The Stray

2-21: Slime Trail

V's grin only grew broader as his eyes went wide. "I know, right? You recognize what monster this is?"

"I... I'm not sure." Crap, she'd thrown him completely off his game. At least V had already seen him way worse! Buzzy fluttered over, inspecting it herself.

<<Sure as heck ain't a fluff. Don't look like a slep or durawn's foot neither.>>

He racked his brains to try and dig up a better answer. "Looks webbed. We're pretty far from the creek, though, so it's probably not a river birdbeast. And... don't it look kinda dark to you?"

V pulled a magnifying glass out of her back pocket, and squatted down next to him. "Yeah, I'd say so. Almost like a li'l rain left behind, yeah?"

Or like cytoplasm had soaked in. Cytoplasm. Webbed feet. Small, but not fairy small. The only local monster like that was— Otterbeast. "Aw, frass."

"Hmm?" V looked at him as he rubbed his forehead. "Well, don't you look like you're kickin' yourself."

His gran always did say being a moron should hurt. "Black lake jellies acting weird, honey missing in the hive, wet footprint. I'm a frassing idiot. This is a limuutri footprint." He pointed at its heel; it was smudgy and indistinct. "That ain't the print getting erased, that's its heel liquifying. And..." he got low and sniffled at it. Sure enough... just below the smell of dry dirt, burning, and some old boot rubber, was a concentrated hit of meat and sourness. "It even smells like one."

"Woah, slow down. The hell's a limuutri?" V was scribbling this all down in her notebook. She pointed a finger at it, and a small sweep of light crisscrossed the print. She pointed at her paper, and with a bit of chalk magic pasted a perfect replica of the print. "Some kinda Deepshadow monster?"

"Yep." Timothy paused to control his breathing. Annoyance was starting to make him huffy. "They're weird. Half-slime, half gooey meat, all annoying otterbeast." Valencia actually stifled a chuckle at that. "They're the Blackloch's servants or something, maybe weird fingerlings? Pests, mostly. But the important thing is that I think they can command Shadow Jellies." V's giggle cut off and she met his eyes excitedly.

"What?"

"I've seen them do it. They're smart enough to make plans, and I guess slimepathy lets them use the shadow jelly fingerlings like their own." They definitely had personalities, but he had to use wildtongues to yell at them, so... they probably were monsters, not people?

V jumped up to her full height with a 'whoop!' "Then I just blew open this case. Go me!" He smiled despite himself at that. "And what's this about honey?"

"Oh, right. Their stench is all over one of the cubbies. It's half full of honey."

V yanked him up by the shoulders. "Dude! That answers why none of the 'fluffs got ate! Blown. Wide. Open!"

The wolf shimmied out of her grip, landing lightly. It was nice seeing her so happy, but, well. He worked his wrist nervously. "Yeah, but... that means we're up against a smart slimeoid. We don't know how many, either— just that there's probably more than one. And they might have orders from..." he shot her a frown. "I mean, why else would they be so far from home? Even with the fire, there's gotta be easier prey."

"Especially since slimes can eat anything." V added. That got a double take from the wolf. "What, didn't you know? Slimes can live on dirt, bones, even stuff that's gone bad. Heck, they say everything tastes good to 'em but people."

So unfair. "Then why bother taking honey?" He didn't want to look as frustrated as he was, but this seemed awful petty. Maybe as a first step in a greater plan? But what kind of fool would raise the alarm three times in a row? "And how didn't the farmers or fluffs see it?"