The central tunnel we descend transitions early on from a smooth corkscrew into an uneven series of slants and drops, but the slimes seem to have dug grooves into the walls so they can climb up without hassle. Getting down, though, now that's fun.

I'm just about to ask Guard why there's a dead-end hole in the ground here, when they hop off the steep ledge without warning, rapidly disappearing from my sight. Darting over, I watch them roll and bounce deeper underground. "Oh, come on, that's too cool!" Following their example, I'm treated to a ride I'd pay money for at a theme park, picking up speed until I'm careening into walls and rolling around bends at a hectic pace, dirt and root flying past me until I hit a wall and have to get myself rolling again.

This is the front door?! Architectural slimes rock!

The exhilarating descent is arrested when we roll into the loose dirt of another, slightly larger antechamber with three- no, four -tunnels splitting off in different directions, not including the one I came from. A crossroads? A bunch of slimes can be seen crawling and bouncing around the chamber, leaving and entering tunnels, and generally giving the place a busy atmosphere reminiscent of a city square.

"There are so many!" I'm metaphorically breathless, eight, twelve, fifteen slimes visible bouncing and crawling around in groups. There are a bunch of blue slimes, a couple red slimes, what looks like two green slimes, their currents broad and gentle, and is that a pink slime? Their currents look super unique, but I can't get a good look from where I am on the opposite side of the chamber.

"This is playroom," Guard ripples from their position only a few inches away, a little nubbin pointing to the larger tunnel to our left. I'm almost too distracted to listen to the rest, caught between watching the appendage slide around their body, pointing out the other tunnels like they've got a stick poking out of them, or experiencing the sudden overwhelming crowd. The nubbin is weirdly mesmerising though... "Hunters bring food here, this is also playroom, this is tunnel deeper. Come."

Following them to the tunnel leading onwards, I commit the tunnels to memory. Read; I open up my trusty ol' Monster Hyena [Personal] Profile and enter more directions. I should really take some time to format this better, it's getting kind of crowded.

I'm trying to fight my desire to rush off and meet all these new slimes in the middle of my orientation, but it's an arduous uphill struggle. "We have two playrooms?" I try to refocus myself with the tiny nugget of piqued curiosity. I can tell I've gained some child-like inclinations to play since becoming a slime, and the word popped up a few times on my crawl through the lake with Slime, so maybe it's a natural inclination for all of-

Flashing in surprise, Guard stops just inside the tunnel mouth. "Two? No, that would be silly. Fifteen playrooms."

"FIFTEEN?! How many do you even use?!" Spluttering with a splatter of splark- sparks, I'm unable to comprehend anyone needing fifteen rooms just for playing in.

"...All of them?" Guard responds hesitantly, as if they can't quite understand why I'm reacting this way to so basic a concept. Then, pulsing their understanding, they boop me again. "Do not worry. Many rotate between playrooms, everyone has turn."

Uh, that's not... not really what I meant, but sure. Why not, you got fifteen playrooms? Sweet, I'll avail myself of the facilities! Who says life needs to be all work, work, work, and no play? That gets me thinking though, I wonder what classifies as 'play' for these guys? "What kind of playrooms are there? Like, what's in them?"

Pulsing their excitement, Guard vividly lists off some of their favourites. "Many tunnels in some, good for hide and find. Some have many roots, for climbing and jumping. Some soft, some have water like lake..." and so on, until I think they've covered just about everything you could do on any playground ever that doesn't involve moving parts.

"Wow, you guys take playtime seriously," I exclaim. "I'm impressed!" When Slime said they were taking me to a fort, I expected a military outfit of some kind. Instead, it's shaping up to be more of a pillow fort, and I can't say I'm disappointed at having my expectations subverted!

"Play important, play fun," they affirm solemnly, "why not play?" Satisfied that their statement clearly explains the fort's need for this surplus of entertainment zones, Guard treks on. Rolling down a shallow, bumpy tunnel that splits in two just up ahead, they flash their left side while rolling to the right. "Sleeping pool. We come back later. Going down to Big Room now," they announce as we bounce down the right-hand path, soon arriving at another sheer, hole-in-the-floor drop.

This one is a mite more impressive than the first, however. For one, it's much larger, easily ten Luke's wide, and instead of the hole being simple hard packed dirt and little rocks, thick, woody roots descend from the ceiling and erupt from the walls, conjoined with the earth around us in a spiralling descent, framing the walls like an organic spiral staircase. The bark covered roots appear rough, so while other monsters might find the narrow, curved surface difficult to traverse when viewed in conjunction with the blatant lack of safety rails, us slimes can just grab hold and ripple down without a second thought.

Of course, Guard and I simply leap into open space, falling for a handful of seconds while the artful return route whizzes past us at high speed, before landing with a 'blump' in the soft soil below, bouncing once and rolling to a stop, cradled by the cool cushion of earth.

Looking around, this crossroads is also different to the one we passed through recently, the first change I notice being a lack of any other slimes. The walls and floor of the cave we've fallen into are almost entirely water eroded stone, rather than the soft dirt that I guess must've been dumped at the bottom of the descent by the slimes. The cave is almost twice the size of the first crossroads and sports only two features of note, one of which is a tall crack in the left wall, wide enough for Guard to crawl through without touching the sides, that zigs and zags into the rock, cutting off any line of sight inside.

Ahead of us, however, is a rough stone archway maybe six feet tall and almost as wide, an absolutely massive rent festooned with stalactites, that stands like a toothy maw leading into a large space beyond. Experiencing a sudden thrill of trepidation, I stick close to my guide as we crawl through the cavernous entrance into an even more massive domed cave.

Although it's big, easily thirty Luke's tall and double that in radius, the size isn't the thing that leaves me speechless. Staring up in astonishment, I abruptly realise I'm being left behind, rooted to the spot as I am, so I snap back to Guard's side. Gathering myself, I look up at the ceiling once more.

Growing upside down out of the ceiling like a glistening mountain is a Dungeon Crystal cluster, so large it fills the space above like the world's most detailed, expensive chandelier. Starting with small chunks of crystal at the edges, each layer gets progressively thicker, grasping spires that reach out for the walls in larger and larger steps, until they crash together in the centre like the brawling waves of stormy sea frozen in time, spurs and chunks of crystal framing an upside down pillar reaching so far the point hangs a mere five or so feet off the floor.

And that doesn't even begin to cover what the structural Aspects look like. I almost can't put it into words in my head. They're all there, every last one, so thick and tightly bound I'm having difficulty telling where one streak of mana starts and another finishes. No, that's not right, they aren't even separate! How is it doing that, I thought these Aspects didn't mix?!

Enamoured as I am with the breathtaking natural art piece, I fail to register the cave's other occupant of significance until Guard bumps up against me.

"Big say hello."

"Oh, sorry!" I glance over at Guard, glowing with chagrin when I notice we've made it all the way to the centre of the room while I was lost in the sauce. "I was distracted by the roof, it's gorgeous! My name is Luke," I say brightly as I turn my attention to the only other slime present, endeavouring to get my introduction off on the right foot. "It's very nice to... to meet..."

Oh, that's no good, words no do like that.

"Y-you must be B-... Big..."

Big is right. The slime wobbling off to the side of the inverted crystal pillar surpasses me in mass to such a degree that it feels wrong to refer to myself when trying to process their scale. They're not quite as tall, but I'd eat all my worldly possessions (1x StashedManaHeart) if they have less mass than an Adult Monster Hyena, their superior width and sheer weight of presence an almost physical force pressing me down and back. The floor of the cave is solid rock, but I find myself checking the edge of Big's mass to make sure they aren't sinking into it. Their currents are so thick and strong, so direct and choreographed, that I find myself drawn into their rhythm, painting them not simply orange, but a rich, solid orange, ringing with command.

"Hey, how are you doing, infant?! What's this about a 'name'? Luke? Is that what I have?? The babies had trouble talking about me, then they started calling me Big, and now everyone is doing it! Why would the babies call you something weird like Luke thou-?"

Holy mother of motor-mouths, this slime can talk! How does someone this imposing, exuding such intense pressure, manage to give preoccupied-teenage-band-camp-kid-hopped-up-on-red-cordial vibes?!

"-ow are you {Guard}? No issues reported by the hunters or the scouts? I'm still waiting, but I should be free to come up for hide and find after I'm done, I'm going to win this time!"

Giving a short pulse of acknowledgment, Guard bobs. "No issues. No hide and find for Big. Big must stay in Big Room, watch Baby Slimes."

"Nooo!" Big's wail is a muted glow, like sheet lightning seen through a blanket of clouds espousing their grief in vivid detail. "Watching is BORING, I want to play!"

Big's outburst soon dies down in the face of Guard's stoicism, settling into rippling petulance, a vibrancy and detail to their side of the conversation I've not seen from either Slime or Guard. In my head they sound self-assured, yet... I'll say 'abounding with the curiosity of youth'. It's like listening to some kind of public speaker or general through a sharply child-like lens, but there's a definite warmth to their tone, like a sensei and an older cousin rolled into one. Big's way of speaking sounds much more fluent when compared to Slime and Guard, but I can't tell if that's because their meanings are more complex, or if they're just being conveyed better.

It's not until their entire membrane glows softly, exuding the mental image of a cocked head and an expectant expression, that I realise they're looking at me, and I haven't actually responded to them yet. "OH! Uhh, I'm doing okay! Been better, been worse, still a little on edge after fighting for my life ever since I was born. Yep, Luke, that's my name, it's what I'm called, though you guys seem to have a way better method for figuring out who is who... uhh, what else did you-? Oh yeah! I think Big counts as a name, so congrats I guess, those babies you mentioned reinvented the wheel! I mean that affectionately, they're babies, inventing anything is impressive! I got my name from my parents, but now that I think about it, I don't see why you would have concepts for wheels or parents... are all slimes born from the Dungeon Crystals, or is there a Mama Slime somewhere bringing little blobs of joy into the world?"

Stolen novel; please report.

Strobing out a string of replies, my thoughts stutter initially while I try to get myself back on stable conversational footing, but we get there! Through all of it Big is in constant motion, either wobbling or bouncing at all times. The fact that I failed to notice them on our approach says something, but whether that something is about the edifice above or myself, I choose not to look at too closely.

"... {Guard}, {Guard}! This infant talks like me!" Big flashes, their earlier grief forgotten as they literally roll around in excitement, their prodigious mass circling the inverted spire like a tetherball. "I don't remember seeing you, are you a new baby from one of the other Crystals?"

Looking up at Guard to see whether I should be the one to talk or not, I get nothing from them. Talk about a flat expression, ha! "Actually, I came down from the tunnels. In fact, this is the first time I've ever met another slime!" Rethinking that statement, I correct myself. "Well, that's not quite accurate. I saw a slime a little while ago, they were being attacked by an Armoured Mole, but they left before I was able to say anything."

Coming to a stop, Big suddenly rolls toward me, eclipsing my vision so abruptly that I become intimately aware of how Indiana Jones must have felt running from that classic boulder trap. "Hojeeze-!"

"That was you!?" Flashing excitedly, they extend a thick blob of themselves to engulf and lift me up, plopping me down on top of their 'head'. "I got the report from-" a flash of the slime I glimpsed hiding from the Mole-Dongo briefly, "-when they returned to the fort! They said you were strange for a baby, you actually fought the Predator! I'm so proud of you!"

"H-huh?" People have definitely been proud of me before, I'm totally used to this! Who's crying? You're crying! "That slime was from this fort? You-... y-you're proud of me...?"

"Of course!" Wobbling happily, Big crawls around Guard in circles, throwing me up and rolling me around like the world's most energetic bouncy castle. "I'm proud of all my slimes, and you saved one of them as well! Now that you're here, we have another slime to play with, and you can even talk like me!" Gushing, they seem oblivious to the fact that I've been overwhelmed to the point of blue-screening. "I've never met another slime who can do that, this is great!"

Throughout this exchange, an unfamiliar feeling of warmth has been wriggling its way into the core of my mass like a bunch of sun-drenched worms. It's a little uncomfy, but it's also intoxicating. No one has said they were proud of me since the nurse who did my free vaccination gave me a lollipop for making no fuss. She probably wouldn't have said it if she knew I was gonna start crying about it, but she was nice about it. Even if she said I should get therapy for 'childhood trauma' after she forced me to tell her a bit about it, as if I haven't got perfectly good coping strategies already. Besides, who can afford therapy?

Anyway, this is a thousand times better than a lollipop! "Wheeee! Hahaha!" I laugh, basking in the sunbeams of pride radiating up from beneath me. A thought occurs amidst my carousing, pulling me up short in midair. "Hold on," I ask, pausing as I sink into Big's membrane, only continuing once I'm flung back up into the air, "I can stay here, just like that? You don't want to know more about me, and yo-" boing! "-you aren't suspicious about how I can talk so well?"

Letting me sink into their body this time, they flip me around, sweeping me through their body like a fish riding the EAC, dude. Splooshing me out onto the floor again next to Guard a moment later, they somehow manage to tower over me with all the profound gravitas of a giant, yet exude such innocently profound confusion I get the urge to slap myself for being silly.

"Why wouldn't you be able to stay? You're a slime just like us, and slimes belong together. I talk like you, and the others like me, why would you be any different?"

Feeling the need for everyone to be on the same page, I speak up. "Actually, I don't really understand how it happened, but I wasn't always a slime. I used to be from somewhere else, where I had a name, a job, debt, that kind of stuff. Apparently I died, then I woke up here, but now I'm a slime!"

I mean, I could lie, hide my past life, but what's the point? These guys seem cool, I doubt they'll hurt me just because I used to be something that I'm not right now. In stories and shows, I never understood why people worked so hard to try and hide their identities or past for fear of an ephemeral 'something bad' happening. Better to just get it out in the open and work through any issues that might come up. Also, I know me, I'm not smart enough to explain away why I know things I shouldn't, that's just unrealistic from someone as bad at lying as I am.

Watching Big for their reaction, I'm treated to the slime equivalent of being deep in thought. It's actually no more expressive than a normal human lost in thought, I don't really know what I was expecting.

"You used to be something else? But you're a slime now, though?"

"Well, yes, but-"

Bobbing in satisfaction, Big pulses happily "You belong here, then! You are a slime, you belong in a community."

"But I wasn't before," I begin, intent on making sure they understand the distinction, "I used to be human, so I'm not like other slimes, I'm different-"

Smoothly interrupting my explanation by projecting a blob of mass and coating me with it, Big gives new meaning to the phrase 'talking over me' while Guard looks on in interest. "That's enough," they pulse, rippling around me with the first hint of steel I've seen from them. "You might talk like me, but you are still an infant, so you can't be expected to understand things right away. This is alright, you'll grow out of it."

Hey, my body might be young, but rude! I want to express my displeasure, but there's something about the vibe Big gives off that makes me want to listen. "You are a slime. You say you are different, but you say it like all slimes are the same," sparks of fond exasperation dancing across their words like fireflies. "I haven't had to explain this to the other Baby Slimes before, but maybe what you were before means you are silly, and you don't understand what 'different' is. None of us are the same. Even they understand this, but this silliness could be a problem, rather than a positive thing, like {Save Me}'s," the conceptual ID they pulse describing a Blue Slime with shaky currents that thinks being saved from danger is the best fun there is.

"So, this is different," they emphasise, surrounding me with a coruscating, continuous flash of dense wordless, concepts. After giving me a moment to digest what is essentially the broad canvas of what being 'different' means to a slime, Big starts explaining the details of the picture. "Being different is natural. Why would we be anything else? It is a good thing, like having fun, or learning. If things were the same as other things, they wouldn't be interesting. Different means new, new is interesting, interesting is good. Makes sense, right?"

Nodding along, I can't help but feel like they're missing some key safety features here. "But different can be dangerous, right? Not all things that are different are good. If you get familiar with something, you know what to expect and you know whether it's safe or not. But if you don't know anything about it, you don't know if it could be dangerous." That's, like, Stranger-Danger 101.

Big responds with a mildly confused ripple that I interpret as them cocking their head to the side. "Of course not all things are good, or safe. What does that have to do with this? If you end up being bad, we'll either teach you how to be better, or you can't stay with us. Why would we stop you from being here if we don't need to?"

"... I mean, if you don't understand something, or someone, it might be dangerous. It's safe to be suspicious, to question if someone being different is a good... thing..."

Why am I arguing this? I sound like that douchebag idiot on the school-rush shift trying to argue in favour of racism about it being a 'leftover survival strategy'. Picking up where my sentence trailed off, a single, distinct ripple of light and mass travels across Big from one side to the other. I feel like I'm being sighed at, was that a slime-sigh? A sl-igh...? No, that's awful, terrible. Vetoing that one. Releasing me from their little self-contained classroom-blob, they hop back slightly, the gentle tremor of their movement felt within the rock beneath me .

"You fought a Predator and won. The scout said you fought strangely, not like a baby, not even like our hunters. Does this sound like a good thing?"

"Well, yes. I did whatever I could do, I used my head- uh, my brai-... I thought real hard." Looking up at the leader of the fort, I narrow my metaphorical eyes, expecting some kind of gotcha.

"So, because you are different, you succeeded where other Baby Slimes and {Mole-Dongo Scout} wouldn't." Theeerre it is. "We all choose to do things our own way, but that is what the community is for. If we can't do something, we ask another slime who can to help us. Although I enjoy organising stuff and talking to everyone, I'd much rather be playing than being Big all the time. But I'm the best at making sure everyone stays safe. The community asks for help, so I give it," they flare with conviction, before looking askance at Guard, smudges of malcontent skating across their membrane. "I still think I should get more playtime though, I haven't even had a chance to win more yet..."

Taking in Big's words, something they say piques my interest. "You said everyone here does things their way. But then, how does any work get done? If there's no rules, do slimes have jobs they need to do? What happens if they don't do them?"

"What do you mean?" They look genuinely confused. "Why choose to do the work in the first place if you don't want to do it?"

"Hold up," I flare, mind racing. "Are you telling me that a fort full of slimes, with zero understanding of economics or worker rights, has organically ended up with universal basic income and enrichment led employment?!"

"...Yes?" Big reply has a strong pallor of uncertainty, but that doesn't seem to originate from a lack of understanding about their policies."I... I don't get the words you're using, but the intent sounds right..."

I can't reply, caught up as I am in the beauteous ecstasy of the validation felt by simultaneous billions of customer service workers felt vicariously through me. Hoo boy, what a rush! "If I wasn't already hyped enough to be here, you've just knocked this orientation outta the park!"

"Thanks... I guess?" Shrugging off my reaction as just more weirdness, Big looks down. "Okay {Guard}, I'm going to take it from here. It seems like {Luke}-" oh, that's what I 'look' like...? Damn, I really am smol "-could do with learning how things go on here in a bit more detail. I'll handle that with the other little ones, you get back to your rest."

"Okay. Thank you, Big." Wait, Guard isn't a guard? They were just napping?! "Good luck {Luke}. Will play next time."

Flushing with embarrassment, I wave goodbye. "Bye G- uh, {Guard(?)}!" I get the feeling they're looking at me, trying to figure out what I'm doing waving my nubbin around, but they take it in stride, flopping their own little nubbin back and forth loosely in response. Watching them crawl back into the smaller cave, I turn around to find Big right next to me- oop, I'm being swallowed.

"You'd think I would have developed a complex around being eaten at this point, but this is frustratingly nice," I grumble as Big pulls me into their mass, the picture of their words like the walls of an ever shifting room constantly repainting themselves.

"Okay, they're gone. Let's have some fun! I was just rolling around here waiting before, but now I have someone to play with!"

"Uhh okay, whaddya have in mind?" Guard(*new name pending) seemed to be something of a minder for Big, but I can't see the harm if we aren't going anywhere. I wonder what they do down here? Not to mention, I'm curious to discover what kinds of games slimes play. Big and Guard mentioned hide and find earlier- zero points for guessing what that might be -but I'm sure there's a bunch of other kids games they might have re-invented for thems-

"We're going to play Slime Shot!" Oh wow, that was a giggle. Like, a literal giggle. I can't say I've ever considered what a slime might look like when they giggled, but even if I had, I'd still be blown away. Dancing like a puddle in the rain, hundreds of individual ripples spreading throughout their whole body, not just their membrane, I feel like I'm submerged in one of those super fancy vibrating La-Z-Boys, only wobblier. What really knocks my metaphorical socks off, though, is the pure, distilled joy sparkling all across the surface of their body, like the last rays of sun on a gently rolling ocean. It's an infectious light, one that catches the fast lane straight through to whatever manages my emotions and has me giggling right along with them in mere moments.

It's like this, the pair of us giggling along innocently without a care in the world, that Big gathers me up within a firm, yet tightly contained, current, yells out "SHOT!", and propels me out of their body like a railgun launching a coin at what feels like vaguely sub-sonic speeds into the floor about twenty feet in front of us, angling the payload- myself -like they're trying to skip a rock across the surface of a lake.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"