There are certain types of trauma that nobody should have to experience. For instance, one such type of trauma is the experience of watching your death crash toward you from above, then suddenly feeling your chest wrapped in some heavily acidic substance and gelatinous substance, watching the world zip away from you as you hurdle backward toward some unseen destination, and then finding yourself engulfed in even more of that substance. Such an experience involves a burning sensation that covers most of your body, your eyes feeling like they're about to burst, and having bile from your stomach ejected out of your mouth in shock only for it to float in front of you, and all you can do is watch it slowly get dissolved in the translucent slop that is your prison and realize, "Oh, dear. This is how I die."

Perhaps the worst part is that Tatalia wasn't even allowed the dignity of death after suffering such a fate. She was simply spat out into the dirt and dead leaves, and it clung to the almost ectoplasmic blue goop that covered her from head to toe. She looked like she'd been sneezed out of a great whale's nose, landed in a pile of trash, and then had been shaken like a magic eight ball for good measure. She smelled like a refreshing raspberry beverage at least.

"Are you okay?" asked Blue sincerely.

Tatalia's immediate response was to let out a horrified, utterly defeated wail as she slapped the ooze puddle pooling around her with her weapon wielding hands, causing the azure muck to splash onto her face and burn her a little more. She then flopped backwards and stared up at the canopy for five agonizingly long seconds, taking deep breaths all the while. After that, Tatalia spat ooze out her mouth, shook her head wildly and stood up.

"No, I'm not okay," she replied with surprising calm. "But thank you for asking."

The thoroughly dejected goblin turned to face the newly incised horde of spiders, watching them chitter and screech as they came to avenge their kin. They were emboldened by Tatalia's apparent defeat, but that didn't last long. The tormented adventurer just lazily raised her dagger hand up and released a flash of light that blinded them once again and sent them stumbling over one other in a big, messy pile in front of herself and the ooze knight.¹

Thankfully, Blue was wearing her special goggles, so they were probably fine.

Tatalia looked over at Blue Raspberry with the most neutral expression possible paired with Charon's deadest eyes.

"Eat up," the goblin said.

---

_{1. Flash Enchantment (Dagger)}

Tatalia didn't have to tell Blue twice. With most of the spiders reeling again from the sudden flash of light, they were easy for Blue to finish off in one more rampage through the fire-wreathed clearing. When the last spider leg disappeared into the ooze's mouth, they were almost disappointed it was over.

Blue walked back over to Tatalia cheerfully and looked down at her still in the middle of a puddle of goop that was starting to dry into a glossy film over her skin and clothes and made her hair stick together like extra extra strength hair gel. For such a bossy pile of spiders, she was being really quiet. Was something wrong with her? Blue leaned down to take a closer look and notices some red, rough patches on her skin.

Oh, they burnt her with their acidic drool! That must be why she was so upset. It probably hurt. It was lucky they hadn't actually been trying to eat her so the acid wasn't as strong as it could have been. It was just trace amounts left in their mouth from spitting acid at the spiders, diluted with the rest of the slime in their mouth. The burns were only skin deep.

Blue raised a clawed hand above Tatlia and a bubble of more blue slime grew out from their palm before falling and splashing over Tatalia, giving her a fresh coating of goo. This goo was different from before though. While the previous coating had burnt her, this goo actually felt incredibly cool and soothing. The acid-bitten patches on her skin closed up and the pain vanished. Even other small scratches and scrapes Tatlia had felt better.

"Feel better?" Blue asked happily, thinking of course she must feel better now. They'd definitely figured out what was bothering her and fixed it. Maybe they were smarter than they thought they were.

---

Bouncing Bubble

Tatalia had started to open her mouth to protest when Blue start making that bubble, but she'd been too slow to act. The bubble splashed onto Tatalia's head, and some of the weird stuff got into her mouth even. She sputtered, coughed, and sorely wished she'd died a minute or two ago. It would've been a more pleasurable experience than tasting... blue raspberry flavor. And was that a touch of cool mint?

"Feel better?" the ooze asked.

No, Tatalia thought to herself. My wounds might be closed, but I feel like I was sent to Hell and dragged back out before the demons could finish me off. Thanks for asking!

But that was not what Tatalia said. Instead, she sighed quietly, wiped her hand across her brow, and offered a small smile.

"Yes, I feel much better. Thank you, Blue," the weary scholar replied gently. She stood up slowly and assessed the destruction around her before returning her attention back to the ooze.

The more Tatalia spoke with the ooze, the more she thought they didn't understand the world around them, not really. The ooze's mannerisms seemed innocent, almost child-like, and the scholar was starting to get an idea of how little Blue understood the consequences of their actions, especially considering their frankly alien physiology. That Blue was trying to help was a feat in and of itself.

Tatalia looked away and pinched her brow in thought. Blue was... exceedingly powerful despite their lack of worldly knowledge. If Blue wasn't given proper explanations about... well, a lot of things, that power could be directed toward senseless violence rather easily, and Tatalia didn't appreciate that thought very much. The world would be better with a smart Blue rather than a simple Blue.

An idea struck Tatalia then. She considered it, then peered over at the ooze very seriously.

"This, ah, may sound like a strange question, but... have you ever been to school?"

Blue was quite proud of themself for having helped Tatalia feel better. The giant monstrous wolf creature looked more like an oversized, excited dog as their tongue flopped out of one side of their doofy smile and the three deadly weapons that were their tails swayed behind them.

With all the spiders taken care of, Blue shrunk back down to their normal but still fairly imposing height of six feet. Arms and tails retracted back into the ooze, the blue fur smoothed back into slick slimy surface of goop and their armor reemerged to cover it all up in heavy metal plates and a black-furred animal hide cloak on their back.

And then Tatalia hit them with a sudden, unexpected question. Their helmeted head tilted in curiosity.

"School? Where's that?" Blue asked. From the way she said it, school sounded like a place. Blue had been to lots of places around Charon. They'd visited pretty much every region and been to lots of cities and towns, but they didn't remember ever visiting one called "School". Was that where Tatalia lived of something? Was she inviting them to see her home?

Hmmm, they didn't think they were that good of friends yet. She didn't even ask them if they were an assassin. Everyone knows you need to ask someone if they're an assassin before inviting them to your house.

Tatalia needed a moment to register that the ooze didn't even know what a school was. She blinked. She cleared her throat.

"Well! A school is a type of place you go to learn things," Tatalia explained, wiping blue gunk off of her as she tried to find the simplest way to summarize what it would be like. "There's lots of things people don't teach you out in the world normally, things like mathematics, language, writing, and history. You can learn those in a school! They're all important, and they can help you make smart, informed decisions out in the wider world."

The goblin didn't mention ethics and morality, her main drives for wanting to ask the ooze to visit, but she figured that wouldn't go over well. He'd seemed upset the last time she'd suggested "don't eat people," and Tatalia wanted to start with the most convincing arguments. Teaching him new things! Helping him be better at what he does! Or... what else did he like...?

Oh, Tatalia thought dryly to herself. Of course. Offer the obvious!

"There's free lunches between classes?" the goblin offered with a quick grin, raising an eyebrow at the ooze knight.

Tatalia finished wiping goop off of herself. She looked over at Blue very, very seriously, contemplated everything, and... she sighed.

"Look, I'll be honest," she began, rubbing the back of her neck. "You seem like there's some things you know a lot about, but there's a lot you know nothing about. And I suppose that... worries me? And I'd very much like to offer a chance to fix that. There's no pressure, but if you're interested, I run a school near the Lilicors Village. And if you'd ever like to, I'd be glad to have you as a student! We can figure out what sort of information you don't have and fill in the gaps of your knowledge.

"Anyway," the goblin continued, holding her hand out toward the ooze, "if you'd be so kind as to give my goggles back, I'll be on my way! And, ah... You can follow me if you're interested, but I suspect you have places to be for now?"

Tatalia glanced about her at the devastation, making sure she hadn't caused too much damage to the wildlife. And... well, the glade was certainly larger than it had been before thanks to the felled trees, but the fires were dying out. Tatalia counted her lucky stars for that! She really didn't want to stick around the smell of dead spider any longer once she got her goggles back.

The more words Tatalia said, the more Blue's attention drifted away, like a leaf floating on top of a slowly growing flow of water. Not picking any of it up and not even realizing it was drifting off.

Until she mentioned free lunches.

"Food?" Blue asked excitedly in a way that suggested if they still had a tail at the moment it might have started wagging again in excitement.

With their attention grabbed, Blue actually managed to absorb some of what the Goblin was saying. Learning some of what they were missing didn't sound like a bad idea. It was true, there was a lot they didn't know that most people did. Common knowledge acquired as one grew up that the ooze never had a chance to since they never really had a childhood. Or parents. Did oozes have parents? Even things oozes probably knew about, it felt like they didn't. They'd suddenly awoken in a glass jar one day and gone from there. That probably wasn't how most oozes grew up.

"Oh, right." Blue mumbled as they extracted the pair of goggles from the bottom of their helmet and held them out to Tatalia for a moment, the goggles dripping in the same blue goo Tatalia was still drenched in.

"Oh, oops." They looked at the slimy eyewear for a moment before sticking them right back into themself and pulling them out again, but this time completely dry and clean, before holding them out for Tatalia again.

They'd miss the goggles. Now they could see why Astrid always had a pair on her head. It had been really nice not having to worry about the bright flashes of light blinding them. They really should get a pair for themself sometime. Preferably before they ran into Tatalia again.

When Blue first held her goggles out, the expression on the long suffering goblin's face was absolutely wretched. It was plain to see just how little she wanted anything to do with ooze on her things anymore. She started holding out two little fingers to pinch the goggles from Blue and take them away, but then he withdrew them back into himself, and her expression briefly went terribly pale as she imagined him deciding to have one last nibble before spitting the goggles back out.

But then Blue offered the goggles a second time, and relief washed over the poor, beleaguered scholar's face.

"Thank you very much for giving this back," Tatalia replied gently. "I truly appreciate it! It's an integral part of my adventuring kit and all that."

Dry or not, however, the definitely-not-a-pile-of-spiders goblin accepted the goggles with a ginger touch as if expecting them to snap at her fingers. When they didn't, she happily tugged them back over her head.

"I can't make you do anything," the goblin added, folding her arms behind her back. "But consider this an open invitation to my school. It's the aptly named Sit Learn Lots Place. I did not pick out the name.

"Anyway, I really should be going. You're free to come along, but I suspect we'll see each other at a later date. Farewell, Blue!"

And that was that. Tatalia gathered what few things needed gathering and started leaving by foot. She made her way over to the village proper not so far away, found a house that hadn't been wholly destroyed, and pulled a little key out of her pocket.¹ The goblin twisted the key inside the lock, opened the door, and a magical portal opened up. She waited a few moments to see if Blue would follow... and then she stepped on through, traveling all the way back to her little school in the Marsh Flats.

---

_{1. House Key}