Just as he was about to leap off the queen’s body, something unexpected happened. A new voice entered Sean’s mind. Its shrill tones were more screech than speech, and carried a powerful, commanding presence. The distinctly insectoid nature of the voice made it immediately obvious who it was coming from, though that didn’t help the slime warrior decode its message any. As far as Sean had come as a monster, he didn’t understand ‘ant’.

“Gel?” Sean asked, bringing his left hand up to his skull and wondering how he could feel a headache forming without actually having a brain. At least there hadn’t been a damage prompt. “Can you understand any of that… screeching she’s doing?”

“Ughh.. mostly.” Gel responded back quickly, and Sean could see the slime’s body actually reverberating in response to each new screech from the queen. “It’s not what you might call a ‘complex’ language. Blegh, I don’t like it. Even peasant sounds better.”

“Okay, but what’s she saying?” Sean pressed, though it was abundantly obvious that she wasn’t attacking them right now, he wanted to make sure the ant matriarch didn’t have any plans to do so in the future. They were also on a bit of a time crunch.

“Right, right. Uhh–Oh. '' Gel's tone changed to one of surprise that seemed to reset with each new sentence. “She remembers us! And she’s grateful for the help, wants us to– oh, wow, ants are brutal. She wants us to kill the rest of her enslaved brood, destroy the remaining fungus, blah blah blah… wants to know if that other undead is with us or not. She’s also looking for us to cover for her while she– oh, that’s interesting. Did you know there were more ants down here?”

There was a lot to process in everything Gel had just relayed, but Sean latched onto that last sentence first as it was potentially the most distressing.

“There’s more ants?”

“Oh yeah. She’s going to–” Gel’s running translation was interrupted as the ant queen smashed her face into the ground again – only this time it wasn’t to bash her face in. Her mandibles clenched, grabbing large sections of dirt and tossing it into the air off to one side.

“Dig down and go get them?” Sean guessed, deciding that now was a perfect time to resume his earlier course of action while he was still able to. Sprinting from a cold start and leaping into the air, he grabbed onto one of the nearby hanging roots just as the ant matriarch began to dig with even greater fervor.

The sight of a building-sized ant queen scooping dirt out with her truck-sized mandibles was something that Sean was sure would stay with him after this. Is she– is she tunneling with her legs, too? Since when do ants–

“I told her that lunatic undead thing isn’t with us and to kill it with acid.” Gel reported, derailing Sean’s train of thought completely. “Also that I already called dibs on the rest of the fungus, so she’s not to eat any of it.”

That last part made perfect sense to Sean. The only way he could see the ants clearing the fungus out by themselves now was to spray it with acid – but that hadn’t worked for them the first time. It was also good to hear that the ant matriarch was, at least for the moment, on their side against the all-but-invincible undead Bancroft had sent after them. He still had a few questions though.

“How are you talking back to her? And what exactly does she want us to cover for her from?” Sean asked as he began climbing up the root with the slime’s help. He stole glances around the room when he had time between grips to make sure they hadn’t missed any new enemies. “There’s nothing else out here. Unless she means the enslaved ants? Pretty sure those are being handled as is.”

He wasn’t exaggerating, either. Despite the additional wave of enemies that had landed all around him, the hulking undead across the room had never ceased casually swinging its sword about like it was the biggest kid on the playground. Sean could hardly fault it for that seeing as it apparently was. Each swing of its sword stole the lives of multiple ants, and none of their attacks seemed to be bothering it – much less wearing it down.

“Mental connections go both ways.” Gel said, as if that explained everything about what was going on. The slime was silent for a second however, and given what was going on Sean just accepted the answer, ignoring the additional screeching that filled his mind before the slime answered hesitantly. “The uh… ‘shroom-people’?”

Sean cursed mentally, but refrained from asking the cliche ‘what shroom-people’ question as the answer had just become abundantly obvious. Wherever the horde of fungal-infected humans had been earlier, perhaps trying to corral the rest of the enslaved brood in the wake of the blast, they had finally arrived.

An eerily howling horde of horrendously distorted purple-white humanoids rushed towards them from the tunnel entrance they had originally entered from. There were hundreds of the sensor variant, dozens of the explosive one that had taken out Baerlin’s leg, and several that Sean hadn’t seen before who looked to have almost completely transformed into a walking mushroom. Despite how dangerous as they had seen the boomer variant to be, it was the last type that had Sean immediately changing his plans.

The wholly transformed variants towered over their brethren like giant, mobile trees. Like ents from the Lord of the Wings, only with mushroom caps instead of branches and each stalk-like arm thick and bulgy as a pro wrestler's waist. Their size made it apparent why Sean and Gel hadn’t run into the seven of them while they had been roaming the tunnels earlier. Each towered over their kin and had to duck low to avoid the ceiling until they made it into the cavern and could stand properly.

All of that was alarming, but not so much as the other noticeable fact about them. Sean had been wondering why he had never received a death prompt or an experience prompt when they had killed the slave shroom’s network core earlier. Now he knew. Each of the seven lumbering mushrooms was an incomplete yet recognizable replica of the network core itself.

The damn thing is rebuilding itself! Sean thought in frustration as he racked his mind for how they were going to take out this small horde before it reached the queen without getting themselves blown up in the process. Just need to get our gear…

“Can you hook onto that root?” Sean asked Gel, pointing with his elbow at one that would bring them closer to where their pack was.

“Sure, but what about the mushrooms?” The slime asked as he complied. “The queen asked us for–”

“We’ll help her.” Sean interrupted, a new plan forming in his mind. “But we need to make sure we’re not getting ourselves killed doing it first. So we need that pack.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I take that to mean you have another plan?” Gel asked with manic interest, the sounds of battle and the rising odds against their survival clearly starting to engage the slime’s own natural bloodlust. “Because your last few are going to be hard to top, you know. We jumped off the roof. Well, ceiling. Whatever. We smashed that last one to death with our faces! Our faces, Sean! I wish fungi had faces, can you imagine? I would have loved to see its expression.”

Sean let the slime’s increasingly sped up conversation continue for a bit as they swung from root to root, keeping his focus on their movements until he sensed an opening to speak.

“How long do you think it’ll take us to evolve into Gelaton?” The slime warrior asked, voicing the question that had been on his mind ever since they had unlocked it. “You said before that Bancroft was evolving some of his minions on the field, can we do that here?”

He had been wondering if they had another card in reserve that they hadn’t considered yet, and if they did, then Sean needed to know when they could play it. A cold, logical part of Sean suggested that they might be able to hide and use the queen as a temporary distraction to achieve that particular goal, but he shoved that part of himself aside. It would be a coward’s move, and Gel might hate him for it after all they had gone through to rescue the ant matriarch. Still, he didn’t take the idea completely off the table.

“We… could.” Gel allowed. “But we’re going to want more mass before we do if that’s what you’re planning on.”

“More mass? Why? I thought we had already unlocked the evolution.” Sean almost went to check that very thing, but his fingers slipped on the next thin root and he decided to keep his full attention on the underground Tarzann impression he was currently doing. “What does more mass get us?”

“I take it you haven’t had time to examine the description of it in detail.” Gel said dryly, then glee re-entered the slimes voice. “It’s alright, you’ve been busy. But I did, and it says ‘mass in excess of requirements may be either kept or burned for an expedited evolution’. And while I would personally like to keep as much mass as possible, if you’re ready to evolve now then that sounds like exactly what we need!”

Sean wished to the many moons somewhere overhead of him now that he had known that bit of information not ten minutes ago. If he had, they could’ve stopped and just eaten most of the tower to speedrun their next evolution. Now…

Now we have to do it the hard way.

“How much over the top are we?” Sean asked, cutting directly to the info he needed.

“Hmm… 2%.” Gel reported after a second of re-examining the prompt. “Though it still doesn’t say how fast it’ll be exactly, so we’ll probably want that number to be as high as possible.”

“Says the slime who just wants to eat everything.” Sean joked as they neared ever closer towards their target. He shot a glance back at the shroom horde and saw they were well ahead of reaching their goal before the horde reached the queen. “You always want your mass as high as possible.”

“Of course I do, who wouldn’t?” Gel retorted, completely unfazed. “Though I do hate wasting food, so I’m glad we get to keep whatever is leftover. I tell you, it’s like this evolution really knows me. ‘Gelaton’. Now that’s a name with some wobble to it.”

The pair continued their back and forth as they neared both the pack containing all of their gear and the hulking undead that was currently their most dangerous enemy. Sean watched it as they approached, wary of an attack or its attention turning on them.

Gods above, I hope that bastard can’t jump. It would be a pretty impressive feat for the undead to just suddenly NBA-leap it fifty feet up here, but given the physical prowess it was currently displaying, Sean wouldn’t put it past the death creature. If it were wearing a pair of Air Fjordans right now, I would not be doing this.

Even Gel quieted down as they neared closer to it, the hulking undead’s constant battle having positioned it directly underneath their gear. Because of course it did.

The slime whipped his arm towards the last root they needed, and there was a sudden lul in the sounds of combat from below. Sean’s instincts noticed it and just as Gel made contact with the root, his instincts screamed a warning. In response the slime warrior leapt away in almost the exact opposite direction. He was almost too late.

A sudden rush of wind blew past the space where Gel’s arm had just been, and the slime gave a surprised shout of pain. Sean’s right arm, the limb that had been supported by liquid slime this entire time, was gone. Just gone. Though there was no damage prompt, Gel reported a bigger problem immediately.

“I can’t reform your arm.” Gel hissed apologetically through what sounded like mentally gritted teeth. “That little trick also just cost us the mass we needed to evolve. Did you know it could do that, or did you see it coming? Because either way, I did not.”

“Just a feeling.” Sean reported back. Then, with dread in his non-existent heart, Sean looked up to see what had just cost them a limb.

If the powerful death creature had really leapt up this high, then coming here had been a fatal mistake. There would be no escape from it, he knew. Which is why Sean was relieved to see the head of a soldier ant arc a short distance away and land with a wet splat. He looked down, wondering if that particular throw had been on purpose.

When Sean’s burning orbs met the roiling black of his enemy’s eyes, the slime warrior knew it had been no accident. He could feel the malevolent intent in there. One that came across clear as a waiting guillotine, without the need for any kind of mental connection. Wisps of darkness rose up from the sides of them, and for just a moment, the hulking undead’s figure and partially disfigured shoulder as it glared up at him reminded Sean of someone.. though in that frozen moment the slime warrior couldn’t have said who.

“Well, that was rude!” Gel said aloud, outraged at the sudden attack and only slightly disoriented by the sudden change in direction. “It’ll be your turn in a moment there big guy, now how about you just sit tight, play with your ants, and leave us alone – we’re climbing up here!

In Sean’s estimation, it was more likely that the hulking undead had been aiming for their pack. He couldn’t have said why, ant heads weren’t exactly great footballs, but the idea felt right. His fellow death creatures’ eyes had an intelligence to them that Sean hadn’t expected. It unnerved him, though his own nature was quickly eradicating that emotion. While it was doing that, the slime warrior moved back towards their pack.

This time, they finally made it to their destination. Another ant head was whipped up at them, but instead of dodging Gel whipped his arm at it and caught the projectile, devouring it. While his slime friend jeered down in victory at their opponent, Sean got into position. Quickly fixing his legs around the root for balance, he slid their pack onto his shoulders. Once it was in place, he grabbed the item he needed and held it at the ready in his good hand.

The tiny vial containing the ‘Feather Up’ potion felt much like the others he had consumed or otherwise used thus far. Far too small and unassuming for the potential laying within.

“You’re positive this will let us fly?” Sean asked, having never gotten a clear answer on the how from the slime. “Because if not…”

“It will.” Gel affirmed immediately and with total confidence. “Though how is that going to help us? The mushrooms are almost to the queen!”

“Don’t worry.” Sean said, quaffing the potion in a single go and reaching his free hand back into their pack once more.

“They won’t be for long.”