There were a great deal of prompts waiting on Sean’s attention. Enough that he was pretty sure the flashing color representing his still-minimized prompts had turned a darker shade of red only a moment ago, but even so: 

How often do you get to look through an ancient tome? The geladin almost reached for it, feeling an instinctive connection to whatever lay beneath its monstrous cover. A resonance similar to what he often felt from his reaper’s hand was coming from the book, but it wasn’t resonating with him, exactly. In fact, it felt more like it was reaching past him into–

– Gel’s crimson whip shot back and latched onto the dark brown strap of twisted, curling leather connected to the book’s silver clasp. 

“Ohhohohoo… whatever’s in here, I already know I’m going to love it– I can feel it in my wobble!” The slime cackled, and Sean watched with amusement as his best friend began to ever-so-carefully peel back the strap from its clasp. 

“You were never going to wait to open this, were you?” Sean asked, trying and failing to keep a serious tone to his mental voice. 

“Never.” The slime admitted gleefully. “I mean, come on. Can you feel that? This book is speaking to me, Sean! It’s speaking my language. Or trying to, at least. It says: “Open me Gel, and seize unlimited power!”’. 

“Unlimited power seems to be having some trouble there.” The geladin noted as Gel’s crimson whip began to strain. “Need a hand?”

“No no, I’ve got this. Just need a little more–” With a groaning strain of heavy effort, Gel wrenched the clasp open. 

Sean could have sworn he saw a wisp of purplish dust rise up from where the silver had met the leather, but what fell to the counter was only regular ol’ dust so he ignored it. Gel heaved the cover open onto the counter where it landed with a weighty thud and a gust of air that sounded suspiciously like a cough. A thick cloud of silver dust somehow sealed within billowed out from within the ancient tome at the same time. Both Sean and Gel waved the cloud away, with the former feeling grateful for the fact that he didn’t have to breathe any ‘suddenly appearing’ dust into his non-existent lungs. 

“Finally! Oh-ho-ho yes, its hidden knowledge will be mine!” Gel exclaimed as the pair of them leaned forward with unrestrained interest. The slime didn’t wait for the air to clear, instead shooting an eyeball-holding whip into the cloud immediately for an up-close view. The air in the shop around them grew suddenly still, as if the world itself was waiting to see what would happen next.

“What is it?” Sean asked, still waving dust away. His burning orbs were impervious to being affected by the annoying silver particles, but that didn’t mean he could see through them. “What’s it say?”

A cry of confused outrage was his only response, and Sean was beginning to feel a little worried before the slime explained.

“It’s blank!” There came the sound of thick pages flipping rapidly, and Gel’s frustration was evident. “All of them! Every. Single. One! Who writes a blank book!?” 

The dust finally dispersed enough for Sean to see clearly, and he stared down at what looked like faded leather pages of varying thickness, each one bordered by a silver and black trim. There seemed to be far more of them than should have fit in between the covers, but that wasn’t what grabbed his attention right away. 

“Well, that was… anti-climactic.” Sean said, wondering if they were perhaps going to get a prompt for it. At least it didn’t tell me I’m forbidden to look upon it. Master See-Fu would not be pleased. 

“I don’t… I don’t understand.” Gel said finally. “Help me understand, here.”

“Maybe whoever owned it was just some crazy old turtle after all?” Sean joked, but then realized his friend had never seen Kung-Fu Mamba and was unlikely to get the reference. “Maybe the guy we ate likes to play elaborate jokes on his customers? ‘Ha-ha’ your ancient magic book was blank?”

“No, that can’t be it. His memories haven’t sunk in yet, but I do have a taste for his personality and that doesn’t feel right.” Gel’s voice sounded wandering suddenly, like the slime was searching for something despite not moving. “He wasn’t that type of person. Secretive, sure. Clever, too. And paranoid. Definitely paranoid.” 

“Uh-huhh…” Sean uh-huh’d. “A taste for his… personality.” 

When the slime didn’t explain, seemingly lost in his own thoughts, Sean mentally shrugged and just continued on. 

“Well, there’s a ton of pages here. Are you sure all of them are blank?” 

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out!” Gel harrumphed, and the slime began doing just that, flipping through each individual page and examining them all with dogged determination. 

As the geladin watched, it looked like the turned leather pages were compressing themselves into the cover to preserve space as each new page was revealed. After watching the first dozen or so, with new pages seeming to almost grow out of the right side of the book as the slime went, the geladin got the distinct feeling that this process was going to take awhile. The book, whatever it was, did not seem to be a short one.

“Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it.” Sean said, deciding now would be the perfect time to look through some of the prompts. Who knows, maybe there’ll be one in here about the book. 

The first one was, quite obviously, not about the book. It was the prompt that heralded in the latest of their evolutions, one that Sean had grown to expect and was rather looking forward to. 

A vortex of the deepest void flush with streaks of brilliant vermillion temporarily swallowed his vision, accompanied by a chorus of a thousand dying gasps and death rattles. The tandem voices Sean had only heard a few times before but could never possibly mistake followed as they read his prompt to him at a volume that shuttered and silenced all other sounds. 

Like two opposing eternities, one spoke with a whispered, measured patience that filled him with equal parts fear and reverence, while the other cackled with immeasurable glee and incalculable rage. 

Hark and rejoice, waking agent of Death and Chaos! You have answered the calling to stride down our intersecting paths along your journey of devastation, and in so doing rise as our ever-zealous Geladin! Enjoy the benefits of your new form and may our dual blessings invigorate your way, wherever you choose to travel… 

As with each time Sean heard these voices, a bone-deep chill penetrated to every square inch of his form as the message was read to him and it disappeared the very second they were done. Unlike before however, the chill felt paradoxically welcoming. Encouraging, even. As if someone had lit a warm hearth inside his chest, only it emanated the cool, refreshing surety of a mausoleum instead. 

Feels kind of like what you’d think blue fire would feel like. Or at least, that was his first impression. Does that mean I’m filled with unholy fire now?

Sean’s musings were interrupted as the expected follow-up prompt appeared. This one held the same coloring as the previous, but had never been read to him– which the geladin was perfectly fine with. He liked reading this one. 

Direct Bonuses Received: +3 to Might and Toughness. +2 to Cognition and Adaptation.

Indirect Bonuses Received: 

• Geladins are both the protector and the protected. Thanks to their intrinsically symbiotic nature with the slimes that form their other half, the slime armor that covers their body uses the better of the toughness attributes of either monster. 

• Gift of Death 

• Gift of Chaos 

Sean’s jaw dropped open at the very first line. He had just gotten a whopping ten attribute points all at once! Sweet mother of all that is merciful, that is– I mean…  

The fact that their slime armor used his toughness attribute instead of Gel’s was a welcome relief, as that was honestly something Sean had been worried about. His own toughness far outstripped the slime’s own, and he might have had to go out to find actual armor if they had had to rely on Gel’s own innate resilience to protect them. A conversation he had been hoping to never have, as there was no possible way that idea would have gone over well with his fashion-conscious friend. 

Why can’t I see more information about these ‘gifts’, though? Sean wondered. They’re listed as indirect bonuses, but the rest is just blank. Examining them does nothing.

Figuring those were probably the follow-up prompts, Sean gave a mental shrug and went to the next one– only to immediately begin grinding his teeth at its contents. 

The next prompt was entirely unadorned, with no sudden sounds accompanying it and no colors to speak of… and yet in some ways it inspired more fear and outrage than any other. 

As a tier three summoned creature, your presence in this world now requires greater infusions of mana to maintain. Without such expenditures, your body will wither to dust. Note: As a symbiotic creature, this will also result in the death of your symbiote. 

New mana upkeep cost: 4 per 1.5 hours. 

Four. FOUR?! Sean all-but shouted mentally at the prompt in front of him. How in the endless hells am I supposed to get four fucking mana every ninenty goddamn minutes!? 

The last time he had jumped a ‘tier’, his upkeep cost had only gone up a single point: from one to two. Now it seemed like the universe had decided that doubling down again was the way to go. 

I’ve only got eight, no– Sean hurriedly pulled up his status page to compare his new numbers. Nine. I’ve got a maximum mana pool of nine, and it wants four! Four! What in the– 

– a shiver passed up his spine, forcibly suppressing Sean’s tirade of cursing and rising emotions. With the suppression came calm, and with it, the geladin resigned himself to doing some quick math. According to his status, he regenerated 7.5 mana every six hours. Assuming a 24 hour day, that meant his body would naturally recover 30 points all by itself. 

Which means my mana regen will cover just shy of half of what I need, assuming I use every point of it as it comes in and none is wasted. Sean felt a second shiver rise up his spine as his inner irritation and turmoil threatened to well up again. Because now I’m going to need sixty-four mana every… single… day. 

Fuck. Sean thought, putting a hand on his skull and running it through his non-existent hair. The true total he ‘needed’, less his natural regen, was actually 34, but still. We are going to have to eat a lot of meat. Or monsters. People? How am I supposed to cook that much food? Will we even have time for it? 

That was when Sean remembered the gift Saren had given them right before they had evolved. A golden locket, suspended on a chain of blueish-purple metal that the owlen had claimed contained a ‘great amount’ of meat. Supposedly, the locket held all of the rare, expensive, and hard-to-acquire meats Gel had bargained with the survivors of the ant colony for– a fact that the slime had been overjoyed to hear. Doubly so when Saren had told them the locket not only contained all that meat, but also preserved it. Spoilage was all but impossible with it, apparently. 

For his part, after hearing the lengthy description and activation/deactivation method, Sean had mentally equated the item to this world’s version of a ‘bag of meat holding’. Gel had, of course, promptly renamed it to ‘the meat locket’ and that had been that. 

“Is it still–?” Sean meant to keep his thoughts to himself, but in his haste to see if they still had the meat locket he accidentally sent them to Gel as his hands rushed his own throat. 

“Don’t worry, we still have it.” Gel said absently, clearly feeling Sean’s emotions through their bond. Then the slime’s voice brightened. “Actually, you’re going to love what I’ve done with it!” 

Relief flooded the geladin as boney fingers found delicate metal chainwork. He hadn’t doubted Gel’s words, but he also hadn’t thought to look for it earlier when they were preparing their disguise.

“What’d you do with it?” Sean asked, curiously. The distraction from his ever-increasing mana woes a welcome one. 

“I was stuffing everything you didn’t want to stop to eat in there.” Gel said brightly, pausing his page-flipping to turn a proud whip-eye to meet Sean’s burning orbs. “It was actually more difficult than it sounds activating the locket and pulling chunks and limbs and chunks of limbs in there while keeping you distracted, so you can thank me for it later when you have even more great ingredients to cook for us with. Or you can thank me now. I actually wouldn’t mind both.” 

“How much did you get?” 

“A few dozen?” Gel said, sounding uncharacteristically unsure. “I had to eat whatever I couldn’t toss in there, but I would stake our next meal on there being at least two dozen meals’ worth in there. We killed a lot of stuff in those sewers. Now, granted, most of those meals aren’t going to all be from the same parts, but I’m not going to complain about that and I know you won’t so…” 

“Brilliant.” Sean said, and in truth it was. Gel had been thinking ahead while he had been wilding it out, and that forethought was now going to give them some metaphorical breathing room. The geladin was sure his friend could feel his gratitude radiating through their bond, so he simply said: “Thanks for that. Seriously.”

“Yup! I figure you’re in charge of cooking everything, so my job is to get you as much to work with as possible.” 

“So you can eat as much as possible?” Sean guessed. 

“See? This is why we’re friends. You know me so well!” Gel said, resuming his page-flipping once more. “Now there has to be some kind of writing somewhere. There’s over a hundred pages in here, and they’re all blank! How could–” 

Sean left the slime to his task, returning his attention inward once more. With their ‘meat locket’ presumably full to bursting– though Saren had never been clear on exactly how much it could actually hold– he was feeling much better about the increase to his upkeep. It felt more manageable. Especially knowing they were carrying around a cooler full of potential mana he could dip into if they needed it. 

Just have to keep on top of it, and figure out if this shop has an employee kitchen hidden around here somewhere. Sean made a mental note to go check for one once they were done with the book. If they don’t, I’m sure we’ll figure something else out. Maybe we can find a cooking guild or something. 

Now that was an interesting idea. Sean allowed himself a moment of daydreaming at all the potential wonders a cooking guild might have for them, before getting back on track. He had been going through his post-evolution prompts, and that last one had completely derailed him. 

Next one should be the gifts, I think. Sean thought, pulling up the next one and finding out that his guess had been right on the mark. 

A voice like endless shadow spoke with the composure of ages as Sean’s vision faded entirely away for what felt like the second time in as many minutes. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say the world faded away, and Sean found himself in a realm of infinite black. One in which not even his burning orbs could discern any meaningful distance, feature, or occupant. 

Despite this, the geladin was unafraid. Because he knew without a doubt, felt in the marrow of his very bones, like he was finally, blissfully home. Three daises made of shadows that were somehow darker than the rest, and thus discernible in this place, slowly rose out of whatever counted as the floor in this endless expanse.

Claim your gift, agent mine. The voice said, somehow nowhere and everywhere at once. You may have only one, but the choice is yours. Now…

Wisps of silver-grey began to coalesce atop each of the daises, roiling around in spheres at first before finally beginning to take shape. 

Choose.