[Who: Nebula]

[Where: Core Room]

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly multiple people like Miss Cherry implied. Just the one, as she showed me on the monitor. They were laying against the wall near the entrance of the room with the [Standard Slimes], quiet and unmoving.

I want to dissolve the intruder so much it almost hurts. Miss Cherry urges me to hold off for a little bit, there’s something she wants to try first.

[[We don’t know what they’re here for. Why don’t you go take a look before the other slimes get to them? See if you can’t ascertain their purpose for me.]]

I protest at that. I can’t leave her alone! If Nebula isn’t there, who is protecting Miss Cherry?

It’s fine, she assures me. If she needs me, she’ll let me know. She can reach me anywhere, after all. [[Remember, we are One now. Wherever you are, so am I. Wherever I am, so too are you.]]

Miss Cherry… I think I’m falling for you. I try to keep that one to myself, but I swear I hear a chuckle somewhere.

But how will I know how to get back to that cave? From what Miss Cherry has told me, the hallways are in a constant state of flux. I’d probably just get lost in that endless maze. I can’t even remember which of the five doors in this room I used to get in here in the first place!

But… as Miss Cherry said, we are One. If she knows the way, as I’m positive she does, perhaps Nebb- I can access that somehow too.

Fudge it, I’ll just pick a random door and hope it works, somehow.

I focus my core and create my clarifying bubble-o-vision. Reducing my field of view from “all over my amorphous body” to “mostly concentrated in one spot,” I wobble it around randomly.

Hmm… I pick… that one! Entering the first door that my vision narrows down at, I continue forward, moving my mass as fast as I can muster.

I reach my goal unusually quickly. Maybe five minutes at most, with much fewer twists and turns than I remember there being. Weird.

Well, she did say space-time was malleable around here.

In the hallway with the trapped tiles, I ooze myself along the edges. Despite my body having done it on its own earlier, I’m not yet confident in my ability to stick myself to a ceiling just yet. I’d like to at least practice that first.

Okay, time to find that intruder and DISSOLVE DISSOLVE DIS- No! No, I cannot dissolve them! I mustn’t! She asked me not to, so I won’t. I can’t.

Moving on past the [Standard Slimes]. It’d be lying if I said they didn’t creep me out at some fundamental level. They’re just sitting there, all three of them, cores glowing, and I swear they’re somehow glaring at me.

Yeah, well the feeling is mutual. Besides, they’ve got nothing on my dripped out self. I’m way cooler than any of them! I gurgle at them menacingly. Nonplussed, they glow back at me. Just you wait, Nebby will have their day with them, no doubt! That’ll have to wait, for now, I’ve got a job to do.

The place looks much less like a cave than I remember it being. More like a corporate office interior, heavy on the cave decorations. Bioluminescent moss grew randomly on nearly every surface, giving the place an eerie sort of feeling. Half melted cubicles fusing with stalagmites, patches of worn carpeting, rusted office equipment, and all of it in varying states of disrepair. I guess Miss Cherry’s been remodeling a tad.

Ah, there’s the intruder! That’s odd. I’m not detecting any scent from them. In fact, they look almost… like a plant in the shape of a young woman! Blegh! Gross! I can’t dissolve that!

I look closer at her. She’s very short, for a start. Only a meter tall. Green skin, leaves in the hair, and a spooky looking book in her hand. Her clothes are torn and ragged, chest wrapped in torn strips of cloth. Something akin to golden sap is leaking through the makeshift bandages, pooling up below her.

Lithe and thin, their body appears vaguely feminine. Everything about them is small, dainty. Adorable little thing. Reminds me of an elf, almost, especially with those long pointed ears of theirs.

If elves were short, doll-like, and had dark green skin, that is.

Now, I don’t know much about humanoid plants, but I’m thinking this one isn’t very healthy. What in the world happened to her? I slap my pseudopod across her face, hoping to wake them up. Nope, nothing.

A buzz shoots through my core. [[Okay, I’ve got the data I need. Nebby, would you be a dear and bring her back here? Bring the book too. I have an idea I’d like to try.]]

Comfort washes over me with her words, telling me that all is safe now. The intruder is of no harm to us like this, and if my Miss Cherry desires it, so it shall be.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I think back to when I was trying to move rocks around. Back then, I was attempting to lift them like a human would, with arms and hands and all that. But that’s not what I am, not anymore! I need to do this the Nebby way, the slime way.

First, I extricate the book from her hand. It takes a few tries, as it seems that even in this unconscious state, she doesn’t want to let go of it. Next, I wrap myself around the girl, feeling every minute detail. Sorry girl! It’s either this or dragging you the whole way!

Slipping beneath her, I surround the girl nearly completely. She hangs there limply inside of me, with only her head stuck out for air. We’re about the same size, but I have the amorphous advantage here. Condensing my membrane allows me to strengthen my hold on her, keeping her fairly stable as I move about. Using the last of my spare mass to hold onto the ancient looking tome, I carefully grip the spine so as to not get the pages sticky with my slime.

Once again, the journey takes a suspiciously short time.

I place the unconscious girl and the book at the base of the pillar that holds Miss Cherry. [[Here you go, Miss Cherry! What are you going to do with her?]]

[[Undo those wrappings for me and I’ll show you. How about we play at a little doctor and nurse with our adorable yet vegetative patient here?]]

×+×+×+×

[Who: Sprigg]

A sharp piercing pain stabs through my chest, returning me to consciousness. There’s a heavy weight on my arms and legs, keeping them in place. Ow! Not now, PAGe, can’t you see I’m not well? Her usual snappy response fails to break out.

Oh. Right. She went offline before that whole random ‘porting fiasco that got me here. I guess I’ll have to make do without her for a while.

Everything is damp and heavy, some kind of weight pinning me down. The sap loss must be worse than I feared, I can barely move, and I’m so very tired right now.

Ow! There it is again! What in the Pierced Moon is that? Ow! Ow! I know I’ve got a hole in my torso right now, but it didn’t feel like this before! It was more of a dull, cauterized ache, not this burning sharpness!

The pungent tang of ripened grapes fills my nostrils, waking me further. Groggy, I open my eyes. Immediately, I shut them again. I’m hallucinating, I have to be!

The sting in my chest hits me again, jolting me to full awareness. Left with no other choice but to face reality, I open my eyes and greet the mutant monstrosity atop of me.

The thing is a pastel purple, at least as large as I am, and it’s got me stuck flat on my back. A white star rotates madly deep within it, orbited by swimming flecks of black and white. I struggle, but it’s no use. The horrifying abomination of a slime simply gurgles at me and tightens its grip, somehow. PAGe! PAGe! PAAAAAAGE!

Nothing. Scanning the room, I look for my beloved grimoire. There! Up against a weird crystalline and metal pillar! I can’t reach her from here, as pinned down as I am.

Just what is this place, anyways? It’s massive! I’m pretty sure I passed out in a tiny dark shack, not in this oversized warehouse!

The stinging comes again, sharper and deeper this time. What the hell is that thing doing to me? Is it… eating me? Tilting my head forward as best as I can, I’m horrified to see it’s digging around in my own freakin’ torso!

It does it again, and this time I convulse with the pain, arching my back with the intensity. Crud! It’s getting worse! What the hell is it doing?

One more round of deep stinging, the most intense pain I’ve ever felt in my life. I nearly pass out, but either by some form of miracle, or perhaps just my dumb luck, I remain conscious. Burning spreads through me, viscous and hot. It squirms and wiggles through my veins, like it’s searching for something. I shudder once, twice, but not a third time.

It is times like these that makes me wish that I had lungs and vocal cords. As it is, I can only writhe in silence, until I’m too exhausted to do even that.

Then, just as quickly as it started, the searching heat withdraws from me, leaving me cold and empty. Seemingly satisfied with whatever it was doing, it slides off of me, moving toward the creepy crystal pillar.

To my relief, it pays no mind to PAGe. Whatever its intentions are, it seems to not be interested in her. I’m just glad she’s alright. I hope she hasn’t rebooted yet, I’d hate for her to see me like this.

I feel hollow, and looking down at myself, I think I actually have been hollowed out. That freak! It really did eat me! But it didn’t finish me off! Just left me an empty, immobile shell of myself. What does it want from me? What is it doing?

I turn my head again to the slime, and watch as it extends a dripping limb toward the pillar. Even as I watch, a small white gem grows from nothingness just above the end of its limb. Five points emerge from the stone, eerily matching the crystal floating within the mutated slime. It plucks the stone from the air, taps it against something atop the pillar, then again against its own core, removes it, and moves toward me.

What the hell? What are you planning? Wait a second, is that what I think it is? Is that a freakin’ monster core?

The slime shoves the glowing white gem into the cavity it had carved out of me, filling every nook and cranny of my insides again with that grape-scented jelly. It detaches itself from it, leaving me with light purple slime and a shiny pale rock just floating around inside of me.

It’s uncomfortable, leaving me with a bloated feeling that fills every nook and cranny of myself. At least it’s stopped burning. It enlarged the hole inside of me, hollowed me out, then refilled my insides. It seems to have a plan in mind.

Just my luck to have been kidnapped by some kind of intelligent monster. It looks like no other slime I’ve seen, giving off a sinister sort of aura. I don’t know what the hell this thing wants with me, but whatever it is, it can’t be good.

Even now, I can feel the slime hardening inside of me as it dries out. It engulfs me, leaving my head and the hole it carved out exposed. Just you wait, you ugly thing, if I survive this, I’m killing you the first chance I get. It drags me over to the pillar again, and places PAGe back in my hands. If I weren’t so immobilized right now, I’d be booting her up and using every spell we have to annihilate that mad thing.

But I can’t. I can’t even move. I’ve lost too much sap, too much bark. But I will persevere, I will fight. But for now, it’s just nice to have PAGe back in my hands again. As my mind starts to slip away again into unconsciousness again, I hear her voice. It’s quiet, but it brings me hope.

I don’t think the mutant slime over there knows why PAGe is so important to me, but with luck, which I seem to be lacking lately, I can use this to my advantage.

The element of surprise is on my side, but only if I can last that long.

So quiet that she’s nearly inaudible to even my own ears, PAGe speaks again. “Unreality levels: extremely high, but stable. User Sprigg Greenleaf located, scanning for health status.”

“Surroundings analyzed. Warning: Unknown variables found. Updating parameters. Note: Personal Automized Grimoire returning to full functionality. No available upgrades found at this time.”

Her voice soothes the ache that still remains in my unmoving body. My energy is still ebbing away, but now it’s calming, something to ground myself.

I feel my movements slow, darkness beginning to encroach on my vision. PAGe, my one and only companion in this world, rests comfortably atop of me. I let the darkness take hold at last, and my mind finally slips away into the sweet oblivion of the night.