Mimic Slime Story: Ch13 · 12:35am Aug 15th, 2020
\W(his|her|him|hers|man|woman|he)\W
I am learning to hate that regex because it finds the mistakes I make in this story.
The big day is here. Mimic slimes were not built for this level of obligation, but our protagonist is a paragon among its kind now. How will it handle the end of civilization?
Anticipation and hard work. A creature such as I should be immune to both, and yet with the big event coming up, I had been mired in both.
The day after the big meeting, a pair of paladins and the female creature that had killed the old priest arrived and wanted to "chat" with me. During a short conversation, they'd done everything they could to not apologize only to give me a written sheaf of papers signing over their streets to my command for the "foreseeable future."
My accomplice was overjoyed to see the paperwork, and the remaining eleven over the course of the day.
That had led to a week of rushing around to recruit new guards to patrol the streets, and culminated in one of the two remaining cults capitulating and surrendering their streets to us on the penultimate day.
Finally, as my accomplice stirred on its bed, the biggest day of my life dawned. I dressed and left to check in on the watchroom—where all our guard patrols reported in with the events of the night.
"Sir! Reports from all over the city are saying the churches are doing some kind of huge ritual. They've consecrated the city square and their paladins won't let us patrol there." The creature speaking was one of our more reliable followers. It was well-paid and worked for every coin.
"This is exactly as they advised us, Slink. They have a big day planned, and I intend to keep every last one of our people away from it." Picking up the arrest reports of the night, I flicked through them looking for my breakfast. "Any violent crimes?"
"Some idiot merc tried to start a one-man-against-everyone brawl in a bar. It didn't go far. Ah, one earlier. Killed some lass over at the docks. Something about skipping out without paying." It passed me a report that I quickly read.
Reading the report, the guy spent an hour cutting one of the dockside whores. "You should have led with that, Slink. I'll deal with 'em."
The creature nodded to me. It knew full well what I intended to do, but not how. "Yes, sir."
Marching down to the cells, I remembered how hard life was before I came to this city. I couldn't say I was nostalgic for those days, but as I devoured the murderer while it yet lived, I could appreciate how much simpler life was back then.
Charged with new energy—in every sense of the word—I marched back out of the cells, nodded to all the creatures on guard along the way, and felt something odd in the air as I reached the top step. It was like a sense of balance had just tipped.
It was powerful, whatever it was, if even I could feel it. "What was that?" I asked.
My accomplice rushed down the hall toward me. "What just happened? Did you feel that?"
The feel of a balance of nature tipping happened again, but where the first had been the slightest nudge, this was more like a god had just tipped the world sideways. I felt myself lose my form and start to bulge. My accomplice fell to its knees and stared blindly at me.
Somehow, I felt something tip the scales back, but rather than bring them to rest, it was like everything in the world suddenly fell on the other side of them.
Focusing as hard as I could, I pulled my body back into its proper form and reached out to my accomplice to help it stand. "I have no idea what that was, but I hope those priests knew what they were doing."
"Those fools! They broke it!" the scarred creature said. It looked like it had drunk far too much alcohol and was swaying on its feet.
My accomplice turned all its attention on the scarred creature. "What did who break?"
Turning its attention to my accomplice, the scarred creature seemed particularly drunk. "I don't know, but there was—was peace between the two fundamental magic forces, and now that peace is gone. Every single spirit-bound mage is a bomb that will explode at random!"
That got my attention. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I tried to light a candle, and a dozen fire sprites rode the wisp of magic I was using and almost burned me alive. Nature is going crazy. I tried a few more tests and each one resulted in spirits trying to throw nature magic at me." It looked up at me. "This isn't right, Talon. I can't begin to think how mage's with spirits are handling this. Like I said, the spirits are mad."
"I'll go and see the priests. We need to find out what they did so we can try to keep order here." My accomplice shook its head and started stomping toward the entrance of the warren, only to halt with its hand reaching for a door handle. "Are you coming, Talon?"
I simulated taking a deep breath before I nodded my form's head. "Flame, you have command until we return. I want full reports from every quarter, and have someone check on the Glorious Flame cult. I don't want to find out the mage that leads them has gone crazy and exploded after we're rebuilding a city block."
"Y-Yes, sir!"
Our walk to the city center was swift—neither my accomplice nor I planned any sort of dalliance. We marched all the way to the edge of the consecrated ground and waited. One of the paladins, I saw, retreated deeper into the square and returned with the High Priestess of the All Mother.
It stopped just before leaving the glowing, runed circle that spanned the town square. "Is there some discordant note you bear to me on this most glorious of days?" It looked so happy with itself.
This close to it, I could feel power pouring off the creature, pooling around in the magic circle under it and flowing back toward the center of the priests' commune.
"We have some disturbing reports about mages being accosted by hostile spirits and one that told us the balance between mage magic and natural magic is gone. Your excellency has no need to explain, however as your keepers of the peace, it would be wonderful to know what we have to keep it from." Always couching its words so well, my accomplice put the onus back on the priestess to explain what they'd done.
"Of course. Why wouldn't any of us wish to share the wonder the new age will bring? For hundreds of years our gods have toiled to replant their tree. When they came to this world, their tree was dying and needed sustenance—sustenance that this world didn't wish to give up.
"But, with perseverance and help, the tree has adapted and taken root in the soil of this land and, now it grows anew, a new age of wonder can begin!
"For, with the planting of the tree, so then can the gods use its fruit to lift up their faithful to a new purpose, a new calling, and create new gods! Joy in everything shall—"
I was so focused on listening to the priestess' words and trying to make sense of them that I didn't realize something had grabbed it until the thing deformed around the creature.
Thick and black, the fleshy mass that had hit the priestess was nearly five foot around and seemed to grip to the creature without actually coiling around it. Then, with the same speed as it had arrived, the thing pulled and ripped the priestess from its feet and back from whence the thing had come.
"By the All Mother!" one of the priests yelled.
I got to see, when I forced myself to look back, what looked like an immense frog sitting with its huge forelegs on the wall of the city. Its tongue shot out again and grabbed another priest, retracted, and the huge mouth of the creature opened wider to take its next meal.
"That's—that's got to be eighty-feet high if it's an inch!" my accomplice said.
The monster's eyes turned toward my accomplice. Sound. It was attracted to shouting and sound.
I moved to put myself between the huge frog and my accomplice, expecting to have its tongue lash out and grab me next, but the paladins had all extended their swords in the thing's direction and started to chant litanies and fables, charging their blades with magic that lanced out at it.
The most terrifying thing I think I've ever seen was how the beams of holy light barely seemed to annoy the huge frog—though it did get the monster's attention away from my accomplice and myself. "Come on, we have to get back to the warren." I kept my voice low. "Don't speak. It's tracking by sound."
Support me on Patreon or fuel my writing on Ko-Fi!
Join me on Discord. Warning, said chat may contain NSFW material and should be considered adult in nature.
Awesome ponies who are already helping to keep me in keyboards and rum:
A.P.O.N.I.
CadelDdraigDarkkon
Canary in the Coal Mine
Daremo
Dio-Drogynous
Ender Voidwalker
KFS Crimson
Sirion123
Vi Watch
And special thanks to the following, for careful eyes and friendly words:
Lab
A regex in your fimfiction feed?
*squints*
Likelier than you expect.