Looking around, I wonder what I should do. I get the feeling that the dungeon-master isn’t going to be as much of a help as I had hoped they would be. They want me to leave the dungeon, but they are also apparently so bored that they’re willing to let me stay here and suffer longer just so that they have something to watch. Obviously, my use of the term ‘suffer’ is sort of stretched thin here; but that’s how I feel about it at least. I wonder if the elf is willing to talk things out today, but as I look at her wide, glassy eyes staring at me as she walks over the void still laughing quietly to herself, I get the feeling that that’s probably not going to happen, tell you what.

 

  “So uh, what happens if I jump into the pit?” I ask the dungeon-master who is drying their eyes with the inside of one of the books. For some reason I feel a burn in my own eyes, as if I was tired. Exhausted.

 

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” they say between sniffles. “That’s where all of the clean-up happens. It looks a lot more grim these days than it used to, part of the dungeon shift, you know? If you fall down there you’ll have a bad time. You won’t just die, you’ll super die.”

 

“Like for real? Forever?” I ask, almost tempted for a moment.

 

“Probably, once it catches up to you, yeah.”

 

“It?”

 

  The dungeon-master responds, “yeah, that damned thing. I hate it!” they grab the wine bottle down by the neck and wrench it down into the darkness below where it seems to simply be swallowed up by the pit. There is no shatter or impact to be heard. “Always sloshing and slopping around down there. Ugh!”

 

  “Why do you think I’m stuck on this damned floating table? It’s my punishment for letting some goof-ball run wild and break the natural order,” they say looking at me with a tired scorn. “Do you know how many times I’ve slipped off and only just barely caught myself?! Thelma! Tell the guy!” they shout at one of the books. The book they point towards promptly begins to flap open and closed several times as if explaining the situation.

 

“I don’t speak book,” I interject. The book that was ‘speaking’ shakes itself as if it were shaking its head at me in some sort of high-nosed disappointment.

 

“Shut up! It was a lot, okay!” yells the dungeon-master at me. “You!” points the dungeon-master to me. “Tell this guy to stop causing trouble in my dungeon!”

 

Huh?

 

Something squishes me from behind. Oh no. I got distracted. The dungeon-master wasn’t pointing to me. They were pointing behind me.

 

  “Aaaah! Don’t be mean!” cries a familiar unnaturally affectionate voice. “It’s not their fault, they’re just a big dummy! You know that!” Two hands lift my goo up off of the table. Oh no-no-no. I turn my googly eyes around and look at the elf that I had completely forgotten about for a second. Why am I so mushy brained?! Seeing the two droopy eyes sinking through my body she laughs and holds me against herself, my ooze squishing out from the force of the compression between her body and arms. “You made my darling so cute! Look!” she laughs, holding me tighter. My gaze drifts back to the dungeon-master who shrugs indifferently with a mischievous smirk I will never forgive them for.

 

  Death. Death. I crave the sweet release of death, that is all I can think as she hugs me tighter. As she is spinning in a small circle with me tightly in her grasp, giggling. Stopping, she holds me out at an arm’s length, a conjoined wet slop of goo spans the gap between us and she laughs. “Ah! You got it all over me!” she whines. I look back to the dungeon-master who is furiously drawing on a piece of paper as they are watching us. Several red covered books peering closely over their shoulders at the image I’m sure I don’t actually want to see, in order to preserve the sanctity of my soul.

 

Not sure what else to do, I look back to the thief. “Uh. Hi,” I garble out of my strange, oozy mouth.

 

  Her eyes light up. “Hey! Hey! You’re doing it again! You were trying to leave again!” she holds me up to her own eyes. “You know that’s not something you’re supposed to do. You know! You know!” her smile grows further out; the shape of it wildly incoherent with the cold anger in her pupils.

 

“That’s really mean of you. You’re always so mean to me!” she whispers into my goo; her fingernails pressing deeper into my body.

 

“Uh, actually the dungeon-master said I’m supposed to-“

 

“Woah- woah, woah, woah. Slow down there, leave me out of this,” says the dungeon-master.

 

“Huh?!” I shout, looking back to the dungeon-master who is still scribbling down some fresh degeneracy from their drunken mind.

 

The dungeon-master looks at the elf smiling with a shrug “I said if they want to spend a few weeks off with you, then that’s okay.”

 

“HUH?!” I cry out again.

 

The dungeon-master flashes me a winking smile and a thumbs up. “Stop pretending you’re doing me a favor!” I protest, squirming between the fingers tightly holding me.

 

  “Aaaah! You’re always so nice to us! Hey! Hey! Did you hear? Did you hear?!” Says the thief pressing her face practically into my goo, which is still poisonous by the way. Does nobody care about that? Is the poison really that weak against a high level adventurer? “We can have a nice time, just you and me! So no more of this running stuff, okay?! No more of this escaping stuff, okay?!” My still drying goo dribbles down lower and lower, matching the mood I carry with me.

 

  “But I want to leave the dungeon,” I say indignantly, trying to ring myself out of the hands clutching me. They squeeze down tighter. She hisses “You don’t mean that! You’re just confused!” They press tighter still. “You wouldn’t mean that! You wouldn’t want to leave the dungeon! You wouldn’t want to leave me!”

 

  Reaching the end of my rope my goo begins to bubble and broil as the annoyance, as the anger overtakes me I shout “I do! You’re crazy and I want to get out of the dungeon! I would literally prefer eternal death to spending the rest of forever down here with you people! I will literally choose to die than to spend the rest of eternity in this hellhole!”

 

  She winces, I see something behind her eyes change. Everything is quiet for a moment, the sound of the dungeon-master’s pencil comes to a sudden halt as the room turns silent. A trickle of red begins to drip from the corner of the thief’s mouth from her teeth sinking deep into her own tongue, into her lips. Her eyes turn wet and tears begin to escape them. “Why are you always so mean?” she says and begins violently crying.

 

I look around at the many books which are just shaking themselves in disapproval. What?! How am I in the wrong here?!

 

She lifts me up into the air. “Fine! If that’s what you want, then go die! See if I care!” she screams, still crying. I lurch, about to be thrown down into the abyss below.

 

“Stop,” says a commanding voice from behind us. The arm freezes and the thief looks back to the dungeon-master.

 

“What?!” she barks.

 

  “Come on, you know what. Don’t listen to that, you know that all the time down here has made the guy a little… well, you know. It’s just some confusion, you have to understand what dying so much does to the soul.” They tap the side of their head a couple of times as if for emphasis.

 

The grip slightly loosens. “Y- you think…?” asks the elf.

 

  “Oh yeah, big time. Real pretzel brain. They don’t know what they’re saying, too many memories, too many lives. It’s all jumbled,” says the dungeon-master. “Think about it, dying every few hours for this long. Waking up as something else each time with a whole new life to remember. I’m surprised there’s anything left. They’re unwell in the head,” says the dungeon-master shaking her own with their palms up in the air. The books all nod in agreement. Huh?!

 

  The thief draws a sharp breath as if coming to a sudden understanding and lowers me back down. Taking a hand she scoops my eyes back up to the top of my goo and looks at me still crying, her face contorted and presses me tightly against it. Snot and tears mix in with my goo, I’m not sure what to be more disgusted about really.

 

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were so sick!” At this point, I obviously have no comment anymore; how am I the sick one here again? “How could I be so terrible?!” she howls into me. I look back to the dungeon-master who flashes me another thumbs up with a smile.

 

I sigh.

 

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