The ‘good’ thing about the encroacher is that it’s slow as all hell, outside of the winding maze of the icy labyrinth beneath the dungeon that is. It doesn’t really have a chance to catch up to me, as long as I manage to keep moving with this kind of pace. Even with its burrowing and worming through the world of the dungeon, as long as I keep moving, it can’t catch me. As long as the red-water flows, it can’t catch me.

 

  Leaping out of the pool of red liquid, I land on the stairs, water splashing from my boots as I run. The slime bubbling around as she sloshes against my bones. I suppose she’s finding this just as exciting as I do. A goopy head pokes out of my neck, looking upward towards the recessed darkness of the distance so high above us. I watch as she, with eyes that shine wide with intrigue, examines the world to come. Maybe this is exciting for her too, in the sense that slimes usually never leave their home floors.

 

Or maybe it’s because she’s taking after me, that she sees all the things that I see and that she is no longer afraid of what stares back from the darkened shadows, tell you what.

 

  My eyes dart left and right, looking at the minuscule blue streaks that have crawled through the walls, perhaps aeons ago. So what does it matter? What does it matter if we follow the rules of the dark-lord’s game? What does it matter if we stick around and play like good little puppets? What are we supposed to be afraid of? There’s nothing left. It’s over. The seal is broken, there’s nothing left to be afraid of. So we might as well climb, right?

 

Metal clanks against the stairs as my boots thud out, the striking metal is an all too familiar sound that I barely even register anymore.

 

Something flaps behind me, and I turn my skull around to look at the goo cape, dripping down alongside my own as we rush towards floor sixty-three.

 

“That’s the spirit!”

 

I nod. That is the spirit. And so, with a -

 

“TWINKLE!”

 

  - in my eye, in our eyes, we run up towards what lies ahead. After all, what is there to be afraid of? Even if this existence of mine is temporary, even if most, if not all of my actions have no meaning in the grand scheme of things, even if everything I do and achieve becomes null and void when I die and respawn, even if my hands aren’t real, what does it matter, guy?

 

Because even if I can not touch, there is still so much left to see.

 

We grip the lance tighter as we leap out, breaching the end of the staircase and arriving onto the next floor in the same dramatic fashion that I not only encourage, but that I expect.

 

It buzzes.

 

Not with electricity. Not with the bmmm-

 

Getting up, I step a foot forward, my boot slapping against something wet, sticky, golden.

 

It buzzes with a natural presence, a hive. I look down at the honey at my feet.

 

The slime-girl swoons, pretending to be embarrassed as she intercepts my gaze with her body, her goo pressing itself out of my knee.

 

Very cute. But I was talking about the actual ‘honey’. Points for legitimacy though, that really does seem like something I would have done. With a prideful smirk, she grabs a glob of the honey and pulls herself back into my armor.

 

“Hey! Don’t get me sticky inside!” I yell down at my chest.

 

“Hey! Don’t get me sticky inside!” repeats the slime-girl, in a very different tone than mine.

 

I clear my throat.

 

Professional. I’m a professional.

 

Lifting my eyes I look around, ignoring the wet, sticky noises coming from inside of me. I’m a professional.

 

How do you feel about bugs, guy?

 

  Lifting my boot, I pull it free from the glob of dark-amber honey on the ground and walk forward. The walls are lined with rows upon rows of hexagons, honeycombs. Some of the wall linings are hollow, like a net, severing this side of the passage from that. But some of the slots are filled with a thick, crystallized goo that drips down, seeping onto the floor. One or two of them even still have wiggling larvae inside.

 

I like bugs. There aren’t many bugs down in the dungeon. I mean, apart from like… the spiders, but I guess they’re not bugs. But they’re still creepy-crawlies, so I count them the same, even if you might take offense to that, guy. Get a hobby, sheesh.

 

“Honey has preservative properties!” bubbles a voice from inside of me, getting to the next part of my ramble before I have a chance to even think about it. She’s getting really good at reading me, it’s a little scary, actually. Are you sure you want to be like me? I’m a really bad example.

 

“I’m a bad example!”

 

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” I say, looking around for the way.

 

“Jerk!”

 

“Yeah, I’m a jerk, the desert told me that, you know?”

 

“I was a lizard?”

 

I nod. I was a lizard.

 

Looking down into a pit before me, the walls lining the deep drop down into the abyss are lined with a thickly sticky honey, that runs down like a slow waterfall, pouring in, rushing in to fill the vacant hole inside with a hot, sticky -

 

  “Hoooooneeeey!” calls a wet voice from inside of me and I twitch together, my arms spasming together with my fingers as I listen to the familiar call in shock, the long extension of the word, that high-pitched intonation bringing a sense of familiar dread to my heart. One that is somehow combined with…

 

Sadness?

 

I look down to my hands that are already sticky with glistening honey, as I try to remember. Where did I hear that from? Did someone use to say that to me? Who?

 

My eyes rise up the wall on the other side of the pit, the wall of honeycombs rising up to another level beyond that is much easier to reach if you can fly.

 

But I can’t, so I’ll just have to do it like this.

 

  Bending my knees, I put all of my strength into it and leap, bounding across the gap towards the adjacent wall. My metal fingers latch on to a waxy honeycomb, the material bending beneath the pressure and our weight. Kicking my boot in, I press up higher, climbing, ascending, reaching for what comes next. For what lies above.

 

“Are you trying to escape again?” asks the slime, reading a memory that I can’t really see anymore. But I nod. Of course I’m trying to escape, why wouldn’t I be?

 

“Because, you know? You know?” bubbles the slime-girl, reaching out to grab another fistful of the sticky honey, that she apparently likes a lot. I suppose it is a rare treat for a trash-mob.

 

I lower my gaze for a moment to look at it. It’s too bad I don’t have any sense of taste.

 

Oh well.

 

It’s not important. Wherever that voice in my memories came from. The taste of honey. They’re both not important.

 

I can think about it more after I’ve escaped. Maybe I’ll remember by then.

 

 

---