It’s not great for my sense of self-confidence, if I’m going to be honest with you. Finishing their scribbling, they slam me shut and with one hand, fling me out and away, off of the table and across over the abyss below. Spiraling, my covers open wide and my pages flapping in the wind, I barely manage to stabilize myself and return to a steady floating in mid-air, before heading back straight towards the dungeon-master.

 

“So you’re mad?” I ask the small being glaring my way, somewhat nervously.

 

  “Apparently I am!” they say and take another swig of their almost empty bottle. “Madison! Another bottle!” they yell, tossing the empty bottle over their shoulder, where it then tumbles down into the void below. Madison flies by.

 

“Hey,” I say to the sheepish book flying past us.

 

She responds with a bobbing motion. “Hey! Nice to see you again, it’s been a wh-“

 

“Madison!” yells the dungeon-master.

 

“Oh! Right! Sorry,” says Madison dreamily and flies off down between the shelves, to wherever the dungeon-master stores their drinks.

 

The dungeon-master locks their fingers together and places their elbows on the table. Pressing their head down forward, their eyes stare up at me for a while, as if sizing me up and down.

 

“What do you think you’re doing?” they ask.

 

“Uh? Dunno, just kind of floating around right no-“ I am stopped mid-sentence as a pencil hits my body with a thwack. It spirals down into the abyss below and vanishes into the darkness.

 

“Great! Now look what you made me do! That one’s gone forever now!”

 

I stare at the dungeon-master, who is clearly having a bad time. I mean, we all are, but they seem to be having an especially bad time.

 

“You okay?” I simply ask.

 

“No! No I’m not okay,” they glare at me. “My beautiful dungeon is rotting and becoming gross and sticky and all I can do is watch!” Undoing their hands, they slam a fist on the table.

 

  “My beautiful slimes… Madison! Where’s that bottle?!” they yell. Madison floats back around the corner with the bottle balanced on-top of her. The dungeon-master grabs it and tears the cork out, taking a large guzzle of the fresh bottle. “Did you see them?!” they ask me, slamming the empty bottle down. Madison nods to me, I nod back to her as she flies off to get back to work. “They’re ruined! Ruined!” cries the dungeon-master, their voice cracking.

 

  “Do you know how long I spent on them?! On that whole Hidden-Village story-line?! And now look at them! They’re all… fuzzy and gross! This wasn’t supposed to be a part of it all! They were a corner-stone of my dungeon philosophy and now they’re just… moldy!” Looking at the dungeon-master I feel a little odd, a little bad, they seem to be close to tears. “All because of that stupid, blue crap! And that’s only here because of you!” they lash forward, pointing a finger towards me with anger in their damp eyes.

 

“Me?” I ask.

 

“Yes, you!” they shout, their teeth barred.

 

“What do I have to do with it?”

 

“What don’t you have to do with it?! Gods! I swear if I was allowed to, I’d throw you down into the void myself!” they shout, leaning back and grabbing their own hair in frustration.

 

“What did you learn?!” they ask.

 

“So you don’t mean the rat-queen thi-“ I begin to ask.

 

“I don’t mean the rat-queen thing! That woman is always causing me problems, just like you! Sometimes I regret letting either of you stay here!” they yell, exasperated.

 

Thinking for a moment, I float there, wondering what it is, that I am supposed to have learned since my last visit here. There’s only one thing that seems obvious.

 

“Is it about the mold?”

 

“It’s about the mold.” They respond dryly.

 

“Is it about the mold growing over the dungeon?” I ask, expanding my question.

 

“It’s about the mold growing over the dungeon,” they respond, narrowing their eyes.

 

“Is it about the mold growing over the dungeon being a bad thing?” I ask.

 

“It’s about the mold growing over the dungeon being a bad thing,” they respond somewhat more agitated now.

 

I think for a second.

 

“Is it abo-“ a crumpled up ball of paper strikes my face.

 

  “Shut up! It’s about my dungeon rotting and falling apart, all the while you’re up there goofing off! Why are you fighting the hero?! Why are you getting involved in Piotr’s plot-line?! You’re supposed to be getting out of my dungeon, so all of us are free from having to deal with you!”

 

“Isn’t that my job?” I ask.

 

“Haven’t we talked about this?! Gods, if only I could give you a brain. Or a notepad to keep notes between lives. Actually, wait. You have a notepad to use between lives! So why don’t you?!”

 

“Oh yeah, I forgot I had that…”

 

“You forgot you… AAAAAH!” The dungeon-master yells, clawing at their own face.

 

“I hate you,” they say dryly.

 

“Huh?” I ask-

 

“I. Hate. You,” they utter, making their point perfectly clear.

 

“Oh,” I say somewhat disappointed. “But I love you mo-“

 

  “I’m not your mom! Shut up!” they yell, going on. “I was hoping that woman would keep you in check, and it was working for a while. But I can’t trust anybody around here apparently! James!” James looks around the corner. “Go get everything ready for a cut!”

 

“Are you sure?” asks James.

 

“You heard me!” yells the dungeon-master and James hurries off into the distance. The dungeon-master closes their eyes and takes a deep breath, extending their hands outward in a calming motion, as they slowly exhale.

 

Both of us are quiet for a moment. Only the noise of shuffling paper in the distance fills the space.

 

“Look,” they say. “What happens to water when it sits still?”

 

“It stagnates?” I answer.

 

“It stagnates,” they confirm.

 

“What happens to food if you leave it sitting out too long?” they ask.

 

“It rots?” I answer.

 

“It rots,” they respond.

 

  “So what do you think happens to a high-magic zone like a dungeon, if it’s left to time. If nothing moves anymore? What happens to all that flowing mana and energy that is still stuck here independent of any time warps?”

 

“It gets fuzzy?” I answer.

 

“It gets fuzzy!” they respond with a yell.

 

  The dungeon-master goes on. “The mold has basically taken over the Hidden-Village slime’s sub-floor. There’s nothing left. They’re literally all starved and gone apart from a handful and they’ll be dead soon too. The fungus is feeding off of all of the energies of the dungeon, it’s draining us dry. Soon there won’t be a single Hidden-village slime left. The end of an era.”

 

“So I can’t respawn as them anymore?” I ask.

 

They sigh. “Yeah, good priorities there. Thanks for looking out for the team. Yeah, no. You can’t respawn as a Hidden-Village slime anymore. They’re gone. The whole floor is gone! We have to cut it loose.”

 

“What does that mean?” I ask.

 

“We’re sealing it off from the rest of the dungeon. As of today, there will be one less floor, forever. The slimes are dead. Perma-dead.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“The rot has already spread way out, it’s all over the place. But we can’t just leave a big cluster of it attached, if we can slow the spread just a little. We need more time for you to get out of here. So, what did you learn?!”

 

I think for a moment.

 

“That I need to hurry up?” I respond.

 

The dungeon-master takes a long swig of their second bottle, or at least the second one that I’ve seen. Emptying it, they slam it down on the table and look at me.

 

“You think?”

 

“I think.”

 

“Good,” they snap their fingers and I am no more.

 

 

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