"Okay, Squishy, here's the drill!" Jaz announced.

It was early in the morning... way earlier then Squishy would have liked. Jaz was an early riser, but the giant slug was a little, well... sluggish, when it came to early morning exercises.

"It's really simple, you'll get it no problem! There are just a few basic things you gotta know if we're gonna go into the wild world together!" He looked at her rather incredulously, although that was probably just because she had dared to drag him out of their bed at sunrise.

"We're gonna start with the basics. You'll get it no problem. First, off, you're name is Squishy. Squuuiiishy. So, when I say that, you look over and pay attention! Do that, and your prize will be, dun dun dun daaa! A delicious little bug!"

It was nothing special, like one off the magical bugs from the Clover Fields from which he hailed, but... it was still a delicious cricket. Omnomnom.

He was staring at her pretty intently though, so she needed him to look away first. She waited for him to get distracted... but he was staring at her with seemingly rapt attention. Well... at least he was good at that. A little frustrated, she moved to the side... and he just kept staring forward.

All the times she'd thought he'd been listening, had he actually just been spacing out?!

"Squishy!" she exclaimed, more for the act that she was upset then the fact she was training him. He ignored her, though, and stared blankly into space. She tapped her little foot on the ground, even angrier. "SQUISHY!"

Perhaps it was the volume at which her shrill little voice cut through the morning air, but the slug turned his eyes to look at her. Completely distracted from her previous anger, she smiled with delight and fed the startled slug a cricket.

(( Jaz +1
Squishy +1 (level up!)
Name 1 ))

Squishy munched cheerfully (or, Jaz assumed cheerfully) on his cricket. He probably had no clue why he was being rewarded for looking over at her when she screeched called, but he'd figure it out eventually.

She waited for him to drift off into his apparently default dreamland setting, and then called him again. "Squishy. Squishy. Squuuuuishy. SQUISHY." Absolutely no reaction. Maybe it was a good thing she'd decided to do some training... Although it might also be because he was extremely sleepy. He was normally asleep in bed at this hour.

"Squishy," she kept up, determined. "SQUISHY." He looked over. "Good Squishy!" she praised, giving him a pat on the head and a bit of cricket. He seemed to be beginning to wake up, finally. You'd think the walk over here would have woken him up enough...

As soon as he became distracted, this time by a passing worm, she called his name again. "Squishy. SQUISHY." This time, he looked over on the second exclamation, clearly expecting another cricket. He was only half right, however. He got half a cricket and warm praise, both of which he enjoyed.

The next time she called his name, he reacted immediately, mouth already open for a cricket. However, there was still more work to be done.

(( Jaz +2
Squishy +1
Name 2 ))

"Taco." Squishy looked over, but Jaz merely stared at him. He continued to look aptly at her, clearly expecting a cricket, but got nothing. With an irritated squish, he turned to pay attention to whatever the grass was doing.

"Salmon!" Jaz exclaimed. With a start, Squishy looked back over at her, but once again, she did absolutely nothing. If a slug could look frustrated, Squishy was definitely looking frustrated. He went back to paying attention to the grass.

"Squishy?" This time, no reaction. Haha, he was on to her little mind game. No way was he going to fall for the same trick... "Squishy!" He looked over, and was rewarded with a cricket. He blinked at her, clearly bewildered. Was she just completely random or what?

"Sedate!" He started to look over, and then slowed, narrowing his buggy eyes. What was her game? She was just yelling out random sounds!

"Hoofed mammal!" Now that didn't even make sense! What was she going on about?

"Squishy!" Wait.... he was sensing a bit of a pattern here. "SQUISHY." He looked over, and was immediately greeted with hugs, pettings, and crickets. ...Hmmm....

(( Jaz +3
Squishy +2
Name 3 ))

"Bill!" Squishy didn't look over, instead concentrating pointedly on the grass. "Swell!" Nope. He was determined at looking at that grass. "Squishy!" He looked over. And a cricket! So that was the trick. She said that word, and he looked over, and then he got a cricket. Eeeexcellent.

"Fred. Tom. Squishy." Right on the Squishy. He definitely had figured out that Squishy was the word for paying attention. That was the hard part, really. He'd get used to it the more she used it. Eventually, he'd probably figure out it was his name... for now, this was good. However, there WAS one little detail.

"Squishy?" He looked over. But instead of giving him a cricket, she just patted him between the antennae and praised him. He looked more than a little gypped. The next time she called his name, he refused to look over until she offered him a cricket leg. Jaz sighed. She was gonna have to work on that.

"Squishy, you can't have a cricket every time I call your name..." He was staring at the grass. "Squishy!" he looked over, and she just pet his head again. If a slug could look angry, he was managing to look angry... "What, am I under contract to give you a cricket?" she said, matching his anger step for squish. "When I call your name, it's cause I need you to pay attention, not cause I want to feed you! Squishy! Will you pay attention to me?"

He did, but grudgingly.

(( Jaz +4
Squishy +3
Name 4 ))

"If we have to spend all day on you learning you name, we're gonna, Squishy," Jaz said with a pout, tiny hands on tiny hips. "Now once more! SQUISHY!" He looked over, more like glared over, and she smiled and patted him, but still refused to relinquish any delicious cricket wonders. Sourly, he glared down at the grass. She'd woken him up without breakfast and then taunted him with crickets... evil woman!

"I'm not asking for the world, Squishy. SQUISHY." He refused to look over, sulking with all his sluggy might. "Squiiiishy." When he looked over, she picked him right off the ground and spun him around. He blinked twice with confusion, and in that time period, she had begun cuddling him. "See? When I want your attention, it might be for something nice, like that." She set him back down. He stared at her for a moment, and then began sliming off.

She took that moment to pick up a stone. "Hey! SQUISHY!" He looked over at her, surprised at the urgency in her voice, only to see a rock flying his way. With all the speed his surprisingly swift body could muster, he zoomed to the side, away from the random projectile. "OR, it could be because you're in trouble and you need to pay attention. Right, Squishy?"

He looked over again, and she gave him a cricket. Smiling, she said, "Or, it might just be because I want to give you a cricket. Got it, Squishy?" Even in the middle of eating his crunchy snack, he paused to look over at her. She patted him on head. He had it!

(( Jaz +5
Squishy +4
Name 5 ))

"Okay, good boy, Squish. Let's move on!" With a smile, she carried him over towards a rock. The rock actually wouldn't come into play until later... but it was a very important rock. "Okay, Squishy... I want you to spit for me."

He merely stared at her. He probably hadn't understood, but if he had, well... that was a good reason to stare, too.

"No, no, no, hear me out here... I read in a book that Immuto like you have acidic spit! It buuuurns! So, if you want to protect me, you should learn how to aim your spit like a total pro." Now it made a bit more sense why she was wearing such bulky clothing, and why she had goggles hanging around her neck.

"But first, let's teach you to spit!" Apparently, Jaz thought the best way to teach was by example, because she immediately spat out a rather sizeable amount of saliva. It actually WENT somewhere, instead of just dribbling like spit was wont to do. Squishy, however, stared at her as if she was going insane.

"C'mon, Squishy, spit!" She spat again. He slimed over to her, seemingly worried she was having some sort of mental breakdown. "No, no, I'm fine. I'm just spitting, see?" She pat again, and then whiped her mouth off. This was gonna get old, wasn't it?

(( Jaz +6 level up!
Squishy +5 level up!
Acid Spit 1 ))

"Okay, work with me here, Squish. See what I'm doing?" she pointed at herself, and then spat. "Now YOU try." She pointed at him. He blinked, slowly, twice. Jaz sighed. "You know, it's really not that hard." She spat again. "Try iiiiit. You'll liiiiike iiiiiit." She continued spitting.

She was actually getting pretty good at it. Too bad she wasn't the one with acidic spit. One thing was for sure, though, she had Squishy's attention. He was staring at her with wide, buggy eyes. Probably wondering if she was having some sort of fit or not...

She continued spitting, first pointing at herself, and then Squishy, to see if he would do it. He didn't seem to be very keen on the idea of spitting, however, if he did get what she was driving at. To make things even more annoying, her mouth was getting seriously dry. Had she brought any water with her?

"Spit, Squishy! Spit for you liiiiife! Pretend that there's a huge cricket sandwich. Hmmm, crickets. Aren't you hungry? Use some of that drool and SPIT!"

She pointed at herself once again, and spit, licking her lips afterward and swallowing repeatedly to try to return some moisture to her steadily drying mouth. Squishy stared at her, and then narrowed his eyes and spit the tiniest little bit of saliva onto the grass.

The saliva burned straight through the blades and into the ground.

"YES!" Jaz immediately rewarded him with an entire cricket, much to his delight.

(( Jaz +1
Squishy +1
Acid Spit 2 ))

"Great, great, great! Okay, now we know you know how to spit... let's roll with it. Don't lose the momentum and gogogo!" She was kind of overly-excited for someone who'd just taught their slug how to spit, really.

She sat down, legs crossed, in front of the foot-long slug and spat onto the ground. He stared at her. She spat again. Hesitantly, he followed suit and spat the tiniest bit onto the ground. But the blades of grass that Jaz hit just got slimy and slightly disturbing. The ones that Squishy hit got seared right through.

"Eeeexcellent. Let the spitting practice continue!" Jaz spat and spat and spat until she was quite worried about running out of moisture in her body. For every two or three spits she would make, Squishy would spit the tiniest amount of his own saliva out.

"What, is it a precious resource or something?" Jaz protested. "C'mon, Squish, spit like you MEAN it!"

He apparently meant very little, because his spittings were still few and far between. Despite all of Jaz's flailing and spittle, he didn't seem to keen on dampening (or rather, sizzling) the grass with his saliva any time soon. Even the promise of delicious, delicious crickets wasn't quite enough.

(( Jaz +2
Squishy +2
Acid Spit 3 ))

Jaz paused for a moment to dig around in her bag for something to drink. She managed to find some bottled water and took a long drink. She'd never really thought of spitting as an exercise, but it was apparently a really good way to dry you out...

"Okay, Squish, we can do this," she said encouragingly. "C'mon, Squishy!" She spat again, and this time, he followed suit, although still clearly nervous about the whole "saliva leaving mouth" thing.

The cricket pieces kept him going, though. For a tiny bit of spitting, he'd get a leg, but if he really let one fly, she'd give him a body. Jaz, for her part, didn't seem to mind tearing apart crickets for the sake of training her sluggy buddy.

Slowly, gradually, Squishy seemed to be getting more comfortable with the idea of spitting. Every time she coached some spit out of him it came a little bit easier. The grass was definitely getting worse for the ware, sizzling and burning and just generally not doing so well.

Squishy, finally, was spitting regularly, although his "spitting" was more like "swiftly drooling" then actual projectile ptooie-ing. But they would work on that.

((Jaz +3
Squishy +3
Acid Spit 4))

The sun was far past just "rising" and was now on its way upwards in the sky. She had been right, it seemed, to get such an early start on training. Even if Squishy wasn't particularly keen on the whole idea of "mornings."

"C'mon, let's keep going!" she said, taking another drink of water, and, after a moment of looking into Squishy's large brown eyes, pouring a little bit into her hand. She held her hand out to Squishy, and he immediately placed his mouth over her hand and re-dampened his spit-tastsic mouth.

Apparently, spitting all morning could really dry you out. Jaz was fairly thankful that he didn't get any saliva on her hand, because... ow.

With that short water break, they got back to work immediately. Squishy was now spitting up a storm alongside Jaz, possibly because she was just so darn enthusiastic about the whole thing.

"Alright, Squishy! I think you've got the basic concept of how to spit down. So now.... we go for distance!" Standing up, she set the now empty water bottle a short distance away, and then came back. "Okay, that water bottle is our first goal. See how close we can get to spitting that far!"

And the spitting continued.

((Jaz +4
Squishy +4
Acid Spit 5))

Jaz went first, trying to give her spit some real distance to it. However, while the water bottle was close, long distance spitting was harder than she'd given it credit for, and she fell quite short.

Squishy, on the other hand, stared at her, and then at the bottle. She spit at it again, and he looked back at it, and then at her. He seemed to understand the concept, but the expression in his buggy eyes was something more along the lines of "you have GOT to be kidding me."

She spit again, getting a little closer this time, and, with a slightly resigned look (or maybe Jaz was just imagining things. Can slugs have expressions?), he spat as well.

It didn't even get as far as Jaz's first one.

Jaz snorted with mirth. "Oh man! Squishy, is that the best you can do? Oooh my gods, that was ridiculous." He glared at her slightly, somehow knowing that her laughter was directed at him, and took another spit, this time getting a bit more distance, but sending it flying off in the wrong direction.

Jaz's giggle fit continued as he frustratedly continued to try to hit the hapless water bottle.

((Jaz +5
Squishy +5 level up!
Acid Spit 6))

Squishy, thanks in part to Jaz's mocking laughter, was now determined to nail that water bottle. However, that was easier said than done. He just couldn't get the distance into his spits! And even if he did, his mouth was on the /bottom/ of his body... he couldn't seem to finagle around enough to aim properly.

He was trying to get distance while still aiming more or less at the ground, and while the spit was sizzling into the ground more and more with each shot, he wasn't really getting much closer to the bottle.

Jaz finally managed to stop her gigglefit, even though the frustrated yet determined face of Squishy was absolutely freakin' hilarious. He was trying, though. At least he'd gotten past the "why the hell am I spitting" phase and moved into the "MUST SPIT" phase. That was always good.

After a few more moments of watching Squishy haplessly spit in the general direction of the water bottle, she picked up his front half. He blinked twice at her, and then spit. He got a LOT closer to the bottle this time! She set him back down, and he went about trying to figure out how to get in the same position without her help.

After a few (hilarious) positions (yoga slug!), he managed to get his front half reared up, like an angry cobra, except for minus the intimidating and plus ridiculously adorable, and spat. The distance was absolutely fantastic! Yes, like this, he could definitely get that water bottle...

((Jaz +6
Squishy +1
Acid Spit 7))

He now began working the "reared up" position. As he got into the swing of it, he managed to get just his "head" up, instead of half of his entire body, making the movement a bit more subtle and a lot less ridiculous to look at.

Meanwhile, his shots of spit were getting closer and closer to the target. The grass was still taking a serious beating, though. Jaz figured nature spirits or an angry bear or something were gonna pop up and be like RAAAAR pretty soon.

But thankfully, that never had the chance to happen. While Jaz was distracted by the whole "gonna get mauled by a forest ranger bear" thing, Squishy hit the target with a ptooie and a loud sizzle.

Jaz jumped straight up into the air in a victory... leap. "WHOOHOO! HA! Who's laughing NOW, Mr. Bottle?" Even though Jaz was the only one who'd been laughing. "Alright! Great job, Squishy, here have a cricket." As she threw him a cricket, she carefully picked the bottle up and moved it a bit further away. "Stage two! Even further!" she said with a grin.

Squishy gave her a glare, probably daring her to try it herself, but she merely smiled and said "IIIII'm not the one with the acidic spit." If slugs could sigh... Squishy reared back up and began spitting at the new target.

((Jaz +7
Squishy +2
Acid Spit 8))

He wasn't really close to hitting the target, although he was able to get where the bottle had been fairly consistently. And then, eventually, just beyond that. But not too much beyond. He let his head fall back down to the ground, and looked over at Jaz plaintively.

"Huh... oh!" Jaz said, blinking with sudden realization. "Right!" She brought out another bottle of water. "I probably should have brought more... and a bowl, or something." Again, she poured some water into her hand and fed it to Squishy that way. "You live you learn. I'll bring a bowl with us when we go traveling."

After drinking, Squishy went back to spitting, this time with a great deal more success. He was getting steadily closer with each spit. In all reality, the bottle was only like a meter away, but hey... can YOU spit a meter? No, I don't think you can.

Closer and closer, until finally... PTOOIESIZZLE! The unlucky bottle was hit.

Jaz jumped up again. "Awriiiiight! Take that, bottle!" She tossed another cricket to Squishy, who devoured it with glee, and then, much to the dismay of Squishy, set the bottle even FURTHER away. "Alrighty! Let's try this one, shall we?"

Squishy glared for a good thirty seconds before rearing up and spitting again.

((Jaz +8
Squishy +3
Acid Spit 9))

It was a pretty similar process. Spit, spit, spit, spit, stop for water, spit... Squishy was determined, however. If Jaz had known laughing at him would work so well, she'd have tried it earlier! Apparently he had his sluggy pride to think of.

With a sudden, extra large PTOOIE, out flew the spit and right onto the mark! Another jumping celebration followed suit, with more crickets and another water bottle, further out. This time, it only took Squishy a few tries to hit it, and when Jaz moved it back in, he was able to hit it with ease. It seemed as though the Squishmeister was now a master of the spitting arts... with a few exceptions.

"I hope you don't think we're done, Squishy, cause we're totally not." Jaz said as she idly kicked the bottle around for continued practice. "We gotta work on commands and where to aim next! So it'll take a bit longer still."

She reached into the bag and grabbed a marker of all things. With a grin, she walked over to that nearby rock (told you it was important) and doodled a big face on it. Squishy stared again, probably wondering if she was doing the "insane" thing again.

"Don't look at me like that. This is a FACE." She tapped it. "Then she poked the eyes with a stick. "See these? These are EYES. You wanna aim for these right here. Got it? FOR THE EYES. Aim for the eyes! To help with this..." She took the goggles and put them around her face. "It took me a while to make sure these were acid proof, but as long as you don't miss, we should be good! ...We'll practice on the rock first, though."

((Jaz +9
Squishy +4
Acid Spit 10))