NOVEL NEXT 35: Eyes of Glass
"Kale!" Krysanthea's feathers flared, the iridescent patterns along her mane shifting with agitation. "We're in the middle of a slime crisis and you're focusing on this?"
"Answer the question, sis," Kaledoniya pressed on. "What's going on with you three? You've been acting real sus and twitchy since you returned. Bringing Alec to the family dinner and not telling us where he's been, now risking your life on the word of this... this dog? I'm not going anywhere until you explain things!"
Nessy's tail stiffened behind her, but she remained focused, her nose twitching rapidly as she sniffed Kaledoniya. I noticed her attention shifting to the younger raptor's wrist, her blue eyes narrowing with sudden intensity.
"I don't owe you an explanation," Krysanthea snapped. "As Chief Ranger, I'm making a tactical decision based on new intelligence—"
"New intelligence from a husky with an IQ of seven!" Kaledoniya snarled, feathers bristling. "The same husky who's been obsessed with claiming your boyfriend for herself! You can't possibly—"
"Your bracelet," Nessy interrupted, her voice suddenly sharp. "The glass one with the eye beads. That's a Systemfall artifact. That's how you moved so fast just now and got ahead of us in the tunnel."
Kaledoniya's scaled hand instinctively covered her left wrist where a delicate bracelet of translucent glass beads glinted in the dim light. Each bead contained what appeared to be a tiny blue iris, like miniature eyes suspended in glass.
"You don't know what you're talking about," she hissed, her feathers rising defensively.
"I smell the truth," Nessy continued, undeterred. "Superstore Aisle 45'217 – 'Enhancement Accessories.' You've been to the Superstore, haven't you? Went looting outside Ferguson's boundaries after Systemfall?"
The accusation hit with precision. Kaledoniya's expression shifted from anger to shock, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly. The hand covering her bracelet trembled slightly.
"Kale..." Krysanthea's voice had changed, concern replacing anger. "Is this true?"
Kaledoniya's feathers flattened against her head, her aggression instantly deflating at the mention of the Superstore. She shot Nessy a look of mingled hatred and fear.
"What the shit Kale!" Krysanthea snarled, her voice tight with controlled fury. "I've seen what these 'artifacts' do to people!"
Kaledoniya's earlier confidence had vanished. "Listen, it's fine. It just helps me run faster. It's useful. We need every advantage we can—"
"What happened to the Superstore on Dimsdale exit?" Krysanthea demanded. "Why the fuck does it have forty five thousand isles offering fucking magical accessories?!"
"I, urm, erm…" Kaledoniya produced somewhat coherent noises. "It's… umm… infinite now. We've been getting… groceries for town from it."
"A dungeon," Nessy exhaled with wide eyes. "The Superstore's become a dungeon, just like this place! That's why the shops are full of fresh produce!"
"You've been feeding the people of Ferguson fucking Systemfall food from a fucking dungeon?!" Kristi exploded.
"It's not weird stuff! It's normal food… the weird stuff smells weird, we don't take that." Kaledoniya deflated slightly.
The first slime rounded the corner behind us, its purple core pulsing with menacing light.
"We don't have time for this," I said urgently. "The Slimes are coming!"
Krysanthea straightened to her full height, assuming the absolute authority of her position. When she spoke again, her voice carried the weight of command that brooked no argument.
"Kaledoniya Strand," she began, each word precise and edged with steel, "as Chief Ranger of Ferguson Valley, I am giving you a direct order. Return to the beach point. Then head to the surface and organize the volunteers into three groups of runners to lead the slimes away from town."
"But—"
"This is not a discussion!" Krysanthea cut her off. "This is a command decision in an emergency situation. Obey it or face disciplinary action. We will address your... Superstore shopping spree... when this crisis is contained!"
For a moment, it seemed like Kaledoniya might defy the order. Then she glanced nervously at Nessy, who was still staring at her glass bracelet with an unsettling intensity.
"Fine," she finally let out.
With that, the bracelet on her wrist glowed ever so slightly with an eerie blue light. In a blur of motion too fast for my eyes to track properly, Kaledoniya vanished down the tunnel, leaving only a faint disturbance in the air to mark her passage.
"I do wonder how many of your sisters are secretly Systemfall-afflicted," I remarked.
"Not now, Alec," Krysanthea growled. "We need to move. The slimes are coming."
Nessy's nose twitched rapidly as she scented the air. "This way! Follow!" she said, pointing deeper into the tunnel.
The pungent odor of acidic slimes grew stronger behind us, spurring us deeper into the cave system. We moved as quickly as we dared, our headlamps casting jittering shadows on the limestone walls. The tourist path soon gave way to rougher terrain—natural cave formations untouched by human development.
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"Watch your step," Krysanthea warned as we navigated a section where the floor dropped away suddenly into a narrow crevasse. "The mapping stops about fifty meters ahead."
"You've never been past this point?" I asked, carefully testing a stone ledge before putting my weight on it.
"No need," she replied shortly. "The slimes never came from this deep before. They always emerged from the same tunnel at the same time."
"'Cus they've been playing you," Nessy said, her ears swiveling to track sounds behind us. "Using predictable patterns as a trick to test the town defenses while they multiplied in the deep."
A distant squelching echoed through the tunnel, followed by an unnerving chorus of wet slithering sounds.
"They def' know we're heading for the source," Nessy growled. "We're a threat now."
We reached a fork in the tunnel, both paths disappearing into darkness. Nessy paused, her nose working overtime as she analyzed each option.
"Left," she finally decided. "The control smell is stronger that way!"
No sooner had we turned down the left passage than a wave of slimes poured from the right, moving with alarming speed. These weren't the slow, amorphous blobs we'd encountered earlier—they were streamlined, almost arrow-shaped, and they flowed across the cave floor like liquid mercury.
"Run!" Krysanthea shouted, firing several shots at the leading edge of the slime wave. The bullets passed through harmlessly, but the impacts momentarily disrupted their formation.
"Grab Alec!" Nessy barked. "Follow me! We're gonna have to move at top prad-speed! Just like during track events!"
Kristi picked me up over her shoulder and both of them took off on their claw-tipped digitigrade feet, tunnel walls flashing by us. The passage twisted and turned. The air grew warmer, more humid, carrying strange metallic undertones.
Nessy led on, rushing through tunnels and intersections, deeper and deeper into the darkness.
"There's a chamber ahead," Nessy called over her shoulder. "Large one. Intersected by running water. It'll help get 'em off our backs!"
The tunnel opened abruptly into a vast underground cavern, at least the size of a football field. Unlike the tourist areas, this space had never been touched by human development. Massive stalactites hung from the distant ceiling like stone daggers, while crystal formations glittered in our flashlight beams.
Bisecting the cavern was an underground river—its waters rushing from one dark tunnel to another.
"Good," Krysanthea breathed, scanning the chamber. "Water slows them."
"Swim across, don't drop Alec! Follow!" Nessy barked, already leaping into the river.
Kristi followed without questions, exploding into the river. I clung onto her, spitting water. In less than a minute we were on the other side, the three of us soaked to the bone.
Nessy inhaled and rushed down another tunnel. Kristi went after her, water dripping from her feathery mane.
We rushed down a few more tunnels and reached another massive circular chamber with a silver-emerald-violet looking lake. A wide stone island stood in its center featuring what appeared to be a softly glowing tree. Emerald and violet, pale, transparent leaves fluttered in the invisible wind.
"There," Nessy pointed to a series of stone projections that formed a natural bridge across the narrowest section of the lake. "We can cross there to the island! The core is there!"
"Kay," the raptor nodded, following the husky.
"Something's wrong," Nessy said suddenly, stopping halfway across the stone bridge. Her nose twitched rapidly, ears flattening against her head. "The water... it's not right."
"What do you mean?" I asked, glancing down at the water beneath our feet.
"It smells like..." She paused, struggling to find the words. "Like slime, but different. More concentrated. More... alive."
As if in response to her words, the surface of the water began to ripple. Small whirlpools formed, spinning faster and faster until they rose up like liquid tentacles. The dark water was transforming before our eyes, its consistency changing from fluid to something thicker, more gelatinous.
"It's all slime," Krysanthea uttered in horror. "The entire fucking lake!"
The liquid tentacles reached for us, their tips forming into something resembling hands. One brushed against the stone bridge, and the rock sizzled, rapidly dissolving on contact. The acid in this form was far more concentrated than anything we'd encountered before.
"The stone bridge won't hold!" I shouted as more tentacles struck the stone beneath our feet. "Run!"
We scrambled forward as the bridge began to crumble, stones hissing and smoking as they fell into the slime lake below. Nessy crossed the final gap, landing gracefully on the far shore. Krysanthea leapt with me to safety just as the entire bridge collapsed behind us.
"Sheet," the raptor looked back and what appeared to be a gargantuan house-sized human hand made of slimes slowly rising from the lake behind us.
"Get to the tree! The tree has the dungeon core in its roots!" Nessy barked. "Shoot it! Drop Alec so he can distract the giant hand!"
"Drop Alec?!"
"RUN to the fucking tree and shoot the glowing thingy!" Nessy barked. "We'll draw its attention here so it doesn't swat you!"
Without waiting for a response, Nessy veered sharply left, sprinting along the edge of the island. Her white and black fur made her a perfect target against the dark rock as she howled and waved her arms.
"Hey! Slime brain! Over here, you gelatinous freak!"
The massive, glowing hand of acidic slime pivoted, tracking her movement. Tentacles of slime rose from the lake, whipping toward her with frightening speed. She dodged with preternatural agility, her husky reflexes allowing her to anticipate each strike moments before it landed.
Krysanthea set me down roughly, her amber eyes meeting mine for just a heartbeat.
"Sorry," she said, then took off toward the glowing tree, her raptor legs carrying her in powerful bounds across the uneven terrain covered in rocks, fissures and stalagmites.
I stood alone, momentarily forgotten. The slime hand loomed above me, its massive form blotting out the cave ceiling. Suspended in that moment of terrible stillness, I had time to observe its structure—not a solid mass, but thousands of individual slimes working in unison, communicating through some invisible network of signals. Purple and green light pulsed through its structure like a heartbeat of undulating waves reaching up from the glowing lake.
From across the island, I heard the crack of gunfire as Krysanthea reached the tree. The sound seemed to trigger something in the slime entity. The massive hand froze mid-air, its attention diverted from Nessy.
It turned.
Toward me.
"Oh, shi—" was all I managed before the hand descended on my person.
The impact was both burning and crushing—acid eating through my plastic goggles, goalie uniform, clothes, my skin, my muscle, while the sheer weight of the slime mass flattened me against the rock. Pain exploded through every nerve ending, a supernova of agony that overwhelmed my senses.
Then… darkness.