“Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the fire and be still as the Mountain.”

  Sun Tzu, Chinese General

  The spear of Pinga shot out of the undergrowth, straight for the grey slime that lagged behind the others. Its tip pierced the slime’s form with a sickening squelch, but the slime didn’t flinch. The spear’s momentum slowed quickly, and before it had reached a foot inside, it became stuck in the acidic mass.

  “Shit!” Calista said as she burst forth from the jungle, mentally calling on the spear to return to her. The exposed shaft wobbled frantically, but the tip was held fast within. Calista could feel the metal and driftwood sizzle within, her connection to them magical weapon growing weaker with every passing second.

  “I can’t get it out,” Calista called over her shoulder. “Rain! Blow it up!”

  A vial of Rain’s explosion potion soared over Calista’s head, right on target, only for the potion to also be absorbed by the slime.

  “Well, that didn’t work,” Rain said curiously as she watched the non-magical vial dissolve and the crimson solution flow through the creature’s semi-transparent body. It appeared to have an internal current that carried nutrients – or, in this case, volatile liquid – through its body.

  The observation gave Rain an idea. She summoned a fireball into her palm and hurled it at the slime. “The explosive solution should still be active. If I can ignite…”

  Woosh!

  The fire pierced the grey slime’s mass with little effort, igniting the potion within. A current of flame spread from within on its current. The slime’s white, googly eyes – resembling the kind used by children in art class – grew wide with surprise an instant before its entire mass suddenly expanded threefold and exploded, showering the area with a metallic-smelling acid rain.

  Passi cried out in surprise as she ascended to avoid the acid, but Rain, Calista, and Cosmo were unable to dodge in time. The acid popped their protective shields as it fell, the plants around them dying where it touched.

  “Rain, what the hell?” Calista shouted as the Spear of Pinga returned to her. The tip was covered in a thick layer of slime and the explosion had left several burns in the driftwood shaft. With a worried frown, she directed the spear into the ocean waters to clean itself off. “You’ve got to warn us before you do that.”

  Rain ignored her. She took a deep breath of air and stuck out her tongue.

  “The smell, and the taste in the air. The slime’s base element must have been metal. Given how easily my firebolt pierced its body, fire must be its restraining element. Fascinating,” Rain said as she pulled out her leather-bound notebook and jotting down her observation. “Based on their colors, I bet the other four slimes are based on the other basic magics – fire, earth, water, and wood.”

  “Now is not the time to be taking notes, Rain,” Calista said as the remnants of the slime scatted across the beach began to flow along the beach, straight towards a small translucent orb that lay in the sand where the slime had once been.

  The slime core.

  “Passi, it’s your turn,” Calista directed, waving at her daughter perched in the trees. “Finish it off.”

  “On it!” Passi called, launching herself into the sky. Drawing her twin daggers, she headed straight for the orb, diving like a hawk catching a mouse in the grass.

  Her daggers pieced its shell, and the slime core burst like a popped balloon. The slime crawling along the beach soaked into the sand. Passi landed on the beach, stowed her daggers, and looked back at her mom with a triumphant grin.

  “Good job, pumpkin,” praised Calista, catching her now-cleansed spear and turning her attention to the remaining slimes fifty feet down the beach.

  The moment their companion’s slime core was destroyed, each slime instantly stopped rolling. Their googly eyes drifted across their mass until each one was staring towards the fairy girl.

  “Umm… mom?” Passi asked, noticing the sudden attention of the slimes. “I don’t think they liked that I killed their friend.”

  The green slime flashed, and the earth beneath Passi spiraled up and encompassed Passi’s tiny legs. She shrieked in surprise and tried to pull them out, but the slime’s magic held her fast. As she struggled, the green orb raced straight for Passi with surprising speed, kicking up a cloud of dust as it rolled along the beach. Behind it, the red and blue slimes began to vibrate as their translucent cores began to emit a magical glow.

  “Passi, watch out!” Calista shouted, as she dashed towards her, Cosmo close behind.

  Cosmo was close behind her. He drew a random card from his deck and rolled his eyes. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  He hurled the card into the sand half-way between the fairy and the oncoming green. A seven-foot-tall, eight-hundred-pound moose materialized in front of the rolling slime, and the two heavy creatures slammed into each other with the force of a head-on collision.

  The moose’s bellow rang out across the beach as its hide touched the acidic slime. Jelly-like vines erupted from the green’s mass and wrapped themselves around the moose’s body, pulling the moose further into it. The moose struggled and kicked, but it was no match for the green’s strength. Calista caught the fear in the moose’s eyes as its head was pulled inside. It tried to bellow one last time, only for the slime to cascade down its throat to dissolve it from the inside.

  “Don’t move, pumpkin,” Calista said as she reached Passi. Passi stopped her struggles against the stone as Calista wound up and struck with her closed fist. The earth that encompassed Passi’s left leg shattered. Knuckles bloody, she struck again and freed Passi’s other leg.

  “Calista, run! Incoming!” Cosmo shouted as he bundled Passi in his arms and dashed back towards Rain, just as a fireball hurled from the red slime scorched the sand where Passi had been trapped.

  “Please tell me that moose isn’t real, Cosmo,” Calista said as they sprinted back. She caught a glimpse of the moose’s head, its head already half-dissolved.

  Cosmo gave a non-committal shrug. “Best not to think about it. Sorry, Passi. You’ll have to wait until the next battle to ride a moose.”

  Passi blanched at the sight as she hopped out of Cosmo’s arms and down beside Rain, who was still taking notes.

  “Green is wood. Brown must be earth,” Rain said, finishing her notes. “Red is fire and blue is water. With metal, those are the five Tier One magics in the talent web. Calista, your scan said their weaknesses are their elemental restraints, which must be their counter element. That’s why my firebolt was so effective against the grey slime – fire is its elemental restraint. I wonder if this works for potions too.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “So we just need to find out which elements they are weak against?” Passi asked, hovering over Rain’s shoulder.

  “Exactly right, Passi,” Rain said excitedly, stashing the notebook back in her inventory. “They seem resistant to physical attacks, given Calista’s lack of impact.”

  “Great,” mumbled Calista, twirling her spear in agitation. “That makes me just shy of useless in this fight.”

  “I’ve been telling you to take some magic talents. Physical attacks will only get you so far,” Rain pointed out as she withdrew four of her metal balls from her inventory. They fell into the sand with a hefty plop, plop, plop, plop.

  “Everyone may want to back up a couple steps. This might get messy,” Rain advised. With a wave of her hand, the four balls lifted into the air and shot out, with one headed for each slime.

  The momentum of the first three – the ones that struck the red, blue, and brown slimes – stopped the instant they entered the red, blue, and brown slimes, mirroring what had happened to Calista’s spear. But the fourth shot straight into the green slime and caused it to explode, as if the creature had been struck with the force of a point-blank cannonball. Green slime rained over the beach, missing them by a couple of feet.

  All that remained was the creature’s core in the sand. Rain gave another flick of her finger. The metal ball soared towards it and stuck hard, pulverizing the core into dust.

  “The wood slime is weak against metal,” Rain concluded as the metal ball returned to her, orbiting around her head. “That just leaves three elements left, which should be easy enough to… ah, that might be a problem.”

  The red, blue, and green slimes started to change form. Flames erupted over the surface of the red as it turned itself into a massive rolling fireball. The blue froze and formed six-foot-long icicle spikes across its entire sphere, resembling a spiked mace the size of a car. The brown absorbed the earth beneath its form until it became a ten-foot-height boulder of stone, earth, and sand.

  They launched themselves at the players with astonishing speed.

  “Scatter!” Calista shouted as the ground rumbled with their approach. The boulder reached them first, and she dodged out of its path. The brown’s momentum carried it into the forest, crashing through palms with little effort, though Calista noticed a fragment of trunk had lodged itself deep within its mass during the impact.

  Wood! Its weakness is wood!

  “Rain, Cosmo. Take out the boulder – it’s weak to wood. Passi and I will take on fireball. Leave the water until last,” she ordered, already sprinting towards her target.

  “Stay safe,” Rain called as she and Cosmo headed towards the tree line, where the boulder was slowly altering its path. Rain, her hands already engulfed in green magic, was pulling a collection of vines out of the forest and weaving them together into a web.

  “Passi, head towards the ocean. Get your water magic ready,” Calista called to her daughter flying high above. “I’ll lure it there.”

  Passi flew out above the water as Calista waved her arms to attract the fireball’s attention.

  “Hey! You ugly piece of slime shit!” Calista bellowed, waving her arms to attract its attention. She could feel its heat even from twenty feet away. “We killed two of your friends. And I’m coming for you next!”

  Calista hurled her spear straight towards the creature’s googly eyes, duplicating it in mid-air. Seizing control of their momentum, she swerved the twin spears at the last second to avoid the fire. One headed left, the other right, and spun around the orb as if they were in orbit.

  The fireball eyed the driftwood spears like a hungry man eyeing a roast, and it reached out with its flames as it rolled towards Calista.

  Its fire is desperate for wood. I can feel the hunger of its flames. Not only do these creatures have restraining elements, but they must also have elements that make it stronger. Wood and fire, makes sense. I can use this.

  Calista pulled the spears away from the fireball yet kept them tantalizingly within reach. The fireball followed, and she led it towards the water.

  “Passi, do it!” Calista shouted, as the fireball stopped its momentum at the edge of the shore.

  Passi swooped towards it, sailing just above the ocean waters. Reaching down, she raked her glowing fingers below its surface, channeling her magic. With a quick swoop of her arms, she sent twin streams of water straight into the center of the fireball’s mass.

  The fireball lost its focus on the spears as the water struck, its survival instincts overriding its hunger. Its eyes focused upon the fairy girl flying over the water, and from its center erupted a bolt of fire that headed straight for the child.

  “Passi, watch out!” Calista shouted in warning.

  Passi ignored her mother’s cry. She sped at full speed straight for the slime’s center. Ice cascaded over her hands and up to her elbows, transforming both her arms into long daggers of ice.

  The firebolt struck Passi’s chest, popping her first protective shell, but she didn’t slow down. With a scream of defiant bravery, Passi closed the distance in a heartbeat and drove her ice hands into its flames, where the streams of water had weakened it. Her second protective shield – the one granted by the enchantment on her dress – popped as she struck, and the wave of heat rolled over her.

  The icicle pierced the core deep within the slime, and the creature exploded in a fiery blaze. Passi was thrown backwards, screaming in pain as the flames licked across skin. A second later, she splashed down in the ocean, its cool waters soothing the burns on her face, chest, and colorful, translucent wings.

  Calista dove into the water after her daughter. Beneath the waves, she bundled Passi up in her arms and pulled her up to the surface. As they broke through the surface, Calista franticly inspected Passi’s burns while the child laughed in triumph.

  “Did you see that, mom?” Passi asked excitedly. “Did you see what I did?”

  “Yes, I saw pumpkin,” Calista replied, eyeing a worrisome burn in the upper corner of Passi’s left wing. “You scared me half to death.”

  In an instant, Passi’s excitement turned into a pout. “Sorry,” she muttered, anger half-hidden beneath the words.

  Calista gave her daughter a quick kiss on the forehead. “But you won. That’s what matters in the end. I’m proud of you.”

  Passi looked into her mother’s eyes and beamed with happiness.

  Calista glanced towards the jungle, just in time to see Rain rip the earth orb in half with a net of vines that sawed through the creature like a knife through butter. The orb fell out of the boulder, and Cosmo smashed it with his foot.

  Are you two alright? Rain mentally projected across their battlefield.

  A few burns, but nothing Passi can’t heal, Calista responded. Just the water slime left.

  Wood magic countered earth. Water countered fire. That leaves earth to counter water, Rain deduced. Don’t suppose you or Passi picked up any earth magic while I wasn’t looking?

  No. We’ll have to do it the old fashioned way. We… What is Cosmo doing?

  Calista watched as Cosmo strolled casually towards the spiked ball of ice headed in their direction, his hand on his deck of cards. His fingers glowed with a faint brown tinge as a card slipped from the middle of the deck and moved to the top.

  With a quick flick of his wrist, the card careened straight towards the orb. As if flew, chunks of sand and stone coalesced tightly around the card, as if it were a magnet pulling the very earth towards it. When it finally reached the slime, it was the size of a wrecking ball.

  The encapsulated card smashed through the slime, crushing the core on its way through and sending shards of ice scattering over the beach.

  “Always wanted to try that one,” Cosmo shouted at Calista, with more than a little pride. “Worthy of a song, I think. I may have to do some composing tonight.”

  Calista and Passi swam up to shore, Passi’s hands already aglow with healing light and pressed against a burn on her wing.

  “Just leave Passi out of the lyrics,” Calista reminded Cosmo sternly. “Secrets, remember?”

  “Awww…,” Passi groaned, disappointed. “But I want to be in the song.”

  Thankfully, the argument was interrupted as the victory window appeared in front of each of them.

  Passi could hardly contain her excitement. She looked expectedly at Calista, her player screen already opened before her.

  Calista chuckled. “Your mother will be so proud of you, sweetheart. Finishing healing while Rain and I prepare supper. After that, we’ll help you pick your new class.”

  The Non-Canonical Aftermath

  Let us sing of the tale of Passiflora,

  Who shined brighter than the aurora,

  She who bested the slimes of the Dauntless Isles.

  With twin daggers of of ice

  And a smile that is... nice?