Chapter 5: A Slime Walks Into a Tavern

The first thing Milo Finch learned about Valorian tavern rooms was that “private lodging” meant “a wooden box with delusions of architecture.”

The second thing he learned was that everything in Valoria creaked.

The bed creaked when he sat on it. The floorboards creaked when Tessa paced. The shutters creaked when the midnight wind squeezed through gaps in the frame. Somewhere in the wall, something small and many-legged creaked in a way that suggested it had student loans and regrets.

“This room cost three silver?” Milo asked.

Dame Tessa Brightwall stopped mid-pace, turned with a knight’s gravity, and looked at him as if he had questioned the sun’s right to rise. Her borrowed chainmail glittered in the candlelight, newly polished but still dented in places shaped suspiciously like “orc hammer,” “barstool,” and “financial distress.” Her sword rested across her back now, the blade within its scabbard humming faintly with the self-satisfied purr of optimized steel.

“It has a lock,” Tessa said.

Milo glanced at the door. The lock was a lump of iron attached to warped wood. It looked less like a security feature and more like a hopeful suggestion.

“It has the concept of a lock.”

“The taproom is below. The stables are near. The window faces an alley rather than the main street, so fewer drunks will sing at you. It is a respectable room.”

“The mattress smells like cabbage and past decisions.”

“Many men sleep without mattresses.”

“Many men also die of plague.”

Tessa drew herself up. Even exhausted, even with faint purple shadows beneath her eyes, she had the posture of someone who could make a moral failing out of slouching. “Sir Milo, heroes do not complain about cabbage.”

Milo had been in Valoria for exactly two days and had already been called “hero” by priests, “asset” by ministers, “fresh meat” by mercenaries, and “you there, noodle-armed tax incident” by a goblin foreman. The title felt increasingly inaccurate.

He sat on the bed anyway. The mattress sighed under him in a way no mattress should. Beneath the window, a chipped washbasin held water that reflected the candle flame like a tiny drowning sun. The room’s single table was occupied by three objects: a heel of bread, a mug of watered ale, and a growing pile of papers Tessa had insisted were “standard adventuring forms.”

Milo picked up one at random.

FORM 14-C: HEROIC ENDEAVOR WITNESS CONFIRMATION
Please list all monsters vanquished, villages saved, curses lifted, maidens rescued, prophecies fulfilled, and/or structural damages caused during pursuit of righteous objectives. Attach receipts where applicable.

“Why does this kingdom have receipts for righteousness?” Milo asked.

“So the Crown can compensate damages,” Tessa said.

“Do they?”

Tessa looked away.

“Ah.”

Outside, the town of Brindlemark settled into its uneasy nighttime rhythm. Wagon wheels rattled over cobbles. Someone laughed too loudly in the tavern below, followed by the crash of crockery and a roar of approval. Hooves clopped past the alley. Somewhere distant, a bell rang twice, marking the hour with the enthusiasm of a municipal employee moments from quitting.

Milo rubbed his eyes. His whole body ached with the deep, sour fatigue that came after being summoned to another world, nearly killed by goblins, accidentally reorganizing said goblins into a supply-chain enterprise, and acquiring a knight whose debt situation made feudalism look like a subscription trap.

His ability had not helped him sleep.

It hovered at the edge of his awareness like a spreadsheet tab he couldn’t close.

UNIVERSAL OPTIMIZATION
Target: Available
Suggested Improvements: 37
Warning: Unsaved changes may result in cascading consequences.

“Not now,” Milo muttered.

Tessa paused. “Did you say something?”

“Just negotiating with my intrusive divine user interface.”

She nodded as though this were a normal sentence. Valorians had an alarming tolerance for nonsense if one added the word “divine.”

“You should rest,” Tessa said. “The road to Eastmere will be long. If we leave after dawn, we may reach the old toll bridge by nightfall.”

“We?” Milo asked.

Her expression sharpened with suspicion. “You hired me.”

“Technically, I optimized your sword and you declared yourself my bodyguard in lieu of payment.”

“A sacred bond.”

“An unpaid invoice wearing plate armor.”

“A sacred unpaid invoice.”

Milo let his head fall back against the wall. It thumped. Dust drifted down in a delicate gray shower.

“Great,” he said. “We’re going to get along famously.”

Tessa’s mouth twitched. It was not quite a smile. On her, a not-quite-smile looked like a knight sneaking contraband joy past customs.

“I will stand watch outside your door,” she said.

“Absolutely not.”

“You are the summoned hero. Assassins, cultists, royal spies, jealous nobles, demon scouts, and opportunistic kidnappers will all consider you a valuable target.”

“That list got worse every three words.”

“All the more reason.”

“Tessa, you look like your armor is the only thing keeping you upright.”

Her jaw set. “I am a Brightwall. We endure.”

“You are a person. People sleep.”

“Knights meditate.”

“Knights collapse face-first into oatmeal if they keep this up.”

For a moment, stubbornness warred with exhaustion across her face. The candlelight softened the hard edges of her helm tucked under one arm, glimmering along the scar that cut through her left eyebrow. She looked young then. Not childish. Never that. But young in the way of someone who had been taught to make a fortress of herself long before she had finished growing.

Milo sighed and pointed to the corner, where a threadbare rug lay beside the table. “If you insist on guarding something, guard the floor. From horizontal position.”

“Sir Milo—”

“Heroic order.”

Tessa stiffened.

He immediately regretted finding the command phrase.

“As the summoned hero,” he added, trying to sound official and not like a man abusing a workplace policy loophole, “I command you to sleep for at least six hours unless we are actively on fire.”

She stared at him with offended honor.

“Or being stabbed,” Milo said. “Fire or stabbing.”

“What about poison?”

“Fine, poison too.”

“Abduction?”

“Tessa.”

“Demonic possession?”

“Sleep.”

Her shoulders slumped half an inch. In a knight, this was practically a theatrical collapse. “As you command.”

She arranged herself on the rug with stiff dignity, sword within reach, gauntlets folded neatly beside her like metal pets. Within three minutes, her breathing deepened. Within five, she snored once, softly, then frowned in her sleep as if offended by her own humanity.

Milo watched her for a moment, then looked at the bed.

The bed watched him back with cabbage-scented menace.

“We’re both victims here,” he whispered to it.

He blew out the candle.

Darkness pooled in the room, thick and blue. Moonlight slipped through the shutters in thin silver blades. The tavern below had dwindled to murmurs and the occasional thud of someone losing an argument with gravity.

Milo lay down fully clothed, boots on, because Valoria had taught him caution and the mattress had taught him distrust. The straw beneath him crunched. Something poked his shoulder. He shifted. It poked him again, with purpose.

“If you’re alive,” he told the mattress, “I respect your hustle, but I’m too tired to be murdered by furniture.”

Sleep came in fragments. He drifted through dreams of fluorescent office lights and sacred choirs singing quarterly revenue projections. A vending machine loomed above him, glowing with the cold majesty of destiny, its spirals turning, turning, dispensing not chips but swords, invoices, goblins in tiny work uniforms—

A wet plop sounded beside his ear.

Milo opened one eye.

A translucent face hovered inches from his own.

It was round, glossy, and smiling with the untroubled joy of a kindergarten teacher holding a knife.

“Hi!” it whispered loudly.

Milo did what any reasonable man would do.

He screamed into his pillow.

Tessa exploded upright from the rug. There was no other word for it. One second she was a heap of exhausted knight, the next she was standing with sword drawn, hair wild, eyes blazing, and one boot missing.

“WHO DARES?” she roared.

The translucent face brightened. “Oh! Friends!”

The thing on Milo’s bed rose higher.

She was, Milo realized through the pounding panic in his chest, a girl. Sort of. Her body had the shape of a petite young woman made entirely of pale peach jelly, with swirls of gold suspended in her like honey in glass. Moonlight passed through her shoulders. Her hair—or what resembled hair—fell in bouncy, gelatinous curls that wobbled when she moved. Two large eyes, the color of warm caramel, blinked at him with devastating sincerity.

She wore no clothes, exactly, but parts of her surface had thickened into a dress-like shape: puffed sleeves, apron front, a little bow at her throat. All of it was made of slime. Somehow this made her both modest and deeply confusing.

Tessa leveled her sword.

“Monster!”

The slime girl gasped. “Where?”

“You!”

She looked down at herself, then back up. “Oh! Yes. Technically.”

Milo rolled off the bed and hit the floor with a thump. “How did you get in?”

The slime girl pointed cheerfully at the window.

The shutters remained closed.

“That window is closed,” Milo said.

“Mm-hmm!”

“And barred.”

“You have very roomy gaps.”

Milo stared at the narrow slit between the shutter and frame. It was barely wide enough for a coin.

“That is not a gap. That is an architectural suggestion.”

“I’m very squishable.” She beamed. “I practiced!”

Tessa advanced a step, blade gleaming faintly blue in the moonlight. The optimized sword sang against the air, eager and sharp. “State your purpose.”

“Thank you!” the slime girl said.

Silence.

From downstairs came the sound of a drunk laughing, then hiccupping.

Tessa blinked. “What?”

“I came to say thank you.” The slime girl clasped her hands, which merged briefly into one larger hand before separating again with a soft pop. “To Mister Hero Milo Finch, Optimizer of Goblin Schedules, Friend of Fair Wages, Enemy of Unpaid Overtime.”

Milo slowly sat up on the floor.

“I’m sorry. Did the goblins make me a title?”

“Several!” she said. “Some of them rhyme.”

“Of course they do.”

Tessa did not lower her sword. “You are a slime.”

“Yes!”

“Slimes dissolve travelers.”

“Rude slimes dissolve travelers,” the girl corrected. “I dissolve mostly compost, weapon rust, unsecured snacks, and emotional tension.” She paused. “Also one tax collector, but only a little, and he got better.”

Milo rubbed both hands over his face. “I am too tired for the phrase ‘only a little tax collector dissolution.’”

The slime girl bounced on the mattress. It made an obscene squelch. “My name is Pudding.”

“Of course it is.”

“Because I’m sweet!”

“And potentially fatal if improperly stored,” Milo said.

Pudding laughed as if he had given her a gift. Her entire body jiggled with delight, sending ripples through her translucent form. Suspended inside her, Milo noticed objects drifting lazily: three copper coins, a brass button, what looked like a bent spoon, a feather, and a tiny wooden sign that read Kick Me.

Tessa’s eyes narrowed. “Why are there items inside you?”

“Pockets!”

“Those are not pockets.”

Pudding pressed both hands to her hips and formed two very convincing pockets in her slime-dress. The spoon drifted into one.

“Now they are.”

Milo, despite himself, felt the laugh rise and barely caught it. The absurdity hit him like a wave. He was sitting on a tavern floor in another world, guarded by a debt-ridden knight, confronted by a pudding-colored slime girl who had squeezed through a shutter to thank him for optimizing labor conditions among goblins.

His old manager, Dennis, had once called a 2:00 a.m. spreadsheet revision “a crisis.”

Milo wished he could show Dennis an actual crisis wearing a slime apron.

“Okay,” Milo said, raising both hands. “Pudding. Thank you for not dissolving us immediately. Why are you thanking me, specifically?”

Pudding’s smile softened. She bounced down from the bed and landed with a quiet wet sound. Her feet did not so much step as adhere and release from the boards. “Because you fixed the Thornbelly goblins.”

“I fixed their inventory and routes. I did not fix their personalities.”

“You gave them shifts.”

“They were ambushing people by standing in the rain for fourteen hours. It was inefficient.”

“You gave them lunch breaks.”

“Hungry workers make poor decisions with spears.”

“You made Gribble stop yelling at the cave bats.”

“The bats had legitimate grievances.”

Pudding clasped her hands again. “Do you know what happens when goblins get steady work?”

“Based on what I’ve seen, they form a transportation cartel.”

“They hire!” Pudding said, glowing faintly brighter from within. “They hired kobolds for tunnel maintenance and moss imps for packaging and three slimes for warehouse cleaning. Three! With pay!”

Tessa’s sword lowered a fraction despite her best efforts.

“Monsters pay wages?” Milo asked.

“Usually no.” Pudding’s face scrunched. “Usually it’s ‘work for the horde or get eaten by something with horns.’ But now there are forms!”

“I have made forms happen.” Milo stared into the middle distance. “I have become what I hated.”

“Forms are wonderful.” Pudding sighed dreamily. A bubble rose through her hair and popped. “They ask your name. Your skills. Whether you have allergies to silver dust or holy water. They make you feel real.”

The room grew unexpectedly quiet.

Milo looked at her. Really looked.

Pudding’s smile remained, but something trembled beneath it, a small wave moving through clear jelly. She could squeeze through shutters and apparently digest cutlery, but in that moment she seemed very young and very carefully happy, as if joy were a lamp she kept lit with both hands.

Tessa’s expression shifted. The sword dipped another inch.

“You were hired by the goblins?” Milo asked.

“Part-time,” Pudding said proudly. “Sanitation and hazardous material removal. I am very good at both because almost everything is either sanitation or hazardous if you believe in yourself.”

“That is the most terrifying résumé summary I’ve ever heard.”

She puffed up. “Thank you!”

A blue shimmer flickered at the edge of Milo’s vision.

TARGET IDENTIFIED: PUDDING
Species: Slime Variant / Sapient Gelatinous Amalgam
Current State: Cheerful, Underemployed, Highly Solvent
Core Integrity: 94%
Absorption Capacity: 312% above regional average
Threat Assessment: Contextual

Milo narrowed his eyes. “Contextual.”

Pudding leaned closer. “Is that good?”

“That depends entirely on context, which is the least helpful answer possible.”

The interface expanded without permission.

OPTIMIZATION OPTIONS AVAILABLE
1. Improve Structural Cohesion (+18% physical stability)
2. Refine Selective Digestion (+27% precision; reduced accidental dissolution)
3. Increase Storage Index (+44% internal inventory capacity)
4. Enhance Social Camouflage (+12% non-monster acceptance)
5. Warning: Subject already exhibits anomalous adaptive matrix. Further optimization may create emergent behaviors.

Milo froze at option two.

“Reduced accidental dissolution,” he read under his breath.

Tessa heard him anyway. “Accidental what?”

Pudding raised one hand. “In my defense, shoes are confusing.”

“Have you dissolved shoes while people were wearing them?” Tessa asked.

“Not the important parts of the people.”

“Feet are important.”

“I know that now!”

Milo stood slowly, brushing dust from his trousers. “Pudding, I’m happy the goblin employment thing helped you, but you can’t just break into people’s rooms at night.”

Her face fell as if someone had poked a hole in it. “Oh.”

“Even if you’re squishable.”

“Especially if I’m squishable?”

“Especially then.”

“But the tavern man said monsters weren’t allowed through the front door.”

Tessa’s grip tightened around her sword. “He said that?”

“He used louder words. And a broom.” Pudding brightened slightly. “I ate the broom bristles. Not the handle. I’m learning boundaries.”

Milo pinched the bridge of his nose. “We are going to need a chart.”

A floorboard creaked.

All three of them went still.

It was not the common, weary creak of the tavern settling. This was small. Controlled. A sound made by someone who had shifted weight and immediately regretted it.

Tessa moved first. Her sword came up, the optimized edge whispering free of shadow. Milo turned toward the sound.

The wardrobe stood against the far wall.

It was tall, dark, and narrow, with one crooked door and a carved floral pattern that had seen better centuries. Milo had not opened it since renting the room, because every horror movie, fairy tale, and workplace fridge had taught him that mystery doors should be treated as hostile until proven otherwise.

Now the wardrobe breathed.

Not loudly. Just enough.

Milo’s heart climbed into his throat, built a small office, and began filing emergency paperwork.

Tessa stepped between him and the wardrobe. “Show yourself.”

The wardrobe did not comply.

Pudding tilted her head. Her hair sloshed to one side. “There’s a person in there.”

Milo stared at her. “You can tell?”

“They smell like oiled leather, metal, fear sweat, and murder intentions.”

“Murder intentions have a smell?”

“Sharp. Like old onions and bad choices.”

From inside the wardrobe came a very faint sigh.