One moment Sophie was hobbling along, she was glancing nervously back at the slime gaining rapidly on her, she was hissing something to herself, probably asking what crimes against the heavens she'd committed to be thrown in with this clown and his dog; I'll protect you he said, leave it to me, time to be a hero... Bob really had gone out of his way to set himself up, hadn't he?

The slime was gaining on her. You don't outrun the tsunami; the tsunami outruns you. But she was trying all the same. She was a survivor. She'd do anything—100%, 110%, 120%. She wouldn't stop; she'd keep fighting. She tripped... So much for trying. It was over. It was over. Bob watched as she looked back, her eyes widening at the slime's yawning form, and then, and then, she was gone... The mud had gotten her. The mud that comes for us all. Out of the mud wast thou taken, and unto the mud shalt thou return.

Sophie had returned to the mud. She had mud in her hair. She had mud on her face. Her white summer dress was splattered with the mud. There was mud on the inside of her dress, swept up somehow as she'd fallen down. She had mud on her eyebrows. She had mud in her armpits. The sky was mud. The moon was mud. The stars were mud. The air itself was mud. There's a profound question that every man and woman must ask themselves at one point or another. What level of indignity is your life worth? Dignity or life? Sophie was asking herself that question now.

All of this and more came palpably across in Bob's mud sense. He was really improving his perception. Fine work Bob. It's incredible just how clearly he could feel her horror and disgust as she struggled against the mud. Would she be able to figure out that it was he who had done this to her? Maybe Bob would tell her mud manipulation was the dog's power. He'd say he had some kind of super intelligence. That's it. He could predict the future. It was plausible because he always came up with such great plans.

The slime rumbled over Sophie's position. She should have been flattened, liquified, vaporized, reduced down to black smoke and chemical formulas, but instead she was tucked away safe and sound, wrapped in the warm, wet embrace of the mud. The Brown element, inorganic and water-saturated, kept back the poisonous goo as it tried to seep down on top of her. The mud protected her. Three cheers for the mud. The slime rumbled past Sophie's position. She was free, safe. Bob had saved her. Bob was a hero. Talk about a good plan.

Bob would quickly extract her and then they could reassess. She'd be out in no time. Bob frowned. It was a lot harder to extract an object than to plummet one down. Really gravity had been doing most of the work. He'd just been taking credit. And he didn't exactly have much experience manoeuvring human-sized objects. Especially when they struggled so much. Why was she struggling like that? Couldn't she see he was trying to help her? Still he'd get her out eventually, it would just take a little while and burn a good piece of mana.

However, our slimy friend, despite lacking eyes, nose or brain, had somehow realized that it had missed its prey. It started to break hard and then, oh no, reverse. The momentum waves started flowing back in the opposite direction. The slime was coming back. Bob started shoving Sophie back down deeper into the mud. The slime eased itself to a stop. It had parked its massive body directly over Sophie's position. It seemed to know exactly where she was.

Bob was sweating now. Had his plan backfired? He wouldn't say that. Credit where credit is due. She'd survived the initial attack hadn't she? That made it a rousing success. No, his mistake was in not having a good, follow-up plan. A good player sees one move ahead. A master sees several. Bob could accept he was only a good player and not a master. Humility. But the consequence of his "good play" was that Sophie was slowly drowning in the mud. Bob was on the verge of murdering the woman he'd just saved.

Bob started legging it in Sophie's direction.

"George, what have you got for me boy? Don't hold back on me now, the good stuff and while we run."

Pop. A beetle corpse. Pop. Another beetle corpse. Pop. A third beetle corpse.

"The good stuff George."

Pop a fourth beetle corpse.

Bob should have been clearer. "No more bodies George." If the slime could have been distracted by fresh meat, it would have been distracted long ago; the battlefield was still littered with unburied monster bodies.

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They were running out of time. Sophie looked fit, right? Hell yeah. Shut up, I mean she could hold her breath, right? Not sure. Fingers crossed. At least thirty seconds had passed. George was being markedly and intentionally unhelpful. Was it Bob's imagination or was George less than eager to save the woman? Usually you couldn't keep the dog away from strangers. Or maybe it was just his bad habit of not wanting to drop things when asked?

Pop. Bob's camping chair. "I might have wanted to sit in that."

Pop, Bob's toothbrush. "Oi, how'd you even get that?"

Pop, Bob's sleeping bag. "It's going to get all dirty."

Pop, a mud-brick wall that Bob almost ran headfirst into, only dodging at the last second.

Pop, a giant, hardened mud ball (Bob had been playing around with the idea of a trebuchet). Bob had to hop up and hurdle the obstacle.

Pop, a jar of Raupenflieger pus. Bob just managed to catch it before it smashed onto the ground and splattered them all with the corrosive pus. Close one, that. "Bad dog. Bad dog."

Pop, another jar of Raupenflieger pus. "George!" Bob somehow got Harry there in time. He scooped up the jar, depositing it in his hood.

Pop. "If this is another jar of pus, George," a burst of cold water nearly knocked Bob clean off his feet. "Dammit, George. Don't tell me that wasn't on purpose."

Pop. Bob flinched as a frisbee appeared and glided gently down towards his feet. "Wait, George, I never bought you this. Where'd you get this? George, do you have a money supply? Have you been holding out on me? George, we're going to talk about this later."

Pop, a collection of half-eaten chips. Bob took cover behind Harry as the cold, greasy potatoes pinged against his cloak and slid down onto the ground.

Slime mountain dead ahead folks. Crap. They'd arrived. They'd arrived with no plan and no weapon. It had taken them a minute, a minute and a half. Bob sure hoped Sophie had a few points in constitution and vitality. Bob needed to do something. Why was he holding this jar of caterpillar pus? He lobbed it at the slime. Now he could think.

Bob turned to the dog. "You don't have a chain sword in there do you?" Boom!

Bob was thrown back, splattered against the side of a tree. What the... The jar had sailed through the slime's body, impacted the ground and shattered. Slime had seeped inside and... What followed was an exothermic, steam-producing chemical reaction spatially bounded by the slime's biomass. In layman terms: boom! The force of the reaction cratered the landscape, vaporizing a huge chunk of the monster and severing it clean in two. Burning goop rained down in all directions.

Bob was dazed. His ears rung. His back ached. He dropped to his feet and almost fell down, the world spinning mercilessly around him. He made out a puddle of inert goo, pooling around the crater. Had he killed it? Had he killed Der Glibbermeister with sheer luck and the bodily fluids of the weakest grassland animal?

Nope. The smaller half of the divided slime had lost cohesion and sentience, but the larger half remained well-defined and alarmingly mobile. It locked onto Bob as public enemy number one. The mass of green slime started rolling side-on towards Bob, completely unfazed by gentlemanly distinctions between forward, backwards and to the side.

Bob stumbled. He looked back. Shit, shit, shit. But the slime was a slow-burn runner. It had to build up its momentum. George was nearby. He'd thrown up a brick wall at the last second. Somebody, at least, had been paying attention. That wall had probably saved Bob. Given how close he'd been standing to the blast zone, he probably ought to be steam.

Bob scrambled up. He turned to run, but Sophie was back there. His mind whirled, and he arrived at the only feasible solution.

Bob eyed his dog. "George, I need you to rescue Sophie."

The dog didn't bark back.

"George, I'm asking you."

The dog whined.

"Thank you."

Bob transferred the remaining pus jar to the crook of his good arm. He swept off Harry and slide the cloak under George.

"You ready? Three, two, one."

Harry slingshotted George into the air. George was flying. But dogs aren't made to be airborne. George's fur blew up into his face, completely obscuring his vision, as he paddled his legs like he were trying to swim. He'd cleared three meters. He was going to make it. He wasn't going to make it. Bob had overestimated the slime's speed.

George was starting to fall. The void of green jelly wobbling beneath him. The green jelly void.

Bob cupped his mouth and shouted: "Fire!"

Fire savaged down into the wobbling green jelly. The recoil rocketed the dog higher into the air and started him spinning widely. He'd cleared the slime. He was over the monster. He was hurtling towards the ground. He was hurtling fast.

"Water bucket!"

At the last second, George dumped out the rest of his stored water to cushion impact. The dog landed on his feet. George gave a glorious shake of his golden fur. Water droplets scattered in all directions, shimmering in the green glow and creating a misty halo around the dog. The dog gave out a satisfied snort and trotted off towards Sophie's position. That dog was some hot shit.

Bob watched as George stripped away the mud in large invisible bites, eating his way down one pop at a time. Bob really needed to stop thinking of that backpack as little more than a stylish inventory. Bob saw a muddied head appear and heard a sharp intake of breath.

"Robert!"

Look at that, she'd been thinking about him.