On Death and Dying and Evil Dwarven Oooze

By my count, I killed four oozes today. One killed me. So, interesting day.
 
It is well known that orcs are my favorite enemy. (And while there have been rumors of them in the mountains, we have not run across any in our adventures yet.) With that as context, I would say that ooze is *not* my favorite enemy. It *is*, however, my least favorite enemy. Turns out they come in different colors and flavors, but they are still disgusting, and, as it turns out, literally deadly.
 
But again, I start my story in the middle and I should start at the beginning: the party had a fairly long discussion around our purpose for this mission, and whether we wanted to continue at all, and if so, at what price. This led to a follow-up discussion with Bedazzle and Norbin, the latter of which turns out was the quiet leader all along. He was certainly quiet in our first encounter. And while it took some prodding (and a threat to leave the whole enterprise to these two clowns), they shared what their actual purpose was with the temple (to explore and cleanse it of some ancient evil) and intimated that it was part of a larger growing evil in the world. Which, you know, bodes ill for the world I suppose. They emphatically entreated us to hold that fact in closest confidence, which I will 100% honor. They also offered a pretty sizable gem in return for our services. Which we 100% accepted.
 
With that new information I am upgrading my initial impression of them from clowns to Religious Zealot Clowns. But maybe at least they are RZCs with a higher purpose, which I could get behind.
 
We spend an uneventful evening in which nothing happened but we all woke with the strange surety that some future evening is guaranteed to be eventful in a bad way. Weird. In the morning, we spent some time resting. Blithe went hunting for replacement pipes for the Wailing Octopus she carries around, I searched for suitable straight wood to fashion arrows (I was able to put only one together), Ozzie practiced holding a shield above his head, and Baric went trotting about with dwarf skulls to bury and bless.
 
We returned to the temple and ran into more ooze/slime/jelly/whatever nasty creatures. Largely, their major damage heretofore was to our weapons, though Ozzie probably might take exception to that statement, because as it turns out, they are Actually Dangerous. But more on that later.
 
I apparently have some latent skill at picking locks, and had great luck at figuring out the mechanisms behind the locks that allowed us to open the secret doors more elegantly than with clubs and pickaxes. I found the puzzle-solving aspect of lock picking to be greatly satisfying and I am going to have to see about getting some more formal training in this skill at some point in the future.
 
In that category, we found and opened a secret compartment in a column that contained a lockbox with 15 gemstones, which was under about an equal amount of dwarf skulls that came falling out of the compartment when opened, bouncing about on the floor around us. Which is a startling thing to have rolling about your feet, for those uninitiated to the experience.
 
I am starting to like each of my companions and cannot say enough how thankful I am for our resolute dwarf in front, who is bearing the brunt of the first attacks. He's a brick, despite the girlish shriek of surprise he gave out when one of those things dropped on his head. I considered teasing him about it, but I think there is probably a time and place for that, and it will be over beers together when we retell our tales, and not in the middle of an adventure. Perhaps someday I will compose the Tale of the Shrieking Dwarf. But he will be the hero of the tale.
 
But, dear reader, you might forgive the shriek if you had one land on your head. Truth be told, I might have shrieked myself when one landed on my head, had it not knocked me unconscious. (Noting I was grievously struck by another one just prior.)
 
At this point in the tale, attention turns to our second hero, the Priest of the Blinding Lights. Our cleric was dropping light-bombs left and right, to seemingly great effect against the slimes. He has also kept our dwarven friend going with occasional heals. But I owe him a great debt of gratitude after he healed what would have otherwise been a mortal wound. I may make a small donation to his church -- I think that might make him happy.
 
Blithe and I are both Rangers, but definitely cut from different cloth. But I think we are working really well in partnership in flanking from behind and dealing out damage from a distance, which is the best place from which to deal out damage. (Except for that one time when I turned a corner so I could see what was attacking Ozzie and got killed. (I know, I know, my place is not in front. (But to be fair, this was the first time we were attacked by three together. (And apparently the two new ones that jumped me had a fancy for elves. (Speaking on behalf of my people, elves do not share that fancy with them.)))))
 
That one case aside, Blithe and I did arrange a pretty workable solution that allowed us both to reasonably shoot down the same hallway. Noting that that solution also looked like an arrow that accidentally stuck the dwarf in the foot. At least she says it was accidental. It was probably accidental.
 
Anyway, I can't wait until we get to work together in Not-A-Narrow-Hallway and rain a hail of arrows upon the heads of our distant enemies.
 
Anyway, I guess near-death experiences makes one think about what one is thankful for. Today I am thankful for my compadres.