As Gig told it, the best anyone could guess is that one day a young Old George got it into whatever passed for the slime’s mind that cave floor was delicious and had simply been eating its way straight down ever since.

I mean, as far as dietary choices went, it seemed to have been working out for the slime. It was, afterall, probably the most viscerally terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. That, it had to be said, was a pretty decent accomplishment for a humble dungeon mob. Hell it was almost inspirational if you didn’t think about the sheer enormity of devastation it could wreak if it had a will to. Anything short of a full battalion of pyromancers would be hard pressed to do more than annoy the unfathomably vast slime, let alone actually stop it. So it was pretty lucky for, well, everyone that the slime seemed perfectly content to stay Its chosen course and just carrie on trying to eat a hole straight through the entire fucking Dungeon on its own.

On a more positive note, Old George had unintentionally transformed itself into a one slime sewer system that serviced almost the entirety of the surrounding region. Which had to have saved the locals a great deal in terms of upfront infrastructure costs, not to mention all the ongoing maintenance. So it was at the very least a convenient armageddon scale slime.

Yeah, just a quirky old slime wearing a lake like a hat. Not a source of creeping existential dread at all. Nope.

A poke to my side from Gig broke me out of the introspective trance I’d sunk into during her proclamations regarding all things Old George.

“Hey, you ok Boss?” the goblin asked. “Ya ain’t moved in a while.”

“I’m ok, it’s just… ” I trailed off, unable to find the right words.

“Big damn slime?” Gig guessed, solemnly nodding her understanding. Long since grown used to the particular cocktail of emotions that being in proximity to a city sized endlessly devouring maw could invoke.

“Yeah, big damn slime.” I agreed.

Gig shrugged. “It’s fine. Just don’t fall in.” she stated, and after a pause added in a serious tone that spoke of personal experience. “And if you do fall in, try not to wriggle like you’re tasty.”

That had the sound of advice well worth taking to heart.

~~~~~

The tunnel mouth we’d come out of was a good couple hundred feet above the water line, affording us quite the vista. For a time we just sat at the edge and watched the Green Sea churn.

The waters gained depth towards the centre but never so much that you couldn’t clearly see Old George lurking beneath. Occasionally the surface of the behemoth would ripple, the contractions mirrored by wakes in the waters above like a wandering tide.

The uniquely situated body of water was also by no means barren of features.

The Green Sea was the final destination of all the assorted refuse that the waterways of the region invariably collected, deposited here by the spouts feeding into the basin. After the various flotsam passed the roils of the waterfalls it would join expansive drifting rafts or add to the reefs that jutted from the water’s surface.

It all made for a haunting ever shifting topography as the rafts followed the swirling eddies and lazy currents of the Green Sea, breaking against the reefs as they in turn were ever so slowly drawn down in peristaltic exertions, to be consumed by the gargantuan slime.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

It was all just a bit mesmerising. I had to admit, for what amounted to an oversized cesspit, it definitely had the whole ‘terrible beauty’ thing going for it.

“Good scavenging down there I take it?” I stated, breaking the silence that had settled in.

“Yeah, Boss. Me and Dinks go picking here all the time. Lots of crap in the shop is from down there.” Gig answered, swaying back and forth a bit where she sat kicking her heels against the chasm wall. “Pays pretty good coin for the weird shit too.” she declared in a chipper tone.

That definitely sounded like an activity I could get behind. I enjoyed a good bit of scrounging almost as much as I loved deal hunting in junk shops.

“Dragging it all back up is a pain in the ass though.” Gig added in a grumble, her drumming on the wall faltering for a beat or two as she reflected on past annoyances.

I chuckled, and reached back to give my pack a fond pat “Solving exactly that kind of problem is what a Sack of Looting does best. We got enough room for a damn good haul.”

Gig perked up at that little revelation. A few choice finds might even help close the gap to getting my paws on that Mod Beacon. I had a feeling I was going to have to come at that from a few angles to wrangle it in any kind of timely fashion.

Still, I wasn’t running solo here and there were a few bits of basic party house keeping that were best addressed sooner rather than later.

“This seems a bit outside our contract. How’s a standard party divvy sound? Even split of the take, after dibs on anything that adds to your gear.” I proposed to my young protege “For example, I’d still like to get you a proper shield, and I don't really care how much coin I’d lose out on by not selling it instead.”

Gig had been pretty happy just getting paid for her time and for the most part seemed otherwise content to be along for the ride thus far. So, I could probably put my rougey wiles to work and talk Gig around to letting me hog the lion's share of any incidental extra profits we managed. Which, sure, would nodge me closer to some short term goals, but it definitely crossed the divide between dashing rougey and scumbag rougey as far as I was concerned. And well, the fuck if I was going to pull any scumbag shit on Gig. I might not have known her long but I was already inordinately fond of the little manic.

The Goblin girl nodded along with enthusiasm as she listened, quoting “Need before greed.” confidently once I’d finished.

That had caught me off guard a moment before I remembered it was one of the few things the Davy Delver books had depicted more or less accurately.

I reached up and tousled the goblin’s hair the best I could with my little paw, which amounted to ruffling a small patch on the side of her head. “Yeah, that’s the way of it!”

Gig beamed abit at my acknowledgement before I moved on to the next thing I wanted to cover before heading into the thick of it.

“What will we have to worry about down there besides Old George? Anything living in the water?” I asked. Best to know what you were up against whenever possible.

“Nothing in the water lasts long.” Gig said, shaking her head. “Lotsa Mobs wash in with the junk, but they’re pretty fucked up by the time they get here.” Then I was bobbed up and down my one of Gig’s signature shrugs “Just give any big scary bastards plenty a space and it's no big deal.”

After our stint on the good ship Big Fuckoff Badger it was all too easy to imagine the state a mod could end up in after that kind of trip. Hell, if the river I‘d fallen into hadn’t been hooked up to the bathhouse it would’ve likely have been a fate I’d have shared.

So it made sense to me that any disoriented and potentially injured predators dumped into an unfamiliar environment might not be at their best in terms of avoiding detection. As long as you could mark them, with how broken up the stable ground was, it would be pretty easy to keep a nice stretch of Old George between you and most nasties. I could see why the Goblins regarded picking over the Green Sea as only a moderately perilous pastime, suitable for restless adolescence and bored shopkeepers.

Still, best to stay sharp regardless. There really was no telling what you might run into down there. I’d hate to have to deal with a flyer among that mess for example. Though it was less likely a flyer would end up getting swept away by the currents that deposited most of the things down here in the first place. I’d yet to see any stirring from our overlook at least.

Gig confirmed my guesses after I’d brought them up. “Yeah, flyers that can still fly just fuck off back to wherever or end up hanging around town.” She informed me, gesturing toward the lights in the distance above us.

Standing up on Gig’s shoulder I ached my back in a stretch and rolled my shoulders to loosen up “All sounds good to me then, wanna head down?” I asked.

“Fuck yeah.” was her immediate answer.