The cave walls were painted with unexpected nostalgia.
It was a warm feeling of familiarity that hit Cas, like what a prisoner might feel on seeing their old Cell.
Looking around, things had changed a lot over the past year. The grass grew thickly like a matted carpet over the floor, wet sand clumping the open spaces in between like make-shift dirt. Sharon and Tara had grown a bit, and the ant colony was flourishing now for some reason. Cas had changed a lot, too, she realized by the confused -- hesitating expression in the fox's eyes. She'd changed color, grown legs, got a house -- running into the fox felt like bumping into an old drinking buddy after you got your life back together.
"Are you gonna eat all this?" Cas asked it.
The fox paused as it heard the voice.
It recognized her!
Cas could tell by the nostalgic terror in it's eyes as it yipped and backed away.
----------------------------------------
Vulture group defeated: XP: 27
image [https://i.imgur.com/4ANArlv.png]
image [https://i.imgur.com/0JT6vfr.png]
Entity: CasClassification: AquaMorph SlimeLevel: 6XP: 344 / 3200Abilities:
* Shape Change: Level 10
* Absorption: Level 14
* Acid Immunity: Level 8
* Partial Hardening: Level 12
Skills:
Human Figure (Insufficient material)
Create Voicebox
Create Stilts
Vital Stats:
* Health: 40/40
* Size: Medium
* Armor: 4
* Movement: 22
Core Attributes:
* Constitution: 124
* Strength: 6
* Wisdom: 12
* Intelligence: 33
* Charisma: 8
* Magic Affinity: 5
Time had a way of slowing down when you were in a rush. It had a way of stopping when your life was in danger.
From the moment the vultures had begun their attack, Cas's life played out on an 80 mm reel made up of blurring milliseconds. Then, the credits rolled and normal life resumed, and Cas felt as if she were waking up in a strange place when she looked around the cave for a second time. The agitation she felt never managed to express itself physically, but the rampant emotions ran like flywheels in her mind.
As was her habit, Cas combed through her character sheet in order to calm down.
The fox, spitting out vulture blood and curling its nose in disgust at the corpses, looked at Cas with some judgement when she began eating the trash birds. Her body washed over their bodies like a flood, feathers and skin and talons and bones all taken up with impunity in the growing tide, the vultures feeding the process that fed on them. The first vulture was the slowest to take in. Incorporating it's mass, growing, the second and third vultures both were taken in in half the time.
Cas was unsure how the process of chunking up flesh smelled to everyone else, but -- to tell by the wrenching growls that came from the extreme opposite end of the cave -- it probably wasn't good.
To her, however, the scent was heavenly, and as rewarding as the dopamine-rush pop-ups her character sheet saw fit to reward her with.
Vulture absorbed:
Vulture absorbed:
Vulture absorbed:
XP: 5
Absorption Level Cap Reached: Level 14 -> 15
Size Change: Small -> Medium
Acid Immunity Level Cap Reached:
As always, her sheet was sparse on the actual, you know, details.
But Cas, mind still buffering as she tried to process the previous five minutes of her life, held onto the character sheet like it was a security blanket. Eye scanning the sheet wildly, Cas's mind raced and ruminated on all the potential implications of those simple words. Cas did this with an earnestness that allowed her to take her mind off the recent, near-death experience.
She hadn't for a moment, however, expected to discover something new.
Well, it wasn't actually so much a discovery as it was a realization. The thought had come unprompted, "why would acid immunity be leveling up... in fact why is the skill even called acid immunity if it needs to level up. Immunity implies a hundred percent damage cancellation, you can't get better than that."
The thought had been a sarcastic throw away, but the more she pulled at the thread, the more the whole veneer unraveled, and the more she continued to snowball fresh realization until the mask fully came off the beast and Cas looked away into herself.
For example: why was she so acidic? No matter how many ants she ate, she was still more than ninety percent water. Besides, she hadn't eaten a single ant for months, their acid spray should have degraded away by now, especially when considering how much sunlight she'd been exposing all her internals to. Also: why was she so red? The cow's blood she'd eaten could account for some of that, but -- again -- it should have scabbed over and rotted into a black sludge by now. And why did the intensity of her color never dilute whenever she drank water? None of that should have been possible unless her body was preserving and making new red blood cells... ooooooohhhhh!
It was a eureka moment, a lightbulb radiating the joy and satisfaction of a problem figured out.
And, right before her very eyes, as if to acknowledge the discovery, her character sheet changed:
Skill Label Updated!
Acid Immunity -> Chemistry 101
Cas laughed. Apparently, the character sheet shared her sense of humor.
She remembered Korivenna's slime was capable of creating certain compounds. She'd assumed that was just something she was too low-level to be able to do, but -- now that she really thought about it -- Cas wasn't even sure what a 'level' was actually meant to represent in this world. Deciding quickly that wasn't a question worth pursuing at the moment, Cas looked around, expecting more and finding it. Scanning the bottom of her character profile. Cas was surprised to discover that -- for the first time ever, a new page had been added.
For almost two years, now, the [Character, Inventory, Notes] trifecta had formed a stable basis to the entire character sheet. Now, she was surprised to discover that a new page labeled "Materials" had been added.
Actually, surprised wasn't the right word for it. No, it was more like... overwhelmed because the character sheet appeared the very instant Cas realized the true meaning of her memories.
Because, Cas remembered so much. Living in this slime body, most of her senses had been dulled. Her color vision was gone. Her hearing was muffled by her own body. Smells sometimes took minutes to percolate through her gelatin before reaching her crystal. Yes, compared to her human form, it was as if all the world's music had turned into the blues. So, that was perhaps why Cas hadn't noticed the thing about her taste. It was... mechanical, was one way to put it. Yes, she liked some tastes more than others, but, to her, all tastes were essentially the same.
She knew the taste of ant. She knew the taste of cricket. She knew the taste of cow bones, which tasted different from vulture bones. More than that was the sheer fidelity of her taste.
When she ate an ant, she didn't taste ant. She tasted carapace, blood, flesh, organs, sinew, and so many other flavors, each distinct in their variety. This wasn't a sense. It wasn't something Cas could notice by looking at it. It was just a series of memories that she'd never paid any important attention to until now.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Clicking the requisite excel sheet brought up everything she already knew.
Materials sheet [https://i.imgur.com/Oz1FWuk.png]
Hundreds of items crowded the screen.
The contents were unsurprising. Although, she was surprised to discover so many 'unknown' ingredients. The Cow blood, for example, it listed its ingredients as Salt, Sugar, unknown...
Cas knew what blood was made of. She knew it was made up of water, red blood cells, iron, hormones, globulin compounds and a bunch of other bullshit.
Cas looked at her screen as she thought this, expecting it to update with her recognized knowledge. Minutes of waiting yielded nothing.
And then Cas realized... she didn't know what iron and globulin compounds tasted like.
But... Cas didn't feel any poorer for it. Turning off the sheet, and pointing her attention inward, it felt like she was suddenly an artisan of sorts. She just knew she could make this stuff, and what she needed to make it. She knew that she could make Cow blood if she had Vulture blood, a little extra salt, and some fats. Cas knew she could make Agave Plant Leaves if she had moss, algea, salt and tree-sap.
It wasn't lost on Cas that most of her Materials required ingredients that were basically the same thing. Bone required bone powder, Muscle required 'flesh', blood required blood, etc...
Probably, Cas gathered, it was because those materials also carried a lot of the "unknown" ingredients Cas was ill equipped to identify. Alas, it would've been nice to be able to eat rocks and turn the atoms into bone, but she could work with this. In fact... this was probably the perfect opportunity for a test run.
Cas looked at the Fox. It had made a nest in a hidden corner of the Cave and was lounging there, licking itself while sending a weary side eye over at Cas.
...
Having eaten three vultures worth of material, Cas was overweight by a mile.
Her flight form was around five pounds, and she was currently at around twenty. So, what else was there to do but make fifteen pounds of cow flesh?
The end result didn't come out to fifteen pounds, and -- frankly speaking -- it didn't look much like the muscle Cas had been envisioning either. It lacked structure. To call it ground beef would have been an insult to ground beef. Cas pondered as she looked at the mushy pile of greyish-red stuff that was currently collapsing under its own weight. Still, the Zanzibat -- to tell by the frantic and hurried way it gulped down the soup -- gave it quite the positive rating.
"Aww... see, told you I'd make it up to you," Cas cooed at the creature and reached out a non-acid stalk to pet it. The fox only ignored her as it raced to choke down the oversized meal.
Still, Cas saw improvement in its willingness to let her get that close, and resolved to leave further bonding for another time. Right now, she had a village to save.
----------------------------------------
Cas was a strange figure, stuck a hundred feet up the side of the mountain.
Lizard, despite its simple shape, was a sure and competent climber. This climbing ability was due more to Cas's sticky body than any good design work on the Lizard which -- despite the branding -- was a simple sphere with legs. Though, she could harden the back, maybe she ought to have called it tortoise?
The monologue brought back her earlier trouble, as she selected her next form. As if a great boulder had been placed onto her back, her body smoothly flattened out against the sandstone walls, turning pancake shaped as oval wings stretched out to either side. Stopping at a certain length, her body compressed, and a dorsal rudder grew from her back, a fan tail-wing in the back, and a minimalistic rod-and-ball counterweight that struck out in front.
In defiance of all sense, the limbless plane stayed stuck to the wall by virtue of Cas's glue-stick body. It stayed paused as Cas stared at the still-blinking prompt she'd ignored all this while.
Form 1
Would you like to rename.
Cas had wanted to rename it all this time, but it wasn't until just now that she thought of something fitting. She thought of the Vultures, omens of death, and entered into the blinking space:
[Killing Omens]
There, she thought. That seemed fitting.
Hardening her belly, the stickiness reduced. Cas tipped slowly backwards as she peeled off the great rock, then fell back into a graceful dive, facing her belly downwards just in time to catch the storm-front updrafts...
----------------------------------------
This, honestly, never got old.
The thermals -- winds she'd ignored for her entire life -- were now as solid as the ground as they carried her up through a thousand feet of air.
It was so unfair that she was trapped in such an expressionless body!
[Killing Omens], in an effort to reduce weight, had been designed with as few struts and internal support structures as possible. A cow-bone bar for each wing, a ridge along the spine, and a triangular frame for the tail.
The design was still the same, but now Cas used vulture bones to make the struts. The difference was insane. Her previously plodding, wearied glide turned into an immaculately effortless soar. She barely had to think about turning and her body was already doing it. All the hidden anxiety about crashing that weighed on her mind, the anxiety of being stranded somewhere without a take-off perch and having to walk back home, all of that was now replaced with the simple joy of flight!
It was almost a shame that she came here with a job to do.
Weary of the sun, Cas turned on her roof-tint and focused her eye down through her belly window.
The updraft from the spire had taken her to impossible heights, and the details blended away with the distance.
There was something about Cas's eye that had a penchant for picking out slimes, however. From the ground, they looked like little sparkles in the dust, up close they looked like water droplets. Up here from this height, however, it was as if a great river of silver dust were flowing from the base of the spire. The great river didn't flow, it was as if a snap-shot had been taken of it in motion, it's streaming figure mixing into the surrounding ocean of sand as it spread out into a false delta.
This river encompassed the North side of the spire and fed the cave.
To the south... the river wasn't there. Cas pitched to the side and looked out to the Oasis. The great strip of desert between the spire and the Oasis was empty of slimes until just before the border of the Oasis, where they suddenly appeared again.
This was expected. The Oasis was ten miles away from the spire, and Cas had figured the slimes would submerge themselves until the rocky ground forced them to the surface at the Oasis. This made things difficult. If they'd been above ground, it would've been child's play to find where they were coming from.
As it was, however...
Cas drank in the sight below. She took in its beauty and searched for any further hidden meanings. Reluctantly, she turned away from the sight and flew straight home.
----------------------------------------
It was a faster return trip.
The wind was to her back, and she was a more competent flyer now.
At the Oasis, the eighty-five pounds of slime material she'd left back sat there like a Jello sphere, glinting in whatever sunlight managed to reach it through the shadows.
Cas, gliding in, fell into the mass of slime, dissolving into it. With a short start, the body woke up.
Kari wasn't there.
----------------------------------------
It was a long crawl home.
Cas had elected to keep her transformations a secret from the villagers. This naturally resulted in some inconveniences. The trip from the village to the Oasis took a lot longer than it had to, for one thing.
It felt longer without Kari to keep her company, however.
Cas cursed. The girl had one job. Leave her body unguarded, will she?
Cas rehearsed the admonishing words she'd prepared for the girl as she cursed and crawled her way to the village elder's hut.
----------------------------------------
Cas stopped by Kari's place on her way into the village.
It was a small hut on the very outskirts of the town.
Cas had been here more than once, though she'd never stayed for long enough to get a good sense of the place.
Unlike the other homes, which were covered wall to floor in embroidered cloth and decorative rugs, Kari's had always been a humbler abode. She had two sets of clothes and one rug. Looking inside, Cas felt a little unease when she didn't find Kari there.
She couldn't tell why, but... that place had looked a little emptier than before.
----------------------------------------
Cas told herself not to worry, and she didn't worry.
By the time she reached Elder Nemaris' hut, Cas had forgotten whatever vague, little thing had gotten her so worked up in the first place.
Cas, being a slime, was exempt from the polite custom of knocking on a wall before you entered a closed house. So, it was a series of surprised glances that met her, as she pushed aside the cloth door and crawled into the space. Elder Nemaris was there, him and several other figures sat gathered around a bowl of dried meat, each hand carrying a clay chalice of some strong substance. Nemaris was in the middle of laughing about something, and the atmosphere in the room was jolly, though Cas's unannounced presence had attracted several annoyed glares.
Elder Korivenna was there, speaking with another woman. The Fari Elder was also present, sitting at the head of the men's circle. This was perfect for Cas's purpose, as she needed to speak with the village elders for her plan.
In this room were gathered all the pieces she needed to fix the Oasis!
It was, therefore, surprising to Cas that the first words from her mouth were: "Where's Kari?"
Elder Nemaris brought his cup down from his lips, swallowing before he could answer. "Sage!", Nemaris was happier than Cas had ever seen him. It wasn't a true happiness. She could almost taste the alcohol pervading the room. "Any news on the Oasis?" he asked carelessly.
"Yes," Cas answered bluntly, the painful anxiety making it hard to speak tactfully. "I've found a way to fix it."
The room, previously filled with soft conversation, fell completely silent.
"Sage..." Elder Nemaris spoke weakly, his previous joy squashed by the dreadful hope in his voice. "You mean to say, there is something we can do now?"
"Yes," again, Cas's voice was tight.
Another, dreadful silence, as a dozen perked ears stood up in the room, waiting for her explanation.
"Have you seen Kari?" was Cas's only answer. "I need to speak with her about something."
"Kari?" Nemaris' eyebrows shot up, as if surprised to hear that name. "It was her birthday today." he answered.
"Yes, but she was at the Oasis with me. She's not there anymore."
"I had one of my trusted men call her here."
Cas was eternally polite, not a single note of sharpness in her voice as she spoke to the man and said, "I asked specifically that the Oasis was be left alone."
"Don't worry, it was an attendant of the village elder. He is a man that can be trusted with our secrets." Elder Nemaris spoke in his own polite fashion, one which seemed to ignore any rebuttal against him. "Besides, he said that you were sleeping there, and did not stop him."
Cas cursed herself, remembering the slime flesh she'd left behind. Frustrated, Cas asked, "well... where is she now?"
Again, Elder Nemaris threw up a confused look at the question. Looking around, Cas could see he wasn't alone in doing this.
"As I said..." he broke politely. "It was her birthday. She's an adult now."
Cas remained silent.
"Did she not tell you?" Korivenna asked with a sly note to her voice. "I suppose you were bound to find out sometime. Hm." she nodded shortly. "Well, In the interest of saving us the time, I'll tell you now that she's been sent off to the desert."
Cas was incredulous. "To the desert? What for?"
This question drew the most confused look. It was an uncomfortable look that spread around the room, and -- as always -- it was Nemaris that stood up to bear the responsibility of addressing it.
He answered: "She's going for the reason we're celebrating her departure. She is going to relieve us of the burden of raising another body. She is going out to the desert because she is no longer a child that can be supported by the community that raised her. She is going out to the desert to join our ancestors."
It was a rote speech, probably a standard phrase they said at every funeral.
Cas didn't bother to ask if he was joking. The man spoke as honestly as always, and nobody, not a single person in the room stood up to laugh at this great big joke they'd played on her. Kari didn't leap out of the corner with her annoying face and mischievous brows to laugh at how Cas had almost believed that-
"Kari's going to die, then?" Cas asked, her voice sounding alien to her own ears.
Again, Nemaris. Brave, responsible, honest, Nemaris, with hair much too grey for his age, answered for the rest of the group, honestly and with no pretense:
"I'm afraid that is how it must be."