Cohost writing prompt: @slime-that — Slime that’s having trouble getting its feet underneath it
“I wish the cleric was here,” Skark says gloomily, and Ooblexi spasms in incredulity.
“You can’t stand the cleric,” they say.
“Shut up,” Skark says, and rattles her beak. “I don’t hate the cleric. I just don’t like the way she looks at my wizard.”
“You know being a familiar isn’t, like, an exclusive relationship?” says Bangles.
(Bangles isn’t a noble ooze adventurer like Ooblexi, or a familiar like Skark. Bangles is a hopping devil that the elvenoid party members found in a cave and keep feeding because he’s not fully grown yet and has big cute eyes. Ooblexi has pointed out that hopping devils are an invasive species and that they were, in fact, in the cave to begin with in order to cull Bangles’ family because they kept attacking local farmers.
(“Look, respect the hustle,” Bangles told them.)
But now they’re in the city, and the party have split up to follow leads, and assailants have struck down the wizard, and in the city Ooblexi gets less respect than the familiar. They tried to talk to the medics who whisked the wizard off to hospital, and was ignored as if they were mindless sewer vermin.
So now they’re outside the hospital, and Ooblexi and Skark have both tried to talk to the person on the reception desk, and been threatened with security and/or janitors. They can’t just wait and hope that the other party members will find them; nor that they’ll survive the city unmolested if they wander off to find them.
“I’ve got a plan,” Skark says.
“Stop backseat walking!” Ooblexi seethes at Skark’s panicked noises. She gingerly flexes, and their disguise totters several extremely unsteady steps further toward the hospital doors. “There’s a reason the saying is ‘three goblins in a trenchcoat’ and not slimes!”
They sneaked in the back of a nearby bathhouse and liberated a wizardly-looking long coat with a hood, trousers, boots, and a large bandana that’s currently mostly wadded up to provide the illusion of an obscured face. Their stiff-legged gait is provided by Ooblexi clenching around a pair of pilfered mop handles; Bangles is perched on top of them, and Skark is sitting on Bangles’ head, peering out through a chink in the bandana-stuffed hood.
The receptionist sees them coming, herky-jerky, wobbling and folding weirdly to keep balancing, and his eyes widen.
“Looking for a wizard!” Skark yells inside the hood, somewhat muffled. “Brought in unconscious and beaten! What room!”
The receptionist looks at them, and reaches slowly for the speaking-device on the desk.
Ooblexi quickly shoves a pseudopod into one of the coat’s sleeves, and slams it down on the receptionist’s hand.
“Don’t you dare!” they yell.
The guy blanches at being roared at by a weird-looking wizard’s crotch, then worse when the bandana falls loose and Skark’s head pokes out where an elvenoid’s eye should be.
“TELL ME WHERE THE WIZARD IS!” Ooblexi yells.
“I — I’m not allowed to—”
“ARE YOU PARTICULARLY ATTACHED TO YOUR FACE? HOW MUCH SUCTION DO YOU THINK IT WOULD TAKE NOT TO BE? ALL YOUR LITTLE FIBROUS ATTACHMENTS FRAYING AND PEELING OFF THE BONE, YOUR FIDDLY FIXED-FUNCTION NERVES HOWLING AGONY, YOUR OXYGENATING FLUID PIPES TORN AND SQUIRTING WILDLY—”
“Upstairs in 309!” the guy squeaks.
“Thank you!” Skark tells him.
