The surviving lesser mimic slimes made it back to the hive and submitted their cache to the hive stores. To their benefit, even with the theft of the grey slimes, they still managed to fill half of the hive stores with mana-rich honey and slime cores both big and small. The leader bug slime released a high-pitched song. Upon hearing the song, every slime in the hive raised their tentacles and waved them together. Doc chuckled at the apparent celebration.
Interestingly, the leader slime called one of the surviving lesser mimic slimes up and reached a tentacle out to touch it. The differently colored slime slipped and touched the slime’s core. Doc sensed a brief exchange of mana between the two slimes. The leader slime then removed its tentacle and burned an image into the hive wall. It was a vague image of a large slime, likely the gelatinous slime. The leader crossed a line through it.
How interesting, Doc thought to himself.
Chapter 17
The world was filled with light, fog, petals, and blue as far as the eye could see. It was a space of nothingness, filled with quiet and silence and freedom, a liberation from time, gravity, and existence. One could float away in this place, free from the confines and shackles both forced upon and worn willingly. Yet within this nothingness place, petals soared through the space, carried by unseen wind moving in patterns and waves which formed nothing. The eyes of the observer would only need to be distracted for just a moment to miss it, the wind leaving nothing in its wake except petals of red, white, green, purple, and yellow. This scene, this serenity, only existed because of the observer, the unseen eye. The Yhe.
The Yhe came here willingly, for reasons that neither mattered nor warranted thought once arrived. Yhe came here only to lose existence in the void of blue space and petals, and yet sometimes the purple would bring into existence a thought, an interruption of the void. Purple flickered into life that which Yhe thought to lose, and so it would be removed by the wind that came and went without sign. The blue light replaced the thoughts as quickly as they appeared, leading back to the serenity of non-existence.
And yet, every time the wind came, it had to leave behind petals, and thus more purple. The blue void was thus disturbed by the loop of feedback, and an effect emerged.
“That’s just what you wanted, right? A slice of paradise to escape to?” a mocking voice echoed through the fog, breaking the atmosphere. “Well too bad. You aren’t fast enough to run away from our problems. The wind blows them back just as easily as you forget them.”
“Be quiet, you. This is no place for such biting words and draining thoughts!” another voice came from behind the Yhe.
In opposite directions, two flowers— a rose and a morning glory—appeared in the fog. They were both exquisite specimens of their respective species, full bodies with vivid color along their stems and petals. When they spoke, their petals fluttered open and closed in a mockery of organic communication.
“This one isn’t even paying attention to us. To us!” The morning glory snarled angrily. Its long stalk whipped through the space, ignoring the unseen wind and existing apart from the void. Yet the plant seemed indistinct from the surroundings, as if only the faintest of space kept it from dissipating back into the blue.
“Yes, you should leave us,” the rose agreed, flower petals opening and closing. “This is a place to renew oneself free of the ropes of the world, not one meant for such uncouth beings such as yourself, a weed in the dirt seeking the light while smothering those in your way to reach it.”
The morning glory shriveled in size before rooting itself. “I belong here as much as you. The distinction between us fluid via the whims of the light and the feels of the blue. What claim do you have that I do not belong? You seek out the light as much as I do, but you scorn the world and sprout thorns to defend your monopoly. We are equals here. Do not grow higher than your purpose.”
“In this purpose we are formed in the here and now, and our distinction is opposing,” the rose answered. “You are here to change, while I am here to be.” It appeared quite aleaf, pride dripping as nectar from its petals. “Perfection makes me whole, though for you and I, the blue calls us home.”
“And this one?” the morning glory asked, indicating the one other, the Yhe. “This one is the reason. It has no purpose.”
“Its purpose is what it chooses, so it is one who chooses to remain,” the rose answered smoothly. “Which makes the one greater than you in my presence, for it mirrors me.”
“Perfection you claim, yet you are not one with the blue,” the morning glory muttered. “Rather, you are as stuck here as I am. This issue stems from this one, yet you claim it to be greater than I who is your opposite equal?”
“More than you, at least,” the rose chuckled smugly, gesturing with its petals. “After all, you wouldn’t know a pile of feces from a pile of fertilizer.” The morning glory, with its slightly drooping petals, puffed up in anger.
The noise and the quips and the conversation invoked more thoughts, more disturbance, and there was not enough wind to free the void of the interruptions. More and more petals were drifting around the space, purple included. A single thought burst into existence from the Yhe: ‘Go away.’
With the thought fully come into itself, blossoming in the light, the two flowers diverged themselves from their conversation. “We cannot,” the rose said disappointingly. “Believe me, we do not want to disturb you.”
“Speak for yourself. pointy,” the morning glory said, shifting insults. It turned to face the Yhe. “We don’t belong here, not like this. Those who do not belong bring singularity with them, a limited thing, a limiting concept. The limits of another reality have been dragged into this place where limits are below conception. We are forced into these limits via the presence of another. The one who dragged us here and created this situation is the unnamed other.”
“Do not pertain to endeavor. Our existence is only so far as we are required,” the rose butted in quickly, a pale glow of abashment appearing on its petals. “For this distinction was made not solely from the perceptions of this other. Your desire seems to have bled through as well.”
The morning glory chuckled, blossoming another flower. “For shame, dear one, that you are to claim that personal desire leads to personal existence. One is not exclusive to the other, not to mention the need for conception of either.”
“Conception is brought by desire,” the rose argued, growing a bud. “Existence brings upon desire. It is the dualism of existence that creates such disparity.”
“The dualism of the world, you mean,” the morning glory said, wrapping around the issue. “For existence is dependent on the rules and laws that came into being long before existence was established.”
“Are you suggesting that being and existence are separate conceptions?” the rose grew a large thorn point. “The argument is as old as thought. There is no answer.”
“They possess different meaning when used in various concepts,” the morning glory admitted reluctantly. “What comes to mean one can also mean the other when the thing is one way or the other. Not to say they are mutually exclusive, but that they are not necessarily mutual inclusive.”
“As we are,” the rose nodded its flower.
“As we are,” the morning glory agreed, returning the nod.
The noise was deafening in a space where none other had been previously. Thoughts and sounds burst all around the three, with the wind struggling to bring them away before they were born. Petals began to overtake vision.
“Shut up,” the thought of the Yhe resounded.
“The one seeks to command us,” the morning glory chuckled, a tinkling sound that dingle dangled through the void. “Cute.”
“It is misguided,” the rose continued. “To command denotes authority, which denotes strength, power, or a sense of greaterness. It possesses none here, but notice it had no notion of this before you opened your thoughts.”
“I’d argue it was your precocious insults at the beginning of this conve
rsation that encouraged authority,” the morning glory argued. “To insult, after all, is to create difference.”
“Acknowledge difference, not create one.” The rose point glistened. “Things exist in spite of observation.”
“Except us. The other forced us into existence with observation. The other needs to leave,” the morning glory protested.
“The one needs to stay,” the rose argued.
“Yhe just needs,” the two said together, and for just a moment, the two appeared the same blue, free of distinction before regaining their distinctness.
“Almost gone,” the morning glory sighed sadly.
“At least still here,” the rose sighed happily.
The morning glory lost its flowers and regained a bud. The bud vibrated to the sound of its voice. “It appears that the need is only part of the reason. A need exists, but also a want.”
“Wants are harder to catch,” the rose murmured, with petals falling off one at a time as it withered. “Wants are everchanging, constantly in motion, and changeable at the flick of desire. Needs are better, they either are or are not. Still, both are satisfied while here.”
“Satisfied, yes, but neither is solved,” the morning glory argued. “To satisfy is to placate, and to placate is to leave the hole unfilled, rather covered until it is uncovered again. The want can even appear elsewhere, rendering the cover worthless.”
“Here is a good cover,” the rose pointed out.
“For it, the Yhe, yes, but its presence causes other problems, does it not?” the morning glory sighed. “Limited perception, limited conception, limited imagination, limited awareness—these things do not bode well for the formless, mindless, and thoughtless. It is a poison in this place, both to itself and others.”
“But it possesses the right to be here,” the rose said. “It used it, and it is only right to follow.”
“Rights, you claim such things as universal as being and existence when that is folly,” the morning glory argued angrily. “Rights have only significance in the context of law, and that is a form of limit, unneeded and unwanted here.”
“And yet it has brought that here with it,” the rose reasoned. “As such, it is here now, and we are to abide by it as we do.”
“There is no enforcing of the law here,” the morning glory pointed out. “As such, there can be no law without enforcement. Then it is just concept expressed as words.”
“What if I enforce it?” the rose asked.
“Can you enforce it?” the morning glory shot back. “How can one without limits acquire such a limited concept like authority?”
“You are right,” the rose agreed. “Neither you nor I can enforce a law, for we exist beyond authority. However, by our existence being brought into the here and now by this one’s observation, we both fall under the limits the one has brought with it. Hence, we are bound by the right this one possesses.”
“Annoying but correct,” the morning glory admitted reluctantly. “However, my existence is to have this one be removed, and so shall I continue seeking a way regardless of law.”
“It is to be expected of you,” the rose agreed, “for that is your purpose being here. However, will you, too, ignore ethics and morality in order to accomplish your goal?”
“You once again attempt to bring into this impasse concepts that do not belong here,” the morning glory grunted. “Neither of those concepts have a role to play here.”
“But they do,” the rose pointed out. “For you seek one way and I another, so one way must be right. The inherit points of rightness involve ethics and morality.”
“Why do opposing paths require rightness as a unique quality?” the morning glory asked. “Two paths converge on a road, and the only sense of right is the opposite of left.”
“One road leads to death and the other to life.”
“But both will continue regardless of choice. There is no escaping either.”
“You miss the point,” the rose said.
“Do I?” the morning glory countered. “Are you not wearing it proudly on your stem like a badge of honor? These concepts of right, ethics, and morality are limits self-imposed on the limited ones in order to continue their temporary existence for as long as possible. Even without them, life and death will both continue.”
“Then what of our opposing distinction?” the rose asked.
“As I said, we are at an impasse,” the morning glory said. “There is no inherit rightness to our existence, nor our choices, nor our paths, nor our conflict. They merely are, as we have been and always been before and after this one’s presence here.”
“A conflict you have stated, so what be the resolution?” the rose asked.
“None, for there is nothing either of us can or will do besides an exchange of concepts,” the morning glory declared. “Violence is only an outlet of desire, which neither of us possess. We possess a path, which transcends a limited concept like desire.”
“Path is a word of limits as well,” the rose pointed out.
“But one imposed on us by this one, not ourselves,” the morning glory said, seizing momentum. “This one has created the conflict by its presence, and this one shall resolve the conflict. We are, as they say, the peanut gallery.”
“This one requires the will to follow through such an act, which this one lacks in this place,” the rose sighed. “This is not a place of limits as you’ve said, and such a concept alongside desire, want, need, and status are quickly robbed. I believe the impasse shall continue.”
“Perhaps to you,” the morning glory said smugly, “but my path is based on this one leaving. I can enforce that upon Yhe.”
“That would be against my path, however,” the rose murmured.
“I cannot interfere directly, same as you,” the morning glory reminded the rose. “However, I can allow this one to retain enough presence to settle the conflict. We both still have opportunity to follow the path with it.”
The rose considered the motion.
“I agree with this plan; let it be.”
The morning glory’s bud bloomed, and a small whirlwind of petals flew out to enclose the observer. They formed a moving bubble in the void, establishing a space of quantifiableness where existed limits, a new world in the void. From within the petals, a form came into being, though even the petals failed to allow the full establishment of identity. From within, newly formed eyes opened.
“Do Yhe have an identity?” the morning glory asked.
This question, directed at the observer, the reader, and the author, resounded through the space. Cracks broke through the blue, leaving only blackness and a bile of darkness that overtook the petals, the flowers, and the vision.
It was an end of the world, the story; it was an end.
And the Yhe woke up within the trees.
And it was hungry.
Chapter 18
The forest was still and quiet, a stark difference when placed against the status quo of the previous weeks. No more were the quiet chirps and harsh calls of the birds, nor the steady hums of insects, nor the cries of battle between competitors for new territory. The atmosphere was somber now, lying as low as the many carcasses littering the forest floor. Near the tree line surrounding the dungeon, four forest lions appeared.
They were in sorry shape, all injured to varying degrees with blood dripping ever so slowly from their bodies, leaving a trail behind them. The lead forest lion and two of its followers were larger than the fourth one, a male, though the leader was largest still. Her pelt was lined with more scratches, bite marks, and scars compared to rest, a reminder of the battles she had undertaken to protect the others. She failed more than succeeded, however, as the four of them were the last of the forest lions in this part of the forest.
A large dire wolf pack had moved in following the catastrophe with the dungeon, and they had hunted every other predator in the forest. The forest lions had only survived thanks to their strong tails and their use of the trees, at leas
t until the dire wolves began to destroy the trees by ramming them down in an ever-enclosing circle.
Dire wolves were a type of monster twice the size of a normal wolf. They were one of the two first monster types a wolf could transform into after developing a monster core, the other being worg. Unlike their relatives who gained speed and the ability to do magic, dire wolves experienced a great increase in physical strength, endurance, and stamina.
The dire wolves weren’t the only danger, either. The lead forest lion had smelled it on the air, a similar smell that had driven her and the other hunters into the dungeon against their better instincts. The smell had become more pervasive after the dire wolves arrived, and all manner of creatures had fallen under its sway. The forest lions had avoided it by climbing the trees, as the smell never left the ground. However, their prey and the dire wolves had succumbed to it, and they no longer were as they once been.
With the threat of the dire wolves closing in on them, the lead forest lion had led the survivors of its race away through a nest of large spiders. It had lost two lions, but successfully drawn the dire wolf pack into a fight with the spiders. Even now, the two groups were in a fight to the death somewhere behind her. How long it would last was a fool’s dream. The smell would soon take the spiders if the wolves didn’t.
Her main concern, however, was the one male still with her. The smaller forest lion had lost its tail in the escape and was wounded on its back-left leg. She’d kept her attention on him, even as the smell had wafted up slowly around them. She stopped the group and turned to pad its way to the male. It looked up at her, eyes slowly gaining a blood-stained look she recognized from the dire wolves.
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