Mother Vanquished

With an enormous blast occurring within its body, the mother slime bloated up like a balloon before popping like a giant, water-filled, bubble. The crystals' self-destruction was so powerful that not only had it obliterated the mother slime's core in an instant, but also launched Theodore out of the mother slime's body before it even fell apart due to the lack of a behavioral matrix.

Laying at the edge of the mother slime's pool was Theodore. Having endured the blast that he had set off himself, a few of his ribs were broken despite being protected by the Aetherweave Armor. It was a good thing that he had overlaid his nervous system with Aether so that he could endure the pain, or so he would have liked to say.

Unfortunately, due to the consumption of the diluted Dandelion Mandragora extracts, he had his hands full trying to control the overwhelming flood of Aether in his body. Between that and trying to access the mother's core, copying the information, all the while maintaining his Aetherweave Armor, performing the precision-intensive task that was overlaying the nervous system had proved to be rather difficult.

And so, Theodore lay at the edge of that shallow pool, his head propped atop the floor, writhing in pain as he took short, shallow breaths. With his hand trembling, he reached for his pouch, his fingers feeling their way to a vial placed in a specific spot so that Theodore would know what he was pulling out without the need to look.

The vial he eventually produced was made from ordinary glass and had a wooden cap that could be removed if one pushed hard enough with their thumb. Within, it contained a transparent liquid.

Popping the cap open with one hand and moving his mask out of the way with the other, Theodore drank the liquid. A few moments after, the pain began to alleviate. It was not a healing potion he drank. Theodore did not have the luxury to wait for such a slow-acting medicine. Instead, it was a painkiller. So long as he could ease his pain and focus his mind, Theodore's own healing magic would be sufficient for most wounds.

That being said, he had no time to mend his bones. He had just destroyed the mother slime. An alarm must have sounded. No, perhaps it already sounded when he approached the mother slime. It was common knowledge that an alarm system would require transceivers and receivers, but unlike the locked doors up the stairs, plenty could be found here.

They were the slimes, the ones attached to the mother. They could transmit the information of the mother's demise to the other slimes who would then continue to transmit that information further, eventually reaching the final receiver.

Climbing out of the pool, Theodore grabbed his robe and satchel. He was going to have to move fast.

***

Located near the center of the western district, there lay the dwelling of Anne-Marie, the elder overseeing the operations of the magic forges. In this mansion-sized building, during the middle of the night, a strange figure, translucent in the streak of moonlight cast from in-between the parting clouds, paced down the hall with a frantic gait.

Arriving before a luxuriously decorated set of double doors, the figure knocked upon the door, making a sound more akin to wet slapping than knocking.

"Speak," said a voice from beyond the door, a woman's voice, the voice of Anne-Marie.

"The 'mother' has been destroyed," said the strange figure, a feminine voice resounding from her 'mouth.'

"Oh?" Rather than upset, Anne-Marie sounded more curious than anything else.

"What shall be done, mistress."

"Just have the masters in change send a few of their apprentices to check it out. It hardly matters, another mother can be made in a few days' time."

"And the culprit?"

"I doubt you'll find them. Whoever they are, they must have slipped into the sewers by now. If they've got what I think they've got, navigating the sewers shouldn't be a problem for them anymore."

"Understood, I'll send for the messengers immediately."

With that, the strange, translucent figure rushed off, down the hall she had come from.

"So, what do you make of this?"

With her servant gone, Anne-Marie turned back to the one she had been conversing with before the servant's arrival.

"The city is beginning to stir in anticipation for the Archmage's absence. All is within expectation."

The room was dark and unlit. The one Anne-Marie was talking to cannot be seen and neither could the elder herself.

"I mean this specific incident with the mother slime. Someone had figured out the secrets of the slimes."

"To be fair, it's not exactly difficult with some expertise with behavioral matrices."

"You undersell the defenses of the slimes," Anne-Marie scoffed. "And even then, provided that they have the skill and expertise, the slimes here had been a staple of this city since they were created. Though a crude replication of the tower's cleaners and the ancient witches' art of magic constructs, they have played an important role in this city. An important, yet, often overlooked role. The slimes are mundane to modern mages and as such were taken for granted. Few would even notice their presence in the city anymore, much less suspect that they might hold a secret."

"Must have been a curious mage, then," said the other voice, indifferent and dismissive.

"Not just curious, not just clever, but someone who would find the slimes foreign enough to investigate. A newcomer perhaps. One with expertise with behavioral matrices."

"Perhaps one of your second-year enchanter apprentices is clever enough."

"Oh, don't be coy, Annaliese," Anne-Marie called out, practically spitting out the name of the one she was conversing with. "All but the most promising of second years are working on mundane tasks in the forges and even the promising ones were just beginning to grasp the simplest of enchantment techniques. Admittedly, there might be ones who were playing the fool, but I'll look into that later. The one I am currently referring to is someone else."

"I find your stipulations far-fetched at best. The culprit is not guaranteed to be a newcomer, but perhaps someone plotting this for a long time," Annaliese commented, not willing to play along. "It is one thing for a mage to be paranoid, it is another to be delusional, sister."

"Hmph! We shall see soon enough. Very soon."

***

End of Chapter 103

***