Ambush

It always pays to be careful when dungeoneering, you never know when some monster will get the drop on you.

* * *

Sword held at the ready, you edged closer to the chest, expecting it, at any second, to burst open, revealing gnashing teeth and a terrible tongue. But it didn’t. It remained, wooden, and unmoving. You looked around, left, and right, before taking one step closer.

Your leant your sword against the wall of the alcove, not quite believing your luck. And then something heavy hit you in the back. Knocking you to the dungeon floor. A sticky liquid seeped over your prone body. Wait, not just any liquid. Slime. Shit.

You struggled, but the slime continued to engulf you, slowly, inexorably, but irresistibly. As it reached your face, you took one last deep breath, before it surrounded your head. And then you heard it. The voice. “Oh, hi cutie. Were you distracted by the treasure?”

You were taken aback, you had heard of intelligent slimes, but, to actually meet one? This was dangerous. You had heard stories of sadistic slimes taking their time, torturing their victims by dissolving their prey, slowly. But you didn’t feel any burning. What was going on?

The slime made an odd noise in your ear – was – was it giggling at you? “Awh, no answer? That’s fair. I don’t think about too much either. It’s real nice to not think, isn’t it? Would you like to not think together? I think that’d be really cute.”

You tried to shake your head, to struggle, but you were held fast by the slime, their gelatinous body keeping you pinned to the ground. You noticed that you were starting to need a breath, but you weren’t sure what would happen if you breathed in the slime – or if you could.

You desperately struggled, and felt something, smooth, round. The hilt of your sword, which had fallen to the ground when the slime landed on you. You grabbed it, and with an extraordinary amount of effort cleaved through the slime, freeing yourself.

You took a huge breath, still holding your sword. And then you heard the laughter. Two sets of laughter. “Oh, you want to play with two of us?”

“Well that’s okay adventurer, we love to be accommodating.” Humanoid bodies were forming out of the lumps of slime.

The way the soft light of the torches caught them made you stop, for just a moment. To watch. The way their gelatinous bodies jiggled, softly. The smooth, undulating movements they made as they came closer. Wait. Closer. You stood, backing away, and felt your leg touch something.

You stopped yourself from tripping, but found that you couldn’t pull your leg away from whatever it was. You looked down. The chest. Your trouser leg was stuck to it. You heard a click, and the chest opened, spilling out a cloud of fog, which you couldn’t help but breathe in.

It smelled so sweet. So good. You could feel your mind melting as you took another breath in, but that didn’t seem to matter. A new voice echoed through the chamber. “Oh, what tasty morsels have we got here? An adventurer? Two slimes? Oooh, yes. You’re going to do nicely…”