"No, slimes can't talk. They don't have mouths."

"They breathe, don't they?" Maury jabs her fork toward the slime, which shrinks back and squeals again. "Yeah, that's right, it was screaming before, too. Obviously, it can talk. How odd..."

"This is fascinating," Pixiesnort breathes out as she gently scoops the creature up and brings it up to her face to examine closer. "Can you speak again?"

When no answer comes forth, Maury sighs and falls back on good old-fashioned threats. "Say something, or I eat you next."

"Don't kill me! Don't eat me either!"

The voice seems to come from the jiggling mass balancing on purple hands, but there is no clear indication from what part. No orifice opens up, no impressive glow, and they don't feel the distinctive pinch in their frontal lobes that would mean it is using telepathy.

"Fascinating," Pixie whispers as Maury scoffs, "Eating you would kill you, too, idiot."

Another student walks past them, looking at them strangely as he empties his tray in the garbage before leaving. Pixie gently sets the slime down, patting it on the head before reaching for her own utensils. "You should probably not talk, little slime, at least not in crowded places like this. Someone will grab you and dissect you to figure out how you can speak."

"So if I dissect him, I can figure it out? I bet I could get extra credit if I can figure out how I did it," Maury puts her fork down for the first time, ignoring the frightened squeal. "How would I even cut open a slime? You can see right through it, would I need to? Does it look different after vivisection?"

"Maury! You are scaring the poor thing! There is no reason to cut it open. The magic is obviously what needs to be examined. That will tell you how it works."

"Hmm." With stabbing the annoying former human no longer the best option, Maury's interest wanes. She quickly finishes off her plate, hanging her tongue out at the end with a sour face. "I don't know. I'll think about it. I've been meaning to raise my Investigation stat anyway."

Unfortunately, before Maury has the chance to lug the former human back to her room and get to magically poking it, she is stopped in the hallway outside the Dining Hall by the Dean for the final year students. Each new group of students is assigned their own Dean that follows them up through the years. Something about building close bonds blah blah trusting and welcoming environment something something, she really didn't pay much attention to the explanation at the welcoming ceremony the first year. Surprise all around.

"Maurgeth," he begins, and she perks up at the proper use of her name. "It was brought to my attention that you have an unregistered pet. You will need to accompany me to my office to take care of registration, fees, and the reading of the rules and regulations for the care of magical and non magical companions."

By the time that Maury stumbles into her room that night, she is exhausted and frustrated. All because some stupid human didn't have the common decency to give up his soul and turn into bones she is not only broke, she actually OWES the school an additional 20 gold! Fees for registering, fees for housing, fees for feeding in the dining hall, fees for equipment to keep the pet, as well as other students safe, it is ridiculous! And when she offered to just kill it right then she was told that she would still have to pay the fees anyway because they had proof that she did have the pet on premises anyway, plus there would be a penalty fee for the unsanctioned termination of an unregistered pet as well.

She nearly exploded in anger right that second, but she was worried there would be a fee tacked on for the cleaning of exploded student parts.

When she stomps back into her room after the less than pleasant meeting, she slams the door and throws the slime at the opposite wall. It cries out on impact and oozes down the wall to the floor. She peers at it skeptically.

"Did that actually hurt?"

Nobody has ever had the chance to ask slimes questions before with the possibility of answers coming back. The novelty is enough to shake Maury out of her funk for a moment.

"No, it was habit."

"You have the habit of yelling 'ow'?"

"Well, yeah! I mean no, I mean, sometimes you expect something to hurt, and you yell it out!"

"You are a weird little slime," she remarks as she lays out on the bed, the funk-free moment over. How is she going to come up with 20 gold?

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"I'm not a slime! I am a human! And my name is Neumann!"

"Fine, Newton, now be quiet. I am trying to think."

The little pile of goo shudders and sways back and forth like a recently shaken gelatin mold. "Neumann! Not Newton!"

"Quiet or I will stab you with whatever I can find!" Finally, luck is on her side. Neumann is quiet. It is good, because she really doesn't want to get up and find something stabby.

Maury lays on her back, her arms flat against the bed at her sides, staring at the grey stone of the ceiling. How, she repeats to herself, am I going to come up with 20 gold?

********

The next morning, Maury rolls out of bed, scratching the back of her head as she shuffles out of her room and down to the communal bathroom. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamt about being buried alive by debt collectors cackling maniacally as they shoveled dirt onto her head with solid gold shovels. She can almost feel the dirt in her hair still.

It is no use laying around and complaining, that takes up too much energy and doesn't actually do anything useful. She knows she needs to come up with money and fast. She empties her bladder and washes her hands, then ducks her head under the faucet to rinse the imaginary dirt out of it before heading back to her room.

The slime is still where she left it the night before, at the base of the wall to the side of her only, narrow window. It isn't moving or talking, so she walks over to her bed and lays back down, completely ignoring it.

Or trying to. As soon as she lays down, its eyes pop open, and it shimmies in place. "Hey! You! What did you turn me into?"

"You are a slime now," she sighs, turning on her side to face into the room. "One of the lowest of the intelligent creatures. They have no real society and are only considered intelligent because they have the ability to figure out puzzles. Otherwise, they are idiots."

"Oh. But I am not an idiot," he states, tactfully ignoring her disbelieving snort. "You were telling that really tall blue woman that they can't talk, and I can. So am I not a slime?"

"No, you are definitely a slime. I don't know why you can talk, but I would be happy to cut you open and find out."

Neumann goes silent, and the only sound in the room for several minutes is Maury's occasional groan as she discards another idea about gold making.

"Can slimes move? I can't seem to do more than wiggle around. It feels weird, like my whole body is bobbing around in a rushing river."

"Grah," Maury grunts, rolling back onto her back. "Yes, they move, and no, I don't know how because they don't talk to tell anyone! Maybe if you think really hard about it and shut up, you will figure it out!"

She slaps her hands over her ears and closes her eyes, trying to tune out the grunts and other odd noises filling her room. No matter what direction her planning goes, she keeps coming back to the same conclusion. There is only one way for an unaccredited summoner to get work. She'll have to-

Fwoomp!

Something lands on her face, and she swats at it, trying not to inhale the not quite viscous green body planted over her mouth. It moves on its own, hopping onto the bed beside her with excited noises.

"I did it!" He howls in triumph, bouncing up and down like a child fed far too much sugar. "If I think about it, I can do it!" To prove it, he hops along the length of the bed, and ends up next to her head.

"Great." She rolls off of the bed and walks straight to the door, leaving and closing the door behind her.

When she returns, she pulls a large pack from beneath her bed and begins to pull items from the trunk at the foot of her bed, shoving them unceremoniously into the pack.

"What are you doing?" Neumann rests on her pillow, apparently tired from all his previous bouncing."Are we going somewhere?"

Maury stops, staring at him in confusion. "Oh, right. I suppose I should take you with me. Right. Okay. Yes, I guess we are going somewhere. The only way to make any real money before becoming a certified and accredited summoner is through accepting low-level quests. Pixiesnort will make sure the bones don't pile up below the mirror every day and alert me if something goes wrong with it. But that gives me a month to make 20 gold to pay off YOUR fees so I can graduate. It will be tight, but I can do it."

"Neat! And it means you won't be killing me, right? I support that plan." He starts to bounce again, pinging back and forth from the headboard to the footboard over and over until he is grabbed midair by the annoyed girl. Woman. Purple thing. Whatever. "Hey! Put me down!"

Maury sighs, wishing she could just chuck the thing back through the mirror. It wouldn't make the fees go away, though, so she might as well keep him for now. Maybe he will come in handy. If something tries to eat her, she can throw the slime at its face as a distraction. "I'm not putting you down, so be quiet. As a companion, you are required to wear this leash to tie you to me so I can summon you easier."

She looks at the large collar on the work table and then back at the slime in her hand. With a wiggle of her fingers, the collar shrinks down and changes shape to resemble a broad brimmed hat, which she places on its head. A high-pitched buzz fills her ears. "There you go, Newel, aren't you just the ugliest little hat wearer ever?"

"My name is Neumann," he corrects her with a huff, hopping out of her hand to check out his reflection in the mirror while she finishes packing her bags. "I thought you said I had to wear a leash? This looks like a pretty neat hat."

Maury ignores him, pulling up her status window to see what the buzzing alert is for. Scanning her skills quickly, she sees a new skill labeled Companion Bond with a single point next to it. A few spots below that in the Wordless Spells subcategory is Transmogrification. She checks on that just to see how much she got from converting a human into a slime. The only recent activity showing when she pulls up the details is her changing the leash to a hat. Maybe changing sentient creatures is considered some other skill. Still, there are only two experience points left to get her to 10 of 100 for Transmog.

One more finger wiggle and the brim of the hat retreats, the shape changes to a neat half sphere in several bright colors. A propeller erupts from the top and begins leisurely spinning. A ding and a buzz, and Maury is the proud owner of one more skill point in Transmogrification. She is also the proud owner of one very distraught and weepy human turned slime who is sobbing about looking weird. That part doesn't really bother her, though.