On the other side of the wooden door was a room about the size of the one Sean was still technically in. Much like the last one it had a few tables, though they were empty, as well as a burning torch, some broken wooden barrels, and another closed wooden door a little ways in.

Oh, and it also had an enormous, cube-shaped slime that had to be at least 7 feet tall quietly jiggling around inside a translucent glass cage big enough to put any home aquarium to shame. The creature’s gelatinous body might have been hard for Sean to make out if it weren't for the multiple piles of still-disintegrating bones floating around inside the slime like leftover party favors.

So, you know, there was that.

Sean picked his fallen jaw up, having recognized what the creature had to be immediately. It was a hallmark of nearly every low level dungeon in every tabletop game he'd ever played. Though, like most things in this world, this version was probably worse.

“You have gotta be kidding me.” Sean said into their shared mental connection.

“Oh no, I’m quite serious. Whatever that thing has been eating, I want some.” Gel said, leaning his copied eyes out of Sean’s ribcage to get a closer look. “The pre-digested versions, mind you. Not a whole lot of meat left on whatever those bones used to be.”

“You want more humans?” Sean asked incredulously. He had been given an up-close review of more human bones than he could count recently, and there was little doubt in his mind as to what race the still-dissolving pieces inside the glass belonged to.

“Why not?” Gel said, staring up at him in obvious confusion. “You were delicious! Far better than any of those maggots. Meatier.”

Sean rolled his eyes at his friend’s ongoing culinary commentary, but didn’t step into the room just yet. Since the huge slime hadn’t attacked or even tried to leave its glass cage, that told him one of two things: either the thing couldn’t leave its cage, or it wasn’t willing to yet for whatever reason.

Maybe it just hasn’t noticed us yet?

He knew, based simply on size, that there was no counting on the first option to keep them safe. Whereas the second option meant the creature was either not as intelligent as Gel… or perhaps less bloodthirsty.

Given what Sean had seen of slime nature so far however, if there was no chance the massive slime was willing to just pass up a chance at a meal. So instead of just wandering in, he gave the room a more detailed once-over.

The cube-shaped slime’s cage was gigantic, and might actually be bigger than he had first realized. It took up about a fourth of the room, with the edge facing them only about five or so feet from the other door. If he moved quickly, Sean figured he had a good chance of making it through before the creature moved. Assuming it was slower than he was, that is.

For some reason, Sean got the distinct feeling that wasn’t true.

If it’s faster than me, then there’s no way we’re making it through that door before it eats us. Sean reasoned, counting the stones lining the wall between his current position and the door to get a better guage of the distance. And that’s assuming the door isn’t locked.

A locked door was a surmountable problem, but there was another issue here. Sean could only think of one reason why someone might leave a creature like this in their flesh-pit basement.

It has to be a trap. He thought, eyeing the creature’s glass container once more. There’s no way that wannabe-aquarium is holding it back.

Sean strained his orbs, trying to figure out where the catch was here. Or at least what sort of release mechanism was hiding near the cage.

If we can find that, and then jam it, maybe we can keep it locked up. Sean stared until he felt like his human eyes would have been watering, until he finally noticed something.

The massive, cube-shaped slime was… bubbling.

A torrent of air was being vented through the creature’s entire body from a single, circular hole in one end of its cage before exiting through another, similarly shaped hole that angled up into the stone above it. From where he stood, Sean could partially make out the interior of that hole, and what he saw didn’t mesh with the skeleton’s understanding of the world.

The inside of the second hole gave off a softly shimmering azure light, and only extended a few inches into the stone. Beyond that, the center of the shimmering space appeared to open into a space near the ceiling of an entirely different room. Sean was no construction engineer, but he was fairly sure the physics necessary to make that possible didn’t exist. At least, not without magic.

Sean stared at the whole thing for a long minute, wondering as to the purpose of the entire setup. The air entering the creature brought with it a swirling mass of dust-and-dirt filled bubbles that gradually dissipated as the flowing stream passed through the slime. By the time the bubbles exited the creature on the other end, the stream of air was practically invisible.

But… air doesn’t bubble by itself, does it? Sean took a few steps into the room to get a closer look, entranced curiosity overcoming his earlier caution.

He froze mid-step when the cuboid slime wobbled in what felt like a distinctly menacing fashion, the top of the creation’s gelatinous surface almost cresting over the glass in response. When the slime calmed back down without breaking its cage however, Sean grew bolder. He walked right up to the glass and peered in.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

At this distance, it was easy to make out the bits of dirt, grease, bone, and other detritus being carried through the slime by the stream of incoming air. The debris brought along with it was then rapidly dissolved, leaving nothing but perfectly clean air to exit through on the other side. Assuming the slant in the wall on the exit still had some basis in reality versus being a completely untethered portal to somewhere else, then it was likely the hole sealed by blue light led to the upper floors of whatever building they were in.

Which is when the function of this room finally clicked into place.

It’s an air vent. Sean realized, looking around at the rather mundane, yet still magical contraption in wonder. They’re using this giant slime as… as an air purifier!

This is so cool! Sean thought in amazement, just as another voice rang out indignantly in his mind.

“This is so cruel!” Gel said, true outrage burning in his voice.

“...What?” Sean tried to wrap his head around the slime’s response, but his imagination failed him – best as he could tell, this constant stream of food should be a slime’s wet dream.

Sean voiced as much. “How is this cruel?”

“How is it not? There’s a helpless slime in there, trapped in a glass chamber of hate! He has noone to talk to, noone to learn from… noone to eat! It’s every slime’s nightmare!” Gel pushed one of his eyes out of Sean’s chest and pressed it up against the glass in the same way small children tried to reach creatures inside an aquarium.

“We have to break him out!”

“Break him out? He’ll eat us! He’ll eat both of us!” Sean took a few steps back, pulling Gel back with him as he went. “I’m not helping to free something that’s just going to eat me.”

“Why not? You freed me!”

Sean paused at that. He raised a single bony finger into the air, then slowly opened his mouth. After a second he closed it, tilting his skull to acknowledge the point.

“... Okay, you have me there. But we can’t just let him out if he’s going to kill us. That’s suicide.” Sean said, before switching to logic that he felt the slime might respond better to. “You won’t be able to eat anything if we’re both dead.”

“Fine.” Gel begrudgingly conceded. The slime fumed silently for another moment before speaking up again. ”What about if we let him kill for us?”

Sean thought he saw where the slime was going with this, and the prospect intrigued him.

“... I’m listening.”

Gel indicated the door they hadn’t come through by gesturing towards it with his eyes.

“We go through there, find whatever else is standing between us and the actual exit of this place, kill and eat everything we can get our slime on, and then feed anything we can’t kill to this guy here.”

“Works for me.” Sean was glad to see their minds had been going in basically the same direction. He was still curious, about one thing though.

“How do you know it’s a guy?” Sean asked, looking down at the slime in his ribs before comparing Gel to his massive cuboid cousin.

Various games he had played over the years had referenced ‘she-slimes’ as monsters of their own, and Sean was curious to see if that trend held any weight here.

It did not.

“Slimes don’t have pronouns, Sean. Call ‘him’ a ‘girl’, ‘it’ a ‘guy’, or ‘he/she’ a ‘whatever’ and I can promise you that it won’t care – it’ll just try to eat you for being inside dissolving distance.”

“Fair enough.” Sean admitted, then a thought struck him. He had already been mentally assigning Gel as a ‘he’ this whole time, mostly because of how aggressive Gel was – but what if that wasn’t true?

“Do you care how I refer to you?” Sean asked, then clarified what he meant. “Does that matter to you?”

“Eh, I’ve eaten mostly men… but it doesn’t matter to me. If someone uses the wrong term for me, I plan to eat them.” Gel asserted firmly.

“Aren’t you probably planning to eat them anyway?” Sean joked. “For being within ‘dissolving distance’?”

“That is accurate.” Gel asserted, just as firmly. “I absolutely will be.”

“Right, well… I was hoping ‘it’ might be at least a little bit grateful after we rescue it from the uh… ‘glass chamber of hate’.” Sean pointed out, before turning and heading towards the mystery door.

A part of him wondered how quickly he had come to terms with the whole ‘free the all-consuming monster’ plan, but that part of Sean’s inner nature was quickly dissolved into nothing. Such concerns belonged in the past.

Gel continued speaking as Sean moved.

“Yeah, well I was hoping we could eat some of whatever made it that big, so it looks like we’re both disappointed now.”

Sean grabbed the handle of the next door, then paused. He waited, pointedly, for Gel to say something encouraging or boisterous. To maybe rave about the likelihood or size of their next potential meal. But the slime in his chest cavity was only silent, and still.

The change in character was unnerving, and Sean didn’t care for it. They were already trapped down here in some nutty necromancer’s best attempt at a real-life ‘flesh pit’. The situation was dark and dreary enough as is.

“Don’t worry, Gel.” Sean said, keeping his mental tone as reassuring as he could. “We’ll get your friend out of there soon enough.”

“It’s not my friend. He’s a beautiful, genderless, and absolutely massive square-shaped nightmare that will try to consume both of us the second you free her. I hope you haven’t forgotten that already.”

Sean allowed himself a wry grin as he turned the handle, his relief evident in his voice as he responded.

“No, Gel, I absolutely have not.”

“Good, because you are my only friend in the world and I would feel terrible if you had short term memory loss for some reason not at all related to me devouring that delicious brain of yours.”

“Terrible, huh?” Sean said, opening the door with what felt like a smirk carving its way out of his skeletal features.

“Just terrible... Until you forgot about it, at least.”