Watching a mad scientist isn’t a normal past time, but it’s all I have. But I’m not sure if he’s a mad scientist, or a avid magician. And that’s because he uses magic. Whatever is going on, he uses magic, but has a mind of a mad scientist. I have yet to see a Frankenstien’s monster about, But there are golems. They patrol the area, especially at night. 

The man himself was seemingly short, with a bald spot on top, yet long and frazzled gray hair that pointed into two points. He had a equally long and frazzled handlebar mustache. He usually wore some for of goggles or eye protection. 

The golems were a simple humanoid shape. I assume them to be average human height, which is why I think the man himself is short. They looked like wooden mannequins, with a spot in their chest seemingly housing a vital competent behind a metal plate.

I’ve watched him work on one before, it seemed to be a core of some sort, but I couldn't make anything out from my place on a shelf. Oh yea, then there’s me. I’m a… a slime. A slime latched in a glass jar, with a glass lid. It wasn't a small jar, I was the size of a larger watermelon, so props to him for keeping me in a sizable jar.

Why am I here? I haven't a clue. One moment I’m in bed trying to sleep, next I have this laughing maniac cackling in front of me saying “I’ve done it.” Since then, we play this game. He observes me, I don’t move an inch. I wobble around when he’s not looking directly at me, and stop when he looks. 

I practice moving my body around more when he and his golems aren’t in the room, but I’ve gotten everything down for the most part. Then there are the times he feeds me, and removes the excess waste slime. Simply put, he opens the jar, drops a slab of meat, or live rodents in, I dissolve them, he watches closely, and I don’t move. He did seem to notice that I focus on dissolving the heads of rodents to dispatch them quickly before dissolving them in earnest. 

In his words “ Interesting, slimes dissolve their prey live, since live meat gives the most life force, yet you… you kill your prey, then eat it. Could it be you don’t like struggling prey, or you don’t like to make your prey suffer? You’re different, and I’ll find out how”

I don’t expose myself because I don’t wish to be the subject of probably painful experiments. Though I have to admit the little man has my respect. I don’t know what brought it on, but one time he plunged his own hand into me after closely looking at me. He did grab at my core, to which I moved it away with my own mass. I decided not to bite the hand that feeds, so to say.

“So you don’t dissolve my hand. Could you realize your reliance on me? Or do you not recognize my hand as food? You recognized the threat to your core, but only moved it away, and not trigger your dissolving enzymes. There are surely higher thought processes being had here. And theres something off about your density.”

After that, he had given me a substantially larger piece of meat. A reward? Who cares, I know I had never felt as full as I had that day. I had taken my time dissolving that meat, opting to get as much out of it as I could, as opposed to dissolving it quickly. Which would cost energy, loosing me some net mass. 

The way I see it, my mass is my stamina, my body, and my durability. I can make myself denser, which is a good way of storing mass. I had already made a sort of shell around my core of the densest slime membrane I could manage without robbing mass from my outer membrane or inner more liquid mass. I had ratios to keep. Five to my core membrane, three to my outer membrane, two to my inner liquidly mass. 

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Turns out having a supper thick membrane requires you to open it up to take in meals, as apposed to just absorbing it. The process takes longer, and allows my inner mass to spill out.  If my inner mass is to thick, it’s harder, and takes longer to eat. I have plans to experiment with self made organs, or designated spots for bodily functions, but the ideas are outweighed by practicality. So many self imposed limitations, and in turn risks to my core.

And then theres my core, my new brain and heart, wrapped into a single package. I cant help but to picture myself as a computer now. I mean, my core is a rock, or gem, or something… inorganic. It houses me, or well, my soul? I realize I can think Much faster, and clearer than before. I also never forget anything. Probably because organic brains constantly change, and degrade, also allowing memories to fade. 

I’m practically a golem myself now that I think about it. I have a core, and a body. Though I seem to have ingrained instincts or urges. I mean with a new body these things are more noticeable. I would have gone into psychosis by now from lack of stimuli as a human.

The one weird thing to note, is that I don’t have eyes. Well, how do I see then? Magic tropes and fictions dictate something known as magic sight. Speaking of fictions from my world, I would like to recreate one where I get a patron dragon, and lead a nation of monster folk as a friendly slime, but I can’t imitate things I eat. Thinking of it, that guy didn’t have a core. 

On the note of magic sight, the theory feels confirmed with some of the containers around me being grayed out. I cant perceive them, yet when the man works with any of them, I can see what he takes out of them, and they radiate a heavy blanket of mana. So the containers are probably an enchanted glass, I would think.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I think I would be upset or in more emotional turmoil considering that I have been both spirited away from my home, and turned into a slime. But alas, I have no hormones, or brain to process them.  A truly tranquil experience. But also a maddening experience. 

I may not have hormones or a brain, but that doesn't mean being scientifically emotionless is easy on me. Before I got here, I was detached, and emotionally color blind. I don’t think I felt things how others did, and in the intensity others did. So I operated off of assumed emotions. 

Now that I am in this body, I can say I definitely had emotions, they might have been dulled but I don’t have a way to confirm that. That bodies max might have been a four on some one else’s scale but it was my ten. And now I’m sitting at a factual zero. All that being said, those assumed emotions I’ve trained myself to respond to, seem to be getting to me. 

I trained myself to be a good person, I don’t think I was going to end up bad if I didn’t, but I wanted to both be a good person, and observed as a good person. And now those instilled and trained responses and virtues where all I had tying me to a human mindset, I think.

I don’t think that my core’s instincts are at odds with those ingrained “emotions” but I guess I wont find out until push comes to shove. Hell, I think they might be a new set of instincts, because that what they became in my old life. I’ll find out when I get and illogical instinct that goes against my survival I guess. 

I finish recapping my experiences thus far and note that the little man has come to stare at me in my jar. Oh look at that, I fogged it up again. Did I mention thinking heats my core up, like a computer.

“I wonder what you spend so much time calculating in that core of yours. We’re both lucky that jar of yours is water tight.” He chuckles before calling in a golem. He instructs it to pick up my jar and carry it.

This is new. I think some fear instincts are kicking in. New is always a pain in the butt.