I had found that Lady Anabeth was very easily suggestible.

  All it took was one mention that the dungeon must be cleared, and her eyes lit up like a ntern dropped in oil. The promise of more slime cores to collect was all the persuasion she required.

  And so, half an hour ter, Silvermane stood snorting before the moss-dark threshold of Gallowmere’s first slough, a yawning cleft in the marsh that breathed foul air and the distant plop-plop of disturbed water.

  The dungeon mouth looked very much like the open gullet of some ancient amphibian, which already signaled how sticky and gross this was going to be. Even from the entrance, the ground glistened with a muciginous sheen.

  Anabeth, of course, looked delighted. “Fascinating, isn’t it? Most standard dungeons are predictable, But Gallowmere’s sloughs are an entirely different structure altogether. The aetheric pattern is irregur and slime colonies migrate between chambers, like little ducklings! And the floors—oh, the floors are riddled with adhesive traps that can immobilize a grown ox if you aren’t careful.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could, she took one proud step forward and immediately sank her boot into a translucent puddle of green slime.

  The puddle gave a delighted shlorp.

  “Ah!” she cried, throwing one hand dramatically to her forehead and leaning back against me for support. “I’m hurt! It seems I am no longer able to stand on my own two feet, Ser!”

  Her tone could have drawn appuse in a theater. The ‘trap,’ however, was a tiny puddle of slime that barely held her; I could see she could lift her foot free with the smallest effort.

  She pressed on, clutching at her leg with exaggerated distress. “If only there were a galnt gentleman who would lend me his broad shoulders in this time of peril.”

  I gnced down at her hand. “You’re clutching the wrong leg.”

  There was a beat of silence. Then, without missing a breath, she swapped legs and sighed tragically, “Ah! I failed to mention that the traps can also be rather poisonous! The poison has affected both my legs all the same! My legs are now useless, in dire need of carrying until they can feel again. There. You see?” she said sweetly, still clinging to me like a dramatic stage heroine. “Completely incapacitated. I am terribly sorry for being so fragile and brittle. Tragic, really. You don’t mind, do you?” she added, already leaning against my arm as if the matter were settled.

  “I’ll crush you where you stand,” I said politely.

  “Ah!” She gasped. “A decration of assumed proximity. Crush as in ‘hold firmly,’ yes? So what you mean, Ser, is that I may indeed stand right here. How generous of you.”

  I watched her for a long, narrow moment, taking in the way she’d swapped hands, the theatrical limp, the very deliberate angle of her feet, feet that hung like velvet ornaments above the slime rather than touching it. Her eyes fshed with the small, wicked certainty of someone who had already arranged the world to her convenience.

  “Oh—oh! To make it easy for you, Sir, I can climb on your back. I simply require a foothold.” She looked at me with helpless, schorly eyes. “Would you—could you lower your arm? Yes, the left one. If you lower it slightly, I can hook my skirt and heave. For basic leverage, of course.”

  Her fingers toyed with the rim of my pauldron as she spoke, all innocent angles and practiced dependence. When I didn’t move fast enough, she gave a small, sorrowful sigh and pnted her palms on my shoulders, seeming to push against me rather than rely on me. She made a show of grunting, as if every muscle in her frame had betrayed her at once. “Oh heavens, it’s so hard; do be gentle. The poison weakens my grip.” She cmbered onto my back, scrambling for my shoulders. “Elevation reduces exposure to the… sludge. Detoxification, of course.”

  I sighed. She was so slight the movement felt almost ceremonial; the weight was negligible, more a suggestion of weight than the thing itself. It was easier to lift her than to argue.

  We picked our way past the threshold and into the first yawning corridor, where the jaundiced light pooled, yellowed like old coin. From the gloom ahead, small shapes oozed: the common slimes that should pose no trouble.

  “Specimens,” Anabeth whistled delightedly. Her fingers fluttered at the vials at her belt. “Grade—oh, adorable. Look at the chromatophore bands.”

  With Saint’s Precision and Slimebane Strike activated in tandem, the damage I could deal was ridiculous.

  Damage Dealt: 66 HP

  Common Slime’s HP: -18/48

  Reward: + 5 EXP

  + Slime Core x 1

  Every slime core drop required me to steady her arms and keep her from toppling onto my neck. Simple efficiency was impossible with a chatty, perched dy in py.

  “When was the st time you carried a dy like this, Sir Henry?” She said. I decided to not answer.

  “This air is most romantic,” she continued, leaning just slightly, so my neck caught the faintest brush of perfume, “though I didn’t intend it to be. Imagine you carry a dy while sying terrifying creatures, the perfect tableau of heroism!”

  I gritted my teeth and swung my bde again, slicing another slime neatly in two.

  “Oh, Ser Henry,” she whispered, “I do hope you don’t mind if I rest my chin on your shoulder. It’s just, you know, strategic; keeps me safe from stray slime globules.” She then murmured in a tone that could melt iron, “Ah... This is truly what every dy dreams of...” I swung again, and chunks of pale green goo spttered across my gauntlets and chest.

  It was ridiculously distracting, utterly inappropriate, and yet somehow impossible to ignore. What kind of dy dreams of this?

  The corridor ahead began to twist, the jaundiced light pooling strangely as if the walls themselves were breathing. The slime thickened into a viscous drag that clung to my feet and really started to drag me down. It was enough to throw off the rhythm of my steps.

  Debuff Applied: Gooey Terrain (–1% DEX per minute inside terrain)

  [DEX: – 1%]

  “The longer we linger, the thicker it gets,” Anabeth’s voice lost its teasing lightness. “I’d suggest we don’t dawdle.”

  I made the first turn, then the second, then the third. The path doubled back on itself, and I realized with a sinking certainty why this pce was called a maze: every corridor looked the same.

  The only difference was that the goo thickened.

  [DEX: – 2%]“Look, Ser Henry, the molecur structure of this particur slime has stabilized! I suspect a high concentration of rare metals like melonese here, which would expin the—oh!”

  She didn't finish her thought. Instead, she performed an eborate wriggle, trying to get a better vantage point, which resulted in her crawling slightly higher up my back. Her head rose above the level of my pauldrons, and she leaned forward. Her face was now right next to the back of my helmet.

  “Ah,” she murmured, her breath warm and slightly perfumed against the pte near my neck. “To see the craftsmanship up close... It’s truly exquisite.”

  I felt her slender hands trail over the metal colr protecting my throat.

  I could have sworn I heard the word ‘gorget.’

  Gorget.

  I stopped. Surely she can’t know of a gorget. She was a schor of slimes and aetheric patterns, not a student of medieval armor. No other word was used for that protective colr, and no one I knew apart from the Knighthood used such formal terminology.

  “The articution here,” she whispered, her voice even closer, sounding far too pleased. “So perfectly weighted. No other piece of armor handles the transition from coif to cuirass with such... structural elegance.”

  I gritted my teeth and kept marching, willing my DEX to hold steady against the increasing viscosity. Her chatter was worse than any debuff the dungeon could throw at me.