"I have a thing for this!" Gablex says triumphantly, reaching into his Bag of Infinite Capacity and rummaging.
"A portable bridge?" says Bellowsworksmun the anvilthane, peering over the lip of the saucer-shaped depression blocking their path.
"A flamethrower?" Pirouetta the elf suggests daintily, skimming a rock across the wobbling surface of the slime filling the twenty-foot-wide basin.
"Of course not!" Gablex says cheerily, and pulls out a brass staff. One end of it seems hollow, in a filter-mesh arrangement like something you could use to steep tea; at the other, it's topped with a life-sized mechanical head, eyes of mother-of-pearl and lapis, its hair stiff, sculpted peaks of dark wood, its mouth evidently movable through complex articulation.
The wizard unceremoniously lets the perforated end slide through his outstretched grip and squelch into the pool.
"You have so much fucking junk in there," Pirouetta says judgementally. "If you sold it all, you could make enough to pay us not to go grubbing in dungeons."
"That would be a tragic loss of camaraderie and life experiences," Gablex says. "Ah, now, shhhh...."
The staff gurgles. Bubbles form around its base. The mechanical head's jaw drops open, wavers up and down uncertainly.
Hhhhhhhhhhh, it exhales.
"How's it work?" Bellowsworksmun says, side-eyeing it.
"Well, the staff contains hundreds of miniaturised arrays of chemosensory crystals—" the wizard begins.
"PUT. YOUR. HAND. IN. THE. SLIME," the mechanical head says.
"It translates from what the slimes use for language!" Gablex summarises happily.
"IT. IS. SAFE. TO. PUT. YOUR. HAND. IN. THE. SLIME," the mechanical head says.
"Oh, well, if the slime says so," Pirouetta says, with supreme sarcasm.
"YOU. WILL. NOT. MELT," the head says.
The others hastily grab Gablex's shoulders as he rolls his sleeve up.
"Fuck no," Pirouetta says. "The puddle is lying, glop-for-brains."
"Why would slimes even develop the capacity to lie!" Gablex protests. "That's a complex social strategy!"
"It's a poorly mobile predator," Bellowsworksmun says, rolling his eyes. "You know? Like mimics?"
"Ohhhh," Gablex says. "...Still. Shouldn't we give it the benefit of the doubt?"
"Show of hands," Pirouetta says. "Who wants to see a wizard melt?"
