Harmoni bolted up, woken by the thunder crashing over the building.

Fleck was awake as well, though considerably less startled. He’d lived in Xentron his whole life. Most of the year, the only water on Xentron was in the forest rivers or deep underground. He saw it when he was living in caves. But a few months of the year, the water would come up and slam into the earth. It was a good thing if you lived on the surface.

Harmoni got up and pressed her hand to the window. She ran the fingertips of her other hand along the ledge. It was dry.

Fleck could’ve told her that, based on the smell.

She knew that, but she wanted to look for herself.

Outside, thick black clouds covered the sky. The rain hit the window more like a sheet than individual drops. The streets looked a bit like rivers, and the unpaved areas had large puddles.

Then lightning flashed across the sky, letting her see outside a bit better, and she gasped. Someone was out there.

This time, Fleck bolted up, head appearing out of his nest of pillows in the corner. “What?!” Little fleshy riders shouldn’t be out in this weather.

Harmoni agreed.

Now that she knew the figure was there, she could see them moving down the path. Whoever it was, they were sticking close to the edge so they weren’t swimming. They moved in an uneven way, like they were limping. Maybe they’d already been injured. And they were trying to move away.

Harmoni was going to help. She had to catch them before they were gone from sight. She wasn't going to mess up this time.

She grabbed the waterproof cloak she and Rial had made. While Fleck opened the front door, Harmoni put on a pair of boots from up front. They were probably Udo’s, and certainly too big for her, but it was better than her shoes.

“Hey!” the figure called down the street. “Can anybody-?!”

He stopped, slowly turning towards the door, when Harmoni stepped out.

Harmoni didn’t gasp. She didn’t respond at all, as much as she wanted to, standing very still.

The man was covered in some sort of . . . sludge? Slime? It looked like what you’d find in a swamp. She could tell from the light of the house that it was dark green, but you could also mistake it for black. She could still see the silhouette of a man, but nothing else. She couldn’t even make out his eyes. From his height and shape he was probably a human, but he could technically pull a surprise on her.

Hadn’t someone talked about this before? A man cursed to be covered in slime? Was this him?

The man tried to take a step forward. He was struggling in the deep water and soft ground. “Help me. I can’t be out in this.”

He gurgled a little, with his words. There was probably also slime in his mouth. Ignoring how gross that was, Harmoni understood him. He needed help.

She moved closer and flung her cloak over both of them. It didn’t do much for their legs. It barely fit over both of their shoulders, and she let the cloak favor him, getting her own shoulder a bit damp.

“You can come inside with us,” she told him.

She tried to walk with him, but he slipped. It seemed he wasn’t just worried about the rain. The slime near his feet kept the ground slick.

Harmoni extended a hand. He took it. She tried to grasp his arm in return, but there was enough slime, she wasn’t sure she’d succeeded.

She walked towards the door, practically dragging him along.

Fleck was still waiting in the doorway, ready to close it once they were inside. He grimaced as they got closer. The smell was terrible, and Aqua would notice quickly.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Would she notice if they put him in their room?

Probably not. The door would muffle some scents, and the magic of the room was supposed to offer more privacy.

They'd do that then. No point explaining everything to people who might say no.

They were just inside the doorway when the man stopped, squeezing her arm tighter and bending down slightly, wheezing.

Harmoni glanced helplessly at Fleck, but he didn’t know what was going on either.

Then the man coughed up some slime, splattering on the floor.

“Nasty curse,” he warbled.

“So it was you? Who was cursed by a cleric?” Harmoni asked.

Fleck closed the door and went to get Udo’s rags. They’d need it for the floor.

The man turned towards her. “You know who I am?” he rasped.

“Vaguely. I just . . . heard about someone cursed to be slimy because of his slimy personality.”

“Well, I hope you don’t believe that cleric actually cared about who’s a ‘good person’. Do you think I never tried to break the curse? No. That cleric wanted an excuse to make someone suffer.”

It was not hard to believe him. His breath came out in labored wheezes, he struggled on the steps to avoid sliding back down, and surely he had to have a hard time seeing or hearing. This was just a lot of suffering.

It was, but Fleck was more skeptical. A cleric had come and healed some of the dragons when he was young, after they got into an incident with the rider species. It was an apology, of sorts.

Anyway, clerics had specific rules to follow, and their Gods could take their power away, if they didn’t follow the rules. Inflicting suffering just for kicks might not be against the rules, he didn’t know them all, but it seemed like a risk.

Harmoni frowned, but she and the cursed man were at the top of the stairs now, and she was busy making sure he didn’t fall on top of her.

Supporting the man with one hand, Harmoni opened the door with the other. “Sorry sir, but what’s your name?”

The man froze in the doorway. Harmoni tried not to feel frustrated.

Fleck scrambled in past him.

“My name?”

Harmoni clasped her hands together. (Might have been a mistake. Both her hands had some of his slime on them now.) “I mean, I don’t know your name. I don’t think you want me to call you slime man.”

A gurgling sound came from her. Harmoni couldn’t tell what the sound was supposed to be. Maybe a growl, like when Fleck was angry. “Evin. My name is Evin Deriby.”

He stepped into the room, and closed the door. Evin dropped into the chair in her room, taking a few deep, rasping, breaths. Harmoni sat on her bed. Fleck shoved a towel under Evin’s chair, then joined Harmoni.

For a moment all three of them were happy to sit there and catch their breath. It looked like Evin tried to mop his face, but it went about as badly as expected.

Harmoni had to use the bathroom. She slipped out of the room to do that, closing the door behind her. She figured the three of them could come up with a plan when she was done. After all, was Evin just going to sit in that chair until it stopped raining?

She was washing the slime off her hands when it happened. She was connected to Fleck. She knew his eyes were closed. And she knew when he got picked up. Her gaze snapped up, staring wide eyed at the mirror.

Fleck writhed in Evin’s grip, almost slipping out of it, but Evin didn’t have to hold him long, and Fleck couldn’t scratch the man beneath the slime.

In a few seconds, Evin had gone from holding Fleck over the bed, to launching him out the window.

Harmoni was running. It was hard to bolt from a bathroom, but she started running as soon as she knew Evin had Fleck, flinging water and slime off her finger tips. But she had two doors to get through, and by the time she was back in the bedroom, Fleck was gone. Evin stood, back to her, in front of the now closed window.

“What did you do?!” she shrieked.

Evin turned back towards her. He spread his arms out. “I should think that was obvious.”

Harmoni shifted her feet, hands clasped together for a different reason now. “Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to rob you,” he snarled. “It’s obvious I need stuff more than you. Now get out of the way.”

“No!”

Harmoni tried to run towards him, not that she was all together sure what she was do if she reached him. She didn’t. She slipped on a puddle of his slime and hit the ground face first.

Before she could even think of recovering, she could feel Evin’s knees drop onto her back, his weight effectively trapping her. When she struggled, he tried to grab her wrists. He failed the first couple of times, but he had time. Harmoni couldn’t fight back from where she was, lying face first on the ground.

Evin eventually managed to get a grip on her wrists, and she felt something against them. Rope? Where did he get rope?

Harmoni screamed, but if Udo hadn’t heard the commotion by now, he wouldn’t hear that. Why couldn’t he hear? The room was magic. Right. They'd wanted that a few minutes ago.

“You’re making this so much harder than it needs to be,” Evin snarled, yanking her closer to the bed post. She figured out, as he spoke, that he was tying her wrists to the leg of the bed. “You were supposed to take longer. I could’ve been in and out. But no. You just had . . . to make things . . . difficult!”

Evin stepped back. Harmoni couldn’t move from where she was, butt on the floor and back against the bed. She tried to kick at him, but he easily stepped back.

Fleck had run to the front door as soon as he could, but it was locked, and he couldn’t just bust through the door or windows. He wasn't that strong yet. (He'd let himself get caught by Evin too. This was all his fault.) He bounced back and forth, calling out for someone, and looking around wildly to see if anyone was coming.

But no one was coming. Of course they weren't.

Meanwhile, Evin turned, and started going through her dresser, easily ignoring her and Fleck.