.

"For now, anyway," Vee added. "Watch Syl get an evolution later that skips that."

Trixie groaned.

"Or a trait. It's something I'm kind of hoping for," I admitted. "Imagine what I could do then? I could give all my friends a [Sub-Core] helper of their own. Wouldn't that be pretty great?"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"I'd love one! Please give me one!" Vee responded instantly.

Trixie was still grumbling to herself.

"Do you not want one?" I asked teasingly. "Imagine if it had my Mana leaking from it even if you were away."

"Your own portable buffet!" Vee said excitedly.

"That does sound tempting..." Trixie admitted. "But the thought of you being able to be in multiple places at once is oddly terrifying."

"It would be great for my disguises," I pointed out. "I could be Syl the elf, Sylvester the human, Syl the slime---hell, I could even remake Wiggles for you!"

I had Alpha mimic the violet slime and create a fake profile saying Wiggles to demonstrate what I was talking about. Trixie looked genuinely surprised while Vee laughed hysterically.

"Wiggles is back from the dead!" Vee teased.

"So long as he stays connected to me forever, he is," I pointed out.

"For now..." Vee added.

"Let's hope so!" I cheered.

Trixie sighed yet again and shook her head, "Okay... Are we going to do our sneaking mission now?"

"Ready when you are," I replied.

"Same, I'm all legs on deck," Vee answered.

"Great. Let's go before I start questioning my past judgments," Trixie declared, fluttering towards the door.

Once we left the inn, we headed toward as deserted of an alley as we could find. Once Trixie declared she had cloaked us, I began blocking out my profile, and Vee did the same, shrinking it even further. First, I took the random form of as a non-descript dwarf as possible.

"Really? Lern?" Vee spoke up. "That's the name you're going with?"

"I would have loved to have used another Syl-ish name, but I wanted something I could throw away," I answered.

"Where the hell did you even get that name from?" Trixie asked.

"I just took Thern and replaced it with an 'L,'" I answered.

"I guess it really doesn't matter. Still, I'm glad you didn't name me," Trixie teased.

"At least I don't name my spells [Create: Ice Stupid]..." I grumbled.

Trixie gasped in shock, "You're insulting the great and powerful Archwizard Frostius? He revolutionized the entire world of [Ice Magic]!"

"Really?" Vee asked.

"No, not really," Trixie responded. "That is a pretty stupid name, though."

"Right!?" I chuckled. "I'm glad someone finally agrees with me."

"Probably one of those wizards who love shouting their spells out loud," Trixie huffed. "Yes, let me just announce to all my enemies that I'm going to be throwing a [Fireball]!"

"I heard it was so party members can react to your spells," I answered.

Trixie shrugged, "Eh... Still dumb, just use [Telepathy]."

"I don't think everyone can just get [Telepathy]..." Vee groaned. "Anyway, I think we've reached the industrial district."

I looked around, and it looked like Vee was right. The surroundings had almost entirely become various workshops, and some of the dwarves were either carrying crates of raw resources or sealed boxes of presumably finished products.

With Trixie mostly obscuring us and Vee shrunk down to hide within a fake coat I'd made, almost nobody was paying us attention. Now, the only question was, where did we go?

"I think we should go where there's the most fire essence," Trixie explained. "No doubt that's where the forges are."

"Makes sense..." Vee replied.

"You should try using your [Soul Sight]; get in some practice!" Trixie informed me.

I nodded in agreement and began utilizing the trait. It was tough, as now not only did I need to try filtering for the fire essence, but I was getting a lot of feedback from all the dwarves surrounding us, their lifeforce and Mana interfering with my results.

When I started having no real luck, Trixie suggested we go to a quieter corner for me to focus. Once there, it became a lot more manageable, and once I examined it enough, I began noticing the familiar sight of the fire essence.

"That was pretty fast..." Vee replied. "I almost thought we might be here all night."

"If Syl had no experience using [Essence Sight] before fusing it, that might have been the case," Trixie answered. "I'm presuming Syl tracked or worked with fire essence before."

"Actually, yes, I found a fire ant nest and used it to find lava and giant worms," I explained.

"And to think I spent most of my life living in an abandoned mine..." Vee mumbled.

"Beats spending a century trapped in a cage!" Trixie responded.

"I'm honestly surprised you're still sane after that..." Vee whispered.

"Who said she's still sane?" I joked.

"Meh... Time stops being a factor once you've lived as long as I have," Trixie shrugged it off. "It helps that I can meditate and effectively hibernate for years."

"Still... That's kinda sad, isn't it? What of your friends growing old and dying around you?" Vee asked.

"Other than you two, I don't really have mortal friends, and I'm not too sure about Syl dying of old age," Trixie replied.

"Wait... So I'm the only one who's going to grow old? I'll be a granny spider, and you two will be young forever?" Vee cried.

"I'm sure there's a trait... Or item... Maybe a potion?" I offered suggestions and turned to Trixie with a hopeful expression.

"Oh yeah, who knows what you could find in a dungeon. Potentially countless things to extend your lifespan, if not remove it entirely," Trixie revealed. "Or who knows, you could do your monster cheat thing and evolve into something functionally immortal. Hanging around Syl will probably trigger some strange evolutions for you."

"Spider slime!" I joked.

"As cool as you make a slime look, I don't think I want to be one," Vee admitted.

"Yeah, imagine living up to this goofball's reputation," Trixie quipped.

"I feel sorry for Syl's kids," Vee sighed.

I was going to complain, but Trixie beat me to the punch.

"No Queen evolution!" The pixie screeched.

"Yeesh... Does that go for my broodmother evolution, too?" Vee questioned.

"Oh gods... Why did you have to tell me that," Trixie groaned. "I don't know... It's probably not as bad as having multiple Syl's running around doing who knows what."

"I'm worse than hundreds of dimensional shrinking spiders?" I questioned.

"Oh... Shit," Trixie answered. "I hadn't even thought of that. Spiders usually have a hundred per egg sac, don't they?"

"Small tiny spiders, maybe, but I had nowhere near that many siblings when I was born," Vee answered defensively. "Not that I have any desire to pick the broodmother evolution..."

"Good. Probably for the best," Trixie advised. "Imagine if they did something stupid like building an entire nest out of that [Rift Thread], or worse!"

"That could be bad..." I admitted. "Plus, eggs are evil and should never be mentioned again."

"It was one time!" Trixie objected.

"One time too many..." I whined.

Our conversation entertained us while I followed the trail of fire essence poorly. Thankfully, as I used it more and more, I became far more proficient in it and started recognizing the other bits of essence mingling around.

I'm tempted to just keep it on permanently until I grow used to it. Although I might get far too distracted by everything flowing around.

We reached an absolutely massive structure that was blazing with fire essence. So much so that it drowned out the ambient earth essence into almost obscurity.

"Well... If they're doing any important forging or smelting... I think it's in here," Trixie replied. "I swear we were right next to a volcano."

"Just a reminder... I'm not fireproof," Vee declared.

"Well, unless you're planning on taking a dip in the smelter, I think you'll be fine," I teased.

"You could always go through the pyromancer training arc," Trixie suggested.

"What's that?" Vee asked gullibly.

Trixie grinned mischievously, but I answered before she could get Vee to agree to anything stupid.

"They set themselves on fire or detonate [Fireballs] near themselves to train resistances."

"That sounds... So dumb!" Vee replied aghast. "Do hydromancers drown themselves? Do geomancers bury themselves alive?"

"Sometimes... It's kinda dumb but effective," Trixie replied nonchalantly. "It's better than training mental resistances anyway."

"Why?" Vee asked.

"Take a guess," Trixie responded.

Vee made some suggestions, but Trixie shot them down one by one. I also thought about it, and I think I had an answer.

"Is it due to pain resistance traits or skills?"

"Bingo!"

"Do those only work on stuff that physically hurts you?" Vee questioned.

"Bingo!" Trixie repeated.

"Huh..." Vee muttered. "I guess I won't be training mental resistances anytime soon."

"So, fires on the table?" I questioned.

"We'll have to do a raincheck until I get a pain resistance trait..." Vee replied nervously.

"Pity, either way we have a heist to make!" Trixie giggled.

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