Gilbert knocked on the tall ebony doors of the chapel. According to Yulia, the people there would know if there was anything going on in Ebonywatch that needed the party’s attention. He was fully aware that it could be a trap, but he also believed that sometimes a man had to take a couple of hits to score. Even if it was a trap, he was confident in his abilities as an escape artist. Sooner or later, the girls would also notice that he was gone and come to his aid – if he hadn’t gotten out on his own by then.

Just as he was about to knock again, the door opened slowly, and an old woman peeked at him through the gap. “Yes?” She asked.

“Hope I didn’t wake you up, madam. My name is Gilbert, my party and I are in the area for some guild business and we decided to stop by to see if the people here had seen anything weird going on.” He introduced himself and bowed slightly. “I was told to come here for details.”

“Ah, yes! We heard that there were some outsiders in town. Do come in…” The woman said and opened the door for Gilbert. “Did you come alone?”

Gilbert nodded and stepped inside. “Aye, I figured that I’d give the others a break and come here on my own.”

The inside of the chapel was as humble as Gilbert had expected: no golden decorations, artworks depicting the local deity of choice or other frivolous features many of the bigger temples usually had. Just like everywhere else in Ebonywatch, the décor consisted mostly of dark wood. Rows of black filled the nave, forming a path to the ebony altar, and a couple of wooden pillars supported the black ceiling above them. Only the large but simple stained-glass window and the dozens of candles lighting the chapel gave some well needed variation to the blackness.

Also just like everywhere else in the town, the floor was covered in ankle deep water. Gilbert had asked about it from Yulia, but only got a nonsensical explanation that sounded like something she had been asked to memorize but utterly failed to do so. What she probably tried to say was that they flood the area every few years to spread some of the nutritious mud from the river for their fields, which was a practice in some places, but there’s no way they’d flood the village too.

Aside from the old woman who had opened the door for Gilbert, there were three other people in the church: a smartly dressed man that looked like he was around Gilbert’s age, a strong looking young man that appeared to be the muscle of the group, and a hooded woman who sat in the corner of the chapel, muttering something to herself.

“Do not bother her, she’s preparing a spell to cast off… an unwanted influence in the area.” The old woman warned and slowly walked around the altar. On it was a pillow, and on the pillow a glass orb.

Gilbert was starting to get extremely suspicious of the situation. “So, do you think there’s anything we could help with?” He asked, trying to hurry the old woman along.

“Most definitely.” The woman said and grinned. She placed her hand on the orb, causing it to glow green in an eerie manner. “You’ll help us greatly by becoming a sacrifice for The Amorphous God, The Changer of Shape, The Divine Cancer!”

As the orb began to glow, Gilbert could feel the slime suddenly pressing harder around his feet and rising up the sides of his boots. Struggling to pull his feet up, he slowly backed away until moving became impossible. Trying to peel off the slime with his knife did no good either and he was starting to run out of time before it would get inside his boots. As it soaked through the fabric of his trousers, the slime caused intense pain and a burning sensation on his skin.

“Don’t struggle! Just accept His gift and serve Him with your new form!” The old woman cackled manically.

However, her joy was short lived as the doors of the chapel were suddenly kicked open. King had finally caught up with Gilbert.

“Perfect timing, laddie! Help me free so we can retreat and regroup with the girls!” Gilbert instructed the simulacrum. He had admittedly gotten a bit worried about the turn of events and definitely needed help despite his earlier confidence in his abilities.

It only took a second or two for King to assess the situation and act on it. He grabbed the loosely sword-shaped slab of metal on his back and hurled it towards the old woman at the altar, only missing Gilbert by a few centimeters. The woman barely had time to react before the sword cleaved through her shoulder and crashed through the wall behind her. The impact also pulled her away from the orb, making the green glow fade and disappear. The slime around Gilbert's feet also loosened its grip and he was freed from his predicament.

The woman’s accomplices rushed to her aid as she fell down, holding her almost severed arm in its place. “Use the artifact, He can save me!” She yelled in agony and placed her wound into the water.

Gilbert was curious about what she meant, but not enough to stick around to find out. As far as he knew, one of them only needed to get their hand on the orb and both him and King would be stuck, and now without the element of surprise. He sprinted outside with King and headed towards the tavern to get Emilia and Anastacia. However, he quickly realized that it wasn’t going to happen - the road to there was blocked by dozens of creatures emerging from the water. Covered in slime, they slowly approached the pair of adventurers, forcing Gilbert to come up with a new plan. He took a quick look around and spotted a smaller gate out of town on the other side of the square. “There!” he shouted and ran towards it as fast as he could. More and more of the creatures rose from the slime around them, but he didn’t have time to figure out what they were while running for his life.

Hindered less by the water and slime, King reached the gate first and tackled his way through it. He held it open for Gilbert and quickly slammed it shut when they were both on the other side. When more beings appeared from the water around them despite the gate being closed, they made a run for the dry land some two hundred meters away. Running in the slimy water was no easy task and by the time Gilbert got out, he was completely out of breath and had to sit down to rest. Their pursuers weren’t terribly quick on their feet and he’d have some time to catch his breath before they’d get to him.

“Okay, let’s recount what we’re up against here… Some kind of cult that wants to sacrifice us to their god and can control the slime.” He listed while rolling up his trouser leg to see what the slime had done to his feet. The spots where it had soaked trough the fabric were still stinging like they had been burned with a white-hot piece of metal – and looked exactly like that as well. His skin had almost completely melted off from a few spots around the part where the shaft of his boot ended and the area around them was badly burned. Now that he was aware of the damage done, the pain became tenfold and even after years of getting injured on the job, Gilbert needed to take a couple of deep breaths before covering them again. “Don’t touch the slime. It didn’t do anything to my boots or trousers, so it’s not just simple acid – maybe some kind of magical substance? Yulia was standing in it without boots too, so the effect has to be activated with the orb… Which means we have to destroy it.”

The creatures had followed them to the edge of the water but seemed hesitant to come out to the land. Which suited Gilbert just fine, as it gave him the opportunity to rest properly and make a plan in relative safety. Unfortunately, the sun had set a while ago and he still couldn’t get a proper look at them, but it seemed like they were simply covered in slime instead of made from it. All of them were roughly human shaped, but the number of limbs and heads differed from creature to creature. There was a lot of variation between their sizes as well: others were about as big as him, some barely a meter high and there were even some that appeared to be on all fours.

“I think there’s about seventy of them now… I don’t think fighting is an option here. We need to find a way to contact the girls and get back into the chapel to destroy the orb – any suggestions?”

As usual King stood silently and motionless, but his gaze wasn’t fixed towards the town or the creatures lurking in the water. He stared at the dark wilderness behind them, almost like he had heard something in there. Gilbert couldn’t see anything in the dark and wondered if the simulacrum was simply keeping watch, just in case. Suddenly something rustled the bush near them and King slowly approached it with his fists ready.

“No hurt!” Something screeched from the bushes.

Gilbert recognized the broken language and the croaking voice. “It’s a goblin.” He sighed and let go of his mace.

And surely enough, a goblin crawled from the bushes and greeted them with a screech. “Man of Gill-bread?”

“What? I’m Gilbert, if that’s what you’re asking. You’re not a part of Anna’s tribe, are you?” Gilbert asked. While not as friendly with the critters as the necromancer, he still knew more about them than most people and could tell from its appearance that it wasn’t related to the ones under Anastacia’s rule.

“Anna? Goblin follow the god of not wanted! God say come help man of Gill-bread, King, Ananas and Emu!” The goblin explained and climbed on to King’s shoulder.

“This ‘god’ send you to help us? Who is he and why does he want to help us?” Gilbert asked. He knew that the answers were probably too complicated for a goblin, but they were already dealing with the cult’s god and Sylvia, they didn’t need a third one to mix things up. Especially one that dealt with goblins.

“God of not wanted say a friend ask for help, so she tell all goblin come here!” The critter croaked.

Gilbert tried his best to make sense of the explanation but couldn’t come up with much. The goblin referred to the god as ‘she’ so it could be the goblin name for Sylvia, but why would she work indirectly like this? And why goblins? Suddenly he realized something far more worrying. “Wait… All goblins? How many of you are there?”

The goblin let out a loud scream that was immediately joined by hundreds of other voices in the darkness around them. “All goblin.”