After the gurgling puddle incident, Finn and the gang were on the move again—putting distance between themselves and whatever the hell that last ss was, heading deeper into the cavern.
Finn, anwhile, was not okay.
In fact, he was slowly descending into madness.
From watching Chestelle get absolutely bodied by a sli monster... to watching her sit up and giggle like it was all a prank—it was like reality itself had decided to mock him personally.
He could still taste the bile from earlier. That wasn’t taphorical.
It felt like everything around him had beco so unholy fever dream. A ga show designed to ruin his ntal health.
And yet, even as they ventured farther, sothing else began gnawing at him.
There was sothing wrong with this cave.
Yes, the Midwife had ntioned levels—sections of the cavern, each with increasing danger. But this current area? It didn’t feel like Level Two.
It felt like Level Three Point Oh My God Kill Now.
That humanoid sli creature? Way too advanced for what should’ve been a mid-tier zone. Worse yet, the Trip God hadn’t even recognized it as alive.
And if the divine jack-in-the-box in Finn’s soul couldn’t see it... what the hell was it?
’I could really go for a coffee...’ Finn thought bitterly.
The farther they walked, the more lively the cave beca—not in a good way. The glow from the walls was growing stronger, more sli coated the surfaces, and the air felt denser... stickier.
And then there were the skeletal bodies. Adventurers, or what remained of them—slashed open armor, lted, dissolved. A trail of dead dreams and poor life choices.
aning these bodies must’ve been here for a while or the sli had completely dissolved their bodies.
’Scary...’
Eventually, the group ca upon a narrow tunnel. A soft, wet gurgle echoed beside them.
A sli river slithered along the wall, bubbling faintly, almost like it breathed.
"Do you think that’s drinkable?" Chestelle asked, crouching down with childlike curiosity.
Finn’s head snapped toward her.
"I don’t know, why don’t you try it—WAIT. Don’t actually try it just because I said that!"
"If you say so~!"
Finn clutched his chest.
"Phew... that was close." He exhaled deeply, muttering to himself. "I really need to be careful with my words around her. She takes everything literally."
Luckily—for once—he didn’t have to carry Majestria.
After her divine sli beatdown and mysterious post-battle shower, she had proudly declared that Finn was "too dirty" for her to ride now.
Whatever that ant. He didn’t care. No goddess on his back ant one less migraine in his spine.
And Lickthorn, bless her weird swampy soul, was finally starting to recover from her earlier emotional breakdown. Sothing about not being attacked by the sli monster had sent her into so kind of existential spiral. Classic.
Regardless, the group pressed onward—toward what they hoped was the final level of the sli cave.
One more floor.
One more nightmare.
One more place to go for Sli lo.
Then they could finally get the hell out of this disgusting, cursed hole in the ground.
***
They eventually stepped into a wide, open chamber—finally reaching the end of the tunnel’s steep incline.
And to everyone’s surprise?
It was... kind of pretty.
Well, sli cave pretty. Still disgusting. But in a weird, neon-gross kind of way.
Just as the Midwife had described, this final level was absolutely drenched in sli—way more than before. The glowing gunk coated everything, illuminating the room in a dim, pulsating light, like biological LED strips set to "murder dungeon."
The narrow sli river that had followed them down the tunnel now emptied into a larger pool, nearly the size of a public bath. Sli poured down the cave walls like sticky waterfalls, oozing in slow motion, clinging and slithering but never falling completely.
Even the ground wasn’t spared—cracks split the stone floor like spiderwebs, with thin sli streams running through them like veins.
It felt unreal. Like they had wandered into a fever dream designed by soone with a fetish for goo.
Finn stepped forward cautiously, eyes scanning everything—and that’s when he noticed them.
The humanoid sli monsters.
Just like the one they’d fought back on the second level.
But this ti... there were more.
At least a dozen.
Thankfully, all of them were already dead. Slain. Sliced to bits and scattered across the chamber floor like wet, glistening mannequins.
Most likely taken out by the adventurers who’d entered the cave earlier.
’Makes things easier for us,’ Finn thought, genuinely relieved. One had nearly ended their entire party. If they’d had to fight a whole group of them?
Yeah. GG, no respawn.
But just as he allowed himself to breathe...
A single thought slamd into Finn’s brain.
A thought so obvious, so critical, that it made his eye twitch from how late it arrived.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
’Wait a minute...’
’What the hell does Sli lo even look like?!’
The only hope Finn had left was either Lickthorn or Majestria.
Majestria might know... but relying on her was like asking a cat for tax advice. And Lickthorn? She might know too—but probably for weird, uncomfortable reasons that would haunt Finn in his dreams.
Still, desperate tis.
He turned to Lickthorn, who was currently crouched beside one of the slain humanoid sli monsters, poking at its jiggly remains like a child at a jelly buffet.
"Lickthorn..." Finn asked cautiously, "Do you know what Sli lo actually looks like?"
She looked over her shoulder, then stood up, casually wiping goo off her hands—sohow onto nothing. Where did it go?
"Yeah," she said. "They grow on flobrouts."
"...What the hell’s a flobrout?"
"They’re like flowers," she explained, matter-of-factly, "but not. They’ve got stems, but instead of petals they grow these weird dark blue beans on the end. Those are the Sli los."
"Oh. Wow. How... disturbingly specific," Finn muttered. "And how exactly will we know we’ve found one?"
"You’ll know when you see it," she said cryptically, walking off like so wet sli oracle.
Finn stared at her, unblinking.
"...Why does that make it worse?"
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