The smirk died on his face the second the door opened.
If Sean had still possessed a heart that could beat, he was certain it would have stopped. Staring at the mass of foes arrayed against them, it was possible the sheer shock factor alone might have paralyzed a normal man. At least for that crucial first second. The one that decided everything.
But Sean was no longer a normal man. So instead of panicking, he reacted.
The freshly raised skeleton leapt backwards, raising his one remaining good arm into a striking position. He focused his mind on activating Bone Shield, hoping the new ability would be ready in time to help defend them. Hoping that it would give them some means of shielding to put between themselves and the horde before it surged forth. Hoping–
"What are you doing?" Gel asked flatly, his warbly mass shifting around in Sean's chest as the slime looked around for the source of his friend’s reaction. "Are we under attack?"
"Are we– you don't see them?" Sean asked incredulously, gesturing at the veritable tide’s worth of enemies on the other side of the door with a quick gesture. “You don’t see all of them?”
There had to be dozens, if not a solid hundred armed and armored skeletons lined up in neat, orderly rows just on the other side of the door. Each and everyone one of them had turned to face the door as it opened, aiming burning red embers where their eyes should have been directly at him like a hundred lasers all locking in at once.
"See… what? The other skeletons?” The slime sounded royally unconcerned, which was not at all the reaction Sean was expecting from him.
“Of course, the other skeletons! What could you possibly have thought I meant!?”
“... Why do you care about more of Bancroft’s undead?” Gel asked, his tone clearly marking the fact that the slime was every bit as puzzled as Sean was.
“... Because we’re trying to kill him? Doesn’t that make all of – ” Sean waved his hand at the massed literal army in front of them. “-- them our enemies? Why aren’t they...”
Sean’s tirade trailed off as he felt the slightly-delayed panic that had been rising up inside his mind suddenly, and forcibly, squashed. Both by whatever was dampening his emotions and the fact that not a single one of the skeletons had made any attempt at all to move in their direction.
“I mean, yeah. Once we kill the guy, sure. They’ll be a problem then. But until we do, these brainless, meatless, tasteless boneheads still think we’re on their side. You’re still his summoned creature, remember? Abandoned or not, as far as they’re concerned and unless he tells them otherwise, you are one of them.”
Sean paused, absorbing this new – and in retrospect, rather helpful – piece of information even as he kept his body at the ready.
“I--... hu-uh. So… you’re sure they won’t attack?”
Gel’s voice sounded exasperated, and Sean almost felt the eye roll inside his own chest. “If they were going to, they already would have. Now let’s get in there already, we need to save my cousin.”
“Your ‘cousin’?”
“Don’t ask silly questions, Sean. We don’t have time for slime family history right now.” Gel tilted up to look at him, suddenly curious. “Unless we do, in which case I will happily regale you with–”
“No, no-- it’s fine. You can tell me all about it later. I’m sure it’s fascinating.” Sean said, lowering his arm and shaking his head at his friend for what felt like the millionth time.
“Oh, it is. You’ll love it.”
After a moment of staring into the next room to confirm nothing was sprinting out to kill them, Sean just shrugged and walked inside.
The first thing he noticed was that this ‘room’ was far more expansive than any they had been in thus far. Its width alone was easily the same as the old barn that had been on his uncle’s farm, if not more-so. The half-wood, half-stone walls reminded Sean of the half-finished cellar that same uncle had once used to store barrels for wine the old man had never actually gotten around to making.
There was no finished floor here, only a straight pebble-stone pathway crossing fresh dirt that led directly down the center of the room. The pathway continued all the way to the opposite end of this place, where it stopped at what appeared to be an open doorway to the sand outside. Roughly halfway down the path was a partial split that led to the left hand side. A single lit torch hung in the center of a well-made, wooden chandelier directly in the center of the room. Its light was faint, barely even extending all the way to the floor below it, and yet Sean found he had no trouble seeing clearly.
Hardly a surprise, given how poorly lit the rest of this place has been. Sean thought, surveying the rest of the room as he went.
Much like his uncle’s attempt at a wine cellar, there were wooden barrels stacked along the walls of this room as well. Most of them were intact, though a few had been punctured, leaving dark red stains in the grain of the hardwood that had muddied the dirt in places. Some of the stacks were at least seven barrels deep, which seemed like a considerable amount of booze to just have lying around. Assuming it even was booze, though he couldn’t imagine what else might be worth keeping in such quantities.
Even so, despite the fact that whatever was in those barrels was clearly valuable enough to keep in bulk, Sean didn’t spare the mystery liquid much thought for now. Not for lack of interest. The foodie in him was intrigued as to what this new world considered booze. Even if he couldn’t partake, Gel still could. If beer and bones were both off the slime’s menu, then at least Gel could read the label for him.
Such thoughts were pushed off for later, however.
It was hard to focus on simple barrels of booze when you were walking down a path flanked by rows and rows of angry-looking skeletons holding axes, swords, bows, and any number of what looked like everyday farming tools. Hammers, pitchforks… hell one of them was even carrying an antiquated broom. Most of their weaponry was rusted or bent, but not all of it was in bad shape.
Most of the armor the undead wore was similarly simple, not that Sean could take a closer look at it. Leather jerkins, simple tunics, and a rusted chainmail shirt here and there were about the lot of it. Amusingly enough, the broom-wielding skeleton also had a wooden bucket on its head as if the thing were some kind of makeshift helmet. The bucket was also dripping some kind of fluid that he couldn’t identify, which Sean found equal parts amusing and disturbing.
Overall, despite their numbers, Sean couldn’t help but notice that the ‘army’ here was getting more and more ragtag the further in he went.
You know, for an evil necromancer’s horde of skeletons, it really feels like Bancroft cheaped out on his crew, here. Sean thought as they passed Bucket-head, whose dripping liquid was an indistinguishable brownish-blue that made Sean glad his sense of smell was no longer operational.
Something tugged at the back of Sean’s awareness, and it took him a second to figure out what it was. He had expected to feel more unease, what with the literal rows of undead warriors metaphorically breathing down his vertebrae here, but–
“---and I still haven’t seen a single edible thing so far.” Gel said, finishing a monologue that Sean hadn’t even known the slime was carrying on. “This room is terrible, and it makes no sense! Why have all these guards here if they’re not protecting anything important?”
“... have you been talking this entire time?” Sean asked, only slightly surprised that he had mentally tuned Gel out as they had closed in on the left fork in the pathway.
“Yes… Have you not been listening to me this entire time? Because if so, I’m both impressed that you can ignore someone talking directly into your skull and offended that you think I’m not worth listening to.”
Sean carefully considered his options before just off-handedly responding with the truth. “Nope.”
Gel didn’t respond right away, and Sean was sure the slime was only digesting his blunt response in preparation to come back for more. Since it appeared there would be a little time until then, Sean decided to use the interim before the sure-to-be-withering tirade to stop and stare at one of his bony ‘brethren’. He paused in front of one that held a rather large hatchet, looking the undead creature over.
It was remarkable to him how human the thing still looked, despite the complete lack of flesh. Decaying muscles still clung to its frame, the skeleton evidently not having been scoured clean as thoroughly as Sean had been. Its frame was considerably thicker than his, and there seemed to be more bones in its chest and arms than any human could ever have needed – but it was otherwise built just as he was.
As Sean looked the creature up and down, he felt like the skeleton’s focus had sharpened upon him in turn. It wasn’t a change of expression, more of a feeling. One Sean couldn’t quite place the origin of as he looked his near-twin in what counted for its eyes. Twin circles of red flame spun inside bone-white sockets, their soft flickering a mirror of the torch above as the undead met Sean’s own orbs without expression, its gaze as cold and impassive as the grave.
It was hard to tell, given that every single one of these things had been staring at him since he had first opened the door, but Sean could feel that there were still vestiges of the intelligence that had marked its past life still left in this one. Again, there was nothing outward about the undead in front of him that marked it as any different… but the impression was still there.
Time passed, and Sean lost himself in thought as he stared at what was clearly an improved version of what he had only recently become. There was a fundamental question here, one he couldn’t help but ask himself.
Is this going to be me? If Bancroft ever decided to reclaim him, then the possibility wasn’t all that far-fetched.
“It’s their eyes, isn’t it?” Gel asked in a low tone, startling Sean out of his reverie. “Staring right into your jelly like they can see through it.”
“No…” Sean said, ignoring Gel’s attempt at humor. “No, that’s not it.”
Just looking at the menacing undead standing so close to him should have been frightening, and if he were still human there was no doubt in Sean’s mind that he would have been in full fight-or-flight mode. But here and now, as he was, Sean felt nothing of the sort. He felt only… calm. At peace. In a way that felt, amusingly, bone deep.
It was different from the numb lack of emotion that followed his body smothering any highs or lows in his mood. Different from when he used to lose himself in cooking back home, or when he zoned out on a treadmill to his favorite new-age pop-hits playlist. It wasn’t even that Sean was now finally certain none of these warriors would attack him.
No… the thing that was bugging him more than anything else was the fact that here, smack dab in the middle of a small army of decaying undead soldiers, Sean felt more at ease than he had ever felt with his own friends back on earth. The serenity he was feeling was almost mirrored by his own maddening inability to place his finger on why he felt that way.
After a moment, Sean decided to just talk his thoughts out.
“I should be afraid.” Sean said softly, reaching one hand up towards the skull of the creature before him to gesture at it. “The dead don’t just ‘come back’ where I come from, they just die. The bones they leave behind don’t move either, they don’t guard basements, and they aren’t… ”
Sean trailed off, dropping his hand away from the creature and back to his side before he made contact.
“Summoned?” Gel guessed. “Re-animated?”
“Summoned.” Sean agreed, looking down at his own broken arm for a moment before taking a step back. The skeletal warrior would definitely have been a ‘monster’ ripped straight out of a nightmare if he had encountered it at any other point in his life, but for now he was ready to move on to more important matters. Ones that didn’t involve existential questions about his new unlife.
“So, just to clarify here. Despite the fact that we are surrounded on all sides by a small army of undead – any one of which probably could tear us apart – you’re saying you’re not actually afraid of them? Any of them?” Gel asked, a hint of respect climbed into the slime’s voice as he added. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”
“Now come on.” Gel tugged at Sean’s ribs as if leading a stubborn puppy. “I think I saw a door over there.”
“Oh yeah?” Sean followed the direction Gel was pulling him and strode over to the middle of the room where the path split into a four-way intersection.
The far end of which was very obviously the exit, with its open archway and wide, sandy walkway. To his left, Sean could see the door Gel was talking about. It had a large padlock resting on it, which wasn’t terribly surprising given the rest of the security down here. Looking off to his right, Sean saw… even more barrels of unknown liquor.
Left it is. Sean reasoned, turning and heading straight for the locked door. Those barrels aren’t going anywhere, but this might be our only shot at whatever is in there.
“I would’ve thought you’d be telling me to run out the exit.” Sean quipped as they walked. “Now that we can actually see one, that is.”
“And miss out on whatever delicious treasures Bancroft has stored away down here?” Gel actually snorted inside his mind at the idea. “We’re not in that much of a rush. Plus, we still have to let my cousin out. Can’t just leave him behind.”
“Not in a rush? We just destroyed an entire room back there. There’s blood on the walls. All of them. Literally, all of the walls. You don’t think Mumbles back there is going to take exception to that?” Sean paused, his amusement at his own descriptions quickly giving way to a more serious tone. “Whoever that dude is, I guarantee you he is not going to be happy we killed his precious little maggots.”
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Gel was silent for a moment as the slime processed that. So was Sean. Both of them pictured the large, disfigured man who had dotted so heavily on the small creatures whose insides the pair of them had literally splattered the floor, walls, and likely even the ceiling with.
Sean began to jog towards the door.
“What about the lock?” Sean asked as they approached the clearly still padlocked-shut door. “How are we going to–”
“Open it.”
“What?”
“Just try the door.” Gel insisted. “Trust me.”
Unwilling to argue now that the need to keep moving had resurfaced, Sean shrugged and decided to trust his friend. As they reached the door he reached for the handle and gave it a quick turn. To his surprise the door opened easily, revealing a storage room containing a desk piled high with random stacks of papers, various multi-colored glass bottles stored high up on well-worn wooden shelves, and a number of mostly-empty iron weapon racks that looked to have been haphazardly tossed about.
“Not that I’m complaining or anything, but how did you know that would work?” Sean asked, moving quickly into the room and shutting the door quietly behind him before he began searching for anything that might be worth taking. “That padlock was twice the size of my fist. I thought we were going to have to break the door down.”
“Easy. Bancroft was complaining nonstop about the lock in his ‘army room’ being broken every single evening for at least a solid last week before he threw me out. Seeing as nobody ever owned up to it, I figured…”
“... they still hadn’t fixed it.” Sean nodded in understanding, finishing his friend’s sentence. “Alright, makes sense. Now for the real question.”
Sean looked around the room at the multi-colored potions he couldn’t identify. He looked up and down the empty weapon racks, finding nothing that could help them. He picked up a few papers from the desk, discovering they were covered in markings that he supposed might be a language if you squinted hard enough. When he was done, Sean asked the only questions that made sense to him.
“Why the hell are we even here? Is any of this stuff…” He gestured at the papers and potions. “Worth taking with us?”
“Well, I was hoping we might find some food here, but… do you see a turquoise, or possibly even a chartreuse-ish colored potion anywhere?” Gel asked, ignoring Sean’s own question as the slime tried to look around despite his low vantage point. “There should be one…”
Sean’s mind halted at the use of a color term he had only ever heard from an old girlfriend who had been overly particular about her curtains. He looked down at the gelatinous being inside his ribcage, unsure if he was more impressed or curious about how Gel even knew the word.
“... Chartreuse?”
“Yes, Sean. Chartreuse. It’s like flax meets sage, only better than you’d think any mix of those two colors had any right to be.” Gel gestured up at the shelves of potions. “Are there any up there that look like that? I can’t see much from down here.”
Filing Gel’s sudden and surprisingly in-depth knowledge of the color wheel away as a topic for later, Sean inspected the vials lining the shelf. While his own color vocabulary was a bit better than some thanks in no small part to that same exasperated girlfriend, Sean did recall from one of the farming games he had played that ‘flax’ was probably some kind of… yellow?
Wait… was it yellow or tan?
There were maybe a dozen vials lining each shelf, some as large as stereotypical science beakers and others that might have held spices back on Earth. The contents of some bubbled while the inky black liquid of one of them swirled in a small vortex inside its glass container as if the whole thing had just been shaken vigorously. Most of the liquids were still though, and all of them had their own distinct hue – if not multiple.
Which one could it– ahh. On the far end of one shelf Sean spied a small vial that appeared to be a yellow-ish green. That’s gotta be it.
Reaching up, Sean grabbed it and, just to make sure he had the right one, held the vial in front of his ribs for the slime to confirm.
“This it?”
Inside his rib cage, Sean felt Gel immediately try to pull himself as far away from the vial as the slime could possibly manage. A half-terrified, half-angry voice shouted into his head as if he were holding a live stick of dynamite.
“Woah, WOAH there big guy, not so close! Do you have any idea what that does?!” Gel demanded, his body now firmly wrapped around Sean’s spinal column. “Or what that could do?”
“No.” Sean answered honestly, surprised by the rather extreme response the slime was having. “Do you?”
Before Gel could respond, a hideous cry of outrage echoed reverberated throughout the stone walls as if from a great distance. It was followed by a howl of fury and such intense grief that the sound alone might have torn at Sean's heart if he still had one.
"Forget it." Sean responded. “We still want it, right?”
“Absolutely. If we take nothing else from this place, I want that potion.”
“Fair enough.” Sean glanced quickly about the room for something to put the potion in, and found what he was looking for almost immediately.
Under one of the stacks of random papers on the desk was a small leather bag cinched shut with dark black string. Prying the bag open with the fingers of his one good hand, Sean slipped the top of it over the potion and scooped it up. He was about to turn and leave, but then…
How often do you get a chance to rob a necromancer?
Moving as fast as he could, Sean opened the bag wide and laid it back down on the table. He judged there was probably room left for five or six more of the same size, maybe more if he grabbed the tiny ones. Picking randomly, Sean carefully placed as many as he could fit inside the bag. He did his best to grab the smallest vials possible, figuring the glassware on the shelves probably followed cologne rules and those were likely the most expensive. The last one he snatched up was a deep-blue potion that sent a shiver through him when he picked it up. The unexpected sensation almost caused the vial to slip fully through his fingers, but Sean twisted and bent low, managing to cradle it to his thigh bone before it hit the floor.
Phew. Sean sighed with no small amount of mental relief. If Gel’s reaction to the first potion was any indicator, he did not want to break any of these open on himself. That was close.
“Nice catch.” Gel commented cheerily. “No idea what that one does, but I can’t wait to find out.”
“You almost did.” Sean muttered in response, before cursing mentally as he struggled to cinch the now completely full bag shut.
Despite his efforts, the task was unfortunately one that he just really needed two hands for. Sighing internally, Sean slid his hand up through the loop of string, spun the bag, and then wrapped it around his forearm a second time. Figuring that if that particular trick was good enough to keep bread fresh, then it had a reasonable chance of working here.
Casting about the room one last time, Sean spied the edges of what appeared to be a map underneath one of the thicker stacks of illegible markings. Pulling it free, he found that it depicted a large area which – surprise, surprise – he recognized none of. He grabbed it anyway.
If Gel can use this to figure out where we are… we might be on better footing once we get out of here. Sean thought, rolling and then tucking the map in between the string and his forearm bones as best as he could manage given the terrible angle. Land-nav training days in the military had never been his favorite. If he could navigate by map, then he was going to.
Besides, He thought, holding his forearm up to check his work. Worst comes to worst, it’ll keep whatever is in those vials from dripping all over me if one breaks.
The unmistakable sound of a heavy wooden door being slammed into hard stone echoed down towards them. Sean could think of only two options for the origin of that sound, and one of those was decidedly worse for them.
Gel spoke up before the sound had even faded. "If you were waiting on a cue to leave, that's about as good as we're going to get."
Mentally grunting in acknowledgement, Sean dashed from the room. In his haste, he bumped into one of the weapons racks, jostling it to the ground with a sound like the clattering of dropped pans on a hardwood floor. He froze in place, waiting to see if someone had heard. If he hadn’t closed the door, the obnoxiously loud clanging that little accident had just made would have been as good as a full-blown announcement of their presence to anyone nearby. It might have gotten them killed.
Resisting the urge to curse at the blasted thing for being in his way at the most inconvenient of times, Sean exited the room. What he saw on the other end made every remaining bone he had freeze in place once more.
Far across the room, near the entrance they had come through where Gel’s “cousin” was locked away, a bright torch could be seen bobbing its way in. That particular door hadn’t been closed, given that Sean had figured they were eventually going back for the monstrous air purifier. An oversight on his part, one that Sean hoped hadn’t allowed whoever was holding that torch to hear his clumsy mistake.
He glanced towards the exit, and his metaphorical heart sank. The path from the entrance door was basically a straight shot at the exit. Which meant that if Sean made a break for it, whoever was coming would have to be blind not to see them.
Sean had the distinct feeling that being found would not end well for him or Gel, especially with how broken he already was. Even if he might have been able to fight off Mumbles before, he didn’t like his odds of doing so with only one arm. Just fighting more of those crabs right now would be a real challenge.
His mind raced, and as he looked out at the ranks of the undead warriors arrayed out before him, Sean seized on a desperate idea. Moving with what he hoped wasn’t noticeable haste, he stepped forward, moving between a pair of his fellow summoned skeletons. To his surprise, several on either side shifted in place just enough to make sufficient room for him. Booted and bony feet scraped against the dirt floor as the warriors effectively absorbed him into their formation.
"This is a great plan." Gel began as Sean tried to assume a position mimicking that of one of the few skeletons garbed in leather body armor along the path to the room they had just left, silently praying he wasn't making too much noise.
He couldn't push their way too deep into the ranks without it being obvious that he was doing so, but as long as he was deep enough that whoever this was couldn't spot the slime in his chest…
They might just ignore us. From the walkway, they might mistake Gel for bloody rags if he doesn’t move.
"Now if we're caught, we'll be right in the middle of Bancroft's army. There's no way he'll be expecting an enemy to be that stupid."
“Shut up, and stay still.” Sean warned his friend. “Try to look like we belong here.”
“We don’t belong here. We belong up front. Or better yet, outside. Where the food is.”
Standing as still as he could, Sean faced forward and tried to mimic the unflinching gaze of the undead around him. Like he had done so many times in the past, Sean picked a point on the wall across from him and stared dead at it.
"If you have a better plan, I'm all ears." Sean retorted through their mental connection as the flickering torch drew nearer.
Whoever it was, they were cursing up a storm. Sean obviously couldn't make out what the man was saying, so he didn’t have any context as to the specifics, but he didn't need context to know this guy was pissed. The sharp and spiteful utterances of vengeful rage were a universal language, no matter what world you were on.
"You are not, you're all bones! Don't get my hopes up like that. Ears are my second favorite food!" Gel snapped back.
"No, I meant–" Sean stopped himself as the last part of Gel's statement sunk in. "Ears are your second favorite?"
"Brains, ears, eyes, then heart." Gel recited with practiced ease. "Top four! Everything else is just filling. Tasty, delicious filling, mind you."
Sean digested the double meaning in that statement for a second as Mumbles flashed past them, beating a hasty path towards the room’s only other exit. He only managed to catch glimpses of the man between his undead brethren, but Sean was sure it was the same guy. Furious and ranting now instead of calm and cooing, but it was definitely him. Unless all of Bancroft’s men had the same disfigured shoulder.
"Did you just refer to every other organ as 'meat filling'?" Sean asked, keeping the conversation going to distract the slime as he tried not to lean forward or even turn his head in the man's direction. He didn’t want to draw Mumble’s attention, but he did want a better look at whatever the man was wearing. There could be clues there that he could use.
"Am I wrong?" Gel asked. “What else would you call them?”
“Actually…‘filling’ sounds about right.” Sean said. “Usually we use that for pie fillings, but if you’re eating a meat pie, then… I guess it still sort-of fits.”
“Oh? Hmm...” Gel was silent for a moment as Mumbles walked out of their vision, then the slime spoke up again, sounding curious this time. “You know a lot more about food than I would have guessed for a skeleton. Were you a cook before you died? Work for some noble’s family?”
“Nah, I can cook but it’s usually just for myself or my friends. Occasionally for family.” Sean replied, suppressing the urge to shrug as he answered honestly. “I just love food.”
“I knew we were friends for a reason.” Gel stated with an absolute certainty that surprised Sean. “Now, what’s this about a meat pie? Can you make me one?”
“Sure, once we get out of here. Just get me some meat and I’ll figure the rest out.” He could make pie filling easily enough, assuming flour was ubiquitous here as it was back on Earth.
“That, I can do.” Gel asserted with pride, then added. “Well, you can do it for me, I mean. But you will have my full assistance and support the entire way!”
The pair chatted back and forth for another minute or two as the torch-wielding Mumbles simply stood in front of the exit, muttering to himself. Seeing as they had nothing better to do, the pair just watched the oversized man stare off into the distance, hoping he would go check outside or run off into the night after his revenge so they could sneak quietly past while he was gone -- but no dice.
"Hu-uh." Gel muttered after the man began shouting once more, though Sean couldn’t make out what Mumbles was shouting at. “Weird.”
"What?" Sean asked. "Is he calling for guards or something?"
"Nope. He's yelling at something. I'm not sure exactly wh–" Gel trailed off, clearly straining whatever mechanism the slime used to process sound.
Seconds later, the sound of leather boots scuffing against sand and dirt came from the exit as Mumbles apparently darted around whatever he was having an issue with. More cursing followed, as well as a series of loud, angry snapping sounds.
Snapping that reminded Sean all too uncomfortably of the giant corpse crabs they had fought earlier.
"Gel… what is that?" Sean asked in his calmest, most professionally detached tone.
"Well, I have good news, and bad news." Gel responded slowly as the snapping sounds grew louder, the unmistakable clanging of chitin on chitin filling the room.
"Good news first. Always good news first."
"Alright. The good news is… we can now definitively say that not running outside was definitely the right move."
"Okay... so, what’s the bad news?" Sean asked, shifting slightly to try and get a peak at whatever was going on as subtly as he could. He wanted to have some idea of what they were potentially going to be up against. Not being able to see something that might very likely decide their fate was starting to grate on his caution.
A furious, insectoid screech resounded throughout the cellar, high enough in pitch and lasting long enough that it completely drowned out the man's own hastily shouted response.
"The bad news is... I caught the name of the monster they have guarding the exit here when he was swearing at it. It’s actual name, that is."
Another screech echoed through the cavern, followed by more loud snapping sounds and a hearty whump as whatever-that-was apparently tried to lunge at its tormentor. Mumbles let out a startled noise, right before dropping his torch. Sean couldn’t see what followed, but the unmistakable sound of someone scrambling backwards for dear life let him know that the man had survived.
"... and you are not going to like it." Gel finished, his usual cheery tone evident as the slime enjoyed his bit of melodrama.
Sean felt himself try to swallow despite the complete lack of any sort of throat remaining around his neck. He could hear the clear sounds of a body much larger than his own slamming against the ground, causing gravel to jostle around in the path. When it started to move around, Sean decided it was time to ask the question he no longer wanted the answer to.
"What is it?"
Gel answered him just as the massive creature somewhere in front of them slid its oversized body back into wherever it had been. Sean still hadn't caught a glimpse of it, but he had seen Mumbles’ face of pure terror as the man fled back towards the entrance of the room.
A simple "Oh." was Sean’s first response as the pair listened to Mumbles shout more invectives at the creature before scrambling out of the room entirely. Before the man had turned the corner, he delivered his second.
"... Great."