This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Swords.

Paddy squared up, lamp in hand, ready to swing like a man trying to kill a bee with a tennis racket. The slimes shifted in the light, their viscous bodies squelching forward, slow but determined. Behind him, Balloon inhaled, like she was about to say something clever.

Paddy: "Alright."

He growled, shoulders tense.

Paddy: "Brace yourself. We fight or we run. On my mark-"

Thud.

He blinked. Turned. She was flat on the mine floor, cheek smushed against stone, snoring softly.

Paddy: "...You have to be joking."

She didn’t respond. She was very, very asleep.

The slimes gurgled.

He turned back, and lifted his lamp.

Paddy: "We can do this the hard way then."

By the time he’d batted one of the slimes cross the tunnel, earning nothing but a wet squish and a shudder of jelly, the rest had fully surrounded Balloon’s prone form. He panicked.

Paddy: "Hey! Get off her!!!"

He roared, swinging like a man swatting invisible fairies. One bounced off his boot. Another splashed against the wall. But they just kept... melting forward.

Balloon was disappearing under a glistening slime-blanket.

Paddy: "Oh for f- Balloon! Wake up!"

She drooled.

Paddy barrelled forward, lamp-first, shouting.

Paddy: "Oi! Back off you bastards!!!"

He managed to kick a particularly large one off her arm, his boot steamed slightly. The smell was weirdly sweet. Like burnt sugar and old pennies.

Then he noticed something.

Balloon was fine. Her clothes were fine.

But her armour, breastplate, gauntlets, shin guards, were gone. Dissolved. Her once-proud gear now just sizzling outlines and a distant memory.

The slimes weren’t hurting her. They were just... stripping her like aggressive scrap dealers.

He stared.

Paddy: "...They’re only eating the metal. Nothing else."

He nudged one with the tip of the lamp. It wrapped a goopy tendril around the base, but it didn’t melt. Didn’t even hiss.

Paddy: "Well at least that's not getting eaten anyways."

He shook it off, calmly.

Balloon stirred.

Balloon: "Huh…?"

Paddy: "Morning, sleeping beauty."

Paddy grunted, pointing at her chest.

She blinked blearily. Then looked down.

Her undershirt, once white, was now slime-smeared and clinging. Her trousers fared no better. Armour-less, squishy, and blinking in confusion, she looked like a girl who’d been mugged by jelly.

Paddy: "Didn’t realise you were built like that under all the gear."

Balloon: "It’s not exactly a secret around here. You should see what people wear in town."

She sat up slowly.

Balloon: "Did we win?"

Paddy: "You fed your sword to them."

Paddy gestured to a bubbling puddle of metal goop.

Balloon: "...I liked that sword."

Her voice was quieter, almost like a whisper, like she was talking to herself.
Paddy patted her shoulder gently, catching the rare flicker of softness in her eyes.

Paddy: "You’ll get a new one."

She nodded, then added:

Balloon: "I want these things in barrels."

Paddy: "...Eh?"

Balloon: "I don’t care how. We’re bringing them back. I’m getting paid."

Paddy looked around, examining the area.

Paddy: "With what, exactly? You want to carry that in your hands?"

Balloon pointed deeper into the mine.

Balloon: "Tool room. Saw it on the way in."

Ten minutes later, they returned with barrels, shovels and a broken wheelbarrow.

Paddy: "What’s this made of?"

Paddy tapped the shovel suspiciously.

Balloon: "Wood and stone."

She muttered, already scooping.

The slimes went in one by one. Easy to coax with a few flicks of Paddy’s lamp. They weren’t aggressive. Just... hungry. And stupid.

By the time they were finished, the barrels were sloshing and reeking like overripe jam.

Balloon wiped sweat from her brow, strands of hair plastered to her skin. Her armour-less body glistened with sticky slime residue that clung like unwelcome cobwebs.

Paddy wheezed.

Paddy: "Right. And now we push?"

She handed him the barrow.

Balloon: "You push. I supervise."

Paddy: "Oh, for f-"

She raised a hand.

Balloon: "I’m traumatised. My sword I was supposed to keep for generations… just got evaporated."

Paddy: "Well, legacies do melt sometimes."

He heaved the barrow forward, and the whole contraption lurched like a wounded horse.

The return trip up the mine was a slow and sticky affair. Paddy grunted with every turn, every uphill wobble, while Balloon followed behind with her arms crossed, still stewing.

Paddy: "Bet your sword wasn’t even that great."

Balloon: "It was engraved, with poetry."

Paddy raised an eyebrow.

Paddy: "Poetry? On a weapon?"

She sniffed.

Balloon: "My grandfather’s. It had a name and everything."

Paddy: "Oh, are we naming swords now? What was it called?"

Balloon: "Winter’s Edge."

He made a face.

Paddy: "Winter’s Edge, was it? More like Winter's End. Thing melted in five seconds."

Balloon narrowed her eyes.

Balloon: "What was your weapon called?"

Paddy held up his lamp, pointing it towards her.

Paddy: "This?"

Balloon: "Yeah."

He paused.

Paddy: "I call it Lamp."

She gave him a long, disappointed look.

Balloon: "You’re the worst hero."

Paddy: "That’s the truest thing you’ve said all day."

They finally reached the surface just past noon. The sun was blinding, the air hot and dry, unfairly warm after hours underground.

The foreman was waiting for them, and took one look at the sloshing barrels, and recoiled.

Foreman: "The fuck is that?"

Paddy: "Victory."

He collapsed beside one barrel. Balloon wiped her brow with a sleeve, her undershirt still patchy with drying slime.

Paddy eyed the barrels, then the steep gravel trail ahead, then the battered wheelbarrow.

Paddy: "Right. Guess we’re dragging these the old-fashioned way-"

He crouched to lift a handle... and promptly didn’t.

Balloon knelt beside one barrel, touched the ground, and let out a slow breath. Her fingers pulsed blue.

A shudder went through the dirt. Thick, jagged slabs of ice burst from the earth, encasing the base of the barrels like they’d grown armour of their own. The frost hissed and crackled, crawling beneath and around like roots of frozen lightning. A cold mist hissed up and settled around their boots.

Paddy blinked.

Paddy: "Wait. You turned the ground into ice?"

Balloon: "Mana’s everywhere. Dirt, air, even you- wait no, everything but you. Anyways, you don’t have to make ice. You just... convince the earth to become it."

Paddy: "And it just works?"

Balloon: "Well, it’s easier than starting from scratch."

Paddy gave one a tentative push. It glided a full metre forward like a puck on an air hockey table.

Paddy: "Now that’s handy."

Balloon smiled, proud and just a little bashful.

Balloon: "It’s just ice."

Paddy: "Yeah, well."

Paddy shoved both barrels forward.

Paddy: "So’s vodka. Doesn’t mean it’s not a miracle."

The trail back was easier, until they reached the top of the hill. From there, the path dipped into a sharp downhill twist of gravel and packed earth. Both barrels sat on their frosty thrones, already gliding forward from the mere slope.

Paddy stood firm.

Paddy: "No."

Balloon: "No what?"

Paddy: "No bloody way am I going down that death trap like a deranged mad man."

Balloon gave him a flat look. Then stepped behind him.

Paddy: "Wait- don’t you da-"

She grabbed the back of his coat and heaved. He yelped as he landed on his barrel with a thunk, arms flailing.

Balloon: "Wheeeee!"

Her barrel rocketed forward with the shriek of ice on rock, trailing cold mist and a faint sloshing of irritated slimes. Paddy’s followed with a wheezy clatter, like a bin full of rocks thrown down a hill.

Paddy: "I am not enjoying this!"

The barrels swerved, skidded, spun. Then... bang. Balloon’s hit a rock and launched. Paddy’s followed a second later.

Both exploded into splinters mid-air.

The two hurtled through the sky like poorly-packed luggage and hit the dirt in flailing heaps.

Silence.

Paddy: "New rule. No more plans from the narcoleptic."

Balloon: "That was kind of fun…"

Behind them, something squelched.

Two leftover slimes, barely more than goop, bumped together in the dirt.

At first, nothing. Then a tremor passed through them, a ripple that didn’t quite match their usual jiggling. Their surfaces bubbled, pulsing like something breathing underwater.

A shimmer ran over them, like oil on water. Then... schlk... they merged, not just mixing but congealing into a single, larger form. The air popped.

The new slime didn’t jiggle. It twitched. Like a muscle spasm. Like it wanted to move in more directions than it had limbs for.

Then it oozed toward the horizon. With purpose.

Paddy lifted his head just in time to see it go.

Paddy: "...Nope. Not my problem."

He turned his head slightly, and spotted Balloon a few metres away, lying in a shallow crater of her own making, limbs spread like a starfish, snoring faintly.

Paddy let his face drop back to the ground with a dull thud.

Paddy: "I thought this’d be the end of me. But turns out this world's just as stupid as the last one."

He buried his face in the dirt.