It was an amoeba. A monstrously huge version of a creature normally so small as to be barely visible to the naked eye. The descendant of an ancestral creature that had grown to huge size as the result of the stray, fallout magic from some ancient wizards duel. Normally, they fed on bacteria and other forms of microscopic life, but this one was so huge it could feed on elephants.

     The three wizards and the slaver shot a salvo of eight firebolts at the thing, each of which disappeared into its protoplasmic flesh with a sizzle and a wisp of smoke but had no effect on the creature, the tiny scars in its skin healing almost immediately. They backed away as it advanced and Thomas and the slaver shot four more firebolts at it, with no more effect then before. The four spellcasters retreated in bafflement and Shaun stepped forward, raising his sword. He slashed at it, slicing a gash in its skin, but as the gash widened and the soupy protoplasm welled out, a new layer of skin formed over it and the new pseudopod thus formed shot out at lightning speed, engulfing Shaun’s arm up to the shoulder. Shaun stared in horror and struggled madly to pull free, but it came with him as he backed away, flowing across his chest and up his neck, and then it pulled him back, trying to swallow him completely. The soldier yelled in fear as he felt its digestive juices beginning to work on his hand, but he was held fast and his screams were cut off abruptly as the pseudopod covered his mouth and, a second later, his entire head.

     Diana screamed and the others ran forward to help, but the slaver swept them back angrily, knocking Matthew and Thomas to the ground. The cthillian then strode up to the hapless fighter, who was now lying limply with only his legs sticking out of the creature’s body, and plunged its three fingered hands deep into its protoplasmic flesh. The protoplasm immediately began to flow up its arms, but then pulled back as its hands began to glow with magical fire. It grabbed the fighter’s legs, and the protoplasm pulled away again, partially releasing him. The slaver moved its hands up Shaun’s body an inch at a time, driving the amoeba’s pseudo-flesh away as it went, until it was able to pull him free and carry him back to the others in its arms. Diana took him gratefully and began to wash the creature’s digestive acids off his face and hands with a damp cloth.

     The amoeba sat still for a few minutes, all its pseudopods pulled in to form a huge hemisphere of protoplasm while it healed its burns, but then it began to flow towards them again. Matthew picked Shaun up as they retreated before it again, and Thomas pondered whether or not to use his flaming sphere spell. It was the only thing likely to stop the creature and drive it away, but using fire magic in a confined space was always risky, as another wizard he’d briefly known, an externum called Mikos the Magnificent, had discovered to his cost. They’d been attacked by a horde of buglins in a deserted trog mining village and he’d tried to drive them away by casting a fireball at them. Part of the force of the spell had rebounded from the walls of the corridor, however, and burned him alive. Thomas definitely didn’t want the same thing happening to him.

     It seemed like the only chance they had of getting past the creature, though, so he decided that, so long as he took some sensible precautions, it should be all right. The flaming sphere spell had a range of about ten yards, which meant that as long as he was more than half that distance from the creature, there was no chance of it reaching back to him if it rebounded. The monster was about twenty four yards away from him now so, allowing for the time it would take to cast the spell it ought to be between five and ten yards away from him when it fired. He took a pinch of iron filings from the pouch at his belt, therefore, turned to face the creature and began casting.

     It loomed ominously in front of him as he chanted the magic words, pseudopods reaching hungrily along the floor ahead of it and the vast, protoplasmic bulk behind quivering greedily as it closed the distance. For a moment he thought he’d miscalculated, that it would sweep around his ankles before he’d finished the spell and then climb up his body to swallow him whole, but it was still six yards away when he completed the final tongue twisting syllable. A globe of orange flame sprang into being in front of him, filling the tunnel with dancing shadows, and then it began rolling along the ground towards the monster.

     It was only then that he realised the mistake he'd made, and a sick feeling of horror swept over him, holding him frozen to the spot even as he cursed his stupidity. The amoeba had been six yards away when the spell was cast, it was true, but it was still slithering towards them even as the flaming sphere bounced and rolled towards it and the two would meet only four yards away from him, less than half the spell’s range. He turned and fled, just as the sphere collided with the amoeba, bounced off its jellylike body and returned the way it had come, back towards the fleeing wizard.

     The others, safely out of range, looked back in horror as the flaming sphere bounced towards him, closing the distance with terrifying speed, but Thomas’s luck was with him and the flaming sphere burned itself out just as it touched the middle of his back. He felt a feather light touch between the shoulder blades, a burning heat on the back of his neck, and smelled scorched cloth, but then there was nothing.

     He kept running, though, knowing that the monster had to be right behind him, but when he reached the others they were just standing there, looking in fascination at something behind him. He turned to see what it was and saw that the giant amoeba had become a living mass of flames. The flaming sphere must have ignited the thin layer of grease and oil that covered the creature’s body, and now it was writhing in agony, convulsing piteously and filling the tunnel with acrid, foul smelling smoke. They covered their eyes and ran, coughing and spluttering, back towards the tunnel’s entrance.

     They reached it ten minutes later, and stood for a long time just breathing the cool night air while a thin column of smoke curled upwards into the starry sky.

     “Nice one, Tom!” said Matthew, patting the wizard on the shoulder.

     “Thanks,” replied Thomas. “Next time, though, I’ll make sure I judge the distance properly.”

     They laughed in relief for a moment, but then remembered Shaun and went over to see how he was. He was just coming round, coughing weakly and rubbing a hand over his eyes as Diana prayed over him, channeling the power of the Goddess Caroli. His skin was puffy and inflamed where it had been burned by the creature’s digestive acids, especially his right hand that had been inside it the longest, and his legs and the sides of his body were covered by more conventional burns where he’d been touched by the slaver’s burning hands. These wounds disappeared as the healing power flowed into him, though, and a second later he was climbing back to his feet, fully restored to health.

     “What happened?” he asked, fingering the burnt patches in his clothing. “The last thing I remember, I was drowning in jelly.”

     The others filled him in, and the soldier was astonished to learn that it was the slaver who’d saved him. “Thanks,” he told it in some embarrassment. “I owe you my life.”

     “Yes, you do,” agreed the cthillian, “but you wouldn’t if you’d heeded my warning about attacking it with a sword. That was stupid, even by human standards.”

     “I’m sorry,” apologised Shaun. “I’ll listen to you in future, I promise. I don’t understand why you’d risk your life to save me, though. What do you care about me?”

     “Nothing,” replied the slaver. “However, I said that I would take you all to the Underworld, all of you, and I would be shamed if I failed in such a simple task. Be warned, though. There is a limit to the level of stupidity I will tolerate. Go too far, and I may decide to abandon you and accept the shame.”

     “Well, thanks anyway,” said Shaun again. He reached for his scabbard, intending to see how well his sword had fared inside the amoeba, but discovered to his alarm that it was missing. “My sword!” he exclaimed. “Where is it?”

     “You must have left it inside that thing when Charlie pulled you out,” said Matthew.

     Shaun was frantic. “We’ve got to get it back! We need it!"

     He started back down into the smoke filled tunnel, but Thomas grabbed his arm and held him back. “Easy, easy,” he said. “There’s no hurry! What do you think it’s going to do with your sword, assuming it’s still alive? If it’s dead, you’ll find it safe and sound among its ashes. A little fire won’t hurt it. And if it’s still alive it’ll simply expel it from its body, like it does the indigestible bones of the animals it eats. You’ll find it lying abandoned somewhere in the tunnel. You’ll get it back, don’t worry.”

     Shaun relaxed, the logic of his words sinking in and soothing his feverish mind. “Yes, you’re right,” he said, turning back to the others. “It’s perfectly safe in there, I know. I just don’t like parting with it, that’s all. Not even for a few minutes.”

     “Magic weapons have that effect on people,” commented Lirenna, more to herself than to anyone else. “I don’t think it’s healthy.”

     They waited half an hour, by which time the yellow sun was peeping above the eastern horizon, before deciding that the smoke had cleared enough for them to go back in. A trace of acrid smoke still hung in the air but it was breathable now, causing nothing more serious than a slight stinging of the eyes. Shaun scanned the ground as they went, searching for his sword, even though the place where they’d left the amoeba was still hundreds of yards away. He wasn’t going to take any chance at all of missing it.

     They knew they’d come to the place where they’d left the amoeba when they saw a circle of scorched ground about twenty feet across, above which was a large patch of black soot on the ceiling. There was no sign of either sword or amoeba, though, and they deduced that it had crawled away somewhere to heal its massive burns.

     "Lucky this tunnel didn’t seem to have any side turns to it," muttered Shaun as his eyes searched the ground. "Would have made it a lot more difficult to find it. Maybe even impossible. All we've got to do is keep on going as we were and we're bound to come across it sooner or later." He sounded as though he were trying to convince himself of the fact.

     Thomas knew that the tunnel must have at least one side turning, though. The turn leading down to the world below. And if there was one side turning there might be many of them. They might have to search an entire labyrinth of tunnels to find the amoeba and the sword. Shaun didn’t need that kind of news at the moment, though, and so the wizard kept silent as the nine of them continued to creep cautiously along the tunnel.