An Overview on the Lifecycle of Slimes

 ~~~ Royal Archive ~~~

Year 821
Slime-Craft Guild
- Selena Arcadia Eoghan -

Slimes have been around as long as we have been alive. According to the oral traditions of our people, the land was once a vibrant place full of so many different plants and animals a single person could never count them all. The sun rose every morning to a cacophony of bird calls, beasts with hooves and horns ran wild, and the hills were covered in trees as far as the eye could see.

Today the landscape is barren. The grass that we so carefully seed in our cities has all but died out, with only the toughest kinds remaining. Some of the plants and fungi have taken on distinct slime-related qualities that deters the wild slimelins from eating them. Larger slimes used to dominate the landscape, but with our efforts at hunting and destroying their spawning pools the local flora is slowly returning to its natural state.

This overview details the general life cycle of a slime. Normal slimes go through three phases: Slimelin, Aberration, and Pool.

All slimes appear to follow this general pattern. The sheer variety of types makes this hard to classify, as some aberrations will mutate further in their life multiple times. Specific types will be discussed in detail in their own papers.

Young slimes, or Slimelins, are strange creatures that inhabit the world on a small scale. They are found hiding in crevasses, caves, or anywhere that a sufficiently small creature can hide. They are often seen eating bits of plants or fungi, or anything else that they can possibly get their bodies around.

Slimelins are scavengers, bottom feeders, and occasionally predators. They seem to absorb anything that was once living. Some have been seen eating tree roots, dirt, or even small rocks. The less digestible material is left remarkably clean near the place it was found.

Slimelins and insects appear to use each other as sport. Insects will instinctively attack a slimelin on sight. The most successful insects have hard outer armor with spikes or horns that can successfully pierce the bouncy outer skin of their prey. Less successful insects are swallowed whole by the small round creatures, disappearing into the inner gel of the slime over the course of a day.

The body of these creatures are composed of two major parts: A tough outer skin and an inner gel.

The outer skin seems to act both as a protective layer and as a muscle. It defines both the shape of the creature and acts as its first and only line of defense. It contracts or expands as a whole. The skin becomes pliable and hard when removed from the rest of the body.

The inner layer is a gooey substance that somewhat resembles tree sap. It forms a thick gel where food is broken down and energy stored for later.

All slimelins are very resilient. Their bodies are elastic; they can compress, expand, or bend themselves into odd shapes at will. They can absorb blows across their entire body, bouncing around somewhat uncontrollably in the worst case scenario. This lets them roll around, use their entire body as a battering ram, or survive seemingly impossible falls.

When a slimelin absorbs enough food to grow beyond its bounds, it heads back to its home pool to start the next phase of its life. Many young slimes will wander very far from their home

The slimelin throws itself into the pool. The outer skin is shed and re-absorbed by the pool. The gel grows hard and smooth, forming itself into a core. Part of the pool is absorbed and grows into a fully fleshed out abomination. The pool is thought to be similar to the center of an egg, with the slimelin reconstituting itself into a new form at the end.

The process is usually the same but varies in time; on average, it takes a week. Some species have been known to complete the cycle in two days, while others take an entire month to gestate. When the slime re-emerges into the world it has grown new features: a face, an individualized body that has distinct parts, and a much higher intelligence.

The newly formed core of the Slime functions at the brain of the creature, storing memories and controlling the body. If the core is removed the body remains motionless and quickly decomposes into a thick, viscous mucus. The core can survive roughly a month if left alone or exposed to the elements. It can survive much longer if fed, usually through a solution of sugar water. Storing a core inside liquid slime is not recommended as the core will reconstitute as a creature.

New adult slimes will resemble the slime from which their pool was made. They will constantly change to fit their surroundings and seem to possess an intelligence that exceeds that of other known animals. Many slimes will mimic a familiar sight in the environment, such as a plant or another creature. No slimes have been spotted mimicking humans, but we suspect it will only be a matter of time.

The exact behavior of particular types of slimes is beyond the scope of this article; every variant seems to have its own peculiarities and interests in how they see the world. Some seem to embody elements or other ideas, such as water and the wind itself.

At first, we thought that pools were the result of a large amount of corpses piled into a hole. Now we know that it is a sort of end of life stage for the species. It is not yet known what dictates that a slime turn into a pool, but they are never found close to one another. It is currently thought that pools are similar to a bee hive or a bird nest, and that the entire local area will be claimed as a territory of a single slime.

No active slimes have been observed to turn into pools. The only known transition was found by chance in the year 818 after a Tinker had found a particularly large slime midway through its metamorphosis. No slimes were observed in the area for 100 days before or after the pool was found. We suspect that the area had not been claimed yet, but the means of claiming a territory are not yet known.

The half-formed pool was burned 100 days after it was found. No slimes have been sighted in the area since. The only conclusion we can draw is that the area has been marked as a territory somehow. Unlike other burned pools, this area is still devoid of the creatures. More study needs to be done on this phenomenon to understand it better.

This concludes the overview on the life cycle of slimes. More information will be added as our understanding of these creatures grows.