”Where’s Anna when you need her?” Gilbert asked and stared at the gigantic mass of tree trunks and other debris, held together by twitching and pulsating meat. “Oh right, captured…”

One would think that coming across these kinds of piles was rare, but in reality, the habit of hoarding meat was far from being limited to just insane necromancers and eldritch gods; plenty of creatures like trolls and ghouls went on killing sprees, amassing huge piles of dead animals so that they could snack on the rotting meat later. Gilbert had once been involved in a quest where a troll had slaughtered an entire town’s cattle and piled the carcasses on a nearby field, so for him this was the third time he saw something like this. What made the dam the worst one yet was the fact that it was clearly still alive – a dozen or so limbs grew from the throbbing mass, all of them flailing horribly in all directions.

“Any ideas?” Gilbert asked and grabbed one of the goblins that was trying to jump on the dam.

“Tasty meat, we eat?” A horned goblin suggested while crawling around on all fours and eating grass. “Go well with green!”

Gilbert looked at the ever-diminishing group of goblins in his use. There’s no way they’d be able to eat a significant portion of the lump, but the idea of using them wasn’t terrible. He remembered the things Anastacia’s tribe had achieved with teamwork and figured they might as well try. “I guess you could just go at it and throw the pieces you manage to rip off over here. If they’re not in the water, they should be harmless.” He said and gave his knife to the goblin nearest to him. “You’re in charge of cutting. Try not to hurt yourself with it. King and I will keep watch while you guys work.”

The goblin screamed with all its waist-high might, charged at the mass and began stabbing it ferociously. When the blade sank into it for the first time, dozens of mouths opened up in random spots around the dam and released a deafening scream of pure terror. This didn’t seem to faze the goblins that ran to the aid of their friend and began biting off chunks off the dam – causing it to scream even more. One of the arms grabbed a goblin that was biting its way into the meaty structure and threw it into the water near the town’s wall. The critter didn’t come back to the surface and probably died a horrible death underwater. All this had alerted the creatures in the water and a few of them slowly rose from the slime, as if they were only now being formed instead of simply lying in wait.

“Looks like it’s time for plan B. Too bad we didn’t make one!” Gilbert shouted and jumped on the dam, hoping he wouldn’t just sink in and become a part of it. Some of the goblins had climbed on it as well and hadn’t been absorbed, so he figured that it was worth the risk. The surface wasn’t exactly solid, but it didn’t wrap around his legs or anything, so it was better than he could have hoped for. “Just do anything that might help!” Gilbert instructed the simulacrum and began smashing whatever limbs sprouted up near the goblins to give them a chance to work in relative peace.

Usually he would have ordered a retreat as soon as the plan failed, but they probably weren’t going to get a second chance, as the distraction on the other side of the town wouldn’t go on forever. There may have been a lot of goblins there, but if the losses of the small group they had with them were anything to go by, they’d only last for a few more hours – and when they fell, the creatures in the slime would turn their full attention to Gilbert’s group.

King did his part by jumping on the dam as well and tearing pieces from it with far greater efficiency than the goblins. This probably made him the biggest threat to the structure and the first one to be targeted by the mangled forms that had risen from the slime. With whatever they had for limbs, they grabbed onto the simulacrum and began pulling him into the water. Only after seven of them had gotten a grip on him did the pieces of the dam that King was holding on to break off and he fell into the murky water on his back.

Gilbert watched it happen but was far too occupied with the dam itself to get over to help King in time. He tried peering into the water for any sign of his friend as more flesh piled on top of the simulacrum, holding him down. Just as Gilbert was about to risk getting trapped by the slime by lowering into it, a blue light began to shine from the bottom and King’s fist popped through the pile. Ripping his way through the flesh, the blood-soaked simulacrum got back up.

“Thought I lost you for a second there! Guess we found out that the slime won’t melt you at least.” Gilbert pointed out and stomped on a mouth that was biting his ankle. “If you’re not being wrapped by it either, can you keep those things away from us?”

The fleshy creatures around King had melted back into the slime and were being reformed into something else, but every time one popped up, it met a swift death in the form of King’s fist. Thanks to the horde of goblins keeping the ones on the other side of the town busy, the number of enemies they had to beat down didn’t really increase and the situation calmed down.

Possibly due to not being made of organic matter, King wasn’t targeted by the slime at all and could freely move around while keeping Gilbert and the goblins safe. “Wish we had known that back at the chapel, you could have just rushed the orb and broken it right then and there… Maybe.” Gilbert said, clearly annoyed by the detour they had taken and chose to vent it on a couple of head-like protuberances near him.

During their gruesome game of whack-a-mole, the sun had risen, properly revealing the horrors of the fleshy creatures they had been fighting for a while now. A random assortment of limbs, misplaced facial features and exposed bloody muscle and fat lined the mass Gilbert was standing on. The carnage had painted the entire pool of water bright red and given everyone involved a thick coating of blood as well.

Completely out of breath, Gilbert smashed another arm that had been reaching for the goblins and was surprised that it didn’t retreat back inside the lump or regenerate like the million limbs before it, instead it just stayed down. The same happened with the next one, and the one after that. “Hey, did we actually kill it?” He asked and turned to King, who now stood alone in the water with no one to fight. “What...” Just to make sure, he smacked a few more arms with his mace and watched them collapse.

The goblins had hacked away a decent chunk of the dam but were still less than halfway done because their efforts were far from efficient or focused. Since they were no longer under attack, Gilbert hopped off from the dam and sat down by the edge of the water to catch his breath.

“I feel like this is either Anna’s or Emilia’s doing… Either way, we can’t stop now.” He said and took off his glove. Without hesitation, he briefly touched the water with his fingertips. When nothing happened, he held his hand underwater for a while and checked if there was any damage to his skin. “Whatever someone did, it killed the slime too. Means we can get back to work. Right now we have to break the orb and save Anna. Both are about equally urgent, so I think we should split up and leave the goblins here. It’s unlikely that they’d just leave the dam unprotected like this if possible, so I don’t think this is a trap.” Gilbert explained exhaustedly.

The morning sun was quick to dry the blood on Gilbert’s clothes and armor, which means it probably wasn’t going to come off and he’d have to get new ones. For a sizeable fellow like him, it was always going to have to be made to order. However, he did find some solace in the fact that he could make Anastacia throw up on sight for a while.

“Okay, I’m assuming you’re going to want to be Anna’s knight in shining armor?” Gilbert asked and got up. “In that case, I’ll head back to the chapel to beat the crap out of some people. Maybe I’ll find some goblins along the way from the other side of the town and can throw them or something. You head over there and look for a cave. It shouldn’t be too far away. Once you find her, we’ll regroup at the chapel.”