The rock rumbles as something explodes next to me. The metal fingers of my gauntlets dig into the vertical cliff-face of the sheer, rocky wall as I climb up the side of the reddish-brown outcrop, pulling myself up towards the plateau that lies at the top of floor sixty-five, where high atop the sandy outcrop sits a single structure. The temple of the king.

 

The temple of the king, is of course -

 

  “A metaphor!” bubbles the slime-girl, clawing out to grab the next part of the ledge. She doesn’t have the strength to pull us up, but I appreciate that she’s trying. Lifting my arm, I place it through the back of her gooey hand and hold the same rock she is holding as we pull ourselves up together. I nod, agreeing. It’s a metaphor.

 

Further towards the right, a ways away, the surface of the rock explodes. She can’t see me from down there, so the wizard is just blasting the vertical cliff-side randomly.

 

  Dusty winds howl around me, the scorching gale billowing my cape to the side as if it were trying to take hold of it and pull us both off, to send us falling to our… deaths? Uh… well, it would be a long climb back up, at the very least. I doubt I could make it a second time. Especially if she manages to lock on to me, though, I guess she’s probably alone there, separated from her party who is likely taking a different way to intercept me.

 

I could kill her, if I wanted to. The wizard.

 

After all, the seal is broken, so…

 

“It’s too late! It’s too late!” quibbles a gooey, excited voice. I don’t think she really gets what that means, but I’ll let her have her fun. While there’s still some fun to be had for any of us.

 

Turning around, I look back down behind us, my neck cracking as I look towards the distance which I have left down behind me. I’m not quite sure how, but I’ve managed to climb to quite the dizzying height.

 

Floor sixty-five has a giant, sandstone plateau in the middle of it. And high atop it -

 

Turning back, I claw my fist into the next part of the rock and pull us up and over the ledge, dragging myself forward towards solid ground. Raising my head up, I look at it.

 

- High atop it, sits the temple of the king.

 

“Fancy!”

 

I nod. Fancy.

 

  Sitting atop the reddish-brown sandstone plateau is a giant white-marble temple with blue and gold ornamentations. A jagged split runs down the middle of the building, as if a tremor had ripped the entire construction in half. Crystal blue water trickles around the sides of it as tiny babbling crooks, which feed into pools of pure water that are surrounded by thin, tall trees with wide-brimmed foliage, only near the top. Oases. That’s the word for when you have more than one oasis. Oases.

 

“Just thought you should know, guy, tell you what!”

 

The rock behind me explodes, sending fragments of burning sandstone flying over my head.

 

Getting up, I look around to check that the hero party isn’t here yet. They aren’t. So I hurry, making my way forward towards the great building that is cracked in half. Walking past an oasis, I stop for a moment as something inside of me sloshes around.

 

“I’m a fish! I’m a fish!”

 

  I look at her and nod, understanding. Bending down near the water, I watch as a large gooey tendril slips out of my wrist and dips itself into the water. The slime seems to grow and expand just a little, as the slick secretions that ooze from her form increase, as she collects more moisture. Slime-girls are thirsty creatures, they usually get their water from…

 

Ah…

 

Well, you know.

 

You don’t need to know, guy. I know how obsessive you can get about these things. Curiously, I watch as the creature pulls back its tendril and instead sticks its entire head into the water, splashing around as it plays in the shallow pool. It looks like a lot of fun, actually.

 

Two soapy, yellow eyes turn around to look at me from the water. Bubbles rise from her head as she blows into the water. “Fish!”

 

I nod. Fish.

 

Ah, I’m so jealous. I wish I could be a fish. Oh well, maybe tomorrow. Being a fish sounds relaxing. At least until you get eaten. But until then? Prime relaxa- BLACH!

 

I hold my arms out to the side, splashing water off of myself as the slime throws her body back down again, to splash me with a second wave of water, laughing as I am drenched from head to toe. I narrow my eyes. You jerk!

 

“Jerk! Jerk!” she laughs and splashes me again.

 

  You call that a splash?! My gaze tightens as I watch her half-hearted splashes, her eyes filled with perhaps a TWINKLE but not with CONVICTION. I scream and jump into the water, if only to show her how a real hero splashes. She makes a strange, wet gooey yelp and rushes out of the way as I fall towards her.

 

Water rushes everywhere, seeping into my armor, as my heavy metal-clad body sinks into the water and the slime sloshes around me, swimming freely through the wet like a strand of snot floating on a glass of water.

 

“Gross!” bubbles a wet voice next to me.

 

I nod, gross.

 

  The slime, on the offensive, rushes towards me as I lift my head back out of the water, a tendril lashing out to send a new wave splashing my way. I only block it just in time, slicing it in half with the edge of the metal guard of my forearm. The two halves of the splash fly past me, careening towards the edge of the pool.

 

“You’ll have to do better than that,” I tell her, pointing with a challenging finger.

 

  She sinks half of her forehead into the water, narrowing her eyes and bubbling the water with her mouth. Then the bubbles stop as I notice she is changing her tactics. Carefully, I watch in suspicion as I see her absorbing large mouthfuls of the water, her cheeks puffing out as she fills herself with it. Before I can react, she jumps up from the surface of the water and spits a stream out my way. I only duck under the stream of water at the last second, before it hits my eyes.

 

Swimming over beneath the surface towards her, I get ready for a surprise attack and I lunge out.

 

“Friend!” she laughs, pointing and spitting again, just as I rise out of the water. I of course, realize she doesn’t mean me, as my head turns and I watch the hero rise up the end of the plateau, having taken the road here instead of climbing.

 

That jerk.

 

Much to my delight, I watch as the stream of water that she is blasting out, flies straight down towards him and he gets a blast of slime-girl spit-water straight into the face. The hero splutters, the priestess running forward to make a vertical wall of white-magic between us. Raising a hand, I point to him and laugh.

 

“Looks like you’re all washed up!” I crack, slapping the the water with a free hand.

 

The slime-girl looks at me nodding. “Jerk! Stupid, smelly jerk! He has bad eyes!”

 

While this is a lot of fun, I do realize something. I forgot that we were supposed to be running for our lives. Haha. You could have told me, eyeyoume, you degenerate. I know what you were hoping for, and it’s not going to happen!

 

“Woops!”

 

I nod. Woops.

 

Grabbing the slime, I place my boots against the mucky surface below us and leap. Water arcs around us, shimmering in the desert sunlight as I fly out of the oasis and latch on to a tree which bends down beneath my weight. Ooh! I leap again. Flying towards the temple of the king, as the hero, soaking wet, stands there and unable to pursue. The priestess stopping him until she’s fully examined him. Can you imagine? Letting someone stop you when your goal is right in front of you? Only ten seconds away?

 

What a baby. As if it were poison or something. It’s just a little slime-girl juice and desert water.

 

Some people just aren’t cut out for dungeon life.

 

My boots thud against the white-marble that cracks beneath my weight, as I land and turn to run away from the single figure that still pursues us, determined to keep up until her party catches up.

 

“Monkey! Monkey! Ooh! Ooh! She’s going to steal my fruit!” yells the slime-girl, pointing to the muscular figure, clad in yellow, chasing after us through the temple of the king.

 

I narrow my eyes. That jerk. She better not steal my fruit.

 

I won’t forgive her for it.

 

 

---