Azure Wyrm

[Dragonhatchling]

Being unable to see properly, Avisk was scared for a moment about the sudden weightlessness it experienced. Then it landed in something weird. It wasn't so sure about the situation, but feeling around caused realization that it could climb out if something went wrong. Something inorganic poked the slime as it moved to judge where the hole ended. Or was that another creature? The slime wasn't sure. All it knew was that there were spots where slime was seeping out of torn scales and thorns from the creatures. It had tried to bristle the scale-thorn combination in an attempt to make some noise to scare the creatures enough to stop the hurting, but, having no way of hearing the thing called noise didn't help to see if it worked. Maybe one of the thorns had poked one of the creatures with the Hurty. Maybe not. Either way, it was in a hole with weird things around.

 

The slime debated investigating. Avisk was naturally curious, though, something about this made it more unsure than usual. Natural curiousity won out in the end, either from its own consciousness or from the scientists purposed ability to have the slimes find out as much as possible about the area they were stuck into for their original intended purpose. The slime, of course, didn't know that and had attributed the sudden desire to figure out what it was in to the same drive that had driven it into the hole.

 

Avisk started with some of the weird stuff it had landed on, soon moving to the inorganics that occasionally popped up. Using the oozing slime, and natural slime left between scales and thorns, everything slowly started to be absorbed as the slime worked its slimed-self to different places.

[colourcodedchaos]

((OOC: Okay, so I'm going to assume that the cockroach species in question is Archiblatta hoeveni because it ties in with the rest of the stuff I've got. I am slowly building a mecha-dragon with a disgusting venomous shotgun-aping breath weapon and it will be glorious. FYI: the explosive dehiscence element of the dynamite tree, hard seeds/stones from fruit of some description, the spraying defence mechanism of A. hoeveni, and some other stuff I haven't unlocked yet. Yee and indeed ha. Oh, and some sort of conifer might be nice for the other active defence mechanisms of our friendly little slime...))

 

((OOC #2: Also, how big is Drasilus at the moment? I've sort of assumed it's the same size as it was at the start of the game, but I could be wrong.))

 

---

 

The subject's spines were longer now, and had hardened, but they tingled rather oddly now that the warmth in the air was seeping back. There was some kind of power within them, something the subject didn't fully understand, but it didn't have to to know that it was good. The tingling became a flow became a torrent, a great rush of energy as the pillars of sharpened things-that-were-of-itself gave it the strength to move more and more. It felt incredible, joyous, rapturous. It felt -alive-.

 

Glory unto the good-that-was-above.

 

It could sense the many and varied skittering things still around it, pitter-pattering away, leaving little trembles in the air around it, that strange medium through which the good-that-was-above fell like manna and reacted with the hard-sharp-itself parts. The subject felt buoyed by this, and sought to bring its happiness to them once more; once more the wet-sweet oozed forth, slicking its outer membrane with the nectar of good. Little by little it grew, as little by little the skittering things joined it in the rapture of good, and lo, the subject wanted more. More good-things, more good-that-was-above, more of itself... it was necessary to bring the good-thing to as many as possible, lest it suffer more of the bad-thing-that-was-painful.

 

Perhaps the cockroaches of the landfill site were simply curious about the strange green spiky thing that smelled of food. Perhaps they really did want to investigate. Perhaps they were drawn to it because they thought it would prolong their lives rather than end them. But come they did, and the subject saw that it was good.

 

---

 

((Translation: Drasilus' spines are now moderately photosynthetic, and is continuing to eat roaches and whatever else Viirin is willing to supply.))

 

((EDIT: Removed references to truth and lies as per Viirin's orders. Hopefully this is acceptable. [=))

Edited August 4, 2014 by colourcodedchaos

[Avialae]

Aster was completely unprepared for the pain that suddenly shot through it. The sharp, burning sensation was unlike anything it could remember feeling before, although granted its memory was short. What was almost worse was that the pain was coming from no source it could identify, just flaring into existence on different parts of its gelled surface. Not knowing the source of the pain left Aster with no idea how to get it to stop. Fear pierced the spine as it dully realized that it might not be able to do so at all, and never find relief.

 

Aster felt itself constrict in an instinctive reaction to the fear it felt, and as its surface area tightened it felt something besides the pain - numerous light, shallow sensations that moved rapidly from place to place. With the brightly covered goo covering it, the slime hadn't been able to feel the slight disturbances on its surface until now. As Aster continued to feel fresh jolts of pain run through it, something occurred to the slime: could these two feelings be connected?

 

It seemed as good an explanation as any other, especially since the slime didn't have anything else to go on. As its gelled surface relaxed, the slime could indeed feel small things crawling on top of it, small things that were organic but in a different way than the brightly colored goo coating it. The pain seemed to be coming from the areas where the small organics were as well, though with the goo on top of it it was hard for the slime to be sure. Pleased to have come up with a way to get rid of the stinging pain, Aster took care of tiny organics in the most efficient way it could think of - by absorbing and digesting them. As the slime sucked the small creatures into itself, the sweet, brightly colored goo coating got caught up and absorbed along with them, but the slime didn't really care about that anymore. With its short attention span, it had already largely forgotten about its beauty.

 

With the sudden infusion of new organic, the hard segmented ridgelike growth behind the slime's eyes was able to finish growing quickly. It seemed to be designed to help the slime move its front around, but unfortunately the slime didn't seem to be able to control it so it was of little use. Very small, very thin tubes started to grow along the ridgelike thing, but they weren't well-developed enough to do whatever they were supposed to yet.

 

((OOC: Aster grew part of a spine - specifically, the neck - and is beginning to grow nerves.))

[Zeditha]

Zeditha went back to the pleap, both to finish eating it and to think about this new thing. As she thought, a new thing formed in her, near her eyes and beak. ((Wait, did she name her beak? I don't remember... Well, she's named it now.)) It helped her to think, and she could think without pausing in eating the pleap. She thought about herself, and decided she needed to be called something. She found a combination of sounds that were nice together; Zeditha. Yes, that was her name; Zeditha. She clacked her beak a few times, as a release for a new feeling - happiness. Yes, she was happy. With that decided, she focused herself on devouring her pleap.

 

((She grew a brain, named her beak {if that wasn't named already} and named herself Zeditha. Now she's eating the pleap. She also discovered being happy, because I wanted to be nice to my bird-slime ))

[Viirin]

OOC: Hoping I have time to update today, but got a big RL issue to deal with. Plus...

I'm finally (most of you never knew) working on my own site, and once it's sufficiently done, there will be a forum there.

 

I'll copy / paste ALL Azure Wyrm into it, and stamp the original post dates and account ownerships to them. That means that I could get the original archived role play thread, Escapist thread, and Dragon Cave thread all in the same place, and would make organization of players, characters, unlocks, locations, and other stuff easy to find for everyone.

 

Also because everything would move over manually by me, there is no transition between current play sites and mine. I'll even make accounts for everyone playing and shove in their avatars (even archived- because those players are still here even with inactive accounts they still have a face).

 

Let me know your thoughts either in out-of-character comments or PM. Or Escapist chat.

[Kiran]

Even when most of the buzzing things had been eaten or had left, one or two of the them remained and attacked the slime again. Though the initial feeling of being stabbed seem to leave quickly- the wounds that the horrible buzzing things had inflicted must have closed- the slime soon realized that that wasn't the end of it. Spreading from the points where it had been stabbed came hot waves of pain that nearly caused the slime to curl up into a ball. Instead, it decided to flee. Perhaps 'decided' wasn't the best word, for the slime didn't really make much of a decision. It acted on instinct, trying to put as much distance between the remaining buzzing things and itself. After everything, the spreading pain was just too much. Unfortunately for the slime, things didn't go quite as well as it assumed that they would. It attempted to crawl over a mountain of stuff, but the mountain shifted under the slime's weight. Instead of scrambling to the top of the pile, the slime slipped. One of its feet slid out from under it, and the slime tumbled down the mountain. It tried to use its claws to stop its fall, but to no avail.

 

As it fell back down to the bottom of the mountain sharp bits of hard things dug into the slime. They scraped the side of the slime, leaving shallow grooves. It felt as if liquid was seeping from the grooves, and the slime didn't like that for some reason. It didn't know why, but the liquid falling away was a bad thing. The slime didn't question it, and the flow soon stopped.

 

The slime didn't seem to have fallen right back to where it had been chased away by the buzzing things. It was glad about that, but it was more focused on all of the pain. The spreading pain seemed to be almost gone, but the scraping pain was still there. It was fading as well, though, so the slime tried to ignore it. The pain had already been dealt, so there was nothing to run from. Besides, running hadn't worked out before. Few things seemed to work out well, and running wasn't one of the those things that had.

 

[Lemniscate]

((I keep thinking I posted here, but I know I didn't. It's weird. And the website sounds really cool.))

 

The slime did not know how to use it's new limbs, so it fluttered about on the rock for a few moments, looking extremely ridiculous. It was a wonder no seagulls were trying to eat it now. When it finally found out how to use its legs, it found that they could only move it sideways. The slime was disappointed by this fact. It had thought that the new legs would help it go forwards. Since there was nothing else of significance on the hard organic, the slime slid back into the liquid. It searched for more organics to consume, hopefully ones more tasty than the hard outside soft inside things it had been eating.

 

After a while of what it decided to call "swimming" to distinguish it from moving out of the liquid, it bumped into something. The difference between this something and all the other somethings it had eaten was that it was moving. And right now, it was trying to get away from the slime. It had almost gotten away, but the slime had used its legs to latch on to it. The moving thing had scales like the slime but it also had some strange flapping things. Attempting to digest some of the moving thing, it found that it's constant movement made it near impossible to digest. It had to do something to it first to get it to stop moving. It remembered the pointy things in its opening and how it helped it digest. Perhaps they would also help it grab on to things if it grew them at the bottom of its legs? It used some of the hard outside soft center things inside it to grow points at the end of its legs. The points were sharp enough to dig into the gaps between the scales on the thing, but the thing still kept moving around wildly. The slime remembered something from it's starting DNA now. Something that it didn't know when to use until now. It grew a sac inside of it that attached to each of its points, even the ones on its legs. The sac started to produce something and sent it to the points on its legs. It was another liquid, but this one was different from the liquid surrounding it. When the points released the different liquid into the scaly thing, it moved around even more. But after a while, it started to move slower and slower until it stopped. The slime was satisfied with the results of the different liquid. It needed a name, like all the other things it had named. The slime was enjoying naming things now, it made it feel important and things seem important too. The slime called the different liquid "poison" and proceeded to digest the scaly thing. It tasted delicious! Unlike the other things, it was mostly soft. It did have a few hard things, but these were not as hard as the outside of the hard outside soft center things and thus were digested with ease.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Silverphoenixx

[Viirin]

OOC: Saturday looks like the day I can finally update! Been looking forward to it. Yes Color- you're the same size.

[Dragonhatchling]

((I'm also not dead.... just severely busy))

[Viirin]

OOC: Saturday looks like the day I can finally update! Been looking forward to it. Yes Color- you're the same size.

 

@ColorCodedChaos: I like the fact that you're making fun of zealotry by having a zealot character, that's awesome. But "truth" and "lies" fall within sentient territory, and I gotta stop you there. You're far from that intelligent or complex of a creature so please redact.

 

@Silverphoenixx: The fishing lure doesn't have a fisher- it's stuck on something. I'm just forcing you away from the beach because the beach might have people soon and we can't let you be seen yet. Also something is chemically happening with you but you won't notice it this post.

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@Delta: Sliding down the hill as it did, failing to be able to even slow itself to investigate the many organic, inorganic- and sometimes something that was possibly both or neither- things as it went, being in pain and annoyed now- actually got the slime something good. It tasted good, at least. It lay mixed in with a pile of flimsy organic shaped that felt soggy. But the hidden thing wasn't. Not really. But it had a flavor the slime could never have imagined if it didn't land partway on top of it.

 

@Pyrellium: The delicious flavor didn't penetrate into the thing, it was only on the surface. In fact, dissolving into the thing, the center was harder than the other parts felt yet. Except for a very sharp, hard, smooth part that had a very thin inorganic part longer than the slime could discover sticking out the non-sharp side. The slime also felt the very thin part pulling on the slime, and since it was as submerged into the slime's gel as it was, it seemed stuck for the time being. The slime was pulled backwards, away from the rocks and into the salty wet.

 

@Drasilus: (unlocked: silverfish) The slime absorbing whatever was near it yielded results; the decaying crumbly organic flimsiness was easily consumed. But within it lay two things- one new, one not. The not new was the small skittering creatures it had tried to absorb earlier but failed; the new was the actual meal material they were attracted to but got stuck in as their burrow collapsed due to the slime's actions. The slime was enjoying its feast so much, it didn't even initially notice the strange shapes growing within it; nor the fact that it was getting everything it touched stuck to its exterior including lots of inorganic debris.

 

@Zeditha: (unlocked: bridled pattern from a pit bull, housecat, labrador, rabbit) Small creatures- well, creatures smaller than Zeditha- began to make themselves visible. Some of them came from behind or under organic things, or other things that were big. They didn't surround the slime; but seeing and hearing them in every direction now that the up-wet had stopped wetting, and the noise no longer a distraction, the slime could locate them; though they might look tasty, the slime just didn't feel as excited as it otherwise might have. They were significantly smaller than the slime was.

 

@Aster: (unlocked: fire ant, strawberry) The creatures hiding in the goo and the goo were gone now, and the pain was still there. Everything hurt! Well, not everything. As the slime consumed more, the hurty parts hurt less where it started, and soothing spread inwards towards the almost-overlap parts. The slime got hungry as usual and was luckily still within range of the thing that almost poked it with its pokey in its orb; though it wasn't pokey after the slime absorbed a bunch of it. But being slightly less distracted with what it was doing before, it could tell that there were many more types of things around besides that.

 

@Avisk: (unlocked: pack rat) The... organic was indeed organic, and the slime found its thoughts to change somewhat with its addition. There was something very different about this creature. But also interesting to note was the slime found that as it absorbed the entirety of the stuff it found at once, as it dissolved... something remained. Something inorganic that felt like small circular shapes interlinked with each other. But nothing was left in the indentation, or hole, in the tunnel. Plus staying down there as long as it did kept itself out of the way of the creatures in the maze. But its meal hadn't yet fully dissolved, and the slime would have to carry it along within its interior as it travelled. What was this inorganic linked thing it ate?

[Lemniscate]

((I actually intended the thing to be a fish, but I guess a lure works too. I thought lures were inorganic though, how does the slime digest it? Isn't it kind of plastic-y?))

 

The slime twisted itself around the long thin thing, letting it carry it for now. It pulled on it, trying to get the sharp part out of its gel. The gel did not feel pain the same way its other parts did, but the sharp thing was still uncomfortable. After a while of struggling, it learned that the sharp part was curved, and used the new information to get the thing out. The liquid was colder now than before, but the slime didn't know what that meant. Could it be good? Swimming farther down, it found that it was taking quite a while to reach the hard orbs. When it finally did touch the orbs, they were cold too. The slime didn't like the cold as much as the temperature it had been on before, but it didn't know how to get rid of the cold. The slime now assumed the cold to be bad because it made it uncomfortable, but it didn't seem to cause pain. It top swam along the gritty orbs for a while before it touched a long slimy alive thing. The long slimy thing retreated once it felt the slime though. The slime was momentarily confused as to where the long slimy thing went, but it felt a hole and thought that the slimy thing had gone down that. The slime was too big to fit down the hole, but it stuck one of its legs down the hole to try and find the slimy thing. It did poke the slimy thing and it injected its poison, however it couldn't get it out. It tried for a bit, but it didn't succeed until the hard gritty orbs collapsed. When the orbs collapsed, they widened the hole enough for the slime to pick up the long slimy now half dead thing and eat it. It was tasty, but had lots of small points inside it.

[AlexisV]

((OOC: This looks extremely interesting, may I join?

 

Here's my character sheet:

 

Name: Kiri

Bonus DNA: Torpedo Fish

Starting location: Forest

Description: a small, fist-sized clear slime

Equipment:))

 

(Edit: Name change. Was extremely tired when I came up with the first one, didn't like it)

Edited August 5, 2014 by AlexisV

[Dragonhatchling]

Avisk still wondered what the linky thing was hanging out inside it as it circled the hole to make sure nothing else was left. It wanted to be sure sure nothing else was there. Also using that to make sure no more packrats were going to ambush it.

Finding nothing, the slime climbed easily back out of the hole since it was only half its height. It was still very dark. One of the packrats moved slightly just out of view, squeaking a little. The slime followed the noise, realizing the rat was doing this as it turned tunnels. Was it leading it out? Or were they going deeper? Was there a deeper?

The slime still followed diligently along, musing about the linky thing inside it still. It wasn't any closer to really be dissolved yet but it still was different enough to the slime to not be completely understood. It was there. Inorganic. And linked together. But what exactly was it? And why did the slime feel like it had to keep this now and not just leave it?

[Avialae]

Aster shivered in relief as the stinging pain finally began to subside, waiting patiently until it was finally gone, or nearly so anyway. As it did so, the slime thought about the taste of the things it had just eaten, which it had been unable to do before with the sharp burning sensation flooding its senses. The majority of what it had eaten tasted so sweet, much more so than the soft, faintly sweet thing it had eaten before. The extra sweet had made it taste much better, or at least something had. And the small organics that had been crawling on top of it here and there . . . their taste was intriguing to the slime. Nothing Aster had eaten so far tasted like them before. They were . . . maybe salty wasn't quite it, it didn't quite feel right, but it was closest thing the slime could come up with.

 

As Aster's hunger inevitably grew again, it started to search for something to for it to absorb. Its hard, interlocking parts came in handy at last, allowing the slime to swivel its front end around so that its frontal orbs could see things in a wider range than just directly in front of it, as the small tubes covering it had just about finished forming, or at least enough for them to work. Due to its newly grown appendage, the slime's general shape had changed somewhat. While at first it had been roughly spherical, now it had stretched out longer and become more ovular to accommodate the length of the new structure inside it, with its frontal orbs and noise-holes all the way at one end of the slime. Of course Aster wasn't really aware of any of this, it just knew that there were suddenly a lot of new ways in which it could move itself.

 

The first thing Aster saw to eat was the no longer pokey thing it had absorbed before. However, the slime remembered that when it had done so it didn't have much of a taste. Unless it was starving, the slime wanted to eat things that tasted good if at all possible, and it could tell that there were many other organics around its location to eat, things that, while it hadn't eaten them before and thus didn't know what were liked, would probably taste better than the bland no longer pokey, at least in its mind. And while the slime was hungry it wasn't starving, at least not yet. So, passing up the thing it had eaten before, at least for the moment, Aster oozed onward, determined to taste as many new things as possible to find out if they tasted good.

 

((OOC: I've been trying not to grow things too quickly because I'm not sure just how much my slime is eating, plus I don't want to stretch credibility too much -- is the rate I'm going at now okay, or can I speed things up a little?))

[Zeditha]

Zeditha would have rolled her eyes, if she knew what it meant. More food. Why did she need more food? She felt as if eating anything else would be bad. As it was, she felt sluggish... She moved over to where the wet had been, and absorbed a bit that was still on the ground. It made her feel a little bit better. She decided to find out what the new things were, although she didn't want to eat them. She had eaten enough.

((Thinking about everything she's eaten, I feel a bit full. I imagine my slime would, too... If she's forced to eat any more, she might throw up. Or at least, she would if she could.))

[colourcodedchaos]

((OOC: I've amended my previous post to remove the offending subject matter. Brains come later. Eyes, now... well, Drasilus already has photoreceptors in the form of chloroplasts, so I'm going to take that as a starting point. Since primitive proto-eyes are basically only able to tell the difference between light and shade, it'd be thematically appropriate to give 'em to D. Also, since the Catchmaster brand shown in the picture only contains resin-based glue as an active ingredient rather than a chemical insecticide or rodenticide, according to the MSDS entries for it I can dig up, I'm not going to make any assumptions about what kind of DNA I can get from the glue trap, if any.))

 

---

 

The evolution of the eye is a strange thing indeed. It begins as a kind of photoreceptor, a cell structure that is sensitive to light. A lot of the more primitive photoreceptive cells are found in early aquatic lifeforms, wherein the creatures of the deep can tell if a predator is passing over them by the shadow that they cast. Over time, the photoreceptor setup becomes more complex and sensitive, eventually becoming the eyes we know and love. Simple eyes, also called dorsal ocelli, are present on roaches and silverfish alike, and since the subject's diet was mostly those, it was inevitable that the genetic code used to make them would trickle down into the subject's form. It didn't have any yet though. Baby steps.

 

The subject was feeding, feeding frenziedly, for the skittering things - and there were many of them - could not escape the inexorable march of the good-thing it so strove to become. For the subject grew and ever grew, changing the dissolved skittering things and strange organic flakes into that-which-was-itself, though pockmarked with inorganic. It needed to remove the inorganic, the subject dimly recalled at the back of its (for want of a better term) mind, but it could wait. There was food and organic and rapture, as the wet-sweet summoned more and more of the skittering things to pitter-patter over its surface and become one with the good-thing. Something was changing, though.

 

It began with the spikelets atop the subject's growing body. The good-that-was-above occasionally went away, which was obviously bad with a capital B, A, and D. So to speak. After a few moments, it came back, which was very good indeed. The subject treated each return with joy as the power ran through the that-which-was-itself anew. Slowly the spikelets, which were the closest to the good-that-was-above, began to detect when the good-that-was-above went away. There were little patches of not-good that were also above the subject, which, were it capable of worrying, would have worried it a bit. What was out there? Would it be bad? Would it have its own good? Was the good thing the good of the subject, and if not... why not?

 

All this philosophising is rather taxing when you don't technically have a brain yet, so the subject rested. This was not the end, though. As the patterns of not-good continued to be above it, the spikelets drawing power triggered electrical responses across the rest of the subject's cells so that it detected when the bad-that-was-above (a name that had taken some time for the subject to come up with) was, well, above, and in what quantity. It might not have been much, but the subject was able to better use the bounty of the good-that-was-above, and thus it was more joyful than ever before.

 

---

 

((Translation: In addition to being moderately photoreceptive, Drasilus's adorable little spikelets are now photosensitive, functioning as a kind of light-dark detector. I don't think it'd be right to have any kind of eyes yet. Drasilus is also using the roach and silverfish mass to grow as much as Viirin deems appropriate.))

[Viirin]

OOC @ ColorCodedChaos: I used the image as a generalized thing- it's just a generalized glue trap. I couldn't find the brand I actually wanted, so don't think it's as specific as you're researching.

 

@Everyone: The government called me at work today, heavily suggesting I get the paperwork done and in that they sent me; but I either mostly spend time updating the RP or working. So, yeah I'll update this week, but I don't know when- seriously gotta do that paperwork...

[colourcodedchaos]

((Hey, I can only go off whatcha give me, man. What brand did you want to show me? I can adjust my post if necessary, but it'd be handy to know what kind of rat poison's currently floating around Drasilus' system. [=))

[Viirin]

OOC @ Color: No problem. The trap you got stuck to is just glue. No poison.

[Kiran]

((How big is my slime? I'd like it to be about a foot long from nose to tail tip, and not larger, if that's alright.))

 

The new, good stuff was strange. The slime had difficulty telling if it was an organic or not- it was hard and sticky, but it sort of tasted like it was organic (or maybe not?). The flavor was mostly sweet, but there was something off about it. It wasn't like small skittering things, or crumbling dry things, or large things, or anything else that the slime had tasted before. The slime was very interested in the new thing, even if it wasn't quite organic. It still wasn't sure about that, either. The round thing was a mystery, and even if the slime didn't understand such things it was still curious. It reached down and poked through the flimsy stuff to better reach the thing, then swallowed it.

 

The slime eagerly poked around for more of the things, but couldn't find any. That was disappointing. The round thing had been small, and the slime wanted more to try to figure out what the odd taste had been. Instead, the slime bit off and swallowed pieces of the flimsy, soggy stuff that it had found the round thing in. There was some sticky residue from the round thing stuck to the flimsy stuff, but the stuff itself didn't taste very good. It was a bit waxy.

 

All around the slime's internal hard things, the slime started to feel something growing. They started thin and stringy, but as enough of them grew they became thick masses. The things replaced slime where they grew, and most of them were on the slime's limbs. However, the slime could still feel a thin layer of slime over the new things that still allowed it to taste.

 

The new things didn't seem to be bad, but after they grew the slime felt starving. It had been quite exhausting to grow them, and they were fairly large. The slime lunged towards the mountain that it had fallen down, looking for the first thing that it could find and eat. The slime hadn't expected to be flung so far, however. With the new things, the slime's limbs had extra power, so what should have been a gentle leap sent the slime crashing into the mountain. The impact hurt a bit, but the slime was more hungry than hurt. It reached out with its mouth to grab something, and found something sharp instead of food. It was thin and jagged, as well as hard and smooth. It definitely wasn't organic, but the slime was so hungry that it didn't really care. It tried to swallow the thing anyway, but that didn't go very well. The thing cut the slime on the way down, and left the slime in pain.

 

((The slime grew muscles.))

[Viirin]

OOC @ Silverphoenixx: Eh, kind of godmoddy. Please don't decide what you've located, investigated, then also kill and eat it in a post too often. Leave some room for me to change things up or have interruptions or misunderstandings to occur. The reason I gave you a lure and not a fish (I knew you wanted it) is because at any beach I've ever been to, there's 99% water, sand and rock- almost nothing else. Polluting it gives a bunch of washed up seaweed and other things I won't name, and litters the sand with trash. So it's a lot more to interact with! But finding something alive is pretty rare, even on the beaches as they are now, let alone one ruined with fantasy levels of pollution and trash. I'll get you what you want, but you gotta get away from the shore and go a few miles out to sea in order for it to start getting exciting. I decided to confuse Aster with pollution so it didn't recognize that it was just eating more seaweed.

 

@Avialae: Yep. Go ahead and go to FF2 (not FF6) and that should also be fine

 

@Zeditha: Yeah, she's grown a lot! Be the size of your fist, then eat a whole bag full of dead animals? You're at least the size of a very large cat right now.

 

@Dragonhatchling: Neither Avisk nor the packrats can see down there, it's too dark. They're navigating by scent and memory.

 

@Everyone: AlexisV agreed in PM to take over one of the slimes I released at the beach, though she wants to start in the forest. The slime will get to the forest right away, just not until it gets something from the sea first that I've been wanting a player to get for about 6 years.

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@AlexisV:

Unluckily for the slime, the canister it was in did not break. Nothing there TO break it in the soft sand where it met the ledge of grass relatively close to the shore. Unluckily, or luckily- that was to be decided later- the canister did smash a stem of iceplant and fall over next to a piece of abalone shell with only mother-of-pearl remaining. Someone eventually came by, and cut off the damaged part of the plant, a piece of candy wrapper, and the mother-of-pearl, unscrewed the lid of the vial, and dumped the pieces inside. Then screwed it back on, and threw it in the trash as it was being picked up by a truck.

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@Zeditha: The slime had consumed too much, and grown too much. It felt lethargic, and disinterested. Its purely slime genes demanded it consume everything it can to advance through the food chain to reach the top, and it was doing that. But it was also supposed to "deal with" infected and overpopulated species- either and both. It was doing that. It was meant to become a dragon for easy recognition- and it... wasn't really doing that right now.

 

@Avisk: Nothing. There was something, but then there wasn't. The linked inorganic was such a nice feeling! It didn't feel right inside though But it didn't matter right now, the slime knew it needed it, but not the reason. The slime felt something behind it again, something very light and thin, almost not noticeable. Then the air puffed a couple times. Pain! There was that pain again. Then it was gone. It was too dark to see, the slime would have to figure out something else to figure out where its enemies were!

 

@Drasilus: Something the slime consumed was pulled inside it, though it could tell it was inorganic. It wasn't as cautious as it could have been at all points. There was nothing it could do about that now; it was there. Besides the shape and strangely straight edges, it had a dip in one side and bulge in the other. The dip was full of something... stucky. That wasn't right. But it didn't have the capacity for knowing better. The feeling began to spread through the slime's mass, altering the nature of every one of its cells as it quickly reached its entirety. Everything stuck to the slime, and it recognized itself as failing to be able to release itself from any of its surroundings- if it tired to move, it brought whatever it had been touching with it. It could go no where.

 

@Pyrellium: The slime realized something as it digested its slimy meal. It already knew what it was, and had eaten it before. But why did it taste different? Something about it was... wrong. The salty wet around it felt the same way. Some.. thicker liquid was on top of the one the slime had just consumed, and refused to go under. It wanted to stay on top of the salty wet! The slime tasted inorganic particles in the... other liquid, but it couldn't do anything about it. The stuff was coating things, and tasting anything nearby without the flavor didn't seem possible unless the slime went under it. But it had already begun its affect, and the slime felt like it was sticking to itself and was losing buoyancy.

 

@Aster: Something distracted the slime. A thingy that was sitting on its side, with a hole pointing at the slime. What a pretty color! It shined and glistened, and didn't look organic. It didn't look inorganic either, it was really just something the slime didn't know at all.

 

@Kiri: The slime had awakened, and tasted salty air the moment it became active. Almost at the same moment, before it could even recognize itself as alive, it felt something smack into it from the salt-air side. All its other sides were in a smooth, inorganic... thing. One of the things was inorganic and flimsy, one was thick and organic, and one was thin and... the slime couldn't tell whether it was organic or not. But then the salt-air was gone. It felt many movements after that, none which the slime understood. But it did eventually understand that something happened to the inorganic that it was inside, and that it tasted a different kind of air! This kind was putrid, and long, thin inorganic things with pokey parts were around it.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Viirin

[Lemniscate]

((Ok, thanks. Sorry, I kinda ran out of details to really post about since there's just ocean and rocks. Couldn't think of any other thing to eat other than seaweed, fish, and eels, and Pyrellium already ate a ton of seaweed. I wanted some new thing for my slime to eat. What kind of seaweed is it? Is it that kind with air bubbles or the floppy thin kind? The pollution also sounds like oil. Is it?))

[AlexisV]

The slime shuddered a little at the icky taste-sense of the open space above it. It didn't want to move toward the bad taste, but several feeling urged it on, the strongest was a pain-like feeling of needing something. It didn't know what it needed, yet, but it knew that it had to find whatever it was.

 

The smooth sides around most of itself weren't what it needed. It pushed upward, feeling at the objects on it's open side. The taste-sense that told it about the icky openness also told it about these objects, and much more clearly. One of these things, a complicated, bendy thing, tasted good. Before the slime was quite aware of what it was doing, it began to move around the good thing and draw it into itself.

 

The good thing spread, somehow, through the slime. And the pain-like feeling lessened a tiny fraction. The slime felt another goodness, this one not the thing it had engulfed, but a not-touch-feeling like the pain.

 

The slime wanted more of both good things, so it pushed upward, probing at the other two objects above it. One was thin and bendy like the good thing it had engulfed, but it didn't taste good. It didn't taste like anything much, just like the smoothness that surrounded it. But there was a faint taste-sense of something good inside it, something very good. The slime probed at the object with a thin part of itself. It was rewarded with a tiny bit of very, very goodness that faded into itself far too quickly. It searched for most of the goodness, but there was no more.

 

The last object was organic, but hard and not strong tasting. The slime engulfed it anyway, because the pain-feeling was still there. The organic thing dissolved very slowly, releasing a little bit of the taste all the while. The slime decided that it liked the taste. It was different than the bitter goodness it had first eaten, and not as exciting as the second very, very goodness. But it was a deeper taste, a nicer taste. The slime worried at the hard thing to get more taste, very much like a human would suck on a hard candy.

 

Eventually the slime became aware of other not-touch-feelings besides hunger-pain and the goodness of making the pain go away. Feelings that urged it to move, to leave the safety of the smooth thing underneath it. (It didn't understand the meaning of fear yet, or safety, these were somehow known without knowing why.)

 

But these not-touch-feelings were complicated, and the slime had a simpler motivation. There was no more food within reach, and no taste-smell of food nearby.

 

It began to push upward, seeking a way out of the inorganic thing that held it, and more food...

 

((OOC: Long post, this is definitely different from anything I've tried to write before. Hopefully these will get less wordy as Kiri starts establishing how the world works. ))

[Avialae]

Aster, intrigued by the glisteny, shiny substance inside the hole, headed to its opening to investigate it further. The hole wasn't that big, so the slime had some trouble fitting itself inside of it. It ended up moving around so that its side was facing the opening, since the parts of it that still consisted of gel were better suited to gathering information directly. At least Aster could still see the sparkly substance this way, though, as it curved its new appendage around the smooth sides of the edge of the hole to hold it in place.

 

Wanting to learn all it could about this beautiful new thing, Aster eagerly shoved as much of itself as it could into the hole, absorbing as much of the glittery substance as it could reach into itself. Once it did, though, the slime convulsed in disgust. It had assumed that since this new thing was good to look at, it would taste good too, but that wasn't the case at all. Instead it was extremely bitter, and had a thick, cold consistency to it that left Aster with the uncomfortable sensation of being able to feel it inside of itself while it was being digested. It wasn't in its nature to give up something that it had already absorbed inside of itself, so instead it tried to digest the nice-looking but bad-tasting thing as quickly as possible so it would go away.

 

Between the front end of Aster's interlocking appendage and its frontal orbs, a glandlike organ began to form. It consisted partly of the small narrow tubes that covered its appendage, growing from them, but there was another substance in there too that didn't consist of tubes. It felt similar in composition to Aster's frontal orbs but a bit firmer, though still fairly soft. Two thin tubes grew out of the back of Aster's frontal orbs and connected themselves to the new organ, and the slime could somehow feel impulses traveling back and forth between them.

 

As if to go along with the new organ, thin plates of the same hard material that the interlocking appendage was made out of grew out of its front, forming around the new organ like a sort of protective covering until they had made their way around the entire thing and met in the middle. Now the new organ couldn't be damaged by something Aster brought into itself before it could be digested. It didn't have any problems with its frontal orbs or noise-holes either, since openings had formed in the covering right around them, almost as if the plating knew to avoid disrupting the slime's senses.

 

OOC: Aster grew an (animal) brain, and a skull (but no jaws).

[AlexisV]

The slime oozed around the pokey things, and out over the angular edge of the smooth not-food thing. It felt a number of odd, unfamiliar surfaces underneath itself, but they were all not-food so it ignored them. It oozed over the edge of something that was a food-thing, but tasted very bad. The slime's idea of the world expanded a little more. Food things, not-food things, and bad-food things.

 

It oozed for what seemed like a long way before finding a food-thing. It was dry and harder with little taste, almost like a not-food thing. It engulfed it and began to absorb it, but it felt like it wasn't getting much of anything from it. The slime paused. Maybe this food thing wasn't worth eating? Food things, not-food things, bad-food-things, and not-worth-eating-food-things. The world was becoming very complicated. Organic and inorganic (Things-I-can-absorb and things-I-can't-absorb) was simpler.

 

But then it found something rough and irregular, something that was definitely food, and large enough that it couldn't absorb it all at once. it tasted a little like of the bitter thing it had first eaten, without the bitterness, and a different kind of very very nice thing, sharp and rich. It quickly began engulfing and absorbing one end of the thing, eating away at the parts that it could fit into itself, until the hunger-pain was almost gone...

Edited August 8, 2014 by AlexisV