Chapter 4: Have Some Words

She wondered why he got so lively. She was just cleaning him up, mostly.

The sword pulsed. Do not try to eat me. I will not let you.

She made an aggravated little burble at it. I have absolutely no plan to not eat you. The last thing like you that I ate also complained, but I became much more after I ate it.

There was a long pause in which she found she enjoyed the way her captured, scaly, short thing yelled into her and flailed about. It was difficult to describe why she liked it; she'd never felt anything move like this, but it was definitely both interesting and pleasant.

It would take you very little time to eat my scabbard, but a very long time to eat me. I am much stronger than you are, but I don't want you to eat my scabbard. What if I offer you a gift instead?

That made her pause. What is a gift?

Something I can give you that you will want. For example, do you want to understand what the kobold is saying to you?

This did cause her some pause. She knew those noisy creatures were communicating with those noises. Her fascinating little spindly thing was certainly making noises, and those were probably at her. You will make it so I understand, and all I have to do is not eat you?

Or my scabbard.

She burbled a little. Fine. How will it work?

Just a little magic, like this. The angry water rock she had eaten felt like boiling. This thing felt like a particularly nice crystal melting into her, permeating her, feeding all the different parts of her.

Then, with perfect clarity, she understood: "Let me go! Please! Don't eat me!"

But I am not eating you. Tell him I am not.

But the pointy thing didn't respond; it had already gotten what it wanted from her.

She wobbled back and forth with a little frustration. I suppose he will have to figure it out as I show him he is safe. The tall and loud thing hadn't doubled back yet, so she needed to make her spindly creature quieter.

She focused on all the parts of her touching him, and she flexed, pressing him into a little ball and holding him pretty snugly, not forgetting to let him have air near his face.



 

Wayra resisted being balled up, but he was simply not strong enough. Inch by inch, his limbs were tucked against his body, and he was squished. He wiggled, feeling more vulnerable this way than even before, though perhaps technically less of the dissolving and gloopy slime guts were touching him like this.

The tingling continued, down between his scales, on his clothes—he didn't think there was much fabric left. The sword slid off his back, sinking deeper into the slime.

He was very frustrated; Keddras was relying on him to be a clever kobold, but he had not even made it four days. He was a disappointment after all.

Eternity passed, or maybe it was only a few minutes, when suddenly he slid forward, his body able to uncurl as the slime receded from him with a wet, almost lip-smacking sound. It didn't have lips, but it was definitely a sucking sensation over his entire frame.

He was damp, so when he landed on the cave floor, sand and dirt stuck to his wet scales right away. He scrambled backward and away from the slime, but it formed a tendril and wrapped it around his ankle, and he yelped as it dragged him back.

Wayra yelped again, afraid that it was going to haul him back in because it had dropped him accidentally, but it stopped just short of that.

"Let me go!" he hissed at it, shivering. The dark, dank cave was icy after being in the sauna that was that slime.

There was only a squeezing around his ankle.

Do slimes even talk? He stopped trying to escape. The grip on his ankle relaxed. He jerked his leg back and scrambled to his feet, but he got only one step before a tendril looped around his waist and pulled him back again.

This time it didn't stop short, and he yowled as he thought he was going back in, but he ended up seated on top of it. It conformed to his rear and left his tail room to curl around to the front of him.

His heart pounded so hard it hurt.

Down the tunnel, there was a chorus of, "What was that?"

Oh rotten crabs, adventurers are still here.

"Let me go, you stupid thing; they'll kill us both," he hissed at it, arms pinwheeling in the air.

When echoes came of the adventurers heading back toward them, there was a loud, squelchy slurping sound, and he slid rear first back into the slime.

He kicked, and he flailed, but it did him no good as he was loosely folded in half, back inside the slippery sauna.





What a silly creature. He's going to get us stabbed for sure, she thought as she muffled him and blended back in.

She was quite still, holding him pretty tightly so he wouldn't distract her so much. There were two of them now. They looked around much more closely, but even though she met their eyes once or twice, they did not see her. They ended up moving back toward their camp, debating whether it was a trap and whether kobolds had infested the water bridge. A few moments later, they passed again, arguing with one another.

Is he called a kobold then? She let him ooze back out of her, but this time, she kept a tendril wrapped around his nose, since he seemed to have to open his mouth to complain. She shook it back and forth, up and down, trying to convey to him to behave himself this time.





I am back out already? he thought as he sat on the floor. The tendril around his mouth was fairly obvious in its intent, even as it moved his head around to make its intent clear. It might not be able to speak, but it was plain that it was sentient and trying to reason with him. Recognition of that fact helped him feel much better.

"I'll be quiet," he agreed when the purple tendril released him.

He looked himself over. He was... shiny.

Not just wet-shiny, but shiny, like his scales had been deep cleaned and polished.

And also completely, embarrassingly naked. Embarrassment and anxiety swallowed up any sense of wonder he might have had. "You ate my clothes," he hissed at it.

It wobbled side to side but didn't seem to have a comment that he could understand.

He heaved a huge sigh. At least it hadn't hurt anything but his clothes. He should probably focus on how lucky he was that it didn't seem to want to harm him.

It helped him calm down a lot, which meant that his stomach growled. He put a hand over his eye and dragged it down his cheek with a soft groan. "I am so hungry, and now I don't have food or clothes or money." The reality of it started to sink in. "Trading is going to be impossible." A thrill of panic went through him. "Where's my sword?!"

The slime undulated and put the sword in his lap with a wet little plop.

He breathed out easier. "Well, at least you didn't eat that. That would have been a disaster." He didn't even want to consider the humiliation he would return to if something like that had happened.

He was just starting to try to sort out what he should do next when he was suddenly grabbed and pulled back into the slime with a squawk, his sword clutched tightly to his chest.

This time, he could still see through it even after he was submerged; a tendril shot out to one side, and he, in her body, slid across the floor out of the way of that blonde elven man who took a downward swipe at them both.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was wondering if all these rapid hot and cold changes were going to make him catch a cough or something. He recognized it was a ridiculous worry as the slime evaded the adventurer with him still inside it.

The man pivoted, and Wayra humphed as the slime forced him to flatten with it, and then it whipped out a tendril at the man's legs, toppling him.

Things grew truly disorienting for Wayra as the slime scuttled away, rolling around him. Mostly Wayra stayed still in the center of it, but a few times he turned completely over. He was quite lost by the time it stopped somewhere much deeper into the cave, turning him about while inside itself to squeeze down through a crevice to a sandy spot beneath the rocks.

When it squelched back off him, he lay on his back. It was a small space, cave-like in itself, and it smelled briny. At a higher tide, this little hole in the floor would probably be filled with water.

"Whugh!" he said as something heavy dropped onto his stomach. He looked down as tendrils opened a coin pouch. "What? Where did you get that?"

Of course, there was no answer, as a purple tendril dipped into it and pulled out a gold coin.

In mere heartbeats, it disappeared inside the slime, and he saw it bubbling away. "Don't eat that!" he said, sitting up, but it was much too late. It was the smallest of the coins, and gone pretty quickly.

"Ughhhh! You are a menace!"

He sighed, and he yanked the pouch away from the creature that wobbled and burbled almost like it was laughing.

It was the only gold coin. This stupid pouch was full of coppers.

But.

Full of coppers was more than enough to get food and clothes. As long as he could get someone to sell to a naked kobold.