Oh, no! The team is under attack! And at the worst possible moment – when they have carelessly split up their force, allowing the enemy to attack and defeat them in detail!
…well, but fortunately it’s only low-level slimes. As you would have expected, in fact. These guys are the first enemies you run into in about 80% of JRPGs. In Western RPGs, the selection of first-time opponents is a bit more varied, popular choices being Goblins, Rats and Bats…but none of those choices are as kawaii as the slimes, so I went with those. I mean, I guess in real life an amorphous, quivering blob of translucent slime with two eyeballs in it wouldn’t be anywhere near kawaii, but the videogame graphics and palettes go a long way there.
As you can see, the stats of the team are nothing much to write home about, either, but they have a sufficient level of initial superiority to get them started.
The Professor won initiative, but wasted it on talking…old habits, and all that. But while old habits are hard to break on your own, the slime’s attack broke the Professor right out of them. Carrying a club is a very effective antidote to taking too cerebral an approach to your problems, it seems. “Speak softly, but carry a big stick“…I guess this was what Teddy Roosevelt meant by that. Figures, since he was a friend of the Professor’s.
More on Mon…uh, Thursday.