We duck as chunks of goo spray into the air, a few wads dripping down onto my bare arms. They don’t burn, thank gods; it isn’t an acidic cube, then. Just aspittingone.
“I see a component box.” Thio points up at a staircase to nowhere beside the cube. Sure enough, a small wooden box sits precariously on the edge of the top step.
Now that he’s pointed one out, I clock others around our arena, at least half a dozen. The sides of the boxes have symbols painted on them, denoting what they contain: phosphorus, iron, glass, silver, gems, herbs, and more.
“What are you thinking?” I ask, ducking another gelatinous loogie.
Thio’s quiet for a beat, studying me, and I think he might keep pushing, until he says, “I can teleport it away.” A common conjuration spell. “We’d need chalk, a diamond, copper wire, and iron. I can see two of those component boxes from here.”
“No way. I’m not dumping this thing on some unsuspecting person. I can encase it in a force sphere.” An equally common evocation spell. “Chalk, iron, glass, a silver disk, and a ruby.”
He smiles wryly. “That’s one more component than my spell needs, so it’d waste time.”
“But your spell woulddump this cube on some random person. No.”
“I wouldn’t make it some random person. I’d drop it onour competitors.” He points at the main dividing wall, beyond which Thompson and Narbeth are working against their own cube, but we can’t see their progress.
An evil smirk spreads across Thio’s face, and I can’t help it: I grin.
Gods, it feels good.
And it seems to surprise the hell out of Thio, who leans toward me, his smile shifting from demonic to intent—
Only he straightens up. Above the wall.
The next chunk of ooze cube blasts him in the side of the face.
He goes down with the force of it, but immediately pops up onto his knees and scrapes goo off his face.
“Fuckinghellgodsdamnit,” he curses, sucks in a breath, then again, “Fuuuuck—this shit iscold.”
There’s goo all in his hair, plastering it to the side of his face, and dripping in globs down his shoulder, his chest.
Laughter grabs me. I can’t fight it; I’m sputtering as Thio wipes purple goo out of his eyes and his annoyance dissolves in a smile.
“Laugh it up, Walsh. Wait until it’s your turn.”
“Oh, I don’t plan on getting hit.”
“Hm.” Thio scoops another chunk off his shoulder and flicks it on my jeans. “Let’s test that confidence. I’ll take the left side, you take the right. The chalk and diamond boxes are on my side, the ironand copper wire are on yours. First one back without being cubed gets a blowjob.”
My jaw pops open and blood rushes to my cheeks.
He beams at me, knowing he’s distracted me even more, and I want to kiss him so damn bad.
“Andgo!” Thio takes off, leaping out from the wall and barrel-rolling behind the next closest obstacle, a wooden door.
I glance over the wall, note the cube lurching and gurgling in Thio’s direction—it’s staying on the platform at least—and don’t give myself a chance to hesitate. I bolt out from the wall, duck under a segmented open window, then copy Thio’s barrel roll behind a boulder.
Oh hey—a component box. This one’s marked with a symbol for herbs, and even though it isn’t one of the things we need, I keep it.
Three consecutive globs of goo launch from the cube, hitting the window I ducked behind, the wall, and somewhere on Thio’s side.
The stairs to nowhere have the box for the iron at the top, and the bottom step is only about two yards from this boulder.
Tucking the herb box to my stomach, I hobble-sprint in a squat for the staircase. The side closest to the cube has a wall at least, and I make it to the first step before the cube propels a chunk of itself at me. It plops against the side of the staircase, splashing goo across my shoes.
I’m not counting that as a hit.
