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Whatever this was, it didn’t smell like any old normal, run-of-the-mill mold Nope, this was nasty This wasthis wassour and fetid and reh not quite so bad

"Man, that’s rancid," Zach whispered in my ear "What the hell is it?"

"I dunno, but I’ out" A pebble under my foot set ainst the wall As ers touched the rock, they met with the ickiest, sliedor a pile of snot

"Gross, gross, gross" Idown the hallway I pulled my hand back and frantically tried to assess whether I’d covered it with soerous or just nasty

Zach leaned in as Roz pulled a tiny, pen-sized flashlight out of his pocket and aiers They were covered hat looked like so ichor from an old fifties SF flick, the kind of stuff that comes in a can that parents never, ever want to buy their kids because they knoill either end up in the kids’ stomachs or--worse yet--their hair

Only this stuff smelled worse than skunk juice Worse than ot to clean it for a few days Worse thanWhat the--?

I stopped thinking about how it san to stretch itself out in a fine filers and started to slither down love, I let out a little screech

"Get this crap off me, now!" I didn’t care who heardto work on hts I wasn’t ready to be assimilated into blob city

Zach reached for my hand but Roz smacked him away "Don’t touch it; let ht"

By now, the others, except for Menolly and Vanzir who had gone on ahead, were gathered around us Roz pulled out a chopstick--what the hell he had a chopstick in his pocket for, I didn’t know and didn’t ask--and poked at the slime It reared up, like so toothpick Delightful; I was being devoured by Rocky the Blob Next it would foris," Roz said as he jabbed at it again with the chopstick, piercing it this ti sensation raced overso on my skin!"

S a feords I couldn’t catch A thin white mist drifted out of his mouth to cover ic As the an to pull itself together into a puddle, letting go of ?" I asked, both fascinated and repulsed

"Trying to keep its core te," Sain, and the blob crystallized into a white pool of icy gelatin, then froze solid The dragon gave it a tap, and it shattered I tipped my hand, and it landed on the floor

"Is it dead?" I asked, staring at the hundreds of slime shards

"Probably not Creatures like this can take a lot of temperature variation It’s some form of ectoplasmic ooze" He examined my hand "No worse for the wear Just don’t touch the walls if you can help it There gressive? Not a good thought

"Where does it colanced around the tunnel ere standing in "When there are too many spirits from the Netherworld in a sy builds up and takes on a life of its own, usually for, it takes on a rudierous is it?" I asked

"That aested one-- satiated At that point, it would fall into a sorew If you left it on, it would start in again when it caer amount, it could be a lot worse," he said as he exaht "Always check overhead Ectoplass and roofs"

I squir a carnivorous slime on me "Just how many of them do you think there are in here?"

"Hard to tell how iven area saturated by spiritual energy The slimes hive off into cluster cells--blobs, if you will--but retain a group consciousness," Sroup

Before he once again took up guarding our tail, he added, "If you see one that’s indigo rather than green, stay away froht not be able to save you"

"Of course: viro- about now My father taught ht," Morio said "The indigo variety is far ressive They call their sister cells to join thes are faster than you o variety is unaffected by ice, but fire will char the off, which would also burn you"

"Once again, may I say e?" I shivered and furiously rubbed oo I glanced back at Caot smacked around by demons, fried by hellhound blood, and slashed by vampires, but she never had to deal with the slih I kneas ridiculous Of the three of us, I was always--and probably forever would be--the one who’d end up with mud on her face and kitty litter stuck to her butt

We slipped farther along the tunnel, skirting fallen rocks and a few sh to s us up, but they could give a nasty turn to the ankle The faint drip, drip, drip of water sounded fro, my mind wandered to the old and silver, or perhaps in brilliant Technicolor jewels How many had truly ever struck it rich?

I was so wrapped up in thought that I didn’t notice when Roz ht into Zach’s back, knocking hiain, flashing me a bemused look as he shook his head when Iin an archway The bea looked old, weakened by water and time I strained to listen to the tie and insects, of wear and tear and splintering wood Shit, ere in danger here The sooner we finished and left, the better

Roz listened carefully, turning his head first to the left, then to the right His long, curling hair was caught back in a ponytail, and he earing his perpetual black Aussie hat with a feather in the band He’d picked it up in so Crocodile Dundee with Menolly and ht Movie Madness, and even I had to adood with the leather duster

After aleads into a different dimension Vanzir and Menolly turned left, that ht And there appears to be a path leading down into a deep chas typical for the area There shouldn’t be any mammoth caves around this area--not like this"

"Should we just walk in? If that’s a portal, are we going to be able to get back once we cross the threshold?" I tried to re I could about the portals Soainst the demons, were very restrictive but fairly stable in actual use Others, like the ones opening willy-nilly, were unbalanced and threatened to close at rando with caution "What do you think?" he asked softly Right then, I kneorried