It was hard to tell who was more surprised by the collision. Sean and Gel, who had been expecting to be met by some sort of giant, spiked tongue or massive, walled-in stomach lining… Or the horse-sized dark brown ant climbing up the dirt wall of its tunnel that got a mandible-full of dense, accelerating skeleton fist as the pair crashed into it at high speed. Its jaw opened as if to shout in confusion or alarm, but the only sound that came out was a choked gurgle as the trio tumbled back down the hole with Sean’s enclosed black hand shoving its way ever further down the ant’s gullet. His shield lodged in the creature’s mouth, blocking it entirely, and yet the slime warrior did not let that stop his efforts.
Gel cackled in glee as they fell head over heels for however long, but for once Sean didn’t notice it. He didn’t try to slow their fall. Didn’t even reach out with his feet to grab the sides and right themselves… he just focused on his enemy. On their enemy.
On this thief.
Give. It. BACK! Sean shouted in his mind, punctuating each word with another thrust of his arm through the ant’s esophagus and into its brain. He didn’t know where that particular bit of anatomical knowledge came to him from, but the slime warrior didn’t question it. He just kept shoving.
You have attacked an Acidspitter Ant Worker (Enslaved) for 10 damage (10 total, 5 base unarmed multiplied 200% due to a critical strike!). You have silenced your target.
The ant tried to bite down on his arm, struggling as best it could, but before it could get a firm grip its head smashed off a rock formation protruding from a nearby wall and it went limp. A moment later, the trio crashed onto a rocky floor with a hard crack and the sound of a water balloon popping against hard pavement. Whatever passed for the creature’s guts splashed up and out of its exoskeleton and sprayed purple goop across the tunnel in wide arcs.
You have defeated an Acidspitter Ant Worker (Enslaved)! You have gained 1 experience point.
As he extracted himself from their defeated opponent Sean’s right arm flashed out and Gel began shoveling the ant’s entrails into his chest like an overly enthusiastic blood-vacuum. Sean appreciated that Gel wasn’t trying to force-feed him right now, though he knew he would still be chowing down on ant rather soon. He looked around for their gear, and was incredibly relieved to see that the packs and satchels appeared to have had a much easier journey down than they had had. Two of the crates were cracked wide open, but there didn’t seem to be any damage to their gear otherwise. Some of the bars had been tossed about the rocky floor, but more importantly they weren’t both dead so at least their potions hadn’t exploded. It actually looked like the satchel had just slid softly down the sand.
Thank the heavens for small miracles. Sean thought, shaking his head a bit as if to clear it from the fall. He wasn’t disoriented but the motion still felt comforting, despite his lack of an actual brain up there.
The mind is funny that way. Sean thought, looking around for more enemies but finding none for the moment. There was a tunnel leading further down, however.
“Ghah– Yeouch! Hot-hot-hot!” Gel shouted in surprise, returning Sean’s attention to him. The slime’s arm suddenly tossed away the stream of spilled innards and recoiled as if they were on fire.
“What’s wrong?” Sean asked, confused at the sight. He had never seen Gel turn away from a meal, much less stop in the middle of one. The slime literally ate rotten corpses for breakfast.
“Blegh.” Gel responded intelligently. Sean’s arm reached towards the opening of his chest and a fleshy mass shot out from inside it as the slime regurgitated whatever organ he had just been eating. The mass of half-digested goop was then flung down to the rocky floor with a wet slap. Little wisps of green-tinged smoke began rising up as the stone blackened, an acidic reaction that made clear what fate had befallen the wagon’s passengers above.
Oh, great. Sean thought, watching the stone begin to sink into itself little by little. The giant ants have caustic acid. Because of course they do.
Inside his rib cage, Gel whirled about and sputtered in outrage as the slime came to the same conclusion he had.
“Acid. Acid?!” Gel sounded personally offended, his tone rising. “Where in the name of all that is rare and bloodied did these chitin-sacks get the bright idea to keep ACID inside their own organs?! It’s… it’s not right, Sean! Not right at all. Food should be food.”
“Haven’t you eaten poison before?” Sean asked. “What’s the difference here?”
“The difference is this stuff is trying to eat me.” The slime slowly stopped whirling around. “That’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!”
“Calm.” Sean said soothingly to his friend. “The prompt called them ‘Acidspitter Ants’, so you probably just got a bite of the organ they use to store their defenses in.”
Sean pointed at the fleshy mass that had just about seared itself into the ground as he continued. “Now that we know, we can just avoid whatever that is next time and you can eat the rest. Deal?”
“I do not like being unable to eat something.” Gel stated firmly. “It’s not natural.”
“You can’t eat bones.” Sean pointed out. “Or rocks.
“Not yet.” Gel admitted. “But later on, maybe I will. Not that I’d eat you, of course.”
“Well, there you go. Maybe you’ll be able to tolerate it later.” Sean said, ignoring the slime’s last statement and moving over to examine the ant’s corpse.
He had hoped he might be able to identify where that particular organ had come from so they could avoid it. Unfortunately, it looked like the worker ant had taken the brunt of their fall rather hard. Its body was pulped into dozens of only theoretically-connected pieces, and the only discernible bits left were its body, the head Sean had nearly shoved his entire arm through, and a number of broken legs.
Guess we’ll just find out on the next one. Sean thought to himself after a moment. He nudged the corpse with a foot and bent down, preparing to consume the rest of it the old fashioned way.
“I will not allow this to stand!” Gel announced suddenly, his tone gaining an edge of righteous fury. “I refuse!”
“You… refuse?” Sean asked, puzzled. His friend sounded genuinely pissed off, and Sean had the unsettling feeling Gel was about to declare a holy war against antkind. “Refuse wha—”
“I refuse to allow any part of our kills to go uneaten.” Gel asserted, his anger transforming rapidly into an affronted determination. “Not now, and not ever. I shouldn’t even have considered refusing the brains of things with too many memories, and I’m certainly not going to stop now with some stupid gland that tries to eat me before I eat it!”
Sean paused, a handful of antmeat halfway to his face as he considered the slime’s words. Gel reached back for the organ he had flung earlier, and Sean moved towards it to oblige him. The slime warrior was about to ask if Gel seriously meant he would rather swallow burning acid rather than let a single meal they didn’t even need go to waste... before shaking his head at the thought. That was, he realized, exactly what the slime was about to do.
I don’t understand the conviction here… but I can respect it. Sean admitted as the slime picked up the acid organ… gland… whatever it was. Sean felt a moment’s hesitation through their bond.
“It’s technically digestible, I promise.” Gel assured him, though it almost sounded like the slime was psyching himself up. “Unlike those stupid chitin plates So give me just a second, I’m going to try this again, and it’s going to hurt - but by the great ooze above I am going to do it.”
“Are you sure you want to eat this?” Sean prompted, unsure himself whether he was encouraging or discouraging the slime from trying again. “There’s no shame in leaving pain uneaten.”
“I know what I’m about, Sean.” Gel responded with total confidence and, without an ounce of further hesitation, the slime stuffed the ant’s still-smoking acid gland directly into his own mass.
Gel hissed in discomfort as the acid inside the ruptured organ immediately began to burn and dissolve him from the inside out, just as the slime’s own fluids crashed over it in an attempt to do the same. It was clear who the victor would be from the start – Gel had far more mass to burn here – but Sean watched with interest all the same.
As connected as they were, Sean couldn’t actually feel the battle since it didn’t directly affect his own health. Though a quick check of Gel’s status showed the slime had lost three health already in the attempt. Sean wasn’t sure how much his friend healed from every meal, though he knew Gel did to some degree. They would have to figure out if the tradeoff here was worth it.
Still, if this means that much to him, might as well let him. Maybe he’ll figure out some kind of acid resistance later. Sean figured. Then a thought struck him. He looked down at the ant corpse with fresh orbs. They had discussed salvaging more pieces from their kills on the way over here, as well as the limits of what Gel’s ‘anchor’ ability could do.
Maybe I can cut out that piece next time and convince Gel to let me save it for later. Never hurts to have a literal bag of acid up your sleeve. Especially if I can find a way to keep it intact until we need it.
As Sean mused on that, and other potential uses for the ant’s smashed-up chitin, Gel finished consuming his ‘meal’. Whatever organ the oversized ant had used to generate its acidic bits was now entirely gone, though when he looked Sean also noticed that Gel’s normally clear liquid was still tinged with flecks of green in places.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Was it worth it?” Sean asked, genuinely curious.
He hadn’t heard anything else coming from the only passageway leading towards them, so he figured they had some time to talk before battle resumed. He was also getting an intriguing whisper from his instincts, but it was too distant for Sean to make real sense of it beyond an urging to stay hidden. Which is what he planned to do anyway right now.
“Food is always worth it, no matter what ‘it’ is.” Gel asserted, though the slime sounded more tired than usual. As if he’d just ran a half-dozen miles… or downed a half-liter of pure acid from an aggressive ant-monster. One of the two.
“If you say so.” Sean said with amusement. He prodded the giant ant’s now-desiccated husk of a corpse with a foot. The remnant chitin was softer than he had expected and gave way readily. Not one solid shell then, but a bunch of smaller pieces? Also, aren’t ants’ bodies supposed to be immune to their own acid?
The beginnings of an idea formed in his mind as their conversation continued.
“I do.” Gel said, a bit more firmly before an eyeball poked its way out of his chest to take in their surroundings. “Now where are we? Oh hey look, our stuff made it!”
“Right? Didn’t take long to get it back either.” Sean noted with a bit of pride, walking over and retrieving said gear before any other holes could open up in the earth to swallow it again. The bars were too bulky to take right now, so he resolved to come back for them later.
“Let’s not make a habit of putting our stuff where thieves can take it after this.” Gel suggested, once he saw that Sean wasn’t taking the precious metals. “It sends the wrong message.”
“Didn’t you just swallow a sack of acid just to prove a point?” Sean quipped back. “I’m not sure your wisdom is valid there.”
“Some points are worth proving, and you know it.”
They dismantled the rest of the corpse in short order. Sean separated out and consumed the edible portions, and they stacked the inedible chitin off to the side. On a whim, he brushed the edge of some chitin onto some of the acid that had spilled onto the floor. As he had expected, the chitin didn’t react.
Perfect. Once they were done with the carcass – which earned him only a single point of mana and experience – Sean asked the important question he had been holding onto.
“Think you can anchor some of this chitin to my shield?” Sean asked, indicating it with his left arm. “Some of the harder parts, I mean. I think we have enough for that.”
“I can try.” Gel said brightly. “It’ll cost me some mass, but I should have enough to do the shield. Any more though and I’d have to give up control of your arm.”
“How about if we got you some more mass, then? Think you could anchor some to the rest of me? The prompt called these things ‘acid spitters’, so I have a feeling having some armor to negate that would go really well for us.”
“‘Can I anchor some more’, of course I can!” The slime sounded delighted at the prospect. “I could wrap you in layers if we got me enough to eat first and all the materials for it.”
“Perfect. Then let’s do that, and then we’re going to go get us some more ants.”
“You don’t want to just crawl out of here?” Gel asked. “I’m not suggesting we do, but we probably could.”
“Why waste the invitation?” Sean said with a vicious grin as he reached over to apply some chitin to his shield as Gel moved some of his mass into position. “They went through all that trouble of bringing us down here, it would be rude to just leave now.”
Gel cackled in delight and in anticipation of future meals as they dug in, and got to work.
It took a number of tries to get the chitin to layer properly over his shield without leaving any gaps, but they managed it without wasting too much of Gel’s mass. The slime seemed to have an instinctual awareness of how much was needed, which had saved them considerable time. Now Sean had a dark brown, acid-proof chitin covering for his shield. He marveled at it, and couldn’t help but wonder why they had taken so long to try something like this before.
The answer, of course, was obvious. Inside his chest, Gel had lost a considerable amount of mass. They would need to positively stuff the slime if he wanted full body armor.
Which Sean did. He had only one point of curiosity left to figure out before they went off exploring. The purple mushrooms they had found, broken and smooshed nearly flat, underneath where the ant’s body had landed.
“Any idea what those are?” Sean asked, pointing at them. “I assume we’re inside their nest, so that tunnel will probably take us where we want to go. But do the ants here cultivate mushrooms or something?”
The idea sounded bizarre, but Sean vaguely recalled reading something about the relationships between certain species of ants and their symbiotic fungi back on Earth. Maybe this was something like that.
“Hmm…” Gel pondered the question. “Nope. Maybe when we find more, and I get a good look at it before it’s all crushed up, I could tell you. Not much to go on here, though.”
After another moment of consideration the slime’s voice took on the same recitation tone it always did when he was reciting someone else’s words instead of his own.
“There are two dozen cataloged species of ant in the Sohl Desert, six of which are known to nest near enough to be threats, and only two of which are known to have any sort of relationships with fungi. Spore Colonists and Slaver Ants.” Gel was quiet for a moment, then seemed to shake himself. “Best guess, based on the prompt, it’s probably the latter. How about we go kill some more and find out? Jumping on them seemed to work, let’s just do that again.”
“Makes sense. Before we do though,” Sean said, leaning back against the wall of the tunnel and facing towards what was probably an entire nest of poison-spitters. “I think now is a good time for a real, solid explanation of what is going on here. You keep citing the memories of dead people at me, and back at Dry Run I was actually able to see them when you got overwhelmed.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And… what’s the deal with all that? Are all those memories, those…” Sean searched for the right words. “Those ‘psyches’ just swimming around in your head all the time? Can you call them up? Search through them? Is that where mine is going to show up when you digest it? How do you–”
“Woah, woah, woah. Woah, there. This is getting awfully personal.” Gel said with a note of caution.
Sean looked down and stared incredulously at the slime literally sitting inside his own chest, his neck contorting in a way that would have been completely impossible for a human.
“... You can’t be serious. I don’t think there’s even a word for how entangled we are right now. How can– wait. You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”
Clear slime swirled around inside his ribcage, the green tinges from before fully dissolved now, and Sean felt a distinct flicker of amusement through their bond.
“Yeah.” The slime admitted happily, before his tone changed a bit. “Look, it’s… hard to explain.”
“Hit me with it. We’ve got time.” Sean said, gesturing around at the empty tunnel.
“Alright, well, to answer your first question - no, I am the only consciousness swimming around in here. The rest are…” Gel searched for the right words for several minutes while Sean waited patiently, keeping an eye on his pulse sense for danger. “Once they’re properly digested they’re like… like books. I can open them and skim through, stop and study for a while, or open them up to whatever page I want if I’ve read it before.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad. Seems handy.” Sean pointed out. “So what happened back at the village?”
“It’s not always directed.” Gel admitted. “These books can pop open on their own. You’ll say something, or ask a question, and I won’t know the answer - but one of them did. Other times it’s like they’re… watching, almost. Watching me. They’ll see something that resonates, or I will, and then before I can stop it their memory will push its way up to the surface. Then I can either take the answer from them, shove them back down, or sit off to the side as Geoffry goes over his ghastly wardrobe advice for the hundredth time.”
Gel sounded pained as he recalled that last one. “That miserable man wore dark brown robes in summer - in summer, Sean. He deserved to be eaten.”
“Clearly.” Sean said, with absolutely no idea why that was a bad thing. “Sounds like quite the drawback, if they can just interrupt you at any time like that.”
“I’m not fond of it, but it does get better. The older the memories are, the less power they have. The only reason Dry Run happened like that was because of how many of them had strong ties to that place. Or at least, that’s what I suspect.” Gel sighed, but then brightened again. “But the upside is I’ve got about a century’s worth of experience over everyone else. Granted, most of that is farming or frontier work, but hey – how many slimes can say even that?”
“Not many.” Sean admitted. Then, because they were on the subject, he asked about something that had been tickling his mind for a while now. “Can you take more than memories? If we got you someone as ‘fresh’ as possible, that is. Could you take their attributes? Their abilities?”
He didn’t think it was possible, given that Gel had already been eating fresh animals and monsters ever since they had arrived, but it never hurt to ask. Absorbing sapient creatures appeared to work differently, even if he didn’t know how. The slime didn’t have any memories from animals, after all.
Wait, does he?
“I can mimic parts of their body if I’ve eaten enough of them. But otherwise no, not yet anyway. Maybe after another evolution or two. Why?”
“Why?” Sean was almost puzzled by the question, he raised his midnight-black hand and made a fist for emphasis. “Imagine if you could take skills or abilities off of whoever we had to take down. Like when we finally turn Bancroft into kibble, you don’t think it would be cool if you learned to cast some of the spells he knew?”
Sean didn’t voice the thought that had come up, unbidden and unwanted, from within the deepest part of his mind at this line of discussion. That if Bancroft had brought him here with a spell, and Gel could take some that spell from the necromancer, then there was a chance Sean could go back home if he ever decided he wanted to. He kicked those thoughts back into the hole they had crawled out of. The possibility was too remote to hope on right now, and he didn’t need such distractions.
For some reason, that last thought struck a chord with Sean’s instincts. Only they phrased it differently.
Don’t get distracted in enemy territory.
Listening to that rather powerful impulse, Sean turned instead towards the powergamer in him, who was absolutely chomping at the bit to feed Gel a hoard of enemies. He could easily see the slime’s ability to absorb the magic and knowledge of their fallen foes growing into a truly exponential boon for the both of them. Not to mention their ability to share mass, which remained yet untested. Provided they lived long enough to see those two rolling benefits in action, both were likely to secure their future.
Assuming you’re willing to kill however many people it takes to get there. Came another unbidden thought. He kicked that one back with its brother.
Gel had been chewing on the thought as Sean’s internal musings grew, and eventually spoke up. “It’s… possible. I’ve never eaten a mage before, so I don’t know how that works. We should kill a few and experiment. The more the better.”
“Not sure how many mages we’ll find down here, but if we find any hostile ones - they’re all yours.” Sean promised.
“Excellent.” Gel said, savagely. “Now, I have a question for you.”
“Oh?”
“Are you ready to eat? Because I am starving. I’m barely half of what I once was!”
Sean laughed, and began heading down the tunnel into the acidspitter ants’ nest. He flexed the fingers of his midnight black hand, and shifted his shield into a forward position.
“Yeah, I’m ready.” The slime warrior said. “Let’s clean this place out.”