Taking a moment to catch my breath, I looked up and down the hall to make certain that no more monsters were popping out of thin air to kill us. There were two monsters which I was truly worried about at the moment, and after checking Brandr’s health gauge in the party view, I told her, “Brand, be cautious and don’t let anything see you, but we need to know how close Jello-Muncher Senior and Jello-Junior are. One of them is bad enough, but we might have two of them now to deal with, and if so, we need to know it!” Brandr nodded and stepped back for a few brief moments and cloaked herself in the shadows before slinking up the hall scouting.

“Drake, come with me. Now!” Isabella was tugging on my arm and dragging me into the room behind us, so I followed. Firmly, she led me over to the two girls and shoved me in front of them. She demanded, “Tuka! Tuka!”, and Flibi lifted her arm and tapped her hand on my leg. A slightly glow of magic from her fingers and some of my wounds healed.

“That’s the goblin word which they trained into her for healing,” Isabella informed me. “I learned it early this morning from the goblins, and I’m glad I did! Tuka-tuka!” Again, that slight glow of magic and my health improved. I was watching my status this time, and it seems as if Flibi can heal about ten points of life with each use of her magic. Since I was down more than 100 points still, trying to fix me would be a strain on her magic, so I backed away from her for now.

“It’s OK, Iz.” I turned and hugged her lightly. “I’d rather let you and Brand get healed first, and then she can use what energy she has left to finish patching me up. I heal quickly naturally with my CON, and I’m out of any danger zone for the moment. At least I can move my right arm again.” It was still painful to do so, but I’ve built such a physical endurance that it’s definitely nothing I can’t endure easily enough.

“Are you certain?” Isabella didn’t sound convinced. “You’re the one who tends to be in front of the both of us the most, taking the beating usually. Let her fix you.”

“Two more times, and that’s it. I’ll be over half health at that point, and have more than either your or Brandr.” I didn’t want to drain the girl’s energy so badly that she couldn’t help the others, and Isabella nodded at my compromise. A couple of “Tuka-tuka” and quick little heals later, and then I backed away and started for the door.

“Any luck Brand?” I was getting a little worried since she hadn’t reported in yet, but her health hadn’t altered any in the party window, so that was a minor relief.

“It’s a giant fig pudding,” came her thought to me. “I think it’s dead though. The creature isn’t moving, but it does fill up the whole hallway and I can’t see through it. I’ve been watching it at the end of the hallway, and it’s not doing anything but sitting here like a giant pudding roadblock.”

Dead? What the hell could kill something like that beast? And kill it so quickly?

There was only one thing I could even imagine that could have happened, so I dashed up the hall as fast as I possibly could. As I passed the door to the teacher’s lounge, I dropped my tail-spike at the door and continued on barehanded and naked. If I was wrong with my guess, there wasn’t any reason to let the bastard beast eat the best weapon I’d found so far.

“Izzy, grab those goblins and get whatever looks promising out of the hall!” I shouted at her through the party chat, as I didn’t know how much time we might have before the Jello-Munchers rolled down the path and consumed everything. “I don’t know if those claws or that axe can be used as a weapon, but let’s assume they can be. Grab that rat’s tail and that bag of candy-cane spears Santa had, and save them for us. And if you find anything else, salvage it as well. If the system did some sort of event, there might be some really rare loot scattered in all that mess, but we may not have much time to find it before these bastards start eating it all up!”

“I’m on it,” she replied excitedly. “What are you doing?”

“Going figgy-swimmy!” I replied to her, as I rounded the corner and saw the large blockage of pudding that filled the whole hall from top to bottom and side to side. Without even slowly, I rush forward and leaped as hard as I could into the middle of the mess! It was hard to try to breathe while in the middle of the pudding, and I had to constantly push the mess out and away from my face for short shallow gasps of air as I swam deeper into the creature.

“What are you doing, my Lord?” Brandr’s gentle voice sounded confused in my mind.

“Figgy-swimming! Hasn’t everyone always wanted to go swimming in a mound of holiday fig pudding?”

“???” There weren’t any words, but the feeling of confusion was almost solid from her. I couldn’t help but laugh – and that made me almost choke on the damn pudding I was swimming around in!

“Should I?” Brandr’s thoughts paused for a moment. “Should I join you?”

Once again, I almost choked on the damn pudding as I almost laughed. “Nah. Go help Isabella. I’ll be done here in a moment and then I’ll explain.” Or maybe not, I thought. It might be more fun to simply let the girls stay confused and think I’m going crazy. Maybe I should try to drool and go ‘Blibbity blibbity booooobeeeeees’ when I get out of here…

“Affirmative,” came Brandr’s puzzled sounded response.

For a while after that, I was left alone to indulge in my eccentric fig-swim. Nearly every creature we’d met so far had some sort of loot and I had to assume that this creature had something valuable in it as well. Not all loot was easy to gather, such as the spikes on the normal rats – I’m glad the fruity ones didn’t have any today or else I never would have been able to climb on the Champion Rat’s back as I had. – but so far everything had something usable that could help us survive. I just had to find whatever this bastard had before it was too late!

The only thing that I could imagine killing Figgy-Piggy here was Jello-Muncher itself! Jello-Muncher was probably on the other side of this mess, eating and dissolving his way through the imitation, so it was a life-and-death gamble on whether I’d find whatever treasures this bastard had, before I swam into Jello and ended up munched upon by it again.

For several long moments, I swam around the insides of Figgy-Piggy and wormed my way ever deeper through the beast. It was impossible for me to tell how deep I had went into it, and I wasn’t even certain how thick the creature normally was, nor how much of it Jello may have already consumed. Each push forward I gritted my teeth and feared that burning melting sensation that said I’d shoved my arm into Jello-Muncher itself, but it never came.

Finally, my leg banged against something hard and solid in the pudding, and I tried to flip and grab whatever it was, but I lost it in my maneuvering! It took me several frantic moments of searching all around before I bumped into whatever it was again. This time I grabbed the slippery hard surface and started trying to pull and tug it back out of the mess with me.

Moving in the pudding was hard to begin with, and moving with whatever the hell it was that I’d found was doubly difficult. Clear the pudding from my face and mouth; try to grab a gasp of air before it filled back in; all while holding onto whatever and not losing it. Then try and force myself outward a few inches, then drag whatever those few inches behind me, and then struggle for another gasp of air.

It wasn’t the hell I normally experienced with rebirth, but it was a hell all by itself.

With an exhausted plop, I finally forced myself back out of the fig pudding, where I just laid exhausted on the floor. Apparently, I had pulled something that looked like a pudding-covered beach ball out from the center of the pudding. Weakly and wearily, I staggered down the hall with the hall in my arms. Pudding dripped off my body and I left figgy-footprints behind me to show my shambling path.

Exhausted, I saw the girls and the goblins gathering up pieces of fruitcake, chocolate, and candies and carrying them left and right. Some were going into the teacher’s lounge with arms full of tooth-decaying sweets, and some were carrying armloads into the other rooms around us. Everyone was in a rush to clear the hallway as quickly as possible, and I was once again amazed at how quickly Isabella had managed to take control of the little goblins.

Brandr saw me first, as Isabella was distracted ordering the goblins around, and she came rushing up the hallway to my side. “Are you OK, my Lord?”

She put out a hand to help steady me, and I pushed the oversized ball out to her instead. “Here. Take this.”

Brandr nodded, wrapped her arms around the ball, carried it down towards the lounge, and took it inside. If that was something like a giant M&M, I was going to cry. Finally, she came back out and I watched in amazement as the pudding simply melted off from her naked form. Dammit! How many points was that ‘Advantage: Cleanliness’ again? I swear, I think that’s something that I’m going to invest in some time!

Wrapping her arms around me, Brandr led me into the lounge and I was shocked to see how our cluttered up little room had somehow become even more cluttered. The seats of the second chair and both couches were full of chunks of cakes and candies, and my pudding-covered ball was dripping over the kitchen sink. There was barely a pathway to walk through all the mess in here now, but with Brandr’s support under my arm, she helped guide me to the bathroom and into the shower.

My stamina was gone, and I was too weak and exhausted from my swim through the pudding to remain standing. Slowly, I sank down to my knees and leaned back against Brandr’s soft form. She reached past me, turned on the water, and then knelt down and pulled my head between her breasts. She gently stroked my hair as the water poured down over us, and the soft gentle touch and repetitive drizzle of the shower against my skin was too much for my exhausted mind withstand.

It was only a few moments later when the weight of my eyelids was greater than the strength of my will to try and keep them open, and I was asleep, nestled gently between the warmth of Brandr’s soft breasts.