Drip-Fed Pt. 08

It was a process, so tiny and far in the background, that Apexus had never noticed it before. He had just found out that his core grew or shrunk with him, not giving that any further thought. It hadn't come with a lot of changes, the tinier he was, the harder it was to execute more detailed motor functions. He had thusly just assumed the size came with more 'thought-power' so to speak.

That it was also his own equivalent of a fat deposit had not sprung to mind.

It was a wonderful revelation to not be dead, but Apexus didn't really have any idea what to do with that knowledge. Not as long as whoever was holding that cloth kept swiping away the little slime that formed off the core.

Eventually, however, Apexus was put down somewhere. No more washing cloth. Just time alone. The core shrunk and the slime could finally sense again. There was air above him and something soft and fuzzy below. A cushion, presumably.

As the core shrunk, hunger flared up more and more intensely. Energy reserves had been burned and the little amount of water in the surroundings made Apexus feel like he was closer to a block of gelatine than liquid slime. It came to him that this state of survival was more borrowed time than an actual second chance. If he didn't find food and water, the latter much more urgently, any time soon, that would be it.

Another, immediate problem presented itself. When Apexus' core had shrunk from the size of a clenched fist to that of a big marble, the regeneration attempted to also restore his permanent Growths. Apexus was highly certain he had no energy to restore all of them, even in an adequately miniaturized state, in his still shrinking nucleus.

So, he had to spent all of his mental capacity, struggling against hunger and thirst, on figuring out how to guide that process. It was a process with mediocre results. The best case would have been to completely control the rate of slime regeneration and which of his Growths regrew completely in which order. Much like a humanoid couldn't control their sweat glands and only had limited control over their heartrate, however, Apexus' efforts were rewarded only with the prioritized regeneration of his eyes.

A highly viscous slime began exploring his surroundings with immensely slow, crawling movements. A being that had been about two metres long, reduced to the size of a thumb. It took almost a minute just to reach the edge of the glass case that was surrounding the podium. Half grown; flightless wings lay still on the blue creatures back as he looked beyond the translucent barrier.

There was a bunch of stuff elsewhere, displayed under their own glass, much of it edible, as Apexus reckoned. However, he couldn't even pass this one case. The glass was inedible and even if he somehow managed to get through the cushion, acid doing no good against things that may have been organic and nature, but had clearly been dead for a while, and his teeth being just short, dull stubs right now, there was hard stone underneath.

Hopeless, Apexus trailed the outside of his confinement. If it came to the worst, he would have to wait, hiding as best he could and wait for someone to check on this room. He wasn't quite clear what this was, having all of these powerful or tasty things standing around unused or uneaten alienated him, but everything was clean so there had to be people checking every now and again.

That plan was unneeded, however, as it seemed that luck was on Apexus' side for one small thing. There was a crack in one side of the case. Not particularly large, but certainly large enough for a semi-liquid creature with only one truly solid organ to fit through.

From there, Apexus crawled down the side of the podium. If there was one advantage to being this small again, it was being light enough to not care about slants and the pull of gravity. Afterwards, Apexus was presented with a gamble. To try and search for a way out or for a crack in one of the many food deposits. Not wanting to push his luck, and not seeing anything that looked like it contained a whole lot of water around, the slime decided the latter.

Although it may have been more accurate that his instincts decided at this point. The need for sustenance was slowly overwhelming whatever reason he possessed. He crawled over the ground, feeling the slightest draft of air and following it towards a door. Squeezed his way down under a frame. His halfway functional ears picked up a conversation, the grumbling sounds of humanoid males exchanging words. More importantly, he heard the quiet sound he was all too accustomed to. The sloshing of water.

His eyes quickly localized the source. A container for liquids that humanoids used. A wooden mug. Two of them, to be exact, standing on table a terrible distance away for the slow and weakened slime.

Instincts dictated the need, suppressed all thoughts of morality or doubts and forced the active mind to create a plan to get access to that water. Survival, only survival matters right now. Anything else was a luxury for the survivor. The guards were distracted playing cards. Even if they weren't, missing Apexus wouldn't have been too odd. Parts of his mass were now falling off as the nucleus ran so low on energy that it was unable to control even the minimal amount of slime. Apexus had been reduced to a fingernail, by the time he positioned himself on the ceiling above the table.

Then, in a manoeuvre that would decide life or death, he dropped. If he missed, that was it. If he got noticed, that was it. That not a single thought about that desperation entered his deprived mind was just another sign of how close to starvation he was.

Plop.

Making an almost unnoticeable sound, he landed in the water. Immediately, his mind was hit by a wave of clarity. The most immediate urge had been quelled. It wasn't enough. He needed to recover at least some mass. There was no middle choice, he had to go through with the plan his amoral survival instinct had birthed.

He almost wished that he hadn't gotten enough reason back to realize that he was about to kill a man. All he had to do was wait. Eventually, the mug full of water was raised, lips pushed against the round edge and then, the whole thing was slanted. With a torrent like a waterfall, Apexus was washed down into the man's throat.

Priming his teeth, Apexus let himself be guided entirely by his tremor sense. He hit a wall, squishy tissue, the back of the man's throat, and held on with teeth and slime as tightly as he could. Immediately, the body surrounding him began to quiver and convulse, sensing some unwanted intrusion into its system. Powerful currents of air blew over Apexus, almost dislodging him and sending him flying back out the way he came.

Pressing himself tightly down, Apexus remained anchored like a tic. Time passed, the slime only wanting to remain undetected for the moment. It was best to wait things out for a little while, let more water come his way to leech off and give the guard time to retreat to their own room for the night. As far as Apexus had been told, people tended to be alone in those moments.

'I am about to commit a murder,' the slime had known perfectly well. He hadn't wanted to do it. If he didn't, however, he was absolutely certain to die. The humanoids around here had not given him any indication that they would ever see him as anything other than a monster to be hunted. That didn't make the act any easier for the slime, as he very slowly began to eat.

Drop by drop of blood at first. Then piece of miniscule piece of flesh, Apexus carved out and devoured. It must have taken hours. With every piece consumed, the slime grew a bit larger, allowing him to eat quicker. He blocked the windpipe to prevent his victim from screaming, not wanting to alarm those on the outside anytime soon.

It was a terrible fight to the death. Not in the sense of difficulty. All Apexus had to do was to remain in the way. Just in the length of time it took for the guard to suffocate. Apexus hated all of this. The only thing he would hate more, however, would be to die, to end his own being and leave behind a suffering Aclysia and a Reysha whose reactions he still couldn't gauge, but really wanted to learn to.

He wasn't yet done with this world.

With his unwilling host killed, Apexus made sure his surroundings were safe by taking an unpleasant peek out of the mouth. They were in a bed chamber of some sorts. Apexus didn't need to know a lot more. He was still famished and his instincts urged to finish what he had. Over the course of the night, Apexus devoured the man. Every last bit of him, from the hairs to the toes, nothing remained.

And his reward was another permanent Growth. Humanoids were, doubtlessly, the apex predator of the leaf, so that wasn't too surprising. It was a hollow victory, however, and one sacrificed to necessity a few moments later as Apexus searched for his way out and found it in a suit of armour nearby. The complete metal casing would be perfect to walk unseen, but the liquid body of Apexus couldn't properly carry it. Its design didn't go along with a boneless, limbless creature.

The bones that Apexus could get as a normal Growth would be the human average. Crawling into the armour, still on the stand, the slime realized that he wouldn't be able to properly move in this one, as it was a custom fit. Still, he would have tried it, if a voice at the door hadn't startled him.

"Dude, get up!"

There were more words, but Apexus missed him over the attempt to keep his balance. Something that ultimately failed, as the new bones were a bunch of static, jointed things in a body that had been previously internally fluid. He fell over, the armour loudly rustling even with him in it.

"Are you okay?" the voice from the outside echoed genuine concern, only reinforcing the guilt Apexus felt for what he had to do. "Hello, are you there or do I need to break open this door and drag you to the healers?"

"...Yes," Apexus answered, hoping his voice wouldn't be too far removed from whoever he had eaten.

A relieved joke came back, "Yes you're back or yes you need me to break in?"

"Former," Apexus answered quickly and decided quickly to just acquire the bones permanently. He needed to get out of here and he couldn't be caught as what he was before he got somewhere from where he could fly away. Armour scraped over the floor as bones lengthened according to Apexus' will and the slime tried to get up. It was easier now, the bones could carry the distributed weight quite well. Without muscles and with his much squishier body, it still wasn't optimal, but Apexus could move in it now.

"Dude, you can just let me in, I'll help you," the friendly guard offered. "If the cap' asks, we both overslept."

"Thanks, but not needed," the slime got up with slow movements. He made sure every bit of his true body was hidden under metal, all ahead that the visor was down. Then he opened the door. "I... re- I AM ready for guarding... friend."

'Aclysia,' that was Apexus first thought when he broke out of the confines of the city. 'Where could you be? Reysha, where did they take you?' Those thoughts were delayed by the immediate need for more food. He was still a good bit away from his former size, quite hungry and could go for more water.

Obviously, he couldn't land anywhere close to the city. For all he knew, the Hunter was still around. Not that the normal city guard wouldn't be able to end him, if given the opportunity. He considered the cliffside cave, but that was too close for comfort. Although he had gotten out of the city, he was still a clearly visible spot in the sky. He would best land somewhere in the vast forest. There was enough food and water there.

Apexus came across a small pond eventually, a couple of animals, predominantly cats and deer, sipping from the water on this hot day. The former were too nimble and compact a target, so Apexus picked his prey from the deer. One healthy, large looking male with large antlers was currently standing with its head down. Ideal conditions for a dive.

The impact of the slime alone was devastating. The full, highly accelerated mass of Apexus rammed into the upper back of the deer, causing its front legs to give and the head of the overwhelmed creature to sink under the shallow water. Thusly brought into an awkward position, the struggles of the animal were diminished in their effectiveness.

That wasn't to say, however, that they weren't wild.

The deer was throwing around in sudden and erratic movements. A larger Apexus would have been able to rely on his weight alone to make these movements entirely useless, but right now it could have still succeeded in throwing him off. The slime had already anticipated this, however, and used his new bones in the same manner that he had used clam shells in the past. In a sort of hug, the arm and leg bones of his humanoid skeleton spread around as much of the deer as they could reach and pressed. At the same time, Apexus fixated himself with a weak bite at the neck.

His prey was forcefully exhausted, just as its back progressively dissolved as more and more of the slime spread over it. Eventually, the large animal collapsed, half of it landing in the water, and died, leaving Apexus to enjoy the rest of his meal. The other animals around the pond had run away, searching for a more secure watering hole.

That meal and plenty of liquid later, Apexus felt at least largely restored. He had escaped from death's grasp. 'What now?' he thought as he looked at his reflection in the still pond. Back looked a pretty odd creature.

Blue fox ears sat on top of a human skull, a layer of slime separating and connecting both of them. Eyes of a cyan colour had found their place in the sockets meant for the humanoid counterpart. Teeth, sharper than normal but overall quite human, sat along the jaw, the speech plate inside the mouth as Apexus had feared it would make odd noises if it rubbed against the inside of the armour.

His torso looked pretty normal, all things considered. Sure, the bones visible through the translucent, dark blue slime was unnatural, but from the dimensions, from the ribcage over the spine down to the hips, looked all around average. Apexus realized that his core was localized in that boneless middle where humanoids, and a bunch of other animals really, kept the majority of their internal organs.

'Not a good place for that,' Apexus thought, shifting on the excess mass that gathered around his folded legs like a blob and raised one of his arms to test the new bones more accurately. Formerly, his elliptic shape had come from all parts of his body mass being most effective at a roughly equal distance from the core, combined with the dictate of gravity. Now, despite being stretched into several directions, and quite asymmetrical at that, he didn't feel any of that unpleasant sense he got when changing out of the base shape.

Apexus made a fist, slowly. Muscles and sinews were still necessary to make the skeleton work optimally, designed to pull parts of the body at increased rates, but he could move as it was. He opened the palm again, looking at the slime that spread between the different fingers like webbing. That had, albeit much lesser, that same feeling of long-clenched muscles. When he stopped holding it, the webbing flowed back and the slime surrounded the segments of the finger bones.

It seemed the skeleton acted as an extension of his core in some ways. Slime could rest around it without a problem. Which, combined with the fact that this was a humanoid Apexus had permanently acquired, opened a whole lot of possibilities. He could, after all, rearrange the size and length of the individual bones and, in a more limited capacity, the place.

It was impossible to grow a third leg, a tail or any other extra limb, just as it was impossible to exchange the places of the upper thigh's bone with the lower one. However, things like putting the shoulders down to the hips were, while wholly ineffective, entirely possible.

Apexus stared at his reflection for a few moments. It would take time to figure out all of the things he could do now. Time he wasn't quite sure he wanted to invest. He desperately wanted to find out what happened with Reysha and Aclysia. 'What if I find them and I am just as helpless as before though?' he caught himself thinking.

That was, irrefutably, a concern he needed to wrestle with. Aclysia was an angel, so she was probably in the custody of the Church. The exact implications of that were something that Apexus had no idea about. Reysha, on the other hand, was likely in some sort of prison. Neither were places that the slime could just waltz into and expect to have any chance of success in getting his beloved party members out.

It was, therefore, entirely necessary to get as strong as he realistically could right now.

What didn't help was that Apexus had no idea how long he had been in his stasis. It could have been a few hours, days or weeks for all he knew. Maybe even months or years. He doubted it was too long, the core shrinking had never been something that had taken too long to occur, but he had no real precedent to reference this with.

They may have been dead already.

'Should have asked the other guard before getting unmasked,' Apexus scolded himself. In the moment, he hadn't thought about it, the survival instincts, guilt and panic that his voice may give him away at any second had been at the front of his core. Hindsight wouldn't get him anywhere though.

He made up his mind after a few more moments. For the moment, he was going to assume that both of the girls were still alive and somewhere on the leaf. Which meant his first priority had to be to prop himself up.

He concentrated on his insides. The first act was to move his nucleus to a more secure position. The inside of the head, maybe? It was a pretty thick construction, even better, it protected from basically all directions.

It was also the most obvious weak point, shared amongst all humanoids and most animals. It was where his ears and eyes also where. Maybe putting all the organs in one bone basket wasn't the smartest thing. Limbs were obviously out. That only left the torso. Granted, that was also a common weak spot, but was a lot broader and, after Apexus caused the ribs to expand and meld together into an almost solid wall of bone, moved his nucleus to sit a bit behind the sternum. There, it couldn't be seen from almost all angles and was pretty safe from attacks. Unlike other animals, he had no need for a highly flexible ribcage, mostly because he didn't have lungs that expanded underneath.

With that out of the way, there were a number of details to work out. First of all was the issue with the teeth. So far, he hadn't had the time to attach them to his jaw, but it was theoretically possible. Apexus hadn't combined two Growths before, only arranged their proper existence next to each other.

It came as a pleasant surprise when the process was as natural as moving an arm. A detailed, guiding thought where which teeth was supposed to go, and their bases attached to the empty jawbones like swords into sheathes. Testing, Apexus opened his makeshift mouth. That was also a lot easier now. With all the bone surrounding that area, creating a rift in the surface that exposed the teeth was pretty easy. The humanoid head shape wasn't optimal for biting, sadly, with its flat face and all that, but it was good enough.

To make sure he understood everything correctly, Apexus tried to dislodge his teeth again. If combining two Growths in such a manner was a permanent thing, he would need to know that in the future. It turned out that he could indeed separate permanent Growths again after having combined them. Although that endeavour left him quite hungry again. The amount of energy this internal managing consumed, despite the little amount of biomass being used, was insane.