Blue.
I'm floating in a empty blue expanse, a cool and refreshing comfort suffusing and flowing through me. Where am I? I remember...
What do I remember? I got home from another boring shift... I wasn't mugged this time, so that's a win... but how did I get here? Where is here?
Actually, how long have I been here? It’s not like there’s much of anything to do... scratch that, there's nothing to do. I don't even have a body! I'm just drifting in this endless blue.
At least it’s cosy. I mightn’t be able to move but I also don’t feel locked down; this place is actually kind of relaxing.
I don't know how long I drift. It could be minutes or it could be days, but time just doesn't seem all that relevant. Without a body there's nothing to mark its passage, so I just end up taking the oh-so uncommon opportunity to rest. Eventually, though, the expanse around me swirls and thickens, like a current stirring the waters and drawing them deeper. The swirling nothing gets thicker and thicker until it feels like something coursing through me. Then the current vibrates and hums, formless sound and sensation resolving into words.
[Welcome, Luke. You have died.]
What?! Oh, come on disembodied voice dude! I finally get enough money together to pay rent for once and I die?! How is that fair?! I worked my ass off for the whole month so my landlord wouldn't have his brother break my fingers again!
[Fret not. You are being reborn into an astounding new world; known as Ontarra.]
Huh? Wait, is this a reincarnation thing? You’re saying I get to be born again, right? I’d be beaming like the sun if I had a mouth. Or a face. Or anything resembling anything.
Maybe I can have a better run of it this time! This extended out-of-body experience is for sure too vivid to be something I’ve cooked up inside my own head, and it's not like I believed in the afterlife or God or anything, so this is a marked improvement to what I expected!
[Luck and tenacity shall forge your path]
Yeah, this totally sounds like a reincarnation thing! Am I going to a fantasy world? Ontarra sounds much fancier than Earth, am I gonna get to be an adventurer?! That's epic! Maybe I'll even get an animal companion!
[This is your status, the sum of your capabilities upon rebirth:]
Hold up, status?
A screen-yet-not appears in my minds eye, more a concept of a screen filled with the concept of information floating free-form in my head.
[Name: Luke]
[Level: 1]
HOT DAMN!
[Stats]
Hit Points - 15
Mana - 5
Physicality: 8
Fortitude: 8
Thought: 24
Intent: 19
WOAH! I have a whole-ass RPG status! These numbers don't look like much but maybe Ontarra is a low numbers world? If so, check out those mental stats! Am I gonna be a prodigy?! Mana being so low is a bit of a bummer, but that just reinforces my assumption of fantasy vibes! I can learn magic!
[Skills: Pound [Lv.1], Soften [Lv.1], Bounce [Lv.1]]
Oooo, skills! I guess it makes sense that I don't have stuff like swordsmanship or Laser Magic, I'm only level one... even so, these seem super basic. Soften? Bounce?
Oi, I hope I'm not being reborn as a baby, I don't wanna deal with puberty again!
[Species: Baby Blue Slime]
.....I take it all back, puberty wasn't that bad.
Ok, that's a lie but what the hell?! Why am I a bottom of the barrel slime, and a baby at that?! Sure, they're cute, I've always had a soft spot for the little dungeon mascots, but why can't I be humanoid, or even any other monster?! This was my chance to be a shapeshifter or a demi-human! Is this because I failed to clear the moral high-jump bar in your eyes, huh, Big Loud and Everywhere?! I was nice and polite to people! Even those super rude Karens that tried to bully me and my co-workers into giving them free food when their orders were ‘all wrong, you idiot burger flippers’!
Sure, I may have given them the oldest chips, and there was that time I stole that vaguely cool pebble from that pot plant at that garden store when I was nine, but does that really justify being reincarnated as a slime?!
[Current Skill Points: 1]
[Current Impurities: 1]
Hmph. Well, I guess there's no changing this guy's mind. Looks like I'm a slime now. Hopefully I don't get curb stomped by some wet nosed party of three the moment I'm born, I guess. Still, beneath the irritation briefly instilled in me there's something soothing about this fellow’s voice... a little throaty, yet the way he speaks is kinda... hypnotic...
Reminds me of David Attenborough.
[Go out into the world and take hold of your destiny.]
Alright Mr. Attenborough, no need to try make the birth of one more goopy boi sound so profound. So I'm a slime now, so what?! I'll ‘take hold’ of my destiny and place it down like a step ladder just so I can dope slap you upside the head! Just you watch!
The currents surrounding me roil ever stronger, pulling at my consciousness and stretching me out as if sucking me down a drain. Contrary to expectation it's actually quite a pleasant sensation, the entirety of my self akin to sore muscles subject to soft stretching and pulling, like gentle yet firm hands working out the kinks after a long, long day running myself into the ground. I’m aware of my consciousness being wrapped within a blanket of something undefinable as it folds through and around me, the sensation akin to one of those cool sips of water that quenches your very soul yet filtered throughout my entire self.
The intrinsic, seamlessly woven connection between my consciousness and my new form solidified to the point it isn’t even there anymore, I take stock of my situation.
On autopilot, I attempt to run a hand across my body to get an idea of my shape but all that does is send a current of lightly pressurised slime to caress the inside of a slim membrane surrounding the bulk of my squidgy mass, which seems to be maintaining my shape. Well, positive number one; I seem to have a clear sense of proprioception and my relative shape. I’m currently a dome, likely thanks to the effects of gravity and the ground beneath me, but most notably I can feel every teaspoonful of my internal slime-ness stirring as I work out how to move.
I can change the shape of my body to some extent, though from the way the little nubbin of an appendage I push out is flopping around, I'm not going to be lifting any boxes in the near future. Likely has something to do with that Soften skill. Unfortunately, that discovery is quickly overshadowed by another, far more pressing one.
I'm blind!
I mean, it makes sense I attempt to reason, a churning well opening in the depths of my self-contained puddle of a body. I can't imagine slimes have normal eyes, but I'd have liked to be able to see at the very least, even if the quality is poor! I can feel what I think is uneven stone beneath me either with or through my membrane, and there's some vague sense of a glowing blocky something to my left and beneath me, but there isn’t even any darkness! All my instincts to look around and figure out where I am are stuttering and stumbling at the dead-end that is my lack of ocular organs; I’d never have thought zero visual input would feel so violently distinct from plain old darkness!
Even that little corner of my mind's-eye that felt something nearby is twitching around wildly-
Hold up a sec.
I make another attempt to look towards where I sorta-kinda-maybe felt that blocky glowy thing, this time focusing on that little corner in my head- uhh, slime pool? I don't really have a head anymore, though, or much of a body...
Welp, there go a whole collection of sayings and convenient comparisons I'm unlikely to ever make again.
…Boy, I really hope I'm not going crazy already...
Wait, there! It's that blocky thing again! Now that I’m focusing on this out-of-place sense rather than relying on my familiar-yet-slightly-sheared-off instincts to look with my eyes, I can tell it isn’t quite a sensation akin to touch like I’d begun to assume but it's not sight either. It strikes me like some weird combination of smell and hearing, but also nothing like that at all. In fact, now that I’m using it, I can sort of see-but-sniff-but-actually-hear more glowing beneath me that vaguely corresponds to the feeling of stone under me. Maybe that’s the floor?
This totally isn't confusing the hell out of me, so I'm definitely not just gonna drop the matter and hope the glowing blocky stuff is actually there. That would be super irresponsible.
Oh, would you look at that, a convenient distrac-
I mean, a new discovery!
My body apparently knows how to crawl forward, my underside gripping and pulling in a motion similar to the foot of a snail. I'd have hated to learn to crawl again, even if I don't need to progress to walking. I did my time! Seems like this body comes with basic instincts, which in all honesty makes the highest degree of sense. All life is born with instincts coded in, otherwise babies of all species would be vegetables unable to live long enough to learn and grow.
Guiding my soft bottom- uh, maybe I'll stick to calling it my underside. Yeah…
Gripping the ground with my underside, I make my way toward the first thing I sensed upon waking in this place, its presence filling my novel new sense with a muted blue glow. Trying to get a better idea of what it is I'm looking at, I tentatively reach out, only to hesitate. What if this is some kind of sleeping creature? I have no idea where I am and even if I’m not entirely blind, I can’t see much detail like this. Touching this thing could be a huge mistake!
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
No, don't let fear rule you Luke! Knowledge is just as important as water for survival, swallow that slime churning terror and just. DO IT!
My whole body shaking like a serving of jelly atop its little round plate being carried back to the table by a ninety year old retiree at bridge night, I slowly push out a portion of my mass, making the barest brush of contact.
The lion's share of my anxiety melts away and I sag in relief, crawling forward and pressing up against the rock in front of me. Something solid! It's not much, but between the rocky floor beneath me and the rocky rock beside me, the steadily thrumming anxiety of being set adrift in unknown space with no point of reference abates.
Following the edge around, I sense something truly massive enter my perception on the left.
Ah! Mr. Attenborough, send help! A behemoth has found me! I'm gonna be eeateeen!
The monster towers like a wall in my sight, reaching off into the distance beyond what I can perceive. Luckily, it stopped moving as I did, so maybe it's looking for something? Oh lord, I hope it isn't me…
Pass on big thing, nothing to see here!
Gripped by terror and morbid curiosity, I attempt to get a better idea of its size. Pushing my senses to their limit while I cower on the floor, I melt into a puddle and push myself as hard as I can into the seam between the rock and the floor. I do seem to have some sense of hearing, though it's rather muted. The only things I'm picking up are muffled, indecipherable, and way off, so either I have annoyingly selective hearing or this monstrosity is terrifyingly quiet.
My attention brought back to the only other sense that extends beyond my body, the immense creature hasn’t moved an inch, rising up as high as I can perceive before curving above me, spear-like fangs hanging down over me. Crab crackers, how big is this thing!? It's like a wall, a ceiling, a whole ass-!
My roiling slime freezes in my membrane.
No, please. Say it ain't so!
I slowly, oh so slowly, squeeze myself around the rock, flat against the ground in case I'm wrong.
Unfortunately, I'm not.
More of the cave wall coming into focus as I get closer, I watch as it curves up toward the ceiling, the stalactites above me that have formed closest to the wall large enough to meld into columns of rock with the stalagmites below.
....
Look... I know I'm stressed out by all this new stuff but keep it together, me. You're just embarrassing yourself.
Breaking contact with the big rock I've attached myself to, I crawl the relatively short distance to the wall. Squeezing into a small gap between a cluster of stalagmite pillars and wall (yep, definitively not a monster) I quickly learn my body doesn't mind tight spaces. I have no internal organs to be compressed, so pressing myself into the little pigeonhole feels like being sandwiched between two table wrapped in weighted blankets. It's actually pretty comfortable!
Alright, now that I'm not in immediate danger, lets see how this works. Stats! Nothing. Uhh, menu! Nada. Status!
Here we go!
[Name: Luke]
Species: Baby Blue Slime
[Level: 1]
Hit Points - 15
Mana - 5
Physicality: 8
Fortitude: 8
Thought: 24
Intent: 19
Skills: Pound [Lv.1], Soften [Lv.1], Bounce [Lv.1]
Skill Points: 1
Impurities: 1
Once again the sorta-screen appears in my mind's-eye. Honestly, there's not much I need to familiarise myself with. I can't see any tabs, and my efforts to open something like an inventory are met with a resolute lack of change.
Ahh yes, there's my species, Baby Blue Slime. Welp, no point crying about it, you baby. Hahaha! I'm already here, may as well make the best of it. Truthfully I don't mind slimes at all, although the lack of body parts is a little disconcerting.
I can just tell I'm gonna miss having legs, they were one of my best features. But no more aching muscles!
At least that 'Baby' part of my species name means I’ve still got some growing to do. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and it's possible to power myself up or evolve without having to wait years to grow out of puberty again. As unpleasant an experience as puberty was, I can't imagine slime puberty is any better. I’d give the possibility of game-style evolution a solid likelihood though, seeing as the whole Status and magic shebang is giving fantasy RPG right out the gate.
Still, there'll be time for my future in the future. First off, I need to get a handle on what I can do! I'm guessing Pound here is my only attack skill. I wonder what it does...?
[Pound: Assists with managing momentum and co-ordination when using body as a weapon]
Oh! So I only need to think about a feature to get a description? That's neat, and quite convenient. Thanks Mr. Attenborough, sir! Curious to see what else I can learn, I look through my whole status again.
[Bounce: Co-ordinates the skill-holder's mass and maintains momentum when jumping or impacting surfaces]
[Soften: Co-ordinates movement and manages density while manipulating the skill-holder's malleability. Also reduces damage taken from blunt impacts]
Ah, only the skills get descriptions? Well, the stats themselves seem pretty self explanatory so that isn’t a problem. I was hoping to get an idea of what this sense I'm using is, but no dice.
As for Soften, this sounds like the slime bread and butter. Its all ‘be as water, young disciple, let the force of your enemies flow through you as the river flows through the reeds!’
Now, what are these Skill Points and Impurities all about?
[You have Skill Points and Impurities available. Would you like to spend your resources?]
Sure thing! Show me what you got Mr. Attenborough!
[You may spend Skill Points to purchase new skills or upgrade existing ones]
[You can use Impurities to make alterations to and mutate your physiology in order to enhance or diversify your traits]
[Available Skills: Stealth - 1 SP: Assists with fine motor control and spatial awareness while attempting to remain undetected
Engulf - 1 SP: Imparts instinctive knowledge of how to manipulate density and movements when trapping something within your body]
[Mutations Available: Membrane +1: Increase durability of surface membrane, reducing damage taken and increasing force required to destabilise form
Motive Molecules +1: Increase the speed mass can be moved and manipulated
Mana Receptors +1: Improve Mana Sense
Digestive Molecules +1: Improve rate of digestion and damage dealt to matter being actively consumed]
Oooh, that blue light must be the Mana inside stuff! So cool! Wow, there's Mana in everything around here, the floors and walls are stuffed with it. I wonder where I am that's so rich in the magic sauce, or maybe the whole world is just like this? I hope it's the latter, I'd hate to find out my one useful sense is obsolete if I go traveling in the future.
But damn, there's some interesting stuff here! Looks like I can't purchase Death Magic or laser teeth yet, but starting on the path of the ninja sounds fun!
No, control yourself! You have no idea how to even get more of these resources, Luke, step away from the screen! Closing my status with a thought I attempt to sigh, but just end up wobbling on the spot. Oh, right, I don't have lungs. That might come in handy at some point, though I think I'll practice sighing anyway. It's such a useful, expressive gesture.
For now though, I need to explore. I've been familiarising myself with what has now been labelled as my Mana sense while holed up here, and coupled with my body's natural instincts, I think I've gotten the hang of it. Wherever it originates, I’m not restricted to sensing in one direction; I don’t have to move at all to ‘look’ in a different direction, and I can even sense mana in multiple directions at once, though that effort gives me a mild headache.
Plopping out of my hiding spot, I roll my way across the floor using my membrane like a hamster wheel while the bulk of my body swirls inside. It's less effective than I'd hoped, the membrane slipping frequently where I can’t get a good grip on the floor, so I just end up crawling again.
'Looking' around I seem to be in some kind of cave or tunnel. Rough stone walls, stalagmites and 'tites, crystal outcroppings in the walls. Yep. Classic fantasy cave. The only colour I'm really getting is varying shades and intensities of blue, but I attribute that to the assumption that Mana is blue, rather than this world’s sense of interior design. Everything has a vague aura around it, kind of like the hazy halo of light around a street light at night, except the auras shift and eddy, imparting everything, even the rocks, with a quality that makes the world feel alive. It's honestly quite beautiful...
On my walk- well, crawl -through the tunnel, something catches my attention off to the left between a pair of skinny rock columns. I have no idea if there's any light here, but I've certainly found one advantage to seeing the world through Mana-tinted glasses; I don't have to worry about the dark! No eyes means I don't need light to see, which is one massive tick under the 'slimes-are-better' column in my book!
Now, what’s going on here? I can see something moving over there... what've you got there?
Keeping it right at the edge of my vision, a shape is hunched over something on the ground. I can't get many details with my senses being so hazy, but I saw my ex’s cat go ham on the biscuits often enough to recognise an animal in the middle of a meal.
In saying that, I wouldn't classify this creature as any type of animal I know. Even with limited visual information, I see wide feet splayed either side of a broad rump and a long, scaled tail with a spiny ridge.
Oh yeah, this thing is also about four times my size. Shifting slightly to the right, it reveals one of its front legs; slimmer and slightly longer than it’s chunky hindquarters, yet tipped with long, thick claws.
I glance down to make sure the buckets I'm sweating aren't leaving an easy to follow trail as I back up, my senses glued to the newly revealed blue stain splashed across the ground before the beast. It looks like someone carelessly spilled watercolour paints all over the floor. Unless I miss my guess, going by the mess on both the ground and the face of this creature- it looks like some kind of mole? -as well as the fact it is currently chewing on what appears to be a deflated balloon, it seems one of my elders came out on the wrong side of an unfortunate encounter with this giant.
Of course, the only reason I'm able to see the bodily fluid of what I assume is a deceased relative painting the mug of this scaly Pokemon rip-off is that the sadistic bastard is looking right at me with its beady little eyes!
A hazy blob of something twitches at the end of its snout, an uncomfortably long tongue sliding out of the mouth to lick its face clean.
I apologise! I-I meant to say your eyes are effervescent black pearls, and your tongue is totally sick, not sickening! Ah, you're still coming over? Understandable. I'm sure we can talk this over like reasonable monst-
HA, sike! Eat my vapor you tunnelling mammal-lizard... thing!
Keeping low to the ground, I crawl off in the opposite direction as fast as I can, reaching out as I go to pull myself along with vaguely stretchy little nubbin appendages whenever I come to an uneven section of floor. Hahahaha! My movements may resemble the slowest of the slow, but alas, I am the wind! I am speed! There's no way you can catch-!
GAH! Why'd I have to open my metaphorical mouth! I mean, it's kinda cool that I don't need to worry about turning or anything to sense what's behind me, but I’m starting to get a bit dizzy trying to remain focused on two directions at the same time and I'd much rather that my rear-view wasn't stuffed full of a predator the size of a small monster truck galloping after me!
Moving my little body as fast as I possibly can, I manage to keep ahead of it, if only just. Despite the mole-thing possessing the advantage of legs at least twice of long as I am tall, I'm a zippy little guy, practically throwing myself forward as the monster mole takes pot shots at me, my small mass rolling and bumping across the terrain in my efforts to keep myself juuust outside the reach of its claws.
I need an escape route! Looking this way and that, I search desperately for another tunnel, a crack in the wall. I'll take anything!
The path just ahead curving gently to the right, I leap over a fallen stalagmite, the height almost too much to summit. Why is everything around here is so damn big! Jumping without legs is hard, and the sensation of my insides swirling together to push off the ground is indescribable. Noting that the floor on the other side dips a little lower than expected, I focus up, tensing my whole being as I impact the ground. With a feeling akin to being pressed back into the seat of a race car, my body flattens out and I sproing! forward like a soccer ball, gaining just a touch more distance from the monster behind me trying for dessert.
I know I'm sweet, it's a curse! Oh, woe be upon me for my flawless personality!
I narrowly dodge a swipe from the clawed paw that would have descended down upon me like a neatly arranged line of four guillotines, intent on partitioning me into slices.
Hey! I'm not ready to test if slimes can split yet dude, ask permission first!
Yanking my rear end in, I'm sprayed by a few stone chips as the mole's claws dig into solid rock. Holy jeebus! This thing sprung for the reinforced shellac mani-pedi; if I had nails they'd be aching due solely to proximity!
Currently anathema to the concept of slow and steady wins the race, I slalom around the corner... and come face to face with a creature just as big as my pursuit that looks like the result of a hyena and a piranha engaging in relations. Unable to stop at my current speed, I instead throw myself forward, barely skimming the ground, softening and stretching my body lengthways like a javelin in an effort to make myself a smaller target.
I don't have a heart but I'm pretty sure some part of my consciousness still does, 'cos I swear it stops when I pass directly beneath the startlingly vivid forest of needle-like teeth crowding the slavering hyena monster's saliva laden jaws. In fact, I should consider the possibility that there might be some shark or woodchipper in the mix if the multiple rows of teeth descending deep into its throat are anything to go by.
[Soften has reached level 2]
Not right now David! I'm busy!
Lucky for me, my pursuit isn't quite as small or flexible as I am. The mole-lizard chasing me slams into this fresh new nightmare fuel mid turn, bowling the both of them over in a tangle of muscle and pointy bits, while I land on the other side with a plop, free and clear. I’m reassured that I absolutely do have a sense of hearing, the weird clicking hiss of the mole grating against the yippy bark of the hyena-ranha. Ick, that makes my membrane wibble.
If I had to describe my sense of hearing, it’s like I have a blanket sandwiched between my ears and a pair of headphones, while simultaneously getting the sound run through a tuning fork lodged in my stomach. It must be mostly vibrations, yeah, that must be why the harsh, physical sounds are making my non-existent spine tingle.
Oi, enough conveniently distracting discoveries! Pack your coping strategies in the back and book it!
I crawl for my life, leaping over low ridges of stone too high to roll over, until I realise they’re common enough to use as stepping stones, letting me bounce from one to the next. Hell yeah! Parkour!
Leaving the sounds ad sensations of combat behind me, I nonetheless continue crawling until I come across a dense thicket of stalagmites clustered together against a wall. It looks too crowded for anything much bigger than myself to squeeze through, and I can't sense anything else inside, so, after a moment’s hesitation I dive in, pushing deep into the cracks and crevices.
Popping out from between two tree-like spars of rock sprouting close to the base of the wall, I find myself in a clear space big enough to fit three of me, a little crack two body lengths wide and half my height marring said wall where it meets the floor.
Closely inspecting the gap, I can't sense any Mana from inside part from the stone itself, so it's probably empty. A bet I am nonetheless hesitant to place, despite the fact that I was able to see both those monsters I ran into. It stands to reason monsters give off Mana, I justify, trying to convince myself. It must be a part of everything here if there are creatures like me that use it to navigate. Like snakes sensing heat or a shark’s sensitivity to electrical fields.
Slipping inside and spreading myself out, I wobble slightly in relief. Well, I think I'm safe for the moment. So long as nothing turns up on my doorstep I'll use this as my base of operations. Right now though, I have something very important to do.
Time to figure out how to not get dead!
