Drip-Fed

The slime liked discovering things about itself. The newest thing it learned about itself was that there was a difference between Growths and Attributes. Of the former, it could maintain a total of six now. There was some relation between its diameter at complete unchanged form, one it rarely assumed, and the amount of possible Growths, but with neither a tool to measure itself nor an idea what a measurement unit was, the slime only knew that there was some relationship.

Anyway, it could maintain six Growths right now. Each of them was a limb, a muscle, or some sort of actual body part of a prey item it had feasted on before. Attributes were different. Those didn’t require the drop of evolving soup to grow anything visible. It was more of a passive effect.

The only one it had right now was the axolotl’s regenerative abilities. Not particularly helpful, since the slime rarely if ever had things that could be categorized as wounds, but once formed it didn’t feel like disabling it again.

It still took time to develop, more even than getting a new Growth, as its whole body was affected by this Attribute, but it went on a different count. Speaking of counting, the slime had tried to stretch that number’s limit, despite its instincts screaming that it was a horrible idea, to find out that was an absolutely horrible idea.

The number it instinctually went with, without even really knowing what numbers were, seemed to be what its body could sustain in energy consumption or something, fact was, that after successfully growing itself a seventh limb, it soon keeled over from exhaustion. Luckily, it was too large to be eaten by anything around and its body retracted all Growths it had at that moment to conserve its remaining stamina. A terrible crawl to the clam fields and one of the name giving stationary animals later, the slime had pepped iteself up again.

It vowed not to repeat that. Especially not since it was about to leave its watery home.

A very odd amalgamation swam just below the surface of the lake. On first glance, one may have mistaken it for an axolotl. That would be fair enough, the slime had formed the legs, the tail and something resembling its head, wanting the nose and mouth, after all. However, even that first glance would cause someone to look again.

For a start, the slime didn’t have eyes. The axolotl’s sense of smell was good enough for directions as far as it was concerned. Also missing were the trademark frilly antenna, and the external gills which the slime had no need for. Those four things took most of the Growth capacity the slime had. The remainder of it was used to develop two shell growing organs, two half shells growing in opposite direction on the slime’s back.

That made it, overall, look more like a turtle than an axolotl. A very weird turtle, without anything to protect its stomach.

This very peculiar mix of designs was currently looking for an ideal spot to get on land. Most of the lake had a steep, rocky edge that the slime couldn’t climb with its feet. It could have tried to used its amorphous, normal body to do the climbing, but the shells would have been too heavy and pulled it back under. It didn’t have the suction power required for this task.

It had spent a lot of time growing those shells, using them as it hunted more axolotls to continue its growth, and it didn’t want to lose them yet. There had to be some part where the water was shallow and the land rose slowly.

Bumping its sturdy nose against the cliffs to find that spot, only relying on touch and vibrations, the slime searched. Every time it surfaced it felt a mixture of nostalgia, alienation and anticipation. Nostalgia, as its first moments had been spent falling, alienation because it had been a long while and anticipation because it wanted to explore this new area.

When it finally managed to find a suitable spot, it walked on land and just stood there for a moment. It was sniffing, if there was any predator around it surely would leave some sort of scent to track. Straining the vibration sense it possessed by nature, it also searched around. It found nothing noteworthy, just some insects busily walking around in search of something to eat.

That made the slime happy, it seemed like it arrived at the scene already the top of the food chain. With swaggering steps, a particular development from its body structure and it still learning how to walk on land, it traversed the rocky terrain. Soon rock made for moss. It was nice for its feet, but somewhat hard to keep a footing on.

One of the busy insects came close and the slime suddenly opened its axolotl mouth. It was a bit confused when basically nothing happened. It tried a second, then a third time before realizing that the suction only worked in water.

So it opted for the old fashioned way instead, since its mouth was already open it swallowed the insect whole. The tiny thing was of no match for the mighty axo-slime and it quite liked the refreshing taste. It had something of citrus.

That was when it was attacked by two more of the tiny things. The slime felt something like admiration for the fact that they were so willing to die for their comrades. Much more it felt thankful that its food was so willing to dive into its maw.

The comradery was short-lived, however, as one of the insects was swallowed whole again. This time the slime took a moment to feel its shape. It had pretty big jaws, two antenna and six legs that were wide apart from each other. Its middle section was immensely thin, but the tail end was a bloated container of guts and two stomachs, one of them made for regurgitation.

There were also these ducts, the slime had no idea what they were about, only that they produced a ‘smell’. It would have loved to experiment, but then it suddenly heard something. The insect was returning and it wasn’t alone.

Hundreds of skittering legs were heading for it. Quite rapidly as well. The angry buzzing of a swarm. Unbeknownst to the slime, it had angered a new kind of species: the common cave ant.

The concept of an army was entirely removed from the slime’s understanding of the world. As far as it had experienced, hunting was a one on one encounter with things that usually only wanted to get away. Now it was face to face with not only an enemy that wanted to fight back, but was also ready to kill it and had the numbers to back it up.

So, as the slime sensed the army approaching, it did the only sensible thing. Which was run. Run for its life from the eusocial terror about to descend on it. It was slow, a crawl which was fast as it could run, heading for the water. Surely, these creatures could not have been able of swimming, otherwise it would have encountered them before.

Still, to the water was a small trip and the ants were a lot faster than it was. Soon it felt pincers grabbing at its tail, ripping pieces out while trying to inject the slime with some sort of acid. That second part bothered the slime very little, being an incredibly acidic creature itself, but the pinching hurt. Not one pinching, one pinching was less than a prick of a needle. A dozen, however, in quick succession, alongside the feeling of slowly getting covered as ants hitched a ride on its back and bit whatever they sensed to be a vulnerable spot. That was torment.

The slime dipped its front leg into the water just as an ant had figured out where the head of it lay. If the dozens of bites were torture, then the sensitive concentration of emulated nerves that was its nose getting bitten was just hell. Luckily, the pain was dulled quickly by the water encapsulating it.

Ants were still holding on to it even after diving, their mandibles buried deep into the slime flesh. One by one, it plucked them off by pulling them inside itself and digesting them. Now that they weren’t in their element and there were a limited amount of them, that was actually an option.

Ants, the slime decided, were supremely scary.