Peek: Jello

Oh hey, stuff!  Oh hey, me!  I'm a thing!  When'd that happen?  Right, dungeon.  Protect the core, stop invaders, got it.  A Voice!  That's the dungeon!  He sounds kinda busy, but he still gives me a name: Jello!

That's a fun name!  Jello!  I hope I can say it more often!  Wait... how often do you get to say your own name?  Only when introducing yourself, right?

She wanders the tunnels as the thinks, trying to find a solution to her problem.  She absently eats what invaders she can as she moves, her concentration more on her thoughts than her surroundings.  She doesn't come up with any solution before something exciting happens: her first order!  Help the little lizard person!

She tries her best, but while she is good at catching invaders, she is not good at moving quickly.  Tiny has the monster dealt with long before Jello can get on the scene, and she feels bad about not being able to help.  At least she doesn't get the feeling the Voice hates her for it.  He seems a bit confused by her, but that's fine.  She's a bit confused by everything, so that's fair.

Everyone is talking about the lizard person, a kobold.  Nobody knows her name, but they still talk about her.  Kobold isn't as fun to say as Jello.  Oh... maybe she could talk about herself like that?  She's pretty sure that's a little odd, but from what little she's seen of the world so far, everything is a little odd, so what's a little more?

The Voice asks her to stand guard at the tunnel to the surface, so of course she does.  She sits in the middle of the tunnel and practices talking correctly.  She'll never be the Voice's Voice, but she still talks to the other scions.  And it helps organize her own thoughts, too.  Jello wonders if the Voice thinks in the third person sometimes.

Days pass, delvers come and go, the core is moved, the kobold gets a name: Aranya.  Better than kobold, but Jello still likes the name Jello better.  She notices the Voice paying attention to her again, and approving of her progress.  A strange shape comes through the bond, and Jello wonders if she could do that.  She never really tried to have an actual shape before.  It could be fun!

After a few tries, she learns that not only is it fun to try to have a shape, but having a shape is hard!  How does everyone else do it?  She's pretty sure bones are a big part of it, but that seems so restrictive!  She probably shouldn't worry too much about it.  She doesn't have bones, and probably never will, so she should try her own way.

She's busy concentrating on the feel of her shape with her pressed against a wall, trying to solidify in her mind how it feels to have a hard corner, when she feels something strange.  It's almost the feeling she gets when a gremlin is near... but not quite.  The gremlins feel wrong, but this seems even more wrong!  Like its existence is inside-out or something?  Whatever it is, it also feels like an invader, which at least makes what to do about it simple.

She oozes into a shortcut that leads in the right direction, and she sees the strange thing once she emerges.  Is it some kind of rat?  It's moving wrong for a rat, and the tail is too fat and stubby.  And it has no fur.  And it kinda has no skin, either?  It's clinging to the ceiling, moving slowly to either not fall or not be noticed.  Or both.  Too bad for whatever is it, Jello has dealt with slow ceiling things before!

She moves underneath it before surging upward, becoming a slimy column for  a second and impacting the ceiling with a wet splat.  And there in the center of the impact is the weird thing, now grabbed by Jello.

The first thing she notices is that it's very tasty.  Gremlins were the best things she's eaten until now, but this thing puts them to shame!  The second thing she notices is what it actually is: it's a hand.  She doesn't know why or how a hand is moving around on its own.  Do the others not actually keep their shapes as rigid as she thought?  She chews over the thought as she chews over the hand, and realizes something as it stops moving.

It's a new invader!  The Voice should be told about it!  Jello dutifully informs him, and Teemo comes to collect the dead thing.  She's a little reluctant to give it up, but does so.  The Voice can show this one to the delvers.  She's already sensing another one in the tunnels she can get.