All slimes must die. I raised my sword overhead, ready to strike it down. I couldn’t risk any monsters living in my dungeon or coming out of it. Not even a lowly slime. I swung my sword down.

No kill!

I stopped. Did the slime just speak to me? Rubbing my eyes, I took a closer look at the slime. A white slime, basic with nothing out of the ordinary. It hopped, harmlessly, in place. Fancying it my imagination, I swung my sword at it again.

Please, no kill!

Again, I stopped. In front of me was a slime begging for its life. I took a step back - out of precaution, of course. “What are you?” I asked.

It wiggled in place. Am slime.

Well, I could see that, I thought. Nothing looked unordinary about it and it certainly did nothing strange, besides the entire communicating part. “So, where did you come from, slime?”

From cave. Born there.

Wait, born in the cave? That has to be my dungeon then. I rubbed my temple. I was careless and let something like this happen already. Thinking back on it, when I was wishing I had someone to talk to, I experienced a feeling similar to the one when I made the notebook. Perhaps I had unknowingly caused this one’s birth. I took out the notebook and jotted this situation down on a clean page.

At any rate, maybe it was okay to keep the slime around. It was nothing more than a basic white slime anyways. It was a monster at the bottom of the totem pole. All they do is slowly digest and eat things (anything, which is what makes them a problem), and an occasional bash. Besides, if I was the cause of its birth, then I was responsible for it. “Fine,” I said, “I won’t kill you.” It hopped happily. But, tell me what are you doing here?”

Eat. Kill.

“Oh, okay – wait, kill? What do you mean by that?”

Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. KILL ALL LIFE. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.

I dragged my hand across my face and let out a sigh. Maybe I should just kill the thing. “Listen, no killing. Or else I will kill you.”

Please no kill.

“Do you understand me?” I said in a way a mother would to her misbehaving child.

Okay. The slime deflated a little. No kill…

I tucked away my sword and said, “Glad we are on the same page. Let me introduce myself, I am –”

Dungeon Master. Yes.

Bewildered, I did a double take at the slime. “Wait, you know?” I questioned the jiggling jelly.

The body of the slime contoured as if it was tilting itself, Yes?

Considering I was the Dungeon Master and did cause this little thing to born, it did make sense. I didn’t question it any further. “Alright, so, since I am the master. You have to listen to me, okay?” It bounced up and down as to signify ‘of course’.

“Now come with me,” I commanded, heading into the dungeon. The slime bounced behind me. A foul smell seeped into the air the further we trekked into the dungeon. The first order of business, I decided, was to clean up the mess of bodies. A dozen or so dead knights and strange monster corpses should not be kept around. Or even just letting them decay – the odor the bodies gave was putrid, stinging my nose and watering my eyes. Pinching my nose, I looked over the mess. “How do you think we should clean this up,” I mused aloud.

Eat. So said the slime.

“Come on, I can’t eat dead bodies. Unless you want to?”

No. You eat.

I stopped to think for a moment. Maybe the slime was right; maybe I can eat the bodies. I went to work stripping the bodies. Took of the armor and clothing, organizing and setting them aside. The dead monster bodies had no such coverings, but were mutilated and decayed far beyond what I could stomach anyways. After the set up was done, I took a few steps back, closed my eyes, and let my dungeon senses overwhelm me.

The stagnant, dead air. The unturned dirt that formed the dungeon paths. The crawling bugs and creeping insects. The dead bodies throughout. I could sense it all. A key characteristic of dungeons is their ability to absorb energy and matter. Current understanding is that the dungeon consumes these resources and uses them as materials for its own creations. Having fused with a dungeon core, I, too, should be able to do this.

I focused on the dead bodies. Dried blood and open wounds. Rotting skin and festering maggots. I nearly puked; the dungeon let me feel and understand these bodies in a way unimaginable.

It came naturally. The eating, that is. There was no need to try and figure it out – it felt just like breathing. The bodies were slowly eaten through the earth of the dungeon. Dissolving slowly, piece by piece, the corpses disappeared into the earth. They were out of sight, but I could still sense them. Not only their bodies, however, but the nutrients and minerals and parts that make them up. I could differentiate the muscle tendons from the bone. The iron from the oxygen and carbon. A total breakdown of what they were and what they are. At the end of the process, I was not exhausted or deleted of energy. In fact, new energy flowed in me like a starving man who just ate a full meal.

“Ow!” I yelped, almost toppling to the ground. I was smacked in the hamstring and looked back. The slime rammed me again, almost knock me over. “Cut it out,” I yelled at the little bugger. Defiant, it slammed into my back. “Fine, fine, what do want?”

It stopped. Hungry.

I tilted my head, “You’re hungry?”

Yes. Give food. Am hungry.

“Well, aren’t you a slime?” I scratched my head. “Can’t you eat, you know, anything?”

Yes.

“Then, I don’t know. Do you want to eat some dirt or rocks or something?”

No.

“Wait, what do you mean no? You can eat anything, what difference does it make?”

The slime remained motionless as if it was staring at me long and hard. It said, after some time, Taste bad.

What could I say? I guess I wouldn’t be too happy being fed dirt and soil either. “Well, what do you want then?” I looked around with a frown. I spotted the neatly lined armor and had an idea. “If dirt and soil doesn’t sound good,” I said to the slime, “How about metal from those armors?” While the armors and weapons from my former allies were worth something, I couldn’t keep them around. People would ask questions if they stumbled upon me possessing armor that very closely matches the ones who would be reported missing soon. Suspicious, to say the least. If the slime could eat it, it would take care of this problem for me.

It bounced along up to the armor. As gourmet food critic might examine and analyze a plate of food before him, so did the slime, carefully and methodically going around the armor and weaponry. Finally, the slime broke its roughly spherical shape and plastered apart of itself onto a suit of armor. Pieces of the metal dissolved off and I could see them fall apart into nothing in the slime.

“How is it?” I asked, almost afraid to interrupt the nibbling slime.

It stopped. Good. And resumed, but this time breaking apart its entire form and engulfing the armor whole.

I watched. It was almost therapeutic to watch the slime slowly dissolve the armor into pieces. However, the thought of slimes all over doing this to innocent people, livestock, and buildings kept me in reality. I had some ideas on what to do next, make this dungeon a bit homelier for one. It would have to wait. I wanted to let the little one finish its meal.