Mary-Ann shivered in fear as Phyron entered the lab. Thankfully he didn’t stop by her cage to rip out another piece of the goo that made up her body, instead he went over to a table on the other side of the room to check up on some of his other experiments. The few days since he found out that she had been transformed into a slime and that Al could communicate with her had been a nightmare as Phyron would conduct an experiment on her then ask her how it affected her. She made the mistake of telling him how much it hurt when he took any of her slime so when she refused to answer he would start ripping pieces off. Still she managed to keep a few things to herself, like being able to eat wood and not just smaller freshly cut plants.

She refused to give up, she would escape and she would find a way to return to normal. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since her transformation as the room was sealed with no windows and only one door but it had to have been at least two weeks since the accident that changed her.

It felt strange being a slime and she could swear she still felt her body as if she were just wearing the shape but would become her old self at some point, which honestly helped her stay sane. She had once asked Phyron to move her to a bigger container in case she turned back as she wouldn’t fit in the little box he was keeping her in which caught him by surprise. He asked her a bunch of questions about her condition and if she thought she would be changing back but instead of giving her a larger container he instead cast wards over the box so that it would remain sealed if it suddenly filled up which essentially turned it into a death trap.

Phyron had actually smiled and said he set enchantments that would enlarge the box if she returned to normal. Mary-Ann had no choice but to pretend to be grateful or he would realize that she not only still had access to her mana, even if she couldn’t use it yet, but could actually see the mana flows with enough clarity to read his spell work. Having access to her mana was the only thing that really gave her hope at this time as she could possibly learn to cast spells and to break the restrictions allowing her to escape.

She watched as Al entered and, after confirming that Phyron was distracted, secretly slipped a handful of grass into her chamber. Lately Phyron had refused to give her anything she could absorb because he felt that she was holding things back from him. She was of course, just not in the way he was thinking. He would constantly ask questions about what effects she had as a slime and she would honestly answer that she had no idea only he didn’t believe her. The strange thing was that she didn’t exactly feel like she was starving but more like she needed to eat, or absorb, as much as possible to become stronger. In fact the last two days without food didn’t even cause her any anxiety, merely made her a sleepy. It made sense as many species of slime would go dormant when there was no food only to burst back to life when they sensed food nearby.

She quickly pulled all the grass into herself where it would be hidden while she absorbed it. Hearing a loud sniff she noticed that Phyron had turned around and was sniffling and his eyes were slightly red.

“Is that grass I smell?” he asked the goblin.

“No grass master.” Al stated as he clumsily hid his hands behind his back.

Phyron squinted and said “I told you not to give her anything to eat.”

“No grass master.” Al repeated showing his hands to Phyron. He had managed to get the grass off his hands but he had done so by rubbing it into the ratty tunic he had found and started wearing.

“Fool.” Phyron stated as he stepped across the room and slapped the small creature. “That was part of an experiment.” He lied, though his anger was real. Al curled himself into a ball and prepared for a beating but before he could continue to beat him Phyron sneezed loudly. “Damn you.” He stated as he kicked him before heading out of the room. “Now I have to find my allergy potion.”

Once Phyron left the room Al uncurled and smiled. Mary-Ann found it strange because that was a strong kick to the stomach and should have left him twisting in pain. Looking over at her Al lifted his tunic to show a torn up padded shirt usually worn under armor which he had roughly sewn back together with old twine. Several of his rough stitches had popped and a little of the stuffing was starting to leak out but apparently it was good enough to blunt the impact of the kick.

She couldn’t help it, she laughed. The thought of the mighty Phyron outsmarted by a goblin was just too much for her.

“You best cover that up before he gets back.” She managed to get out before laughing again as he comically yanked down on his shirt before turning himself in a circle trying to see the back. Smart as he was, he was still a goblin after all.

He stopped spinning and was about to say something when Phyron walked back into the room and smacked him across the back of the head.

“Gheh!” Phyron half gaged as he felt something squishy on his hand. He continued to grumble as he found a rag to wipe it off. “Go get me the purple slime and put it over there.” He said while waving his freshly cleaned hand at the same table Mary-Ann was on.

“Get jelly.” Al said nodding before covering his mouth with his hands.

Phyron spun on the goblin and glared. “You…” he paused as if waiting for the goblin to confess his crimes, “haven’t been eating my slimes have you?” he finished.

Al kept his hands over his mouth while shaking his head back and forth violently.

“Just go get the slime.” Phyron continued to glare as the goblin shook his head up and down while scampering out of the room.

“Now,” he started as he turned around to look at Mary-Ann but he stopped and whipped his head back around as he heard a muffled grunt that sounded suspiciously like ‘Jelly’. “Stupid creature.” Phyron said to himself as he started back to his experiments having forgotten about Mary-Ann. “I really can’t wait to dissect him to find out why he is so different.”

This statement horrified Mary-Ann not just because he was casually discussing killing Al, who was practically her only friend at this point, but because this would also mean that he would no longer need to communicate with her. She could think of several reasons for this but none of them were good.

Worried for both of them she stated firming up her plans for escape. The greatest barrier to which was ironically the magical barrier keeping her trapped in the box. She could probably convince Al to take her box and run but she could see the spell script for a tracking spell built into it. It was also ironic that though she couldn’t cast any spells she could see the mana flows of the spell work far better than she ever could before. In fact the more she studied the mana flows around her the clearer and more vibrant they became.

She had lost herself in examining the mana flows within the barrier around her enclosure when a strange voice intruded upon her.

“Gently slave!” the voice berated Al as he nearly dropped the glass box with the purple slime in it. “If I am injured from your ineptitude I will insure that you are punished most severely when I have been rescued.”

“Are you the purple slime?” Mary-Ann was shocked at the possibility. Phyron had brought many different slimes through the lab but none had been capable of speech, or at least none would speak to her. That’s not to say they were silent because there was constant screaming and moaning when they were brought into the lab but never a coherent word.

“Slime!?” The voice was indignant. “Ah! What in the name of the Great Pudding are you!” the voice exclaimed. “You dare bare the royal purple color! I shall have you destroyed! Slave!” the voice obviously called out to Al “Destroy that, that… thing!”

Al ignored both of them as he pretended not to hear the purple slime. At first he had been excited to find another slime to talk to but he had quickly changed his mind and instead preferred to just ignore it.

“Destroy me?” Mary-Ann almost squeaked as she looked at the little purple slime first with indignation, then with anger. “Destroy me?” she said a second time only in a much more angry tone. “Maybe I should just tell the wizard that you can speak and then we will see how long you can be smug.”

“What?” the purple slime responded. “Go ahead. I’ve wanted to give that torturer a piece of my mind for a good while now.” He sounded almost smug.

“Idiot.” Mary-Ann stated but then proceeded to ignore him. “Al, we have to talk when Phyron isn’t around.” Al’s return grunt was obviously an affirmation but she wasn’t sure if it was just a grunt or if he had actually said something in goblin.

“You call this creature by name, are you a slave as well?” the snooty slime asked.

Mary-Ann didn’t bother to reply as she watched Phyron gather up some tools and head over to the table which held her and the purple slimes containers.

“Stay away you villain!” the purple slime yelled as Phyron used a spell to reach through the barrier without breaking it. He used a strange glass tool to grab onto the slime while he used a different tool to remove a section of its goo. Instead of the scream she was expecting, the slime just grunted.

“Didn’t that hurt?” She asked as Phyron put the sample aside before casting the same enchantment on her cage. She knew what was coming next and instinctively pushed herself as far away from him as possible.

“What are you doing?” the slime asked as he saw Phyron grab her with his glass tool. “Why are you letting him grab onto your heathy cells like that? Quick force all the old cells and waste into the tool!”

Mary-Ann didn’t have time to figure out what he was talking about before Phyron sliced off the piece of her he held in the tool. Her screams caused the purple slime to flinch away but luckily for him Phyron wasn’t watching.

“Why would you let him do that to you?” the slime asked after she had quit screaming.

“You think I want him to cut me up like that?” She angrily asked.

“At worst you should have just detached the area, why would you stubbornly try to retain it like that? I mean sure it hurts to detach but at least it isn’t that bad.” He actually sounded concerned.

“How?” She asked as she thought about what he said.

“How? How what? How do you detach the cells? How old are you?” He sounded like he was questioning her competence, and perhaps he was.

“Give me a break.” She huffed getting agitated at his attitude. “I was only transformed into a slime about two weeks ago.”

“You’re a jelly not a slime.” He stated before his voice suddenly became much more focused. “Wait, what do you mean when you say you were ‘transformed’?”

“Oh, I’m a human but one of his crazy spells transformed me into a slime.” She explained.

“You’re a jelly.” He said again reflexively. “What spell?”

It took a while but Mary-Ann was finally able to explain the situation to the suddenly curious slime. She was hoping that he could at least teach her a few tricks to help her escape. She wasn’t stupid enough to discuss her plans with him but if all he did was help her avoid the pain of being torn apart then it would be worth it.

“Do you know how to cast this spell?” he asked after she had finished describing the events that led to her transformation.

She shook her head, or at least wobbled her goo as she answered “Not really. I assisted with the spell work but He is the only one who truly understood it.” She bobbed her body in Phyron’s direction. “And even then it was an accident caused by a goblin banging spell crystals together.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “Though I’m pretty sure I could piece it together from his notebook.”

“Notebook?” the purple slime asked.

“He keeps a notebook with the details of all his experiments. See there it is now.” She again wobbled in Phyron’s direction. He was sitting at a table doing who knows what to her and the purple slime’s goo and every now and then he would stop to write down a note in the open book beside him. Mary-Ann was fairly sure that it was the same notebook that he had used on that day. “In fact,” she continued after remembering his actions after the accident, “Right after the accident he took out that notebook and took detailed notes on what he saw and what happened.”

She could somehow tell that the purple slime was now focusing on Phyron, or perhaps the notebook beside him.

“Do you know where he keeps the notebook when he isn’t using it?” he asked.

Mary-Ann shrugged, or at least wobbled, “I don’t know. He might just keep it on himself at all times. I know that I’ve never seen him without it.” She answered. “So…” she not so subtly changed the subject, “how do separate my slime so it doesn’t hurt so much?”

“Jelly, not slime.” He stated sounding annoyed.

“What?” she asked intelligently. She could have sworn she heard him sigh even though he didn’t have lungs.

“You have jelly not slime.” He stated. “Calling a jelly a slime is like calling a human a goblin. After all they are roughly the same shape.” He sounded even more annoyed.

“I’ve never heard of a jelly before.” She admitted. “Can you explain the difference?”

Somehow he sighed again. “Do you see how the mana flows through me?”

“Yes I see… wait, you can see mana too?” she started to answer but was struck by the realization that he could also see the flow of magic.

“What? Of course I can see the flow of magic, even simple slimes can see magic. Just how do you think we look at the world without eyes?”

“Oh, I never thought of that.” She said.

“As I was saying,” he continued in a bit of a huff, “if you look at how the magic flows through me it cycles from my core throughout the body then returns back to the core.” He explained.

“I can see that.” She cut in.

“Now when you see a slime,” he continued before she could say something inane, “you will see that the mana flows out from the core but does not cycle naturally, instead it randomly bounces around within its body until it eventually returns to the core.”

“And that’s the difference?” she asked.

“One of them.” He huffed. “but it is a very important difference.”

“Oh, why is that?”

“Have you ever seen a slime mage? Of course not, they are…” he began to rant before she cut him off excitedly.

“There are slime mages?” she asked excitedly hoping that she could find a way to use her magic.

“What? No, of course not!” He was getting angry again.

“Oh.” She almost deflated in disappointment.

“You have to be a jelly to be a mage.” He finished. It took a few seconds for his words to filter through her despondency but when she finally understood what he said she almost shouted out with joy.

“Are you a mage? Can you teach me how to use magic as a jelly?” was so excited that the words almost blended together but she was still able to recall that she should call him a jelly rather than a slime.

“No, I’m a royal jelly, why would you even think I could be a lowly mage.” He grumbled aloud. “I might know a little magic,” he confessed, “but why should I teach you?” he asked.

She was taken aback at first but then considered it from his side, what would he get for teaching her? “I am familiar with the wards the wizard has placed on our containers.” She offered after she considered the problem. “Perhaps if I could use my magic I could break the seals and get us out.” She offered.

“More like set yourself free.” He noted. “But you will need me once you are free, or do you think you could break the spell on your own?” he asked.

“What are you proposing?” She asked after she considered it for a few moments.

“I know some wizards who could help with your problem.” He stated. “But we will need that notebook to make it work.” He paused for a minute to let that sink in. “So do you think we can get the notebook and escape from here?”

“Yeah.” She said as she thought about it, he had to sleep sometime. “So I guess we are going to be working together.” She finished.

“Good. Now the first thing we need to do is get you trained up a bit.”