Druid Girl shook her head at the nomad's proposal to get the rats and roaches to fight one another.

"I can't actually command the animals I speak with to do anything. I can ask them for help or information, but telling them to do something that'll endanger their own lives... Well, I'm not advanced enough yet to fully order them around." She explained, scratching the back of her head and looking a bit dejected. Emphasized further by the girl kicking a small bit of stone into the nearby stream of nasty. "Still, I can at least handle talking any of them out of blocking our way if we need to run." She added, confidently puffing out her chest and putting on a big smile, full of determination.

At Big Red's comments, and the newly invented nickname for their nomad archer-friend, Druid Girl stifled a laugh by covering her mouth with her hand. [i]Little Puff?[/i] Now that was just adorable, and it fit the cute little archer perfectly too! She'd have to remember to try calling her female comrade that at a later time too, and hopefully get it to stick. It was a shame [i]Lizzie-poo[/i] hadn't worked out with Big Red, but hey, you can't have everything.

Reaching over and taking the map from the lizardman, Druid Girl would do her best to read the chicken-scratches and faded, or blurry, lines of their map. To tell the truth, it was almost more of a hassle to try and navigate with the damn thing rather than just venture forth without it! Heck, Big Red were leaving smart little markings wherever they went, so it wans't like they'd get lost anyway. But the former farm girl couldn't bring herself to saying that, so instead she kept directing the party - safe inbetween Big Red in the front and the Steppe Archer behind her.

For a while they travelled west through a passage, then turned south for a bit, then west again. At another crossroad, they kept going west. Oddly, they didn't encounter any giant roaches or giant rats. A few [i]regular[/i] sized rats, sure, but those fled as soon as they picked up on the trio's approach, squeaking in panic as they sktitered off to save their lives.

"Strange... We should've encountered at least [i]some[/i] critters by now." Druid Girl said, lowering the map for a bit and looking around. "And we haven't seen any bones either, so it's not like the roaches killed and ate all the rats, and if the rats had eaten the roaches, there should've been plenty of them around to get in our way." The nature-specialist summarized.

Something was obviously strange, wrong or very much both of the above. 

[i]Sssschhlooooooooorp~![/i]

"Huh?"

A strange noise was heard in the distant dark of the tunnel just ahead of them. It was a bizarre, sloshy noise, like a mix of someone slamming a slab of fresh meat onto a counter while also pouring a large bucket of water into a sink. The noise also seemed to have a rhytm or pacing to it, sounding off then falling quiet for a little while, before giving off another slosh. It was a rather unpleasant noise to be sure though, and Druid Girl could feel the hairs on her neck stand on end.

"W-what's that noise? It's... It's not a sound anything living down here should be making..." She said in an obviously nervous tone. At this point, she'd stuffed the map into her pouch and unhooked the sickle she kept on her hip.

i]Sssschhlooooooooorp~! i]Sssschhlooooooooorp~![/i][/i]

With another wave of wet, goopy sounds, whatever was making the bizarre noise was - undeniably - drawing closer. Druid Girl tried to peer past Big Red to try and see if she could spot the ... Whatever it was... But to no avail. The thing about torchlight and light in otherwise darkness as a rule was that you could see fairly well in your immediate vicinity, but seeing anything far away was as good as staring into pitch black ink.

Still... The group didn't have to wait for long, for within seconds, the source of the sound finally came around the corner of a short corridor just ahead of them.

"... What the heck is that thing?" Druid Girl said after a brief moment of staring, blinking and rubbing her eyes.

She was looking at... Well... A goopy mass of sludge. Just... Sludge. It had no shape or form other than a collection of goo and gunk. It had a strange beige-green coloration, no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no limbs... It was like someone had taken a sheet, filled it with liquid and then made it semi-transparent. Whatever this [i]thing[/i] was, it was clearly neither animal nor insect. But regardless of that, it seemed to be aware that there were some lifeforms nearby... And it was slowly advancing towards the group.