One

'Hold still, I've nearly got it.'

Nat fiddled with her lock pick, ignoring occasional whimpers and winces from James. The lock she was working on holding James against the cell wall wasn't anything special, but the room was so dark that it was hard going.

'Ow. Careful! That's sharp,' James whined.

A few moments and several grunts later, the cuffs came apart in Nat's hands. 'Yes!' she whispered, happy with her success but remembering the need for stealth. 'Alright, up you get and oh ' She interrupted herself by bumping into another figure. This one was fully clad in armour and almost totally hidden in the dark. It barely reacted to being bumped into, responding with little more than a grunt. 'Whose your friend?'

'Oscar? Don't get him started or you'll never hear the end of something called the chosen undead. Whatever that means,' James replied, getting to his feet and shaking some feeling back into his wrists.

'Why is he in here fully armoured up?'

'He never said. Does it matter? Lets get moving before someone comes.

'Right then. Follow me. And keep quiet.'

Two

The first thing James noticed as they made their way along the corridor, was how well Nat blended in with the shadows in her ash-blackened leather armour. The second thing was how badly he stood out in his ragged loincloth. The third thing, which he knew was inappropriate but which he couldn't fail to spot, was the curve of Nat's arse in leather. He'd missed a lot of things about free life while he'd been locked up, but all of a sudden he felt urges he had almost forgotten.

Maybe later, he told himself. Stay focused.

Nat led the way. James was happy to follow, and not just because of the view. He had no sense of the castle's geography and Nat seemed to be heading somewhere with purpose.

'Where are we going?' James whispered.

'Armoury,' Nat replied.

'What?! You mean the place where all the guards go to get their equipment/'

'Keep your voice down. That only happens when it's time to change guards. It'll be deserted at this time of day. And you need something to wear if we're going to survive this escape. Not much point busting you out if you freeze to death in the swamp, is there?'

'Fair point,' James conceded. 'Alright. I'm following.'

Despite Nat's certainty, she still took her time getting to the armoury. She had studied the guard's routines and patterns, but she didn't know what they might do when off duty. On top of that, the castle had its regular inhabitants too, of course. It was slow going, darting from shadow to shadow, sprinting or crawling from hiding place to hiding place, but they eventually made it to their destination.

Nat signalled James to stay put while she glanced through an empty window. The room was densely populated with armour and weapons but completely free of people. 'It's clear,' she whispered. 'Let's go.'

They hurried inside, finally allowing their heartbeats to slow down just slightly. 'There's a lot to choose from,' James quipped.

'We need to travel light,' Nat said. 'That plate stuff is going to be a liability. Find something as protective as you can that isn't going to weigh you down. And a weapon.'

This last part was redundant. She should have known. James had already started weighing up some of the nastier looking weapons. 'Just one?' he asked, grinning.

'Travel light, remember?'

'Right. Right. Fine.' He left the claymores and zweihanders on the wall and picked up a light chain mail body suit, quickly pulling it on with some assistance. It didn't feel particularly comfortable against his skin, but that was really the least of his concerns. He finished his outfit with some sturdy leather boots, a dark red guard's cape and a brigadine skirt. It wasn't the most fetching of outfits, but it would do a job. He grabbed a handful of daggers, a straight sword and a buckler.

Nat wasn't going to pass up the chance to grab some extra firepower either. She added a pair of duelling daggers to her belt and turned to James, inspecting him in the light. 'How're you feeling?' she asked.

'Better for being out of that shithole. Even better when we get out of here altogether' He looked weak, though. Underfed.

'Ive got an idea,' Nat said. 'Wait here.'

'Nat!' But she'd already disappeared into the next room, back against the wall in a bid to remain unnoticed in case of unwelcome visitors. When she reappeared mere moments later, she had several hunks of bread in one hand and a small bowl of soup in the other. James found himself drooling at the smell.

'Eat up,' she said, handing over the food. 'Then we really need to get moving.'

'I can do both,' he replied confidently.

Nat poked her head through the door they'd come in by. 'Alright then, let's go.'

She led them out into a surprisingly empty courtyard, James following closely behind while chomping hungrily at the bread. He did an alright job of eating and walking until Nat stopped abruptly in front of him, at which point his concentration failed him. He bumped into the back of his rescuer, spilling soup over her lower back and arse, as well as liberally splattering his own abdomen.

'Shit!' he cursed under his breath.

'Urgh. I thought you said you could multitask,' Nat said, ineffectually trying to flick thick soup off her leather-clad buttocks.

'I didn't expect you to stop so suddenly. What's up, anyway?'

'I saw shadows moving, but I still haven't actually seen an actual person. Don't you think that's odd for a castle this big?'

James shrugged. 'Seems to me that it's a day for unexpected good luck. I'm trying not to think too hard about it.'

'What if it's a trap? What if there's no guards around because they're all waiting at the gate to laugh and take us both to a cell?'

'At least I got some half decent food out of it,' James quipped. 'Anyway, I don't suppose you were going to just try and walk out the main gate, were you?'

'I'd had a few thoughts about that, actually,' Nat said thoughtfully. 'There's a few ways out for someone brave enough to take a few risks.'

'I didn't have much else planned today. Lead on.'

Two

Back in the dingy corridors of the dungeon they'd just recently left, James found himself wondering about the efficacy of his rescuer's strategy. 'This place seems awfully familiar.'

'We're going to try a less obvious way out,' Nat replied testily.

'Because you saw a shadow?'

'I could just leave you here if you'd prefer, Sir Spills-a-lot.'

'Alright, alright. Point taken. I'm still following you, aren't I?'

They reached the end of the corridor without incident, but there didn't seem to be any obvious way out. To James it seemed as though they'd reached another dark stone wall, covered in a thin layer of translucent slime and, exactly the same as the rest except perhaps the mushrooms growing against one corner might have been a little smaller than average. Still, if jail had taught him anything it was patience, so he watched as Nat ran her hands over the slick wall, enjoying the movement of her arse cheeks in leather.

'Feel free to lend a hand,' she said, not bothering to turn towards him.

'You look like you've got everything covered. Besides, I don't know what you're looking for.'

'My source told me there's a secret door here, you just need to find the right loose brick. Eww!' Nat flicked her wrist, dislodging a particularly sticky bit of slime from her fingertips.

'Alright. Let me see what I can do,' James said, standing beside Nat and running his fingers reluctantly over the slippery stonework. He tried not to think too much about what the slime was, almost convincing himself it was just chilly water.

'A-ha,' he exclaimed a few moments later as a loose rock at shoulder height shifted under the pressure of his fingers. 'I've got something.'

'Good work,' Nat replied. 'Push it then, I guess.'

'You guess?'

'Or don't. We can just stay here till the guards come to check on you.'

James pressed hard on the brick. It slide back a couple of inches but nothing else seemed to happen. He tried again, forcing his fingers deep into the gap left behind, silently cursing the build up of gunk he'd unwittingly pressed them into. While he absent mindedly wiped his hands on his clothing, a low rumbling, grinding noise made him jump.

'It's working,' Nat said.

Indeed, after a moment of that noise, the entire wall shifted back about a foot, then disappeared suddenly into the ground. Beyond was an almost identical corridor, except this one was lacking the cells of their current surroundings. It also lacked torches, more importantly, so that neither James or Nat could see more than a few feet into the gloom.

'Here,' James said, dislodging a torch from its sconce nearby. 'You first.'

'I don't exactly know the way from here,' Nat replied reluctantly. 'My source just said to follow the secret corridor. Come on. Let's get inside before it closes again. Or someone comes to see what the noise was.'

Like Nat, James had his own misgivings about pressing ahead into the dark unknown, but the alternatives didn't seem much brighter. He hurried to keep up, reasoning that if anything bad was going to happen, he'd rather have Nat's support than be left to his fate alone. And then the wall closed behind them.

'Did your source say anything about that?' James asked.

'Shit. Well, I guess we're going this way whether we like it or not.' Even with the torch, Nat could only see a few feet in front of her, though. The dark was all encompassing, suggesting they must be deep under ground surely some natural light would've gotten in through cracks in the stonework otherwise.

That darkness meant that neither of them noticed the strange track on the dirt floor. It would have been difficult to recognise as a trail even in broad daylight, in fairness. It wasn't made up of foot prints or anything obviously recognisable. Instead, it was one continuous groove almost as wide as the tunnel itself, and maybe an inch deep. After a few minutes of walking, though, Nat almost bumped headlong into the trail's source.

'Gwynevere's tits, what is that?' Nat cursed, stopping short.

'What's wh oh.'

'Shh. Maybe if we keep quiet it won't notice us,' Nat whispered fiercely.

What they were trying to go unnoticed by could only be described as some kind of green-black blob. The amorphous, jelly-like mass didn't seem to have any animal features no eyes or mouth, no limbs but somehow it seemed to be alive. It had an essence, an aura about it, something intangible but very real. It also blocked Nat and James' passage completely, and something about that aura told them it wasn't going to step politely aside, even if it had room to do so which it didn't.

'What do we do?' James asked quietly, eager to solve the problem but careful not to draw the blob's attention if attention was even the right word.

Nat paused a moment. 'Hear me out. Maybe we could just, sort of, step through it.'

James did his best to inspect Nat's facial expression in the torchlight. No, she didn't seem to be joking. 'What if it eats us? What if it traps us? You don't even know what it's made of! It could be poisonous or something.'

'So do you suggest we just wait here until it moves of its own accord? Maybe we could ask it politely to step aside.'

Without a witty response for a change, James said nothing. She had a point, he knew. They had no way of knowing if it could even hear, let alone understand them. And did they even want it to notice them? They had no way of knowing if it was hostile, friendly or indifferent. He had his suspicions, based on its location, though. Not many friendly creatures lived on their own in a dark hole beside a dungeon in his experience. Admittedly, his experience in this type of situation was non-existent, but that only furthered his wariness.

'Your idea, you first,' he said.

'Coward. Fine. Here goes nothing. Follow me as soon as you know its safe to do so, right?'

'Right. See you on the other side.'

He held the torch as far forward as he dared without getting too close to the slime. Maybe it would respond to heat. It would be interesting to find out what would happen if he tried to take it through with him.

Nat took a deep breath, braced herself, then set off at a sprint towards the corridor-blocking mass of dark green goop. James felt himself tensing in anticipation and wondered how you would go about fighting a blob if it came to that. Nat hit the thing at full speed, upper body twisted to one side so that she took the impact on her shoulder. She didn't bounce of it, nor did she pass right through it as if diving through water. What happened was more like wading through thick mud, except the mud was upright and immensely thick. There was a thick slurping noise as she passed slowly but steadily through the quivering blob, almost but not entirely disappearing from view. She was obscured by the darkness and the thickness of the blob itself, but James never quite lost sight of her entirely.

'I made it,' she yelled triumphantly. 'Come on!'

James was mid-step when he saw the blob move. Had it responded to Nat's words? Did it finally here them now she was being loud enough? It seemed to turn on the spot, though whether it was turning towards him or Nat was impossible to tell, thanks to its total lack of recognisable features.

'I'd be quick about it if I were you,' Nat added.

'Kremmel, give me strength,' James cursed to himself as he set off again. He hit the surface of the blob with the same thick resistance as Nat seemed to have done. It was like drowning slowly in jelly, he thought, wary of the fact that he couldn't breathe now. It was much thicker than jelly, however, and the going was much slower than he imagined it would be. Still, he was making progress, and the blob didn't seem to be moving any more than that brief initial burst. As James emerged, still soaked in gooey green slime, he wondered if he'd imagined the movement altogether.

'Well that was something,' he said lamely.

Then, before Nat could reply, the blob lurched towards them both. She yanked James back out of its reach and set off running in the opposite direction. 'It's awake, or alive, or whatever the fuck. Come on!' She yelled this over her shoulder, not waiting for James to see for himself what was going on.

Luckily, he was smart enough not to wait for proof. He set off in Nat's wake, shuddering in disgust and fear as he felt some sort of arm or tentacle of goop brush his back. It felt like being tickled by an animated blob of jam, though not quite as sticky. As if the fear and revulsion weren't enough motivation, Nat disappearing from the radius of the torch got James moving faster still. With every step, more of the slime coating his skin fell away, but he was so focused on escape that he didn't have the mental capacity to worry about feeling icky.

As James tried to keep up with disappearing halo of torchlight in the near distance, he wondered how far the tunnel went and what was at its end. Eventually the torchlight would stop moving and they would either be trapped against a dead end or what? He hoped that they would be outside the castle altogether, but that seemed unlikely, given the total lack of natural light. The floor was muddy underfoot now, too. Whoever had built this passage had simply dug into the earth and kept going long after any material except wooden props had run out. If he didn't have so much else to worry about, the fact that tons of earth overhead were held up by a few wooden beams might have concerned James.

He glanced back over his shoulder, briefly, but could barely make out the weird shape of the blob at all. It was struggling to keep up with him even as he struggled to keep up with Nat. He had only dared risk a quick look but it was enough to see that the thing was moving incredibly slowly. This fact was somewhat reassuring, but if the corridor terminated in a dead end it would catch them eventually, regardless of its speed.

'How's it looking up there?' James yelled. 'You can slow down. This thing is slower than the village idiot.'

The movement of the torchlight slowed. Nat replied a moment later, presumably after catching her breath. 'Still no way out, but it can't go on forever, can it?'

What struck James as particularly odd about this was that they hadn't gone round any corners, not even a moderate bend. Wherever the passage was taking them, it was a long way away from the castle in close to a perfectly straight line. He couldn't decide if that was a positive or a negative.

'Hold on. I think I see light. Yep. There's definitely something up ahead.' There was something like excitement in Nat's voice, definitely a sense of relief.

'I'm coming,' James replied. 'Wait for me.'

The torchlight stopped moving altogether and he soon caught up with Nat. They were both ankle deep in sloppy mud by now, with splashes of the stuff much higher. Indeed, now that his heart was settling back to something like its normal rate, he noticed that his lower body was splattered with thick, cool mud. He shuddered a little, trying to subtly dislodge some muck without being obvious about it in front of Nat.

'Did you lose that thing?' she asked.

'I think it's probably still coming, but it's slow. It's huge. Gods only know how it was moving itself, but I don't think we need to hurry.'

'Alright. Stay close.'

James nodded and followed closely. He couldn't see past the illumination of Nat's torch, so he had to take her word for it on the new light source up ahead. At least, for a minute or two he did. Eventually the corridor was flooded with natural light the sun! Outdoors! His heart felt ten times lighter. He hadn't been outdoors in months, not since he'd been locked up in the first place. It almost made him giddy with excitement.

'This is interesting,' Nat said in a tone that immediately froze James' enthusiasm in its place.

'What?' he asked.

'Here. See for yourself. Mind the step.'

Three

Blinking, James stepped up, out of the corridor and into the dim grey light of a winter's day. Despite the relative dreariness, he had to shield his eyes after who knew how long in the darkness of an underground passage. It took him a moment to adjust, but then he immediately saw what Nat had been referring to. The were outdoors but still, in a sense, inside. The sky was clearly visible above, but they were walled in on all sides by a huge wall several times taller than any human. There was only one other way out, not counting the passage they'd just left; at the far end of the space they now found themselves in, a gate was built into the wall. It was closed, predictably, but it also seemed to be engulfed in a very local, very specific white fog.

'What is this place?' James asked.

Nat didn't answer at first. She was busy examining their surroundings, perhaps looking for another way out. When she finally did speak, all she said was,'I'm not sure.'

There wasn't much evidence to go on. The floor was cobbled, the walls were huge but mostly unmarked by anything but lichen and typical wear. Then, at the same time, Nat and James noticed several armoured figures against the wall. 'Oh,' James mumbled. 'Oh, shit.'

There were dozens of them in all shapes and sizes, some with weapons laying beside them, some without, but all of them empty and almost all of them slumped against the wall. 'What the fuck is this place?' he asked. 'And why do I feel like that weird fog is a bad sign?'

As if his words had caused it, the same fog appeared in the entrance of the passage they had come through, too. It coalesced with an unnatural shuddering sound, which is what drew James' attention. He and Nat backed away from the fog, wary of being too close to something so unusual and so ominous.

Another sound soon drew their attention away from the fog, though. The blob that had been pursuing them through the corridor, or at least something that looked exactly like it, had appeared in the centre of the huge courtyard.

'What the' It was Nat's turn to trail off now, worried and confused.

Silently, slowly, but with a sense of inevitability, the blob started dragging itself towards them again. This time there was no obvious escape route. They were trapped in the courtyard with this ineffable green monster and although they could run circles around it for a while, they would run out of energy eventually. Out in the open, its reach seemed far greater, too. It reached out towards them from a distance with several appendages just like the tentacle arm thing that had almost grabbed James in the passage. James and Nat both avoided them with ease, but now that they saw how much space it could cover they knew they couldn't just dodge it forever.

Nat was the first to try fighting back, slashing at the nearest slimy tentacle with one of the daggers she'd stolen from the armoury. The monster made no noise, but the damaged tentacle withdrew as the severed section went flying. It hit Nat in the face, exploding in a small shower of goo that clung to her. Luckily, it didn't seem to do any harm, outside of making her cringe at the unpleasant physical sensation.

'You okay?' James asked, gripping the pilfered straight sword from his hip.

'It's disgusting, but that's about it. I guess if we slash enough of it to pieces it might leave us alone or just disappear like that part did. Who knows? Just keep slashing.'

'Can do,' James replied, violently dislodging the end of another tentacle. Still flailing, it struck James in the chest and soaked through the gaps in his mail. 'Eurgh. You weren't kidding about the disgusting part.'

On and on this went, with neither the blob monster or the escapees seeming to make much progress. Every time it seemed to be closing the gap, Nat and James backed away. Every time they seemed to have hacked through all the tentacles, more took their place immediately. The blob never managed to grip either of its intended victims but they were utterly soaked in its goop from head to toe. Nat's shoulder length brown hair was soaked and matted to her head, though the fetching leather armour did do a good job of keeping the slime off the more sensitive parts of her skin. James wasn't so lucky. His chain mail, great at keeping traditional weapons at bay, was essentially useless against the slime thanks to the hundreds of small holes between its links.

To make matters worse, they were getting tired now. The pair of them backed up to buy some much needed breathing room, but the slime needed no such rest. It pressed on relentlessly, seeningly indefatigable.

Then Nat noticed something. 'Is it just me?' she said between breaths, 'or is that thing smaller than it was before?'

James looked at the blob, then over at the passage for reference. The comparison wasn't particularly scientific, but to his naked eye it did seem as though the blob would fit more easily into the corridor now. 'I think you're right,' he said enthusiastically.

'I think I have a plan,' Nat went on. 'Not a particularly subtle or nuanced one, but better than nothing.'

'I think I'm with yo-ahhh!' James was cut off mid-sentence by a pair of slimy tentacles grabbing him. The conversation had drawn his concentration away from the creature for a second too long and he was now flailing helplessly, narrowly managing to hold onto his sword but too disorientated to swing it in any meaningful way.

'James!' Nat yelled, leaping back into the fray and dismembering several more tentacles with a wide swing.

After the initial shock, nothing too dreadful seemed to be happening. James continued to flail wildly and ineffectually with his sword, occasionally clipping a chunk out of the blob's tentacles purely by chance. No mouth opened up in the slime beast's visage, though the arms were slowly dragging James closer and closer. He was utterly coated in the sticky slime by this point, though, hair slicked back, armour dripping with the stuff. It even squelched in his armpits and crotch.

Nat hacked and slashed with more success, but she was fighting a losing battle against an inexhaustible enemy. Every time she cut something off, something else grew back in its place. Worse still, she couldn't buy enough time to slash at the tentacles holding James. She was sweating now, panting and tired from the exertion of swinging her blades over and over and the mental exertion of making what felt like no progress at all. She was starting to think all those suits of armour had been emptied by this monster simply exhausting their wearers.

James tried not to let fear overtake him, but his feet were inside the body of the slime by now and the rest of him was slowly but surely joining them. So far, though, it just made him cringe at the vile stickiness engulfing him. He hoped the fact that Nat was now slowing down meant that she was coming up with a plan and not just running out of energy.

'I've got an idea!' she said. 'Don't go anywhere.'

James couldn't quite bring himself to laugh, but he found himself smirking, even as the one person who could rescue him set off in the opposite direction. He continued to try and fight the beast off, continuing to slash at its arms, occasionally knocking chunks out of its body if that was even the right word.

Fortunately, Nat wasn't gone long, and James was only up to him thighs in gelatinous gunk by the time she returned. She was holding several pieces of the empty armour they had noticed earlier, all helmets, James noticed.

'I can't promise anything,' Nat said, 'but cover your eyes.' James did so, confused but trusting Nat.

He immediately felt cold water slapping him in the face, making him gasp. Once he had recovered from the initial shock, though, he noticed that the blob was recoiling. Recoiling and shrinking? He couldn't be sure, but it felt smaller now, somehow.

'Sorry,' Nat said. 'It's working, though.'

The helmets were full of rainwater, tangy with rust. Something about that combination seemed to be dissolving the monster, inch by inch. It had stopped trying to immerse James, too, trying to shirk back from the man-made rainfall instead. The helmets didn't hold much water, of course, but Nat ran back over to the steel graveyard and returned with two pairs of steel boots held precariously between her finger tips. James had never been happier to see a woman ready to throw liquid at him. He closed his eyes again, even dropping his sword in a bid to keep his face somewhat dry. It didn't work. The water splashed his chest and face, washing away some of the slime but making him gasp at the cold wetness replacing it.

'Sorry,' Nat repeated, but she followed it up with the second boot-load of water. This one hit the monster more directly, splashing James after the fact rather than hitting him square in the chest like before. It continued to shrink, quivering in silent something. It was impossible to tell if the blob was angry or terrified. All that mattered was that it continued to dissolve. In fact, James noticed, it was forming a much runnier, sloppier puddle on the floor.

Soon after that, Nat hit the blob with another blast of water and it no longer had enough structural integrity to hold James in place. Theoretically, this was a good thing, but as he felt to the floor in a most undignified manner, James temporarily doubted it. He landed face and flailing arms first in an inch-thick puddle of green goo, shuddered in disgust, and quickly got to his feet.

Nat came running over to him, ignoring the splatter of gunge as she stepped through the puddle. 'You alright?' she asked.

'I've been better,' James replied, spreading his arms to make a show of his stickiness. 'But I don't think I'm hurt. Oh, look.' He nodded at something behind Nat. The fog surrounding the gate had dissipated completely. They both looked over at the tunnel and saw that its fog had gone too.

'I guess we're out' Nat said uncertainly. 'I'd offer you a shoulder to lean on, but, uh.'