“Dungeon Complete,” a loud booming voice rang out, “Deed to land transferred to Jason Gideon.”

“Wha?” all of the party asked surprised at what was just announced. None of them had ever heard of a dungeon becoming open land to be owned by an individual.

Jason’s VUI started filling with information regarding his new acquisition. The information he was presented with was a document that listed off the dimensions of the land, the population of the land, its name, other pieces of land that were owned by the town, a map, and listing of all sub-buildings and their sub-owners, as well as a listing of what was in the treasury and any other useful information that would be needed to run the city. He was overwhelmed by the information. Jason thought that all of this was very interesting, but there was only one thing that he was interested in, what was in the treasury. He clicked on the treasury button, hoping to find riches, but all he found was a single ARMS device.

“I guess, search the town and see what can be salvaged to sell. I’ll see if I can find the treasury,” Jason said as he started walking back toward the center of the bailey where the slime had left a giant hole where once had stood the castle keep. Upon reaching the edge of the chasm and looking into it he saw that the room that had held the slime was still in tact, but there was no way down or up for that matter. So he did what any sensible person did and jumped over the cliff, trusting that he could handle the fall, but quickly rethought his actions. He twisted in midair, turning towards the wall and slammed his knife into the cliff face, cutting into it, which slowed his descent. He wasn’t anywhere near the bottom of the 4 story hole so he did it again and again until he had made his way safely to the ground.

He approached the doorway, not confident that it was safe to approach the door. The rules for these dungeons seemed to be that of instances that reset when you left them and once you cleared them all the creatures despawned, but from the reactions that he had seen others have repeatedly when things happened that they weren’t expecting so whatever the rules were before, they no longer applied universally or they had changed so much that they couldn’t be relied upon to base his actions on. The closer he got, the jewel on his bracer pulsed green slowly. He took another step and it pulsed quicker. The closer he got the quicker it pulsed. He paused and raised the bracer up to eye level to observe it. “Huh… that’s strange,” he said as he took another step forward. Suddenly the jewel lit up solidly with a green glow and the slime that it had absorbed earlier shot out in front of him, between him and the door. It took the form of the slime girl earlier that he had punched through and defeated.

“No no no no, I don’t want to go back in there!” the slime girl wave her arms in the air rapidly, trying to get him to stop moving toward the door.

Jason stopped and looked at the creature confused. He reached for his sword, move a foot back to strengthen his stance. “Who… what are you?”

“That’s not important. I don’t want to go back to the room!” she replied.

“Is the room the treasury?” he asked.

“If I say yes, are you going to put me back into the room?” she answered with a question of her own.

“I’m going in there either way,” he said walking forward, trying to walk around the slime girl, but she shifted her position to block his path. “Get out of my way,’ he ordered her.

“No!” she shouted back at him, “Don’t lock me back in there!”

“Why would I do that? I don’t even know who or what you are or why you’re getting in my way.”

“Because that’s what you people do!”

“Just get out of my way,” Jason walked in one direction, before spinning and going the opposite way, slipping by her. He only took a few more steps before finding he was stuck to the ground.

“Noooooo!” She had deformed herself so that she could stretch and grab onto his legs.

Just like earlier once slime got on him he couldn’t move from where he was. He was helpless to do anything about it since he used everything that could defeat slime creatures earlier or given them to Rina. “Let me go!” he said as he strained to move forward, “I just want to see what’s in there.”

“I don’t believe you!” she cried, pulling herself closer, adopting the form of a girl clinging onto his legs, wrapping her arms around them so that he couldn’t walk due to her weight. The reality was that she weighed almost nothing and what held him to the ground was her ability to vary her stickiness. She could glue herself to the ground so that nothing could move her or slide effortlessly across the ground as if it were made of ice. Right now, she was acting like glue.

Jason stopped struggling and sighed, “Ok, please stop. Why do you not want me to go into the treasury? I just want to look and grab the treasure if it’s there. It is mine after all.”

“You’re lying! You want to trick me into going back in there and locking me up so I become that creature again! I don’t want to be a fat blubbery slime monster again!” the slime girl cried tears of slime from her bright eyes. Jason couldn’t tell if she was really crying just putting on an act and making herself look like that.

“Why don’t you just stay out here and I’ll go in there without you. I don’t even know you,” Jason tried to argue reason with her.

“But but but…,” the slime girl blubbered.

“That’s it,” Jason pulled a container from him inventory, “If you won’t let me go I’m going to have to dump salt on you,” he said as tipped the container over her head. She screeched, let go, and moved away quickly into a corner. Her mass shook, creating a wobble throughout her form, and she pulsed quickly and brightly with green light from the core of her being, creating a strobe effect. Jason could help but chuckle, but he cut it short, breaking fast for the doorway before she figured out that the container was empty.

Inside the room Jason found himself inside a large empty space, all but for a crumbling pedestal with an ARMS device sitting upon it. A low hum could be heard from all around him, but nothing else seemed out of place, besides this being a massive treasury which held nothing within it. He cautiously approached the pedestal, remembering that everything that he had experienced with these dungeons seemed to be based on things found in the fiction and history of Earth and this setup was just a bit to ominously to an Indiana Jones trap.

Jason stepped up to the pedestal when he suddenly heard, “No no no no no no, you won’t trick me!” from outside of the treasury. He didn’t know what to make of her, but he decided to ignore the slime girl if he could. He grabbed the device and dashed for the door, believing that something was bound to happen. The quicker he got out of the room the sooner he would feel safe again. He exited the treasury and yanked the door shut just in case something was chasing after him.

The device in Jason’s hand had the icon of an armor device with a silver rank. He read into his VUI that there was, like his new silver ranked sword, no description of it. There’d be no benefit to switching into it at the moment so he stored it away and crossed back to the wall of the chasm, ignoring the slime girl.

The slime girl heard the door close, ‘wha?” she watched the door shut with a blank stare. The pulsing light of her core stopped and held steady. She aw Jason walk pass her, not paying her any mind. Her light dimmed before her light lit up. Her eyes grew wide and her lips pulled into a happy smile. She was overjoyed and lost herself. After a moment she came back to her senses. She didn’t see Jason anywhere. She turned her head rapidly, but couldn’t find him. Eventually she looked up and spotted him on the wall, climbing it, using his sword and dagger to pull himself up. She stood up and ran to him, using her ability to stick to surfaces to cross the wall as though it were the floor, her arms spread out to glomp on to him.

The slime girl slammed into Jason, wrapping herself around him, throwing him away from the wall, but due to her holding onto him he fell back against the wall and was stuck there. She straddled him, her shins holding onto the wall, keeping them both in place as if they were on the ground, “Thank you, master!”

“What?” asked dazed and confused, pinned to the wall under the slime girl.

“You’re not going to lock me up inside that room again. Thank you!” she squeezed Jason, hugging him. She had made her body solid enough to make her feel like a normal human body that was covered in a thick viscous oil.

Jason didn’t really understand what the slime girl’s issue was, but he decided to just go along with it and ignore whatever he didn’t get about her. “Ok, can you get off me, so I can get out of this hole?”

The slime girl immediately shot to her feet, or the piece of her body that was acting as her feet at the moment and saluted, closing her eyes with cheerful smile, “Yes sir!”

This was not good, the slime girl had absent mindedly detached herself from Jason, causing him to begin to slip through her legs. She had knocked him away from his weapons and his hand holds to scale the cliff face. He tried to hang on to her ankles, but she was to slippery. He fell from where he was and at the same time he screamed out.

She open her eyes at the sound of Jason’s yell. She looked down, surprised to find that he was no longer there. She twisted around to see him plummeting. “Oh no!” she yelped before using all of her speed to get to the ground as quickly as she could. Stopping under his falling body, she deformed into a form that he could land on safely.

He plunged into her slimey body, his whole self piercing her. She used all her might to hold together and slow him, tightening around him. She moaned. Then, when she thought that he was safe, she relaxed turning to messy puddle beneath him, her energy spent. Jason lay tense on top of her and the sticky mess that she had become. It took a moment for what had happened to process in his mind, but when recovered and realized what had happened he tried standing, only to slip and fall face back into her. She pulled herself together to push him off of her. He grunted and tried again, her ooze dripping from him. He didn’t know what to say so he didn’t. He was frustrated, but he didn’t want to snap on her. He took a deep breath to calm himself before taking stock of his situation and where his weapons were so that he could start back on his way out of the hole. “Now what am I going to do?”

“I can help!” the slime girl reformed and jumped over, leaning to the side cutely.