“Plap, plap, plap,” the sounds of my footprints echoed throughout the barren cave. I pondered whether I could slide rather than lift my feet off the ground, but the likelihood of dirt sticking to my feet put me off of the idea almost instantly. Leaving the more jarring changes to my figure in the “shit I can’t deal with” box, I explored my slimy anatomy in more detail. My new… skin? Was a vibrant blue color, slightly translucent, and very mildly bubbly. I was wondering about the logistics of me being blue in spite of the potion being green, but after thinking about it for a second I realized my old tunic was blue, my favorite color is blue, and generally blue is a nice color on me. After struggling with my head, I managed to make myself turn a shade of deep purple, so that answers that question. My thoughts were stopped in their tracks as I finally reached the exit of the cave. Slimy tears leaked out of where my eyes had formed; after all, when the beast had ripped through me like a hot blade through… slime, I hadn’t expected to ever leave the cave.

 

“Uhhh, hi?” the cautious voice responsible for breaking the silence had caught me off guard, and in an instant my sword was dra- wait, my sword? It seems that out of instinct I had pulled my sword out of seemingly nowhere, much to the surprise of the young man. “Whoa! Calm down!” he raised his hands to the sky, a universal gesture of surrender among adventurers and raiders alike.

 

“What do you want?” I asked, using my voice for the first time. It felt… nice, in a way, it was smooth, yet you could tell it wasn’t normal human vocal chords producing it.

 

“I’m an arcane researcher, I study caves much like the one you just emerged from.” He was an average looking guy: tall, not too bulky, short brown hair, just enough muscle to hold his own in a fight, but just pale enough to see that he didn't spend a lot of time outside. Taking a closer look revealed he was holding tools used to measure ambient magic and a notebook, presumably to take notes on the data. “Judging by your form, you were born in that cave, yes?” The researcher was looking me up and down, but not in a sexual way, it was more enthusiastic, analytical, than that. 

 

Speaking of my form, it wasn’t very well defined, it looked like I was wearing a fairly thick sweater, and my legs had been kinda shifty and melty, it was hard to really say for sure what they looked like. Finer details like my fingers and toes often melted together when I wasn’t paying attention, but at the same time everything was fairly solid, not really dripping but not static either.

 

“You couldn’t be farther from the truth,” I replied, disheartened by the failure of my guild and the death of my comrades, “I died in that cave.” 

 

“Oh…” was all he could manage to say before his analytical side kicked in and he started jotting notes down in the previously mentioned notebook. “Are there any more oddities to this cave before I take any more notes?” he asked, rather politely I may add.

 

“I should mention that it wasn’t the cave that resurrected me, it was a potion,” he scratched out about a paragraph's worth of notes before letting me continue. “It’s a straight shot to the caves den, nothing interesting inside except a room now painted red.”

 

“Paint?” he inquired, but just as quickly as his curiosity started the terror in his eyes took over. “Don’t tell me you mean—”

 

“I do. Inside of that cave the grand majority of my guild met their end to a beast of terrifying power.” before my sentence was over slimy tears had once again taken over my vision, pouring down and being absorbed by parts of my body that the tears fell on. I fell to my knees, which had all but disappeared as my lower body lost form, it almost looked like a skirt, not that it mattered. The adventurer was scribbling notes down as my mind had reminded itself of exactly what just happened to me. My eyes were no longer solid as they were just areas of my face leaking. Visions of Brutus’s visceral end flashed in my mind, and as it kept repeating itself.

 

“Uhh, ma’am?” Being reminded of his presence, my head and upper body had reformed into a more cohesively human shape. I didn’t respond at first. “Ma’am?” I fumbled as I realized he was speaking to me.

 

“Whuh, yes?” I responded in a confused tone, it hadn’t really settled in that I looked like this yet.

 

“Can you describe what exactly was down there?”

 

“No, I can't. Its form was vague and the only thing I can remember is the claws,  tail, and a vague idea of a mouth.”

 

“Just as I thought, this is a dragon’s den.” It was my turn to look quizzically at him. “Oh! Most people don’t really know what those are, do they?”

 

“I can’t say I do, mind telling me?” His eyes lit up in glee, and he flipped a few pages in his notebook.

 

“Well, to start, dragons don’t actually reproduce sexually, or asexually for that matter! Dragons are formed by ambient energy growing in an area, depending on the strength of said energy a cave will form, depending on how strong the dragon’s energy is, a dungeon will form around it.”

 

“So the stronger the magic, the bigger the den, and the stronger the dragon, the bigger the dungeon?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around this new information

 

“No! In fact the opposite!” his eyes lit up once again. “The weaker the dragon is the bigger the dungeon forms, as a form of protection for the egg. The egg is what the dragon really is, but as a form of defence before hatching, a dragon’s soul will form around the egg, forming as a shifty beast”

 

“So what I fought was actually…”

 

“An unhatched dragon, yes.” he looked towards the sky, almost melancholic. “Guilds like yours are sent to explore and loot dragon’s dens; in addition, you’re to dispatch dragon souls if possible.”

 

“Why? Why would we ever do something so incredibly dangerous?” I was in denial; why would we need to dispatch these things when it’s possible for them to wipe out entire guilds before they even reach infancy.

 

“Quite simple really, you complete your quest for the guild, the leaders of said guild carefully transfer the egg to a safe location, and then they sell it off to rich nobles who wish to achieve immortality,” he said, matter of factly, and before I could interject, he had already started on another tangent. “Dragon’s eggs can grant wishes, of sorts; however, there’s a catch. Wishes granted by the egg can only be fulfilled in a way relating to the powers or status of a dragon. If you wish for riches, you will gain a dragon’s hoard of gold, and if you wish for a dragon's lifespan, you become effectively immortal. However, if you were to wish for something else, it would most likely remain inert, or twist your wish in strange ways.”

 

“So if I wished for someone to come back to life…”

 

“That has been tested before, and yes, they can resurrect people, but they would come back as a dragonkin. If you don't make a wish, your body would be absorbed into the egg, and you would hatch as a dragonkin.”

 

I couldn’t believe it… all of this information was completely new to me, and yet, it made a twisted sort of sense. Most important to me, however, is that I could resurrect Brutus, and that alone was enough to rouse my spirits with a fire that rivaled the one that got me in this mess to begin with.

 

“Where are you going?” the researcher asked, perplexed at my sudden movement. “And how are you moving like tha- oh duh, you’re a slime.” I looked down and realized that I hadn’t exactly got off my knees, mortified at my display of fluid mobility I shot up, surprisingly easier than when I had to deal with bones and rigid body movements, I could get used to this.

 

“I’m going to find my guildmates, I saw a few of them teleport out before the real slaughter started.”

 

“I’ll come with, I don’t think your friends would take too well to a monster invading their guild hall, even if you’re unlike any lesser slime I’ve come across” 

 

Shit, he’s right…

 

I’m a monster now.