[quote=SYSTEM:DUNGEON] MANA COMPILED. SCANNING FOR ERRORS. SCANNING...SCANNING... ASSIMILATION RATE: 1.4% [/quote] [h3]Jason, Ed, Danny, Asura, Momma Slime, Crispy's Party[/h3] As Asura whipped Crispy's female minion across the back of her head, she recoiled from the blow and went past Jason without her stone knife making contact. The goblin that Momma Slime was sitting on scrambled desperately to get out from under her weight--she hadn't started crushing or digesting him yet, perhaps because she was wary of taking the time to envelop him while there were still enemies around. So it created the somewhat cartoonish scenario of the goblin, sticking out from the waist up, futilely trying to haul himself out from under the great blue bulk. The other minion was picking himself up off the ground, shaking his head to clear away a hallucination of pixies fluttering around his head. The shieldbearer stayed focused on Jason, though as he glanced towards Asura he was starting to break out in a sweat. Crispy pulled his own stone knife from his belt, adjusting his grip on it as Asura spoke. "You're a smart kid, I'm a smart man. I honestly don't really wish to fight you. If you call back your people and return to your fire I can get the other slimes to back off." The scarred goblin licked his lips, glancing from one slime to the other. They were both so differnt from normal slimes, it was clear they had evolved. "If it's not too late Crispy, I'd like to apologize for my outburst. Getting betrayed the moment I tried to talk to you made me act irrationally..." Crispy slowly, without taking his eyes off Jason or Asura, reached down with his free hand to feel the blood running down his leg. He wasn't crippled, it would hurt but he could still run with no real problems. But could he afford to run here...? "In fact, I was hoping we could work together to cleanse our home of an even greater threat: UNDEAD." These slimes talked too much. But if they were talking, that gave Crispy time to think--even though he could feel himself getting more annoyed with every word the green pointy slime said, just like when that youngling would ramble on... "Though their numbers may be small at the moment, they need to be destroyed before the cave is overrun! I can't destroy them all myself Crispy..." "Un, un-d-d-d-dead!?" chattered the shieldbearer, interrupting the slime and drawing some of the attention off Crispy for the moment. "L-l-like guh-guh-ghosts?!" Now, all present here no doubt knew by this point that Goblins were not the smartest of creatures. Their brains were like those of children, albeit extremely vicious children. They lacked foresight, they lacked many concepts of abstract thought, they lacked emotional maturity. Crispy both was and was not an exception to this. Crispy had simply survived the best way he knew how. Rattleskull had been too strong. Crispy couldn't fight him for control of the tribe. But Rattleskull and Crispy had been brothers, and they had both seen and fought Humans before, and they both knew that having more Gobs was better than getting all the Gobs killed. So Rattleskull bossed the others around, and Crispy got what he would have wanted if HE had been the boss anyway--he got to boss around other gobs too, and he got at least one or two mates every season, and he and Rattleskull worked like they had seen the Humans work. Together. A big strong guy, and a guy who could do magic. Crispy was convinced that one day, his fire would be the strongest in the world, and maybe then he would get rid of Rattleskull--but he didn't have to. Sometimes you didn't HAVE to be the biggest and strongest to get what you wanted. But these Slimes were not Gobs. And they were both changed like Rattleskull. Back when the tribe had been forced to flee that first time, when that youngling had tried to convince them to make friends with the other monsters, Crispy had already known they couldn't afford to wait. The longer you waited to take out an enemy, the more opportunities they had to grow stronger. "Can I count on you and your fire to make this cave safe, not just for goblins, but for all it's living denizens?" If Crispy let these Slimes boss him around, he wouldn't have to risk his neck in a fight. But the Slimes would grow stronger. And Crispy would lose face in front of all the other Gobs. But if he fought, he didn't think he could win. And more Gobs would die, and there were already so few of them. What about running away? He still might lose Gobs. He still might die. The Slimes would still grow stronger. And he would still lose face. And this made the short-sighted Goblin rage in Crispy begin to surge--if he didn't have any other option, then he might as well hurt them as badly as he could--! But...these Slimes were the ones telling him to back down, asking for HIS help. He wasn't asking THEM to spare him. And this caused the opportunistic, cowardly, but still vicious Goblin brain in Crispy--the part of him that had kept him alive in the back row, throwing fireballs at anything that Rattleskull couldn't smash in one blow--to overcome the Goblin rage, just for a moment. "...Youse says you dun wanna fight, and youse wants me to HELP yas...But I ain't doin' nuffin' for free!" Crispy said, a smile slowly quirking at one corner of his mouth. He acted as if he were relaxed, stepping over to help his female minion to her feet. "What you gots, what ya gonna give Crispy if he helps youse!?" The torchbearer slapped the ground to get some attention. "I helps, I helps! Just get dis ting offa me!" The other minion grabbed the goblin by his hands and began pulling as well, although Momma Slime made no move to get off and simply rumbled silently, her mass shifting somewhat between the goblins and Asura as if she were looking at them.