Using some fallen sticks and a tiny drop of Darkfire mud, Arz formed a fire for cooking the horrific creature the Jumthins brought him. Wildil watched from a distance while Arz roasted the whole creature over the fire.
“I know people with more experience skin the animals and uh, gut them and all that.” The hair of the squirrel-like creature burst into flames, quickly darkening into what looked like charcoal. “That’s probably why.”
“You have not done this before?”
“Not exactly this. I’ve made food. We call that cooking. I just don’t usually catch it myself.”
“You didn’t catch this one.”
Arz rotated the stick, trying his best to keep the food from fully erupting in flames. “I guess you’re right.”
By the time Arz pulled the creature off the end of the stick, it looked like anything other than appetizing. Luckily, the flesh fell off the bone easily. Unluckily, it tasted like a skunk smells.
With how overwhelming his hunger had become, Arz felt like he could choke down just about any food. There was a stream of freshwater nearby, and that made Arz wonder why the slimes didn’t just catch a fish.
“You ever fish?” Arz asked.
“What?”
“Oh, nevermind.”
Wildil stayed silent until Arz finished eating. The slime seemed infinitely patient, which did give the impression of a long, slow lifespan.
“Why did we come here?” Arz asked. He put out the fire and collected the small ash-filled Darkfire oil back into the vial.
“Xylaphus is the closest Jumthin colony to Gargaxia.”
“But why not test me there?”
Wildil started to head back to the ship without waiting for Arz to catch up. He hurried to catch up, keeping his hands covering his overfilled pockets. They were filled with new flowers and leaves, plus some bark, grass, and dirt. Perhaps it was the same, or very similar to those plants on Earth. But there was only one way to tell.
“His Majesty King Gumathra requested we test you where there is true gravity and life, rather than aboard the artificial gravity of the Gargaxia Station. Slimes move differently in space than on land.”
“I could tell.”
“Guard Fifty Six was instructed to move slowly to see how you would react.”
Arz stuffed a flower back into his pocket as it almost fell out, causing a few petals to drift slowly to the floor. “I had a bad feeling that might be the case.”
Wildil immediately scooted up the ramp into the ship. Arz hovered near the entrance for a moment, looking at Lord Yuther’s wooden fortress.
“You cannot go inside,” Wildil said.
“Another time.” Arz climbed the ramp and sat on the floor with his back against the wall. A silent guard stood nearby. Arz wondered what its number was, but he assumed the guard wouldn’t respond.
“How long does it take to get to Jumtha?” Arz wrote the brief adventure of Xylaphus into his notebook, making sure to exclude the guard going easy on him.
“Fifteen hours,” Wildil said, taking his position just behind the slimes controlling the ship.
“Jumthin hours?” Arz asked sarcastically.
“There is no other kind.”
“Hm.” Arz wrote Jumthin Hours down on his list of his enemies, just to ensure he never forgot. “Does King, uh, Something know I’m coming?”
“His Majesty King Gumathra.”
“Yes, that one.” Arz hurriedly wrote the name down, knowing he was going to forget. It was a long name and there were so many more important things to remember.
“His Majesty is aware you are accompanying me. This journey will only give you a brief time to venture into the swamps of Jumtha.”
“All I need is a brief time.” There were certainly different biomes across Jumtha, but Arz wouldn’t have time to explore everything. Just because he had a small meal didn’t mean he was ready to go on such a grand adventure. Home still called to him.
And Sal.
Sal needed food. Well, if he was still alive. How long could eels go without food?
Arz wrote Research eels into his notebook as he realized how little he actually knew. It wasn’t every day someone offered to sell an electric eel. Of course he took that deal immediately.
Arz relaxed to the calm rumble of the ship as they left Xylaphus. The ship lurched as white lines appeared and blurred through the front window. Before long, the ship steadied and hummed as space zipped past.
“Do you have a chance to talk?” Arz asked.
Wildil left his station and scooted over until he rested in front of Arz. “Only if it is scientific.”
“I believe it is.”
“Go ahead. I will answer what I can.”
Arz tapped his pen against the notebook and squinted as if he was examining the pile of slime. “That mixture you made me drink.”
“Was that a question?” Wildil asked.
“What? No. I was trying to figure out how to phrase the question.”
“You don’t do that before you talk?”
Arz pressed his lips together and fought the urge to write Wildil into his list of enemies. The hum of the ship made him sleepy again, though Arz didn’t think he was actually tired. If anything, he was feeling better than he had since first arriving on Doumenus.
“If I was going to replicate the mixture that helped me understand your language, what do I need to gather?”
“Jumthin slime, electricity, gas and vines from the swamps of Jumtha, and most importantly, the DNA of the creature it is being used on.”
Stolen novel; please report.
- Jumthin Slime - As far as I understand this, it is what they are made of. Would that still be important if I was going to try to understand the robots from Doumenus?
- Electricity - This was provided in the form of ground up sparkstones the first time. I think this is the smartest form, as far as I am currently aware, to drink electricity.
- Gas and Vines from the swamps of Jumtha - This fully explains the smell and taste. Horrible. I know nothing about these.
- DNA of the creature it is being used on - I assume drinking it is what provides the DNA. But, if I want to understand a robot - a non-living creature who cannot drink the mixture - I will need to reverse this. If I can find DNA from their creators, perhaps I can drink the potion and gain an understanding of them.
Arz put his pen down and looked back at Widil, who had yet to move. “These Ricarun—”
“Are extinct. What you saw were only robots.”
“Yes,” Arz said. “We went over this a while ago.”
Wildil stayed silent. Arz expected some confirmation or an apology or something. But instead, the scientist simply waited.
“Is there any part of the Ricarun in those robots?”
“AZ-32s,” Wildil said.
The guard nearby shivered, sending ripples all the way through his slime body.
“No,” Wildil continued. “AZ-32s are entirely robotic. It is impossible to understand their language through our method.”
“Hypothetically, if I found some of their DNA, could I make it work where I drank it?”
Wildil pondered the idea silently. Arz rested his head against the hull of the ship and watched out the window. White zipped by so fast that nothing was actually visible. Seeing what was out there would certainly blow his mind, but he couldn’t complain about moving quickly.
If his time-keeping skills were as good as he thought, then Arz had been gone for longer than ever before, except perhaps during his first journey to Glacirith. He grimaced thinking of the name, thinking of the realm. The Storm Lands still felt like a more fitting name, but perhaps it was better to call it by its real name.
“There is a faint possibility it could work. There were many trials before we finally succeeded in our method, and that was only to understand the Fruncha.”
“The who?”
“If you succeed, will you share your experience with us?”
Arz nodded, still wondering who the Fruncha were. “It would be an honor to share with another scientist.” A quick look at his notes reminded Arz of another important question. “How do I get Jumthin slime?”
The nearby guard shifted away as if he was prey under Arz’s predator gaze.
“From a Jumthin,” Wildil said very matter-of-factly.
“If I remember right, you said it’s usually harvested from young Jumthins.”
“Their slime is denser, richer, and generally better flavored.”
Arz wrote down the word Flavor beside his other notes, making sure to bold a question mark at the end.
“Are Jumthins cannibals?” Arz asked.
“I am unfamiliar with this term.”
“It means to eat your own kind.” Arz scowled. The Jumthins had seemed plenty pleasant up until now, and Wildil’s answer could quickly change that.
“Only for scientific purposes.”
Arz’s scowl deepened.
“You seem upset,” Wildil said.
“I, uh, I don’t know. When you say scientific, do you mean like you do for this mixture or like you devour an entire young Jumthin just to see what happens?”
“The mixture. It is a crime to kill a fellow Jumthin.” Wildil’s high-pitched voice went even higher. “I have never been accused of something so horrific.”
“Accuse is a strong word,” Arz said, letting his words slowly drift off. Getting on the bad side of the slimes was a bad idea, especially while in a ship in space surrounded by only slimes. “What is the punishment for killing a Jumthin?”
“The lord of the area will decide. Historically, it has been a trip to the boiler.”
The nearby guard shivered again.
“To heat water?” Arz asked. His face was scrunched in confusion, but quickly shifted to a scowl again. “Oh, wait. I get it. Are crimes common in Jumtha?”
“There has not been a Jumthin killed in centuries.”
Arz’s eyes widened. “Seriously? You mean by another Jumthin or in general?”
“In general,” Wildil said. Arz imagined that if Wildil had a torso, his chest would be puffed out in pride.
“That’s incredible. I don’t think humans go a day without killing each other.” Arz thought of Bralincote, which was widely considered one of the gems of the northern hemisphere. Even with the Guild of Wizards as the leader, it was still a cultural and scientific paradise for many. And still, there were stabbings in the street or the stray criminal who managed to get a musket.
“Are humans so uncivilized?” Wildil asked.
Arz thought about his answer, turning it over in his head a few times. It could be yes, or it could be that the Jumthins just wouldn’t understand the human experience. Was it uncivilized or was it just a different nature?
“Have you ever been so angry that you feel like you could kill someone?” Arz asked.
“Jumthins rarely feel anger. We are familiar with the emotion, but most Jumthins have never experienced it themselves. Has any slime here been angry?”
Every slime aboard the ship denied ever feeling angry.
“Humans, uh, get angry easily. And frequently.” Arz sighed. It was difficult to admit one’s own faults, especially to a bunch of blobs of slime without faces. Still, it felt good to even think about admitting what bothered him so often. “I have been angry almost constantly for months. Human months. I’ve been so angry I could kill.” He looked right at Wildil, right where it seemed like there would be eyes if slimes had them. “So angry that I’ve thought about killing the people who let my family burn. It’s not that I’m angry enough to kill. It’s that I am so angry that I want to kill them. I will do whatever I need to to get my revenge, even if it means that I die in the process. I don’t know what that revenge will look like. Not yet. I could leave their mangled corpses strung up for everyone in the universe to see, but that would just be an insult to the rest of the universe. A bunch of frail, old assholes sitting in their building, uncaring as people die around them every fucking day.”
The ship was completely silent as Arz finished. He could hear his heart pounding in the near-complete silence. Only the hum of the ship cut through.
Wildil finally shifted, getting a little closer to Arz. “This is another human?”
Arz nodded. “A group of them.”
“While you are gathering materials, I can speak with His Majesty. Perhaps the Jumthins in other parts of the galaxy have encountered a human before.”
The sentiment was nice, but Arz could tell Wildil didn’t understand. The Guild of Wizards wasn’t a real threat to Arz, and he wouldn’t kill them. Not yet, at least. He hadn’t figured out what revenge would look like or what it would mean. All he knew was that he hated them with every ounce of his being.
“Do Jumthins have families?” Arz asked.
“We are all family. Spawned from a single organism, the Grand Monarch, the true King of Slimes. His name cannot be spoken to outsiders.”
Arz nodded again. “Thank you for sharing so much with me, Wildil.”
“Alliances are important. The universe is far bigger than I once thought.”
A smile forced its way onto Arz’s face. “I am glad I ended up outside Gargaxia. This has been the weirdest adventure of my life, but you are worth it, Wildil.”
“What will you do when you return home?” Wildil asked.
“I’ve been thinking about that.” Arz sighed and stretched out his legs. “I think you’re right about alliances. I think I’ll keep traveling to meet new people. I can’t stay home long. Some humans want to kill me.”
“Are these humans powerful?”
Arz chuckled. “Absolutely not. They’re the leaders of the city where I live, but they are just old people.” Arz looked at Wildil. “Not that there's anything wrong with being old.”
The slime didn’t react.
“They claim I am breaking the laws of nature by creating portals.”
“Nature has no laws,” Wildil said.
“I like that.” Arz quickly wrote down the quote, attributing it to Wildil the Slime. “I wonder if I can find other creatures that will work with me. Those AZ-32s don’t like me, so I’ll avoid them for now.”
“You do not need to like someone to be allies. Look at us.”
Arz opened his mouth to speak, but scowled instead.
“That is Jumthin humor,” Wildil said in his normal high-pitched voice.
“I think that might be the first joke I’ve heard from one of you.”
“Guard Thirty Two is the real comedian.” Wildil turned to the guard, who stayed motionless and silent.
“I can see it,” Arz muttered.
They continued chatting for several more hours. As the conversation died, Arz wrote more notes with possible recipes to reverse engineer the translation potion. He had some ideas that were worth trying, and once he got back to Bralincote, he had some red oil that would significantly help the experiments. On top of that, he needed to test a more powerful return potion with the red oil. Would it be enough to overpower the time bubbles? And what would the sample from the time bubble do?
He had a lot of experiments to run. But he couldn’t until he made it back to his study. And to Sal. Assuming Sal was still alive. Arz kept reminding himself how little he knew about eels.