Dashboard...

Menu...

I continued riddling out all the imaginable words to open my system I could think of.

Profile...

Character...

Identity...

Tag...

This grew boring quick. Not even the most notorious game of all time had the same menu opening command as this alternate world counterpart.

Let's not forget the outrage I'd have towards the developer of this system if I had to actually speak to open the menu... If I have to embarrass myself to no end just to see pertinent information, I will be the one doing the hitting in someone's mental space next!

'Ugh...'

System...

Status...

System Status: Load: 4%

|||| No recorded downtime in the last ERROR years.

Well, hey, I got something... Not pertinent to what I wanted, but something nonetheless.

Since one word wasn't enough to open a desirable window, I will need to go back over the list of command words I've already used to attempt at getting to what I need.

Very similar to how a heads-up display would function in a first-person game. Bound by the edges of a screen. I thought I would need to say something. The little spec of system that stuck around whenever no windows were open was anchored to a particular section of my vision. If I looked 90 degrees left, it would move accordingly, 90 degrees pivoting from my center of perception. Of course, if a screen were to accurately represent my field of view now, it would either be near impossible to discern detail or would have no edges, and every direction a normal eye might perceive would then provide accurate data.

I probed the spec of light with my mind's finger, and it reacted rapidly, snapping to my center of vision and popping open to a simple listing of options. The most attention-grabbing part of the menu was a separation of my body's status and my mind's. I selected both at the same time, and the menu options merged and expanded to display my overall state. My thought's pivoted on this system being as intuitive as it is now as it will be in the future.

User Status: Overall

Body Health: 7/10

Mental Strain: 1%

Mana: Not Yet Measured

Nearest Pedestal: 19176 U | Arrive in 61 Days

Level 2

Level Progress: 72/120

Challenge Progress: 1/4 | Next Title: In 6 Accomplishments

My satisfaction with finally getting some desirable data of my own will instead of being situationally provided with prevalent information was a small relief to my overthinking mind. Recovering from the latent shock of being thrown into a hostile world where not 1 day after being left to my own devices, I had my life threatened, nearly got caught escaping, and narrowly avoiding death from gravitational tendencies. Recovery was certainly taking its time.

I was relaxing as I just let my counterpart move along the base of the ravine. It wasn't like I had a destination in mind yet, plus a slime's nature was to roam about and just wipe things clean like a squeegee on window glass. Just there were no flat surfaces here, and it was more effective. Perhaps if a slime were left unsupervised or without instinct to stop it's eating endeavors, it might just consume to the ends of the... Earth? I may as well call this new place Earth. I wasn't the most creative in the department of world naming when we did start expanding planetarily. So till someone says this is "Planet Name, not Earth," I'll just call it so. If the concept of a planet is even known. I'm still clueless to the actual level of scientific development here.

My slime's color has gradually darkened as I have consumed bits of sand, lithophytes, and other various substances growing or decaying off the surfaces down here. I've spotted unidentified minerals and tried to pull a protruding crystal from a rock, failing from a lack of leverage and probably other crystal-attached protrusions branching off the main cluster within the rock and out of my sight. It now rests in a region of high mass to be disassembled of its valued part when I am more capable. Regularly, a small stone—or what remains of one less structurally sound—comes crashing down, creating signature snaps of rock rapidly separating or crumbling sounds rebounding a dozen times before reaching my senses.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The rocks recently fallen are easily identifiable, lying between and separate from the much larger segmented and broken boulders that take up the area. This only strikes me as odd because if rocks regularly fall in this region, then it should serve to make sense the base would be much more flat and rocks of all varying sizes should take up the floor. And yet contrary to my reason, only very large, almost sharpened boulders set not in a pattern but surely intentionally creating a field of certain death for any uncontrolled descendants to these depths is what lies around me. I reason that perhaps the only lack of order to their arrangement may be just to the sheer number and irregular shape. Still, there is no doubt in my mind that someone or something is placing these here with goals of gain in mind.

What this trap-setting party is gaining precisely is yet to be explicitly depicted. It could be as simple as a source of food and defense to an evolution's preferred hunting terrain.

Any case, I'd much prefer not to be discerned as prey, intruder, or material deemed fallen and available for the taking. One individual has already shown they are non-interactable without an appropriate disguise or capacity for self-defense. I can stand to hope this isn't the case for others, be they human, human-like, or something completely different.

We traveled for about half an hour before the slime retracted all tendrils and promptly glopped into a semi bowl-shaped divot. Now quite dark colored and—I assume—processing material for energy. My body was, as I now comprehended it, entirely me, but at the same time also its own entity. Since I felt attached—naturally—I was going to start treating it as its own person, listening to its desires and needs just as much as I would be using it as a vessel for my own endeavors.

I asked it, 'Are you full?'.

Quickly the response came, confusion and 'full?'. I elaborated with a feeling of satiation.

'Full!' It beamed back. Sending a little emotion of glee, I was enjoying having a partner to keep company.

A little thought went into the social needs of a normal human that would demand he either go insane or the mind would hallucinate interaction in an unhealthy stead. Could Jackson be bound to human nature, or was his soul free of chemical needs and dopamine desires present in humanity? He would find out if there were to be no other conversation-capable beings this deep. Unsurprising if that were the case. I fleshed out my nonphysical body and took a short stroll around the area ahead. I learned that walking was quite optional, seeing as I didn't actually have inertia to gain or lose. Walking made it easier to direct motion though, so I stuck with it.

A moment later I spotted movement back the way we had come and zipped over to an odd blur in otherwise normal air, slowly moving towards my physical body. Peering into the anomaly, I was met with a dark figure whose resemblance was obfuscated from my phantasmal observation. Just as soon though did they reveal themselves.

"Hello little one." A gravely male voice cut through the ambient cave white noise.

Shirtless, with red skin standing still several paces away, was a humanoid with a pale horn positioned above his right eye stretching several inches into the dehumidified air. His eyes glowed a slight golden in a manner barely familiar, like the Amerill in the cart and the moss I had passed briefly. He was muscular but skinny, resembling a pure build of power with no extra weight or waste. He looked at the slime instead of Jackson's point of view, which now comfortably sat at his metaphorical eye level, currently peeled away from the slime's center.

After a moment, I snapped back and warbled the slime a little to acknowledge I was listening.

"You surprise me with your lack of a reaction. For all other creatures who reside here, flee at the soonest clue to my presence. I will make things simple for you, though." My phantom-like self nods away as if I could be seen, "If I can be understood, I will not end your life as I would basic prey. Signify you can understand in any way, and I will take you to my residence as anything better than an enemy."

I quickly kneel down and rejoin my body and move slowly in their direction. After several seconds, I am about 10 feet away and wiggle my little head-like tendril back and forth, hoping to convey meaning without speaking. Perhaps just a wiggle will work in my favor, as making a hand sign is a dead giveaway, and I have trouble imagining how else a slime communicates non-verbally. The last thing I want to do is jump into a hole trying to escape someone trying to kill me only to be met with someone else trying to kill me. Not an ideal outcome for risking my life and losing both possible escape routes.

It's hard to remain calm when so many unknowns are present and one actively starts walking towards you. The pale-horned man was indeed approaching, and I was starting to have doubts about doing anything other than the safest way possible. Of course, when given my options, I was either "anything better than an enemy" or whatever dead slime might be used for.

"An ideal situation for both of us, I hope." His tone was calm and relaxed. A stark contrast to the rough and almost exaggeratedly grumpy look on his face.

He kneeled down and started to pick me up. A small amount of surprise escaped the edge of his lips, probably due to me stiffening to be picked up stuffed plushie style. Very droopy stuffed plushie style... Either way, I did maintain a level of rigidity enough to be carried as we went on our way. Where our way was leading was not yet explained, and I still felt uncomfortable trying to find out with all that would be implied by any attempt to learn so.

The journey was casual and time was quick, as before I even noticed I was being settled down into a shallow, wide, unnaturally smooth concave indenture into the solid rock floor, we had arrived at a cubiform section of stone. I was in the front left corner on the floor of this humble abode that looked like it was a little elevated from the floor of the crevice. A makeshift kitchen with a small pan, containment for a fire, waste bin, and utensils all neatly hung or rested about the right wall, a demon man-shaped indenture into a stone platform on the opposite. The back of the 6-foot-wide room leads onwards, obstructed by a leather-like curtain separating the living quarters from a darker space with what appeared to be assorted tools piled upon a workbench. Water dribbled from a crack next to the kitchen into a similar bowl shape I was in on the floor opposite my corner.