They entered the cavern, sunlight fading behind them like the last shred of common sense.
Cold, damp air greeted them, sending a chill across their skin. The cave floor was uneven, peppered with shallow holes — not deep enough to fall in, but just deep enough to stick a finger in if you were stupid.
Above, stalactites clung to the ceiling, dripping water at irregular intervals. Every plink echoed through the chamber, giving the place a slow, eerie rhythm.
As they moved forward, Finn’s eyes caught sothing on the wall — a single straight line drawn in white. A trail mark.
"The adventurers..." he muttered, narrowing his eyes.
He stepped up to the wall and ran his finger across the marking. A fine dust rubbed off.
’Chalk...’ he thought, grinning to himself.
Without hesitation, Finn rubbed the mark away. Slowly. Deliberately. Laughing under his breath like a cartoon villain.
Chestelle clapped softly like he’d just solved poverty. Lickthorn just raised an eyebrow and watched with intrigue. Majestria sighed. Loudly.
"Do you have to do that?" she asked, watching with the sa expression soone might have while watching a toddler eat dirt.
"Of course I do," Finn replied smugly, brushing chalk off his hands. "They’re in our cave. If they find our loot and escape, it’s over. This is strategic sabotage."
"But if you erase all the marks, and we get lost too..." Majestria said slowly, "...then we’re just four lost people wandering around in a at tunnel."
"Oh!" Finn paused, visibly realizing that he had not, in fact, thought of this.
But like a true protagonist, he recovered imdiately. "Just trust . I know what I’m doing." He nodded confidently — mostly to himself.
The party ventured deeper. The tunnel sloped downward, taking them further underground. Around them, the signs of a struggle beca apparent: sliced sli chunks, ruptured gelatinous corpses, sli guts splattered across the floor.
"Looks like they’ve been clearing the path," Finn noted.
"Good," Majestria muttered. "Less work for ." Like she was willing to do any work.
Chestelle licked her lips. Unclear if it was a joke.
Following the trail of dead slis seed like the smartest move — if the adventurers were going deeper, Finn figured that’s where the good stuff must be. Hopefully.
Then they saw it.
A wall of sli.
It crawled up from the floor, coating the rocky surface like a half-lted blob monster glued to the wall. It was a deep navy blue, thick and sluggish, bubbling softly. So bubbles grew as big as fists before popping with a wet splurt.
All of them stood silently in front of it.
Finn squinted. "...The Midwife said the first level has sli walls, but... this doesn’t feel right."
"It’s... watching us," Chestelle whispered, crouching beside it with fascination.
"Don’t touch that!" Finn barked, grabbing her by the shoulder and yanking her back. "What is wrong with you?!"
"It was calling my na," she said flatly.
"No it wasn’t. You’re insane."
Just then, the wall bubbled violently and spat a glob of sli at the exact spot Chestelle had crouched. The ground sizzled, lting into bubbling acid.
Finn’s heart sank. He stared at the now-corroded stone. Then at Chestelle.
Then back at the sli.
"...Okay. Nobody touch anything. This should be obvious now."
"Like I would want to touch anything here," Majestria scoffed, arms crossed and voice dripping with sass.
"When I said that..." Finn gestured between Chestelle and Lickthorn. "...I ant these two specifically."
Lickthorn blinked, then shuffled back a step like a guilty cat. "W-What?! I’d never do sothing like that! Like... touch an acid sli out of—pleasure or anything..." She rubbed her thighs together subtly.
Finn’s eyes widened in horror. "NOBODY ntioned sli and pleasure! Do not touch the sli, Lickthorn!"
She gave him a sidelong glance, then turned to the sli wall, clearly contemplating sothing awful. Then her eyes darted back to Finn. Then to the wall again.
Finn noticed. And shivered.
She didn’t move, just smiled sweetly.
Waiting.
Plotting.
Finn swallowed and edged away from her. "I hate everything about this."
After pulling Chestelle off the ground (who was still staring lovingly at the bubbling goo like it was a romantic interest), Finn shook off his nerves.
"Alright. Let’s just keep moving. No touching. No licking. No making love to the sli walls. Please."
And with that, the four of them ventured deeper into the cave — into the darkness, into the madness, and quite possibly into sothing way above their rank and pay grade.
As they ventured deeper, the cave only got weirder.
There were more sli walls now—so way bigger than the first, others weirdly tiny, like rejected blobs trying to beco sothing.
And Finn didn’t like it. Not one bit.
’We’re still on level one,’ he thought grimly, eyes twitching. ’There’s not supposed to be this many...’
He glanced around again. There were tons of sli fragnts, oozing on the walls and splattered across the floor like soone threw a gelatin-thed rave and lost control.
"Way too many dead slis..." Finn muttered under his breath, stepping over a sliced one. "Glad those other adventurers ca through first. Not sure we would’ve survived this ss."
He ant that sincerely. Majestria would’ve complained the whole ti, Chestelle might’ve made out with one of them, and Lickthorn—
"Hey," Lickthorn suddenly whispered, stopping beside a tall stalagmite now completely coated in thick sli, "do you think I could use the sli as lube... and like, protect myself while it... penetrates ?"
Finn didn’t even turn around.
He didn’t blink.
He just kept walking.
Chestelle followed after him silently. Majestria blinked once, said "I’m not dealing with that," and kept moving.
Lickthorn stared at the sli-covered spike a second longer. Then sighed. "Tch. Cowards." And jogged to catch up.
Soon after, they passed so shiny mineral clusters embedded into the wall.
Naturally, Finn’s eyes lit up like a loot goblin on payday. "Oh hell yeah—money rocks."
He imdiately started stuffing glittering shards into his pockets, grinning like a lunatic who just discovered rent.
"Can you hurry up?" Majestria snapped. "I’m tired. My feet hurt. And I’m pretty sure my body is collecting cave stank."
"Yeah, yeah." Finn grabbed one more piece, kissed it like it was a rare trading card, and turned back toward the path. "Let’s move."
And so they did—
Deeper into the cavern.
Deeper into the dark.
And finally...
They reached the entrance to level two.
The real nightmare was just beginning.
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