The small slimes had easily been dissolved in their path leaving only some medium slimes that were following the small slimes just a little slower. The king came forward and with a slow swing of his pick axe ended three medium slimes and allowed them to melt away in the basic water mixture puddles below them.
"Keep moving. We have to cross the intersection that way." Walker followed the king and saw that the intersections were not some small crossing of caves. They were instead, massive caves that meet in a very large rounded chamber.
The ceilings were enough for birds to easily fly and the space wide enough for at least twenty golems. "You said intersection but this looks more like a work space." Walker could see parts of the rocks walls that had been shaped along with set up for tools to be hung.
"This is a common resting spot. Those two passageways lead to an iron mine and one of the alternative processing hubs. It was abandoned about ten years ago so now it is just another place to rest." The king waved it off like it was nothing.
"So there are other processing areas near other mines that you discover? That must be a lot of work to build them." Gil was surprised that the dwarves would constantly build new processing areas as they discovered more to mine.
"Of course we do. Transporting all the ore is a pain. We would rather dig all the way to the surface than walk back through carrying hundreds of pounds of ores daily. Even the golems would burn out like that." The attitude of the king basically asked if Gil was stupid. To the dwarves, this was always a common sense move to allow them to more easily carry back cleaned ores and better quality items.
"Wait, do you need to change what golems carry the ores and patrol the mines?" Remey was feeling an idea coming on that could make things much easier.
"We have many versions. The high forge is currently working on some for water mining and even suits for us miners to wear underwater. Why?" This had piqued the king's curiosity.
"Why not add gear that the firefighters are using to some of the mining golems and have them fight off slimes around the clock? It would give the alchemists a lot of work and the fire fighting dwarves a lot of work. But it would let you all rest easier and keep the slimes down to a controllable number." Remey watched the kings' face brighten at hearing this.
"I have yet another request to make for the high forge. They can't shirk this one though. They can use this on the surface all the way through to the mines. I will have it sent over when we finish here." The king pointed to the next section of the passageway.
"Not to be down on everyone, but I saw some melted stone back there that looked to be eaten away by acid. Should I take it that there was once some tools hanging on the walls there?" Gil felt that the answer was yes but waited for the king to nod to support it. "Then the slimes are active enough around here. I still can't figure out how they get past the water without issue."
Walker had also thought on this and was becoming more stuck on it as he heard the soft dripping sound of water coming from farther down the passageway. "Walker, try not to freeze all the water. If you do it will ruin the algae or anything living in it. If we don't have anything that will attack us let's not attack it." Remey wanted to preserve the herbs and the future harvesting ground in the caves.
"Don't worry. I know you want to gather what you can as we pass, but it might be best for us to gather it as we leave. Then we won't be caught up and waste energy." Walker wanted to be sure they fought everything in the cave at full strength.
When they came to the open section of the passageway they were met with a large underground pond of completely flat and glass like water. They could see right through to the bottom to find that there was green algae coving the rock under the water and every once in a while a small cat sized pale salamander would sneak in and out of bunches of algae.
Water dripped down the sides of the chambers' walls and slowly trickled in to the large pond without causing any ripples in the least. "This is actually very beautiful. I feel like I could relax here for a while." Gil couldn't help but see beauty in the peace of this cave.
"The caves are allways full of wonder. You should come to the caves that grow crystals and gems. They are much better." This was one of the moments where the king did not butt heads with anyone. He took Gil's words and agreed wholeheartedly.
"Alright then. In to the water. Here it only reaches up to about a foot so we can walk through it with no problems." The king stepped right in to the water without even a single flinch. Walker on the other hand felt his soul attempt to leave his body due to the frigid temperature. He was left in awe wondering how the dwarf didn't feel the cold at all.
Midnight followed Walker with a sharp exhale but she soon adapted and even used her wings to push her forward faster. It was a good way for her to get a little more exercise for them since they had been too busy for her to stop and do her normal training.
"What's that weird sound? It's like there is something else moving that isn't water?" Remey picked up in the sound and Walker focused on it. His eyes looked upward to the horrors above.