It took two days to get to the nearest town, or at least the nearest town they could find. The woods were so thick in some areas that they would have to periodically climb a tree to make sure they were still traveling in the same direction. Thankfully the mountains in the distance made a convenient landmark to not only determine direction but to some extent gauge how far they had gone.

Perhaps town was too generous a description for the group of a dozen houses surrounded by a high fence. The gate was guarded by an old man who was sitting in a chair outside the gate with a short spear across his knees.

Al pulled the hood of his robe up far enough to cover his face before walking out of the woods toward the gate. He had barely made it half way when the old man jumped up and started screaming about a raid. Al was going to claim that he was cursed but the old man had reacted before he could even call out to the man. Al was going to continue forward and explain but the old man’s screams had brought out the rest of the town’s folk.

They were all armed even if most of them only had a hoe or pitchfork. The group came out screaming and running toward the gate. Al froze for just a second confused as to how things had devolved so quickly before he came to and bolted for the woods as fast as he could. The people stood at the edge of the woods and yelled while shaking their weapons.

“What the heck was that?” Mary-Ann asked as she used a pseudopod to look back through the trees at the town. She had expected that they might have a bit of trouble getting the people to believe that Al was suffering under a curse but instead of a heated argument the town’s people had attacked as soon as they saw Al.

“They angry.” Al stated as he kept running. He didn’t stop till he could no longer hear them, and given how sensitive a goblin’s hearing was that was quite far.

“I wonder what set them off.” Mary-Ann stated as she extended her pseudopod to look Al over. If she could have she would face palmed. Al’s face was fairly well hidden in the recesses of his cloak but both his hands and feet were on full display. Not only were they green but they also had sharp claws instead of fingernails. In retrospect she wasn’t surprised that they attacked when they saw him, after all it was such a small village that they likely never saw a goblin slave; only the wild ones and while they were not overly intelligent they were devious enough to attempt to were clothes to gain access to a town. It is likely the town’s folk were waiting for the goblins to attack in force, and when they didn’t they would probably think it was only a small war band who didn’t dare attack a village that was aware of their existence.

Mary-Ann considered the problem. “It looks like we will have to get you boots and gloves as well, otherwise we will likely have the same problem in nearly every town we come across.”

“Boots itch.” Al complained like a petulant child.

“You’ll get used to them.” She tried to sound consolatory but she couldn’t quite pull it off. “I think we should wait till tonight and see if we can sneak in and umm… borrow what we need.” Al scratched his head at her choice of words but wisely chose not to comment on it. Well, that or it confused him so much he actually forgot about it a few seconds later, one or the other.

It was just past noon when they had attempted to enter the village so they decided to make camp until nightfall. They ate and discussed what they needed as they waited for night to come. Even though most villagers fall asleep as soon as the sun sets, she still wanted to wait till later in the night to insure they were sound asleep. They would probably set a watch at night but given the size of the village it would likely be no more than one person and if they waited long enough they could probably slip by while they were napping or distracted. Unfortunately this was going to be the first night of the full moon and they would be easy to spot.

Mary-Ann was trying to teach Al a new spell that would silence his footsteps and breathing when night fell. As the moon rose she started mumbling and moving about randomly until she seemed to collapse in on herself.

“Mary-Ann?” Al asked concerned as he poked her with a stick. She had been right in the middle of teaching him the new spell when she had gone loopy and passed out. “You ok?” She didn’t respond and Al was about to try picking her up when she started undulating with waves forming within her and rippling outward from her core. Al stumbled back as she rapidly swelled, doubling in size in just a few seconds. As she continued to grow she elongated and started to turn more opaque while she turned more pink than any other color.

Al watched with his back against a nearby tree as Mary-Ann shifted and twisted on the ground screaming mentally the entire time until the sound of the scream burst out of her body. She continued to scream as she flopped about until her voice went hoarse and the screams became mostly silent.

The transformation didn’t take long, maybe a quarter hour at most, but it felt like so much longer to everyone, especially Mary-Ann who stopped screaming and started to hoarsely ask them to kill her. In the end she turned from a small jelly into a gangly teen girl. Her skin wasn’t the same as it had been; instead it had pearlescent sheen that any woman that saw it would trade anything they owned for. It changed her teenaged ganglyness into a kind of budding beauty. She was naked laying in the moonlight when she suddenly sat up.

“What the heck?” She asked as she tried to move and immediately rolled over onto her face. She started to push herself back up when she stopped and stared at her arms. Her mouth gaped open as she tried to come to grips with suddenly returning to her original form.

“Mary-Ann?” Al asked as he slowly edged closer. “You ok? You human again.” He seemed as stunned as Mary-Ann herself was.

“You really are a human.” The prince’s voice cut in. “I wasn’t entirely convinced it was true until now.”

“Al… I turned back… I turned back Al! Isn’t this wonderful?” In her excitement she stumbled up only to fall back down and cut her knee on a rock but instead of crying out she just started to rock back and forth holding her knee while crying and laughing.

“Oh no!” Al exclaimed. “She broken!” For some reason she just laughed harder.

It took her several minutes to calm back down but she was still chuckling when she finally stood up unsteadily. “It’s so odd, for the last couple of weeks I was always feeling my limbs and trying to move them only to be frustrated by the limitations of my gelatinous form but now that I have them back they feel almost foreign… like I’m still a slime and I’m just dreaming that I have changed back.”

“Jelly.” The prince said automatically which seemed to bring Mary-Ann back to the present.

“Hopefully I’ll never have to make that distinction again.” There was some vehemence in her voice but held back from saying anything more, just looking down at her perfectly normal hands.

“What we do now?” Al asked as he scratched his head in contemplation, that or he was trying to get his fleas to stop itching.

Mary-Ann actually looked up from her hands at his question and squinted as she considered the problem. “I hope this is permanent but we may have to wait to find out.” She thought aloud, as she hopped and prayed that it was. “Additionally I’m not sure if there are any other side effects we will have to be careful of.” Looking back down at herself she blushed and said, “And we will definitely have to get me something to wear.”

Al ran over to his pack and pulled out another stained robe to present to her but she pinched her nose and backed away. It smelled even worse than the one he was wearing.

“I can’t take your spare robe.” She continued to back up as she tried to figure out what was causing one corner of the robe to twitch randomly. She almost feared that it would come to life and force itself upon her. She shuddered at the thought as she prepared a force spell to throw it away if it attacked. She stopped and looked down in amazement as the spell formed in her hand. She could cast magic again! She was so surprised she nearly lost containment of the spell and caused a backlash.

Looking at the spell she noticed that she could still see the mana flows nearly as well as she could as a slime [‘Jelly, whatever’ she thought to herself] and the thought of turning back broke her out of her euphoria.

Floppy hopped out of the woods where he had gone to eat and take care of other business only to step on his own ear and flop on his face when he spotted Mary-Ann as a human. Al and Mary-Ann could both feel the surprise and indignation coming off the tiny bunny as it struggled to untangle himself, which distracted Mary-Ann again.

“Is that why you called him floppy?” She asked as she watched him flopping on the ground.

“No.” Al replied. “When he shake head, him ears go ‘flop flop flop’.” He clarified as he shook his own head to demonstrate only to stagger and nearly fall down as he made himself dizzy.

Mary-Ann smiled and nearly laughed before she recalled the situation and turned serious. “I don’t think this will change too much in the short term.” She said as she considered the situation.

“But it means him name fits even better.” Al said with a serious look on his face.

“What…” Mary-Ann began before realizing that the goblin was still stuck on the subject of Floppy’s name. “I’m not talking about that. I mean we still have to get away from Phyron.” She stated to bring the conversation back on track. “Just because I’m human again doesn’t mean that he will suddenly decide to help us.”

“That is most likely true.” The prince put in and Mary-Ann started nodding before she realized she could still hear him.

“I can still hear you!” she exclaimed. “Actually…” she suddenly had a bad feeling, “that might not be such a good thing.”

“How so?” the prince asked.

“It means there are still some lingering side effects of the transformation. To me this means that it is unstable and I am worried that something may cause me to turn back into a slime, or maybe have some other odd effects.” She stated as she looked down at herself. At first she didn’t notice anything then the lack of sensation caused her to start. She had cut and bruised her knee when she fell but she no longer felt any pain. Her hands trembled with trepidation as she reached down and brushed the blood and dirt off her knee.

Nothing. No cut, no pain, just unblemished skin. “It healed?” she asked herself.

“Voice too.” Al put in.

“My voice?” She asked as she touched her neck while remembering screaming herself hoarse. Her throat wasn’t even sore. “I’m not sure if this is good or bad.” She remarked as she considered the ramifications. One the one hand she seemed to have gained some form of rapid healing, or maybe even regeneration, though she wasn’t stupid enough to cut something off just to see if it would regrow. Only idiots in crazy stories did things like that.

The healing itself could be considered a blessing but with her skin and vision being so different from before it was disconcerting. It meant that even in the few minutes she had returned to her true form she had found so many differences, which begged the question: what else had changed?

This had been a night of extremes for Mary-Ann, her emotions and thoughts rampaging in all directions but she forced herself to be calm and to think rationally. She had to ask herself a series of questions to figure out what was going on and where to go from here:

Was she back to normal? – No, there were enough differences already to alarm her.

Was she safe from Phyron? – Probably not. Theoretically she should still be his apprentice but she had been reported as having died and he had no reason to change that, especially after the way he treated her as a slime.

Would she change again? – She had no idea but she hoped not.

What should she do now? – And that was the thousand gold question. Considering it she was still worried about the after effects of the spell but she could see that they would have more options with her being back to normal. They could actually go to a human wizard as long as they were careful.

“You still teach magic?” Al asked with a bit of hesitation in his voice. Mary-Ann just looked at him as she considered his question. As an experiment she reached out for his magic to see if she could still influence it. She could feel it, and with considerable effort she could probably affect it but no were near as well as she could have as a slime. Additionally, Al was a goblin and there had never been a goblin mage. She wasn’t entirely sure there ever should be. Then again, when she was at her lowest he was there for her. He risked his life to break her out of the lab and help her escape.

“Yes.” She decided. “I’ll still teach you magic. However we will have to go slow because I can’t help you control your magic like before. In truth we were being reckless but we had little choice at the time as you were the only one who could cast spells. With the return of my magic we don’t need to run the risk of your spells back firing.”

“Okay.” Al sounded relieved. “So, no need boots.” He sounded even more relieved.

“No. You still need boots.” Al’s face dropped when she said that. “In fact we don’t need less stuff, we need more.” She said as she looked down at her naked form. “I can’t go to the village dressed like this, or at least I can’t be seen in the village.” She thought out loud. “It looks like out raid on the village is still on.” She smiled as they planned how to get in and hopefully find at least some of what they would need.