“Pet Story”
Stephen Zuckerman
I have had many pets, in my time – primarily dogs. I have always found these pets to be boring, irritating, tiresome, loathsome, or some combination thereof. There is a great deal of hassle surrounding the care of these creatures, and I have only rarely seen the benefits in owning such a high-maintenance animal. The responsibility to give them exercise, food of adequate quality, housing, things which they may destroy so as to not devour one's furnishings, and to train them to not use one's vintage shag rug as the patch of virulent orange grass it resembles, is far beyond what some reasonable people would consider reasonable. This is true especially when considering the slim benefits provided by such a witless, noise-ordinance-breaking animal's companionship.
In short, it can be easily said that I hate dogs, at least in the context of owning them, myself. Therefore, it is entirely reasonable for me to have selected another, far lower-maintenance, pet of mine as a “favorite,” despite its admittedly fictional nature.
A gelatinous cube, as implied by the name, is a cubic, gelatinous lifeform of uncertain classification. A typical gelatinous cube is ten feet across, ten feet high, and ten feet through, and secretes powerful digestive acids and enzymes which dissolve organic matter within seconds, should they pass into its semipermeable “body.” The cube's substance is entirely transparent, causing inorganic objects suspended in its “body” to seem as if they were hovering in mid-air. It moves in an amoebic fashion, and is typically found in environments where organic matter is far from being at a surplus – an abandoned underground complex made of stone, for example. A cube's reproduction is asexual, and it typically simply splits into two cubes approximately seven feet in each dimension. However, on occasion, a smaller portion of a gelatinous cube will be forcibly removed from the greater whole. Interesting to note is that these smaller sections, provided they are of at least one cubic foot in volume, act independent of the original organism within several moments, rather than trying to rejoin. It is because of this action that gelatinous cubes are thought to be collections of many, many microorganisms, much like many modern types of lichens and oozes are, today.
I once had the fortune (good or misfortune, I am still not certain) to encounter one of these gelatinous cubes in my explorations of such a complex as described above, with a group of like-minded adventurers. Not knowing, then, of the organism's nature, I proceeded to whack at the strange, transparent “wall” with my greatsword. Luck was with me in that none of the tiny blobs of acidic gelatin struck my skin, but I did lop off a fair chunk of the creature before I was called upon to stop. One of my companions knew more than I of these truly omnivorous beings, and suggested we burn it. This worked admirably, reducing the bulk of the cube to a small pile of greasy ash after roughly twenty minutes (we were forced to retreat to another section of the complex for air during that time), and we continued, when the smoke cleared, without a second thought. We did not see the small section of cube I had removed before the burning... And after a few minutes, it formed into a cube of its own, roughly one foot in each dimension, and began to follow us.
After retrieving a number of remarkably valuable objects from these ruins, our group left the way we came... Again, not spotting the tiny cube in our haste. I say haste, as there were a large number of terribly agitated spiders following us, each roughly the size of an average dalmatian. The spiders, for whatever reason, avoided the cube, and we did not learn again of it until several nights later, as we were tromping through an adjoining cave system, having since evaded or killed all of the spiders. It came upon us after having fended off a number of extraordinarily large rats, and it paused to feed on the ring of dead vermin... If one could call its absorption of the corpses “feeding.” I was astounded, and thoroughly amused, and recommended against killing it, for the time being.
So began a long and fruitful relationship between the party and “Squishy;” whenever we wished to dispose of organic matter such as torn cloth, papers, shattered shields, or the corpses of dead orcs, we would simply throw them to the steadily-growing gelatinous cube. Also, on the occasions we encountered a creature too fearsome to face alone, we lured it into Squishy's acidic engulfment. The only real problem with our “tame” gelatinous cube was that is wasn't tame at all; it followed us with the singular purpose of devouring us, and I believe me, in particular. As such, we would always be forced to camp in places where the gradient of the land was far to great for Squishy to reach us.
In the end, Squishy became the victim of an irate red dragon's breath, but not before having eaten six different halflings we had employed as rogues over the course of our travels.
"Pet Story" is Copyright Stephen Zuckerman, 2007.
It was written for an introductory assignment in my American Literature class, and I thought it was worth sharing. Distribute as you wish, but lend me some credit. And by all means, please do try this in your own campaigns.
