Azraith Ehann, Former Sky Captain: Azraith and the Slime

I almost took a tumble when my boot hit a patch of ooze on the path. If I hadn’t spent most of my life scrabbling from deck to pitching deck in the turbulent Avangardian skies, I would have ended up with a face full of dirt. I steadied myself and examined the path more closely. A number of small puddles dotted the way. I’d assumed it had rained recently.

I was wrong. As I prodded a puddle with the toe of my boot, it jiggled slightly.

Something fell from a tree branch above me onto my jacket. Startled, I brushed at it, and my hand came away slick and sticky. More slime! I flicked my hand a few times, hoping to cast off the excess goop, when a sound caught my attention - a sucking, slorping sound. I looked down at the puddle at my feet again and felt dread trickle down my spine like ice.

The puddle was moving - crawling - searching out the other globs of itself along the path. All of the puddles were moving now, and as they met along the way, they glommed onto each other. I watched as they gathered and coalesced into something much larger - a sentient slime nearly a meter in height. 

I thought I might simply pass it by, but it launched three balls of slime at me. Two hit my jacket, and I couldn’t help but think how much I’d paid for it. The third landed high enough on my torso to splash onto my neck and face. My skin began to burn and sting.

My patience quickly exhausted, I summoned a gust of air and sent a twisting whirlwind at the creature. It blew apart in a spray of glistening blue and green.

“It didn’t have to end that way,” I said with a sigh as I slipped the jacket from my shoulders. The caustic goop was already eating a hole in the fabric.