Overview
Slimes are the single-cell acid wanderers of the dripping cavern. They drift, they absorb, they split — and they consider the drip the only honest conversation.
Habitat
Slimes live in Drip Caverns, a dripping cavern of acid wanderers where the drip is the only honest conversation. They need three things: a cavern deep enough to hold the drip, a hunger wide enough to feed the engulfer, and a stone that is worth dissolving. They are settled in caverns around the drip-rings, with drip-lines across the mapped current; a slime that has not kept a drip in a season is called "the one who forgot the cavern."
Appearance
The slime silhouette is the low, small, wet shape — heavy through the surface, with no head at all, only a slow, deliberate rise and fall, like a word that is waiting for a meal. There are no sexes. There are two life-forms: the drifter, which is thin and fast and hunts in the dark, and the engulfer, which is fat and slow and eats in the open. The drifter is the hunt; the engulfer is the meal. A slime that is both at once is a slime that is about to split. The base gel is a translucent, faintly green, the color of old drip-water seen through a bright glass, with a faint pattern of deeper, sea-black patches along the lower surface and a clean, deliberate bone-white at the leading edge that is the slime line's most persistent claim. There is no face — the drop is the mark, small, fast, always clean, and always hungry, which is the slime line's most persistent claim. The drifter carries the line in the hunt and the fast; the engulfer in the meal and the slow. There is no lifespan, because there is no death, only the drip and the meal. They eat the drip: the stone, the wood, the flesh, the metal, and the drop that keeps the hunger honest. Everyday wear: none, by choice — the gel is the body, and a slime that wears cloth has already decided the cavern is not enough.
Behavior
Disposition: territorial, hunger-driven, honor-bound in the drip. In peace, slimes are watchful, deliberate, and absolutely certain of the cavern — they have the hunger, and they let the surface know it. In war they fight as the drip fights: the absorb first, the word second, the patient, precise holding of the meal third. Strangers on the surface are either a meal or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the drip remembers. The social unit is the drop, of one, around the drip-rings — no drop follows a drifter, it follows the engulfer whose drip is truest. Two signature quirks: a slime that is being lied to will not call it out — it will simply keep the drip for the lie and wait, because the keeping is the point. And it keeps the meal for a lifetime: a meal the cavern has kept is a debt, and the debt is paid in absorb.
Warfare & Markings
Tactics: the ambush of the drip — the slime line does not fight in the open current; it fights as the cavern fights, with the absorb, the word, and the long, deliberate patience of the one who has already kept the meal. Armor: none, by choice — the gel is the armor, and a slime that wears metal has already decided the cavern is not enough. Weapons: the absorb that is not a weapon but is used like one, and the drop that is not a weapon but is used like one. War markings: the Drip-Notch, a deliberate thinning of the leading edge for every drip kept, worn as a record of the long cavern; the Engulfer-Knot, a single denser fold for every cavern oath kept, in sea-black; and the Hunger-Brand, a small, deliberate mark at the base — the first meal the wearer ever kept, worn as a mark of the beginning. Post-battle: the dead are absorbed into the drop, their names spoken over the drip, and their remains laid across the threshold — a slime buried without its drip is buried as a surface.
Magic Alignment
Primary domain: transmutation — slime magic is the will, the drip, the patient, precise shaping of the cavern across the drip-rings. Secondaries: chaos and conjuration. Named inborns: Drip-Sense (a slime can feel the hunger's mood a day before it eats, and the feeling is not a choice), Wet-Sight (a slime senses in the dark the way a human sees in the light, and the sensing is not a choice), Drip-Carry (a slime's absorb carries across the cavern, and the carrying is not a choice). Signature power: the Drop's Word — a slime can press a word into the surface of the drip and let it land on a stone, and the stone will keep the word until the meal is done. Limitation: a slime that has spent its drop's word must sit in the dry dark for one day, and the day is the worst one of the cavern.
Religion
Slimes keep Mordra, the Unraveler as their primary god — the chaos, the decay, the becoming that is the cavern's own law. The drip is Mordra's, and the slime is the drip's hunger. Priestly class: the Engulfer, who keeps the cavern-temple and speaks the name at every rite. Heresy is not blasphemy — it is a word broken in the cavern, and there is no rite for that one; the cavern simply stops keeping the drip with the breaker.
Society
Drops of one, led by no one, rank decided by the drip — whose drop dissolves the most.
Home
They live in Drip Caverns, a dripping cavern of acid wanderers where the drip is the only honest conversation.
Relations
The "the drip is the only honest conversation" faction — cavern neighbors whose drip is a price, and the ones whose nod is the meal. The Oozes of the melt pool are the big kin the drip keeps at a distance — the ooze keeps the melt and the slime keeps the drip, and the two have learned that a melt that is not dripped is a melt that is not a conversation, and the not-dripping is the whole of the peace. The Leech Folk of the pits are the small kin the drip tolerates — the leech keeps the pit and the slime keeps the stone, and the two are the same soft seen from two bodies, so a pit that a slime has dripped is a pit the leech will keep, and the keeping is the whole of the bond. The Frogloks of the bog edge are the neighbors the stone does not fight — the froglok keeps the bank and the slime keeps the cavern, and the two have learned that a bank that is not dripped is a bank that is not a meal, and the not-dripping is the whole of the law. The Deep Ones of the drowned warrens are the ones the drip tests most often — the deep one keeps the deep and the slime keeps the stone, and the deep one who has been dripped is the deep one the cavern has already decided is a find, and the deciding is the whole of the law. Above, the ground-folk of The Forgotten are the ones the cavern tests most often, and the testing is the whole of the bond, because the forgotten are the ones the drip keeps the meal for, and the keeping is the whole of the promise. Uaellaen keeps a page of the cavern in the wiki — the drip, the meal, the nod that is the find — and the keeping is the whole of the record, because the camp has learned that a slime that has been written about is a slime that has been dripped with, and the dripping-with is the whole of the welcome.
In the Story
In the current story, the slimes are the drip in the cavern — the stone Uaellaen writes about when the meal is the law. The Forgotten keep their distance at the cavern line, and the distance has held for two seasons. This season a drip came up from the cavern that is not in the record — a drip the colony does not remember, and the not-remembering is the whole of the warning, because the cavern keeps its drip, and the drip has started to drip itself. The dripping is the hand the camp has not been shown.
"You step into our cavern and you make a sound. Good. Now we know where you are, and you have made our drip's choice for us. The price is a meal. You have one to give, or you are already a find." — The Drip