The four adventurers and Marrow half crawled, half shimmied down the narrow tunnel for what seemed like an eternity, but effectively was perhaps twenty yards. By the time they came out, Borgar was hyperventilating and drenched in sweat.

“Calm down, Borgar,” Ikarius said dryly. “We are out of the tunnel.”

“Thank Ishadra, I thought that the tunnel was going to collapse any moment.”

Gamul thought about responding but instead just grinned.

“Guys, this… is this somehow different?” Catlyn whispered.

“I think you are right,” Ikarius slowly said, while scanning the surrounding. “For one, there is light here, torches of all things. Are they magical? Or did someone just light these?”

“And look, the walls are made out of a different kind of stone. Not sure what it is, but it is a lot darker, and somehow feels more massive,” Catlyn added.

“It feels… dangerous here, don’t you think?” Borgar asked hesitantly.

“That is a given,” Gamul muttered.

Borgar glared at Gamul.

“What do you mean?”

“Just acknowledging your feelings,” Gamul smirked.

“This is not the moment to bicker,” Ikarius admonished. “It seems like we are now in a different part of the dungeon, and it feels a lot older, which would mean that it probably even predates the Sundering.”

“No one ever mentioned something that old being down here,” Catlyn said with some skepticism in her voice.

“That is true,” Ikarius admitted. “But the mage-school dungeon was not particularly well known either. We only learned about it when we overheard those yellow ranked adventurers in the guild talk about it, and then we had to dig through all those archives to find the location… so there is no reason to believe that anyone would know about another dungeon even deeper down. After a-.”

“So what? That is good news, no?” Gamul interrupted before Ikarius could start one of his lectures, as he was prone to do.

“Well, maybe. Certainly, the likelihood of finding valuable treasure down here is significantly higher. But a higher reward comes with a higher risk, as you are all aware. There might be some monsters down here that will be able to obliterate us without any effort.”

“So maybe then we should go back up?” Borgar proposed immediately. “After all, there is no point of having treasure, if we are dead.”

He shot a glance at Marrow.

“Uhm, like really dead, not skeleton dead.”

“Borgar, there is a Shadow-Prowler waiting for us. He might not be in front of the door, but he will be somewhere, ready for us to come out. Shadow-Prowlers are tenacious and will never give up on prey,” Ikarius sighed. “I am afraid that our best chance is indeed to go through this dungeon and try to find a different exit. After all, a rat hole is unlikely to be the official entrance to the dungeon, at least one that is intentionally constructed, as this one seems to be, rather than just a cave system.”

Marrow, meanwhile, looked around curiously. It seemed very different from what he had seen before. In particular, the light fascinated him, how it flickered and jumped around and changed color from red to orange and even some blue. Curious, he moved closer, staring intently at the flames. He was even blending out all the talking by the rest of the party, something that had never happened before.

Was the flickering light solid? No, that could not be. He could see through it after all, and it changed shape too quickly… unless it was a shapechanger. Not that Marrow had ever heard of such an ability or creature, but it was something that he, at least, could imagine, conceptually.

And then, tentatively, he reached out with his hands to touch the flames. As his hands got closer, he could feel something, but he was not sure what it was. At first, he felt rather indifferent toward that feeling, but then it started becoming slightly... irritating. When his finger bones were in the flames, he watched with fascination how they began to smoke, and he could feel a bit of a buzzing inside of his head that expressed danger.

So he pulled out his hand and noticed with some fascination that there was now a flame dancing on one of his fingers. Marrow stared at it, with a mix of curiosity and outrage. Was he attacked? Was that some sort of fire-being that tried to eat him?

He shook his hand rapidly, and the flame quickly extinguished, leaving behind a trail of smoke rising out of his blackened bone. And that did make Marrow somewhat furious. His beautiful, white-pale bones marred by black soot. He made a fist and punched the flame. And when that did not do much, he lowered his head and used [Devastating Bite].

To his dismay, neither attack did anything, and the flames kept on dancing merrily. On top of that, there was a trickle of smoke coming from his jaws, slowly drifting past his eyes. And Marrow could only imagine how it might look.

“Uhm, guys. Watch Marrow!” Catlyn whispered to the others. “He is… is he fighting the torch?”

“The more I watch Marrow, the dumber I think he is,” Gamul muttered into his beard. “Which, in its own way, is quite comforting.”

“I think it is adorable,” Catlyn said defensively. “I think he just does not know anything. He is like a newborn!”

“Don’t tell me that you want to adopt and raise him,” Borgar groaned. “You remember what happened with the Spike Boar piglets?”

Catlyn’s face took on a slightly reddish tinge, visible even through her fur.

“It is not at all like that!”

“Oh, pray tell! At least, with the Spike Boar, we got a good nice roast out of it,” Borgar continued.

“Fine, I admit the Spike Boar piglets did not work out the way I had imagined. But who knew that they had such painful skin?”

“Well, duh, does the word ‘spike’ mean anything to you?” Borgar mumbled under his breath.

Oblivious to Borgar’s mumbling, Catlyn continued excitedly.

“I think that Marrow can be a great asset to us. I mean, he clearly is friendly enough, we just have to teach him some stuff. And, no offense, he has been our best fighter so far.”

Without waiting for a response, Catlyn moved over to Marrow, who was standing stock still, staring at the smoke curling up from his jaw and one of his finger bones.

Without waiting for Marrow to move or acknowledge her presence, she grabbed his hand and used a tiny bit of water from her flask to stop the finger from smoking. Marrow stared at the finger, turned it left and right, and then looked at Catlyn.

Catlyn did not wait but used a few drops of water to carefully stop the smoke coming from his jaw as well and then turned toward the flame.

Slowly, like talking to an imbecile, or perhaps more apt, to a baby, she explained to Marrow what a flame was and what it did. She demonstrated how it would start burning stuff that was put into a fire, how one could light up dark corners, and how air movements would make the flames flicker faster.

Marrow did not understand half of it or even a third, but he did understand some. More than a baby would, for sure. And he learned a few new words, just listening to Catlyn, while she was demonstrating things about flames.

Marrow felt his horizon expand. Just a tiny bit. But when there is so little understanding of the world, a tiny bit can feel monumental. And Marrow wanted more.

So instead of just saying ‘yes’ as he used to do, he tried to repeat some of the words that Catlyn was using, which caused Catlyn to shoot a triumphant look at the other three adventurers and smile delightedly.

Despite being busy learning new words and concepts – Catlyn had moved on to body parts, weapons, and a variety of other things – Marrow noticed that something was approaching. It made a wet, slurping noise that sounded different from anything Marrow had ever heard.

But since none of the others seemed to react in any way to the sound, Marrow decided to just wait and see what would happen.

And shortly later, the creature that had created that noise appeared in the flickering light - it was an amorphous, light-blue gelatinous blob, with a diameter of about Borgar’s size. And, although, it made enough noise to have come to Marrow’s attention from at least twenty yards away, the adventurers failed to notice it even now as it was approaching their group from behind.

Until Catlyn noticed Marrow staring elsewhere and followed his eyes.

“Borgar,” she screamed in panic. “Watch out! Behind you!”

Borgar whirled around, raising his arms to protect himself from whatever had alarmed Catlyn. Alas, arms are of little use against a slimy gelatinous blob.

While Borgar spun around, a part of the mass of the slime expanded from its body and shot forward, hitting Borgar in the chest. Borgar tried to slam down his arms on the massive pillar of slime, but that was precisely the wrong move. Perhaps a sword might have cut through the slime, but his arms just got stuck. Borgar pressed his legs into the ground, trying to get away from the slime, but to no avail.

Gamul, in the meantime, used his Warhammer to slam down into the slime, only to see in horror that his trusted weapon sank into the gelatinous mass and got stuck. He heaved with both arms straining against the suction, but it was a lost cause - the hammer was gone.

While Catlyn started wildly gesticulating in the air, Ikarius jumped back and forth, stabbing at the slime with his dagger and short sword with little to no impact.

And Marrow… Marrow just watched curiously. Was this slime something that needed to be fought? Apparently so, as the others were all running around the slime, trying to hit or stab it. He was not entirely clear on why Borgar had waited until the slime had touched him. Was that supposed to be a trap? Use himself as a lure? And even less clear to Marrow… what was he supposed to do?

Eventually, Marrow decided that he wanted to try his rusty sword. Instinctively, he knew that it was a weapon and that one would swing it to cut things into pieces. So he stepped around Catlyn, who, in the meantime, had managed to shoot a few ineffective, slightly glowing objects into the blob and approached the slime, sword raised over his head.

And then, without any notable technique or even force, he cut down with his sword. The result of that cut was… underwhelming. It easily cut a huge gash into the slime, but the moment the blade had passed, the gelatinous mass moved around and sealed the cut within a second.

But Marrow was not one to be discouraged. He kept on slashing more and more rapidly until he was a whirlwind of cutting blades.

Catlyn and Ikarius stared at the grisly spectacle. Bit and pieces of slime were flying around, and Marrow was already drenched in the gooey mess. Perhaps the slime realized that Marrow was a bigger threat than Borgar, or maybe the reduction in mass on one side made it naturally roll its sticky amorphous mass around – either way the sudden swap in direction caught Marrow by surprise and he was quickly fully enveloped by the gooey mass.

“Oh no, it got Marrow inside,” Catlyn moaned. “What do we do?”

“I am not sure,” Ikarius answered, breathing heavily. “None of our weapons are effective.”

“I hate slimes,” Borgar whimpered, trying to brush off the remainder of the slimy substance from his chest and arms.

Catlyn turned to Gamul. “Do you have any magic that might help?”

“Sorry, lass, I only have healing spells, blessing, and turn undead. If I get the chance to rest a bit, I might be able to learn a 2nd level spell now that we leveled up, but that will be obviously too late for Marrow.”

All four of them looked at the unmoving Marrow, trapped in the middle of the slime, some with trepidation and sorrow, others, namely Borgar, with quiet relief. But, contrary to what they believed, Marrow was not immobilized. He had just stopped moving when he got encased in the oddly gelatinous creature because it was a new experience. It felt quite different from anything he had experienced before –almost like floating, not that he had any experience with that either.

But then Catlyn noticed Marrow moving his head. “Ikarius, how do slimes kill again?”

“Ehm, I believe they dissolve their victims with acid,” Ikarius responded somewhat hesitantly.

“That is not necessarily true,” Borgar corrected Ikarius.

“And what would you know about slimes,” Gamul snorted. “Bonehead!”

“Hey, I have forgotten more things than you have ever known,” Borgar shot back. “I just happen to know a thing or two about slimes. How they kill depends on the color of the slime. What Ikarius was talking about is a green slime. This one here is a blue slime, which fills the lungs of the victim with their blue goop and causes them to suffocate. There are also black slimes that kill through life drain, yellow slimes use elec-”

“So… if it fills the victim’s lungs with slime… does that do anything to Marrow?” Catlyn interrupted. “Because, look, he is moving!”

And indeed, Marrow started moving not only his head but also his arms and legs. Not that it did all that much good, because he was basically floating in a bubble. When he realized that his flailing, even with the rusty sword, did not change anything, apart from making the slime wobble around, he tried other things, such as [Devastating Bite], [Forceful Punch], being obstinate, and even saying all the words that he had learned. Alas, none of those things had any impact.

Meanwhile, the valiant heroes were standing at a safe distance around the now motionless slime and debated what to do.

“I think we should move on,” Borgar said. “We cannot save Marrow without great risk to ourselves!”

“Guess who got saved by Marrow attacking the slime?” Catlyn hissed at him.

“Now, now,” Gamul calmly said. “No one is talking about abandoning Marrow, right Borgar? You probably meant to find something that would allow us to get my hammer and Marrow out of that slime.”

“Ah, so that is what it is about for you,” Borgar grumbled. “Your idiotic hammer.”

“Back to the question,” Ikarius intervened. “What actually kills a blue slime? Any insights, oh wise Borgar?”

“Well, I am a bit hazy on that one… but I think you can burn them if you have a large enough fire.”

“Well, that is mighty useful,” Gamul groused. “How about we grab the slime with our hands, just as Borgar demonstrated earlier, and toss it in the bonfire we conveniently have burning nice and hot right next to us?”

“Hey, is it my fault that you lost your hammer in a slime?” Borgar protested. “Who hits a slime with a hammer?”

“People that are not stupid enough to hit the slime with their hands, apparently,” Gamul retorted. “At lea-.”

Gamul was interrupted by a swarm of shrieking creatures that rushed down the corridor toward the four adventurers.

“By Gallamutra’s eyes, what are those?”

“Kobolds,” Borgar screamed. “Follow me!”

With a roar, Borgar started running toward the horde of short, red-brown creatures, each of which had short snouts and tiny little horns on their head, that made them look somewhat demonic or draconic. The kobolds had a random assortment of rusty, chipped weapon and leather armor that certainly had seen better days.

For a moment, everyone was surprised, the kobolds because instead of running away from their ferocious screaming, the giant human was running at them, and the remaining adventurers, because… well, it was Borgar that was running at the enemy.

“Figures,” Gamul muttered, while desperately trying to figure out what to use as a weapon. “For once, he rushes into danger, and no one else is ready for it.”

With a flourish, Ikarius drew his dagger and short sword and, hugging the wall, made his way to where Borgar was cutting a swath through the smallish creatures with his massive claymore.

Catlyn, meanwhile, was torn between trying to figure out how to save Marrow and dealing with the new threat. Indecisively, she looked back and forth until she finally turned to the kobolds and started her usual incantation for magic missiles, the only useful spell she had, as it seemed at times.

Despite the carnage caused by Borgar’s attacks, he did not get out of the struggle unscathed. More than one rusty sword, dagger, or spear tip cut into his flesh and left him bleeding from a multitude of shallow wounds. And slowly, but surely, those wounds took their toll. Even though Borgar had already killed six kobolds, there still were at least three times the number cursing, hissing, and climbing over each other for a chance to stick something sharp into the offending human. And Borgar visibly started to slow down.

If not for Ikarius, Borgar might have gotten overrun right then and there. But whenever one of the kobolds threatened to attack Borgar from the side or behind, Ikarius darted forward and delivered a surgical stab with one or even both of his weapons. And while he lacked the brute strength of Borgar, he more than made up for that with his pinpoint accuracy.

But even Ikarius could not be everywhere, and slowly, Borgar started to fall back. In between, Catlyn’s missiles provided a brief moment of reprieve for the others.

Gamul finally realized that without weapons, he was not going to be nearly as useful as Borgar and Ikarius in fighting so he would better serve the group by providing whatever healing he could. Singing incantations to Gallamutra in his deep bass voice, he stepped closer to Borgar. Once he was within a couple of yards, a warm glowing light spread out from his hands, and where it touched Borgar his wounds started closing.

Seconds stretched into minutes, and the adventurers developed a steady rhythm of hacking, stabbing, and retreating, only interrupted by the intermittent flashes of magic.

Once they were next to the slime, the situation somewhat improved, because the kobolds were quite leery of stepping close to the giant blob of gelatinous mass. Rightfully so, as demonstrated by Borgar, who managed to shove one of the creatures right into the slime; despite struggling with all its might, the kobold was swiftly surrounded by a solid layer of slime and soon stopped moving.

The presence of the slime thus offered a strategic chokepoint that made it significantly easier for the group to hold its position and whittle down the horde of monsters.

And despite not being the smartest creatures out there, the kobolds eventually realized that after losing half their number they were still not getting anywhere. So when another kobold was decapitated by a swing of Borgar’s claymore, the kobolds turned around as one and ran away as fast as their legs could carry them.

--------------------------------------------

“Uff da! For a bit I thought it was going to be tight,” Gamul sighed in relief while wiping the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his, by now, ragged tunic.

“So what about Marrow?” Caltyn asked after a moment. “Any idea on how to get him out? The slime is just sitting there with him and not doing anything.”

“Yeah, look at that kobold that the slime took. You see how parts of it are becoming kind of blurry? I think the kobold is being assimilated into the mass of the slime,” Ikarius stated matter of fact. “But that is not happening with Marrow. I guess because he is not entirely dead…”

“Could we perhaps distract the slime to release Marrow?” Catlyn wondered.

“And how would you do that?” Ikarius asked, and then smirked. “Sing a song? Or do some parlor tricks?”

“No, I was thinking more about…” Catlyn’s eyes wandered over the pile of dead kobolds. “All these corpses.”

“Lass, that might be either the stupidest idea or the best thought you have had during the last few days,” Gamul declared. “It might just cause the slime to spit out my damn hammer.”

Immediately, Gamul grabbed the next corpse and heaved it into the slime. And then another one, and another one. Soon, Catlyn and Ikarius helped toss dead bodies into the wobbly mass, and it quickly grew to a truly humungous size. At the same time, the layer of slime covering the bodies become substantially thinner, because there was only so much gelatinous mass going around.

Marrow watched all of this curiously. The fighting he had understood intuitively, as this was a natural thing for skeletons. But the subsequent decision to throw the dead bodies into the slime left him a bit befuddled. Perhaps, the most striking thing was that none of them even attempted to crack the skull of one of the kobolds. Wasn’t this a colossal waste?

By then, Marrow really had enough of the slime prison he had found himself in and started wiggling around all of his extremities to somehow find some traction. And that traction came in the form of a dead body that ended up touching his legs. When he kicked with his right leg, the kobold gave him a platform to push off from, which allowed him to temporarily stretch the goop around him thin and create little empty pockets. And that, in turn, allowed him to start moving around the sword with some kind of momentum and cut through the mass around him.

None of those things by themselves would have been enough to save Marrow from the clutches of the slime, but all of the factors taken together, created enough tension and disruption that Marrow broke free with his head and arm. He furiously started slashing down with his rusty sword, and the slime seemed to instinctively realize that there was nothing to be gained from trying to keep Marrow where he was, especially because there was plenty of food to be assimilated. With a ‘plop’ Marrow was released and fell, with a clatter of bones, from about head height to the stone floor.

“Marrow!” Caltyn shouted and rushed toward him, ready to throw her arms around his bony body. But in the last second, she realized that he was all covered by the sticky body fluid of the slime and stopped awkwardly in front of him.

“Ehm, I am so glad you got out of there!”

“Yes,” Marrow responded in his typical bony, monotonous voice, and showed no emotion whatsoever. Not that he ever had shown feelings previously.

“So,…, great then!” Catlyn continued lamely. She turned around to the others. “Isn’t it great, guys? It worked! Not the way I thought it would, but hey, whatever it takes, right?”

Gamul stared at the slime with a forlorn expression, while Borgar frowned at Marrow with his usual mix of apprehension and suspicion. And Ikarius… he busied himself picking up loot drops from the defeated kobolds – nothing fancy, but at least a few coins, a dagger, and even a health potion.

“Right?” Catlyn said again.

“What about my hammer?” Gamul whined. “The slime was supposed to spit it out!”