We are abandoned.
These great halls grow cold. Our people, frozen in fire.
We are abandoned.
-Last words of the Lord of the Midnight Cellar. Deciphered from the final entry of his Lordship’s personal diary, penned the day the Evercask detonated.
----------------------------------------
First off, I ask {Mask} where they hid us.
“Not far,” they explain. “Flowers. Next to. Under fern.”
“Alright, that’s good,” I glow, currents whizzing through me at high speed. “That means the holes left behind when we cleared out that monster’s roots should still be there. We can hide in there.” It’ll be cramped, but better than being up here where anything and everything can see us. I haven’t seen any monsters walking around this mini-jungle since that scarab I followed, but this is no time to be taking chances, blind as we are.
Following {Mask}’s lead back to the site of the Bed of Flower’s demise, I marvel at my newly evolved form. Hot damn, I feel strong! My membrane feels like a layer of muscle gently constraining my liquid mass, my body moving with an unspoken strength. I’m a little less squishy and only a third bigger than I was before, but they aren’t big changes considering how much higher my hit points are. I’d assumed I would triple in size after tripling my total HP, but it’s pretty straightforward to intuit that becoming a Dense Slime means most of that mass gets focused and compressed inside me rather than translating to big flashy gains.
Focusing inwards, a ripple passes through me. Holy crap, that’s a lot of mass! If I had a bucket to work with before, I have a small bathtub’s worth now! Extruding a pseudopod of slime from inside me, I give myself a mouth-esque dent in my membrane just so I can gape at the club-ended tendril twice my length rearing up over my body. “Ho-ho-hoooh boy!” Cackling, I swing the pseudopod around, the greater weight contained within my smaller-in-comparison main body sufficient to provide me the leverage I need to wave it around almost effortlessly.
“Woooow!”
One of my selves looking over at {Mask}, the others enamoured with my new toy, I gleam. “Isn’t this awesome! I may not look it, but I’m way bigger now!”
The other one of me not actively playing with my pseudopod hears that and gets a brainwave.
I adopt a considering glow. “Oooo, maybe? I don’t see why not!” Retracing the cool as heck appendage, I focus my attention on my brand spanking new Compressive membrane. Then I relax, like I’m rolling my shoulders to loosen a collection tight muscles.
A smooth, rolling swell of mass expands out from me like a planet sized wave circumnavigating the globe in two seconds flat. One moment I was only a third larger than I’d been as a Baby, the next I’m a gelatinous mass which- judging by {Mask}’s height relative to me -must come close to the slime equivalent of shoulder height next to Big!
“I’m a chonky boi!”
{Mask}’s response is immediate and highly expressive. A storm of gobsmacked clouds sent scudding across their surface, the Baby Slime shoots around me, their far more advanced Motive Molecules forcing me to resort to keeping track of them with my mana radar rather than attempt to concentrate in every direction at once.
“AMAZING! Luke big. Like Big!”
“I’m not quite there just yet, but by Attenborough it looks like that may just be on the cards!” Jiggling my generously proportioned jowls, I marvel at my prodigious mass. I need to make a conscious effort to relax my membrane for this, but the sheer quantity of mass I have on display, plus the knowledge that my neutral size is considerably smaller than this, really drives home how potent that Compressive Adaptation is. Paused on the edge of what feels like the prior edge of the Bed o’ Flowers, I flex and shift around. Huh, I don’t feel quite so… physical like this; I guess having all this junk wrapped up inside such a tight little trunk really bumps up how much force I can put out.
All slimelight falling still across my form, I retract back down, my membrane tightening and thickening around me. “I’m just like Ant-Man,” I shimmer. “High density, low surface area. I’m all love taps and bullets!” Spinning around on the spot, I see {Mask} looking on with a blank expression, completely and utterly lost.
“Uhh, I’d explain, but that’s about ten layers of context deep at minimum, so for now, just know that I’m super happy with my new evolution!” I assure them, flashing them the vibe behind a thumb’s up; just without the thumb, of course.
“Okay. Happy,” they reply, wiggling about in reinforcement of their point.
“Thanks mate. Sorry for the distraction, let’s get to safety.”
Moments later we find ourselves crammed down the narrow tube-like holes in the ground which once housed the Bed’s root system. Just before we descended I split off a 1HP bubble from myself, slipping the tiny me inside {Mask}. It really shouldn’t have, but I’d been shocked to discover the bubble- as I’ve begun to think of the temporary little bodies I split off for tasks such as this -is much smaller than the ones I was making before. Looks like they get all the benefits of my Mutations, which is something I already knew, duh, but I wasn’t prepared for a single HP Luke with a Compressive Membrane to be the size of a gumball.
I consider sending another bubble out to scout the area, small as I’d be, but my inability to see, coupled with the fact that I would barely be able to feel anything useful even if I relaxed to my full size leads me to scrap the idea. Instead, I have a better use for this time while {Mask} and I try to get our bearings and figure out the next steps.
“Alright {Mask}. I have no idea how long we’re going to be here, but hopefully we can wait this out. Seeing as we’ve got nothing better to do, let’s look at our Skills and Mutations. What are your resources sitting at?”
They pulse their agreement, their attention already far away. “Skill Point. One. Impurities. Four.”
The bubble of me inside their mass pulls up my status, my first look post-evolution. “Hmm, not enough for an adaptation for anything. That’s alright, look through your Skills. I know we were saving that point for something else, but have a look for anything that could help us find our way around; who knows, you could get lucky.”
Name: Luke
Species: Dense Blue Slime [Highly Concentrated Pure Mana Heart]
Level: 1
Hit Points - 1 , 44 [45]
Mana - 15
Physicality: 25
Fortitude: 26
Thought: 25
Intent: 25
Skills: Slam [Lv.1], Malleable [Lv.1], Bounce [Lv.4], Stealth II [Lv.1], Engulf [Lv.3], Initiate Mana Weaving [Lv.2]
Mutations: Mana Receptors +5 (Dispersed), Digestive Molecules +5 (Indifferent), Motive Molecules +2 , Membrane +2 (Compressive), Regenerative Molecules, Solidifying Enzyme
Skill Points: 1
Impurities: 12
MM-MMM! Those are some delicious numbers if I do say so myself! And those Impurities, woof! Looking at my Mutations, three plus four, five, six, seven… plus five… that’s exactly twelve! I could take either my Motive Molecules or my Membrane all the way to the top if I wanted to!
As for my other selves in my main body, one is keeping a receptor on our surroundings, watching for so much as a flicker of mana. If this Nothing starts to let up, I wanna know about it.
The last is focused on said new body. I just got a bunch of upgrades, and I want to see what I’m capable of now. With two new Mutations, what may as well count as another in my free Compressive Adaptation, considerably higher stats, more mana and nothing but time on my hands, I’m ripe for some shenaniganry! I just wish I wasn’t squished up inside a tube of soft packed earth, it makes waggling my nubbins victoriously a mite difficult.
The ability to split my efforts three ways, courtesy of my triplicate mental state, is quite the time saver but it also gives rise to an opportunity I had failed to take into consideration until now; cross-subject brainwaves.
“I wonder if System Writ would let me rewrite little bits of the System?” ‘Skill & Mutation Me’ wonders, tossing and turning the phrasing of the intriguing Skill through my currents. I’ve used computers, obviously, but I wasn’t an I.T. guy. Apart from sounding like a writing thing, I don’t actually know what a ‘writ’ is in the context of systems and programs.
Writ Initiate - 1 SP: Grants the skill-holder basic System Writ permissions.
Maybe it could adjust wording? How specific the wording is seems super important for all my Skills and traits, maybe this would give me some wiggle-?
“Waaaait a second!” Practice attempts at making spikes on my membrane grinding to a halt, ‘Body Test Me’ rapidly opens up my status to stare at the description for the Compressive Adaptation.
Membrane +2 (Compressive): The membrane is the organ that maintains a Slime's bodily integrity, a semi-solid constructed from slime matter.
Compressive - Scaling with your total mass, your membrane increases in density and toughness, this compression of your slime matter increasing your physical traits. Additionally, you are able to highly compress your membrane, pressurising the matter within to varied effect.
“I’m a fool!” After seeing how dense I already am, I thought that last part was specifying what this Adaptation does passively. But the wording clearly states I’m ‘able to highly compress my membrane’. “That means I should be able to increase the pressure even more than I already am!” Equal parts ecstatic for figuring this out and chagrined for misunderstanding in the first place, I squeeze myself with my own membrane. I quickly shrink down to half the size of a Baby Slime while my membrane begins to feel tight, like the skin of a partially healed sunburn stretched over a joint
Doing so causes me to roll further down the hole I’m occupying. I’m delighted to discover that my tiny little body leaves a track in the dirt where I roll down the wall, and even more so when I hit the end and barely bounce; instead sinking into the sand like one of those soft weighted balls with handles I’ve seen people using when working out at the beach. “Holy Attenborough, I bet I could do some damage like this!”
“And that’s not all,” ‘Skill & Mutation Me’ glimmers. Looking at one of the other Skills available for purchase, I swear I feel saliva dribbling down both my membranes.
Tension - 1 SP: The skill-holder can empower the tension held across their body. Effects vary dependent upon physiology.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“….no way,” I breathe. “I’d forgotten about this! Highly Compressed slime, plus Tension, equals-!”
“One hell of a Slam,” my little bubble nods, the motion entirely imperceptible to anyone but myself due to my miniscule scale. “We’ve only got the one point for now, but that’s definitely on the shortlist for when we get more. Until then, I’ll try to figure out how to learn it mysel-”
Both my bodies stiffen, shrinking slightly, when the part of me that has been watching our surroundings diligently, and totally not getting distracted by the dope new stuff we can do, notices mana within our perception.
Moving mana.
“{Mask}, monster in the vicinity,” the bubble of me inside my small friend flashes, their currents surging in response to me snapping them out of their System-focused stupor. Well, that’s something at least; I already knew monsters have mana so intrinsically woven into their bodies that I can see them as easily as anything else, but it’s nice to know the Nothing hasn’t taken that away. I could have figures that out from my ability to see {Mask} and myself, but we’re slimes. We could just be cool like that.
“Monster? Close?” they ask, a tremor of fear bobbing me up and down like a toy boat on the ocean while my main body expands to normal size and slithers closer to the surface.
“Not yet,” I assure them, receptor-ing the approaching form of what looks like some kind of large snake as it winds over and around obstacles I can’t see with unerring ease, still a good twenty meters away. “Damn, just our luck. It can definitely still see.” Doing away with my status and menus, my bubble takes over watch duties while the two Mes in my main body prepare for the worst. “At least we’re in the ground, well out of sight. I’m not about to tempt fate, but we’ve got a chance.”
The snake continues its winding, undirected course in our general direction. As it gets closer, the details begin to jump out at me. Fascinated despite the obvious danger this noodle represents, I stare at the uneven surface of the serpent’s body, following the curling, ropey vines that seem to wind around its entire form. The whole thing looks like some kind of animated hunk of jungle vines sculpted into the shape of a snake, thick cords all spiralling around each other in a corkscrew until they terminate in a thick based, almost drill-like head…
Actually, looking at it, the monster’s overall shape is tickling a vague, hazy memory of something from my past life. A-are you an alien?! Where’s your tiny gold spaceship, and your Victoria’s Secret collection?! HELP, SOMEONE CALL THE M.I.B!
My tomfoolery successfully distracts me for a solid five seconds… right up until the verdant serpent gets within ten meters.
Currently hovering above ground level- maybe slithering up a rock or something? -the snake was mid course adjustment, half of its city bus length body about to turn to the right and leave us be, when its big, dangerous looking head snaps down to us like a laser pointer, freezing on the spot.
“Ahhhh crab crackers,” I groan.
“What wrong?” {Mask} queries, still trembling.
“It sees us, “ I deadpan as the snake glides down whatever it was on top of smooth as silk, eyes fixed blatantly on our position despite all intervening obstacles. You know, like solid earth, and the concept of fairplay! “How can it bloody well-! Right, it’s pitch black out there without the Dungeon Crystals. It must have some sense in addition to sight it uses to track with, possibly even a mana sense like us if it saw us so abruptly.” Though my receptors are a bit blurrier at the fringes, when new mana enters my range it’s like it just stepped under a bustop with me from out of a heavy downpour.
Flashing for {Mask} to stay still, I try not to move despite my instincts yelling at me to get to a safer area. I don’t want to give away that we know it’s seen us, ‘cos if I’m being forced into a position where I don’t have the element of surprise, I need to take any advantage I can manufacture.
Still, it’s molecule shaking stuff watching a snake big enough to provide transport for the morning commute slither directly toward you, tongue flicking out to taste the air every- EURGH, GROSS! Get that cat-o’-ninetails ass, tendril-y lookin’ thing outta here!
Reminds me of the loose tendons trailing through my currents when I grabbed that scarab’s torn off legs, blech.
Of course, Viney Mc- no wait, I’ve used that one already… Vine-demort can’t hear me so I’m subjected to watching this unlandscaped jackass’ tongue flick in and out of its mouth all the way up until it stops right at the edge of the hole I’m snuggled in, the point of its- startlingly accurate, wow you really worked hard on that -drill shaped head aimed right at me. Slowly- and I mean that on a glacial scale -slowly the serpent raises its head, the tip just peeking over the edge of the hole, hovering an inch or two above ground.
Cutting off my escape, huh? That’s what you think!
I sit, varying my currents to take the bite out of my urge to shift around. Come on big guy, what’s the matter? Glasses wearing boy with a scar got your tongue? I was never really into the series but the quips just create themselves some times, you know how it-
“BWAH!”
“{Teacher}!”
Lit up by a startled flashbang of slimelight, my slimy oh-so-vital fluids turn to ice in my currents, the tip of the snake’s head partially buried inside my body. “Ohmygodohmygod, what the fuck!” The motion of the monster’s head shifting inside me feels about as natural as you would assume, sending ripples throughout my slime matter that communicate nothing but “nonononono-”
Then the point unfolds inside me every so slightly, barbed little vines questing through said currents, and I loose my shit.
Squeezing a ridged ring of membrane around whatever ungodly orifice this fucker just opened on the tip of its face, I trigger my Solidifying Enzymes. The chemical reaction is fast, the chosen portion of my mass fully hardened after barely a second has passed. Gripping it in my currents, I put everything I have into compressing myself around my ready made valve wheel and twist.
“HSSSSSHKKHKH!”
Preceding the vine snake’s cry is a tearing sound like a rope being snapped, the first inch of the monster’s head and whatever fucked up little tendrils it tried to dig into me torn off and immediately set upon by my Digestive Molecules. Yanking its head back, dirt cascading into my little hole in the ground as the soil caught behind it makes said efforts more difficult than they might otherwise be, I’m given a half second of breathing room to appreciate what the fuck just happened.
It’s so fast! Like, unreasonably fast! I didn’t even see it move; its head was just hovering over the hole outside, then the next instant I’d already been stabbed. Thank Attenborough I’m so thicc now; it may have pierced my membrane but that absolutely slowed it down, after which my tightly packed internal mass was sufficient to stop its attack. Even now the monster is jerking its head side to side and up and down wild and snappy; it’s almost unrealistic, the monster moving too fast for me to process.
Just as it looks like the snake is about to free itself, I realise what’s about to happen. If this thing gets out and away from me, my chances of stopping it from attacking me again are practically zero. Worse, I need to get out of this hole or it’ll just pummel me to death; I doubt it’ll make the same mistake twice after I wrenched off its nose like that. Which means I’ll need to be out in the open where it can attack me with impunity anyway. My only chance is to grab hold of it and never let-
Just as I’m finishing that thought, the snake finally pulls free, releasing a downpour of loose dirt that rains down atop my trembling form. Before I even have a chance to curse, a thick, rope-like vine snaps out of the creature’s bunched up mass, smaller barbed vines coiled around it latching on to me like the stingers of a jellyfish as it yanks me out of my hole-
-and directly into the path of its swinging tail.
“Sunnova!”
Sent flying for the boundary line, I’m ever so thankful slimes can’t feel pain; I think I’d be in a pretty bad fucking position otherwise, seeing as the barbed vines that were still attached to me and pulled taut when my body was flung away just severed me down the middle. One half of me splats most of the way up the trunk of a small tree, the other rolling to a stop amongst what feels like a bushel of ferns. I lost a healthy chunk of slime matter to that attack; enough to kill me before my evolution, the internals of both halves open to the air for a second or two before I was able to reform my membranes, but I’m still well over half my max in both cases.
“This sucks. How do I even fight this thing?!” Looking up at myself flashing seemingly in midair from down below- the tree I’m latched on to entirely invisible to either of me -I crawl over to a nearby lump of discarded slime matter. Making contact, it melts into me like, well, slime melts into a slime. Watching my hit points closesly, I tick up a handful of digits.
“Well, I guess that answers the question of whether a Dense variant gets the normal benefits of a Blue Slime,” I bob, rather pleased. “In which case…”
My other body jumps down from the tree to land directly on top of me, my body two-thirds whole once more. I immediately split off 10 HP worth of my mass as a bubble, which flattens out and starts beelining for my lost slime matter while compressed down to be as small as I can possibly make myself.
Hit Points: 22/34 , 10/10 , 1/1
Of course, Big Green and Slithery is watching my field-medic self closely. A thick, viscous liquid- maybe sap of some kind? -seeps from within the relatively small tear in its schnoz. Now that I have some perspective and distance from it, I can see that it’s probably twice the size of a tall human, so not quite the bus-sized monstrosity I assumed it to be at first. I watch closely, its lower body shifting like it’s readying to pounce, but I’ve got something to say about that.
“Oi!”
My larger body hopping out in front, I arm myself with a thick-headed pseudopod as big as I am, achieved by modifying my density until I’m as big as a Baby again but with just over twice the mass. Waving the weaponised appendage around in a mocking rendition of the monster I’m facing down, I give it little spikes, though the edges aren’t as sharp as I’d like, and ready my Enzymes. Maybe I should get {Mask} teach me how to Mould like they do?
“Let’s go then!” I jiggle, swelling myself up on spot. “Come at me if you think you’re-”
THWWSH!
I have no chance of predicting, let alone dodging my opponent’s sudden lunge. None at all. But that’s not the goal right now. Instead, when Vine-demort rips across the space between us like green lightning, its drill-like head half unfurling like a flower to reveal row upon row of barbs covering the inner walls and descend upon my body, completely ignoring my far too slow pseudopod, I don’t move.
When the weight of the snake’s charge slams into my main body, I don’t move.
When its barbs dig into my membrane, I don’t move.
When numerous tiny vines sprout from inside its throat, wrapping around me in and effort to hold me inside its mouth, I don’t move.
Only once I’m certain that the monster has a strong grip on my completely solidified decoy body and arm, enough that disentangling us will take some targeted effort on its part, does my consciousness safely housed within the pseudopod dangling out the side of its mouth allow a grin to stretch my membrane, the rough edge of what is now my face glowing and ready to Slam.
“GOTCHA!” I roar, compressing myself tight and snapping down on the snake with a solid thwack!
The sound it lets out is somewhere between the high pitched rustle of plants rubbing against each other and the sharp hiss of a pissed off reptile. Jerking its head back and to the side in an effort to get away, unfortunately it takes me along for the ride, the part of my body inside its mouth-head only lightly damaged despite being well and truly secure.
“I’m not stuck inside here with you, you’re stuck outside there with me!” I cackle, the work my Solidifying Enzymes have done in creating a thick shell of solid mass surrounding a small, still gelatinous, core standing up the monster’s aggressive attempts to chainsaw through me with only minor damage for now. Each yank of said tongue-vines dig furrows in the protective surface like a butter knife through cold candle wax, but that’ll buy me more than enough time to get a few hits in. I have no idea how durable this solid mass is, and as vital as that information may be, right now is not the time to be running tests.
I had to use my entire stockpile of enzyme to pull this off, enough to solidify an entire third of my body, so I need to get in as much damage as I can while I have this thing where I want it. In the time I had to experiment before this nasty bugger showed up I determined it took just under a minute to fully replenish my stock, which is pretty good all things considered; but in a fight, especially against something this fast? I doubt I’ll get the chance to use it again before something happens to swing the tide my way or the other.
“{Teacher},” {Mask} glimmers, their position unchanged through the entire course of the encounter so far apart from some unsteady currents that rolled my tiny bubble about when I was cut in half. “Before attack. Predator still.”
“Wait, really?” I hadn’t noticed that, despite all three of my perspectives being trained on the thing this whole time. “Great work {Mask}, thanks!”
Aiming for the same spot on the side of the serpent’s drill head, I Slam, and Slam again until its verdant flesh gives way beneath the dense club that is my face.
[Slam has reached Level 2]
Sagging a little as I feel a little chunk of my energy drain away, I pulse my resolve. Obviously my presence doesn’t go unchallenged, the taut, violent vibrations I can feel running through the monster’s corded body a silent cry heralding the return of batter number one; the tail.
But I’m ready this time. My body on the ground- still gathering up all the fallen mass flung loose when I was split in half -has been watching this entire time and, coupled with {Mask}’s callout, gives me the perspective needed to see the monster’s lower body go stock still a bare half second-
-before its tail streaks into motion faster than my receptors can follow. However, that half second is all I needed.
Releasing my heightened compression, I plaster myself to the snake’s head as a soft, domed puddle of slime. The incoming attack- a thick, braided club of plant fibres -slams into my ready made cushion like a pre-schooler jumping into a beanbag. I feel some impact squishing out my membrane, but my naturally dense mass and Malleable Skill absorb so much of the force that I don’t even lose any hit points.
Collapsing on top of the monster’s tail while it’s still buried in my mass and compressing down around it in an effort to keep the thing contained just a little more, a thought occurs to me.
A thought which leads me to extrude an appendage from my field-medic and slap myself upside the dome. “I’m a fucking idiot!”
Hit Points: 20/28 , 16/16 , 1/1
Mana: 15
“Why the hell have I been mopping myself up off the floor when I just got a new Mutation for this?!” I bubble, breaking off my approach of one of the more far flung puddles of myself and instead turning back to the fight.
The snake, not expecting me to grab hold of what it thought would be a solid hit, is now trapped on itself for the moment, tail touching head in a very awkward and not entirely accurate depiction of an ouroboros.
Before it can really start to pull, however, I trigger my new Regenerative Molecules. Immediately, I experience a kind of buzzing sensation; not like I’m vibrating or anything, but like the centre of my mass just became the hub for a small city centre. That ephemeral, decidedly busy vibe beginning to spread throughout my mass, I try to localise it to the pseudopod-turned-actually-me still outside the snake, rather than the mostly immovable lump left inside. As my health begins to slowly tick up, I’m pleased to see that the snake’s steadily rising efforts to extricate itself from my grip fail to do the job, my Compressive membrane increasing my Physicality as my mass grows.
It takes a handful of seconds for me to hit my current max for this body, and by then Vine-demort is rolling around all over the place, frantic in its attempts to get itself unstuck from its current predicament. So much so that it resorts to slamming its head, tail and myself into the ground. Unfortunately for the snake, I’m taking less damage from this than it must be, and my Regenerative Molecules are still- oh wait, no, they’re done.
Oh well. A brief pause in the monster’s desperate flailing, either due to it taking a break from all the exertion or being unsure what its next move should be, is just icing on the cake.
Mostly because it gives my former field-medic self a clear shot of my body with the Enlarge weave into which I‘ve packed all fifteen points of mana from my Highly Concentrated Pure Heart.
And although the flight of the glowing net made of spiralling, branching mana is seemingly silent, the massive deluge of slime matter that explodes out from my body and engulfs the snake a moment later when it hits and I simultaneously expand to my full size is another story entirely.