“You’re an ooze?” Cirice asks, things clicking into place in her mind. Everything makes so much sense. The goop, the blueness, the stickiness, the hunger... Ooze... How had she not realized it before? Putting everything into context helped her calm down and think. She looks at him in concern. “Why would I hate you? I’m so sorry about throwing the hellhound at you, I didn’t mean to. I was just scared because you surprised me. But I’m not scared of you now. You’re my favorite ooze in the whole world.”


She gives him a smile and leans down to hug him tight over his armor. “Everything makes so much sense now, thank you for telling me.”

“This explains your great appetite. But… How do you do everything else? I’ve never seen an ooze before to my knowledge, are they all as magical and talented as you?” She cocks her head, “OH there’s a book I have on oozes! One sec!”

She runs over to her wagon and quickly rifles through some of the shelves before returning to him with a big smile and a book in her arms, “It’s called Slime of our Lives, have you read it?”

"Really?" Blue looked up, their depression fading almost immediately. They thought Cirice would be afraid of them now, but she even came over to them and hugged them. What kind of person would hug an ooze if they were still afraid of it? Well, they did hear a story about Zarius doing something like that, but that didn't count. Blue slowly returned the hug, hesitantly putting their arms around Cirice's back. They were careful not to hurt her, their hands shifting back to normal from the acid-laced wolf claws they had been.

"You- you know, lying doesn't work on me either!" Blue Raspberry set off Cirice's insight rune. Lying absolutely worked on the gullible ooze, with almost 100% effectiveness. "You really aren't afraid of me? You want to still be my friend? I'm your favorite ooze?"

When Cirice pulled away from the hug, Blue also pulled their arms back and stood back up.

"Hm. I don't really know. I just keep trying stuff and sometimes it works. Like being able to change into animals and growing a tail or claws. Sometimes it's a bit harder to get the hang of, like growing bigger, but I've figured out a lot of things I can do. I used to not even be able to make myself look human. I've seen some other oozes, but none of them were even able to talk. I guess I'm just different..." Blue shrugged. It was a little lonely being so different from the other oozes they'd seen, but they were at least happy to be able to talk to people. If they hadn't, they never would have met any of their friends or become part of a family.

"Oh, um. No, I haven't read it. I can't read..." Blue answered, a little embarrassed.

“Well I wouldn’t lie to you anyway. You are my friend who I cherish and my absolute favorite ooze!” Cirice giggles with a smile. “You’re just one of a kind! The most special ooze there is!”

“Oh…” She looks between them and the book and has an idea. “I know, I’ll read you the book aloud as we travel!”

“Okay!” Blue readily agrees, happy to have cleared up any and all misunderstandings, “Are you gonna eat that dead hellhound over there?”

“Its all yours buddy, a snack for the road! Let’s get going!” She watches as the ooze happily slurps up the last hellhound corpse, only mildly upset by the nonchalant way that the goo slorps the body into itself. Once they’ve cleaned up the pair get on the wagon and start their journey. “Alright! Slime of Our Lives, Chapter 1: ‘Floyd wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he knew he was in over his head…”