The Power Of Slime

I stood over the goblin and chuckled as I positioned my hand directly over the creature's face. The thing looked at me, fright and confusion visible in its eyes.

I willed a tiny shard of myself to coalesce underneath my finger. The shard manifested in the form of a small green orb that was tiny enough to almost be imperceptible to the naked eye. That small green orb was just enough of me that if someone touched it I'd be able to alter them and bestow upon them some of the effects of one of the essences infusing me with power.

The goblin noticed the small orb right as it dropped from my skin and into the air between us. The creature gasped, which was all the time I needed for the orb to clear the distance between my hand and its mouth. The orb dripped into the goblin's open mouth and I watched it make contact with the back of his throat.

I sensed a small but undeniable portion of my mind slip into his consciousness and immediately overwhelm the goblin's miniscule sense of self. As my mind overwhelmed and overthrew his, I watched his head turn into a strange facsimile of itself made of slime the same color as its skin!

The "Essence of the Slime" allowed those who consumed it to become slime-beings. As a slime-being one could corrupt others into slime-beings who were loyal to their makers, such as what I had just done. The goblin with the slime head looked at me, as equally entranced by my very presence as his comrade who I had added to my omega-consciousness had a few moments ago.

"And for you little one I have a very special task. You are to go to the warband gathering in Cragmaw Castle." I informed the creature, cheating just a little bit by going ahead and turning the tables in one of the adventure's more evenly balanced sections.

The goblin looked at me curiously before I chuckled and patted the thing's head. As I did I telepathically informed it of King Grol, one of the more serious antagonists in this adventure. I filled the goblin's mind with images of the fierce bugbear who was located many miles from here.

The creature's slime-eyes widened as it learned about the powerful hobgoblin. That said I wasn't mean, he wasn't being sent there to assassinate the king, just to prepare the way for me to arrive in a day or so.

The creature visibly panicked for a second, before I calmed it down and revealed that all he needed to do was be there and wait for me. That caused the green man to relax a bit, especially as his mind acclimated to his new reality and he mentally studied the powers he now wielded.

"Don't be afraid. Slimes are not weak." I told him, honestly. I had read enough fantasy to know that slimes were often depicted as fodder for young heroes, but the truth was that slimes were vicious and sometimes viscous beings.

As a slime-entity I could do things like melt people and objects with acid, poison them, or gain tremendous resistance to non-magical physical attacks, or even possess people! I had just given the little creature before me those same abilities. I could also grow larger by absorbing a range of material, from corpses to metals, which incidentally was similar to an ability granted to me by the "Essence of the Black Hole".

The goblin looked at himself hesitantly. He studied his hands and was thoughtfully silent for a moment. And then he looked at me and nodded, and I sensed his resolution improving as he realized that I had granted him power.

"Go. You can do it." I told him, honestly. I was aware of the strength of the forces over in Cragmaw Castle and the goblin had the power to take them all out, since he was a slime and could even turn others into slimes as well.

The goblin turned away from me and began to melt into the floor, dissolving his humanoid form for the sake of making travel easier, and beginning to move in the direction of the castle. As he did I reached out and lightly brushed a single hand of mine against his puddle-like form and placed a circular mark on what would become his back when he took on a solid form again.

The purpose of this mark was simple. It was my lazy attempt at forming a brand of my own, though the benefits it conferred were not as simple as the mark was. The brand empowered those who would receive it, and turned them into uniquely powerful entities loyal to me, granting them the ability to use the powers of essences that I felt like granting them.

For now I just wanted to promise the goblin further power, should he succeed, so the mark was purely symbolic. I communicated this to the creature silently via mind-to-mind communication, though I did take advantage of this moment to boost his intelligence, since I could do things like that with ease.

As the goblin oozed away from me I turned my gaze back towards my comrades and began to head back to them. It was time we planned for our next move, which was surely to head to the cavernous lair of the goblins who had planned to ambush us. As I began to head towards them I felt a small amount of excitement deep inside of me.

More encounters meant more chances to test my powers and to hone my abilities. And I was really liking these powers.

I mentally commanded the goblin who had stayed with me to wait here a few minutes and then appear to guide us towards his comrades in the caverns where his tribe had set up camp. Their time was coming, and it was coming soon.

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The sensations of activating my powers were always quite odd. Each power I activated felt different from any other powers I activated.

Some of my powers were more physical than others, such as the slime abilities I possessed. Those were much more bodily focused than things such as my ability to sense lifeforce or my purely divine senses, and so they felt more physically taxing than if I were to speak to someone mentally.

A handful of my powers were even stranger than being merely physical or mental. During my life before the absurd events of today I hadn't considered myself a pious person but now I knew that gods and spirits existed, and weirder still; I had abruptly joined their ranks.

My divine abilities, such as my power to see all of the evil or good acts someone had committed, were far more spiritual in nature. Even my senses were tethered to my nature as a divine, spiritual being, and my enhanced mind allowed me to adjust to the purely physical parts of this almost immediately but I was still cognizant of the bizarreness of my new nature.

A few of my abilities, such as the mutations I chose, were ones that I had yet to utilize. I planned to unleash them when the time was right, and thanks to my enhanced mind I was capable of fully determining when that was without fail.

As more and more of the essences fully awoke within me the mental encyclopedia I had that listed my powers was growing. Every few passing moments I could feel more and more of the essences within me stirring to life.

Currently the essences were my sole source of power but as far as sources of power went they were quite impressive. With them I could do anything ranging from the most impressive feats of the God-Emperor of Mankind to even the legendary "Skill Creation" power possessed by Hanten Shiranui, of the Medaka Box Abnormal fictional world.

I also had a keen awareness of the fact that many aspects of some of the stranger essences were locked away. My personal cosmic home was not accessible to me just yet, but it was the housing place for some of my more bizarre personal effects and powers. The dimension housed everything from the pet dragons I had as a consumer of the "Essence of the Dragon Rider" and "Essence of the Dragon Lord", to my god-wrought body from "Essence of the Golden Wrought God'.

While I was thinking about it, I quietly heard Ben himself chuckle in the back of my mind. His voice was almost welcome when he began to speak to me again.

"I see that you're learning and adapting quickly. I wonder if that is just because of the essences or if there's something else going on…" The mysterious being asked. A second later I heard the man shake his head and chuckle, darkly, before he continued to speak.

"Truthfully I came here to let you know that I am almost done with your preparations for your home. I'm also preparing for when we set up your perks." The voice revealed, causing my eyes to widen even as I stepped into view of my comrades.

"There are an incredibly diverse array of toys for you to play with that are waiting for you in your home but before we get to that I really want to talk to you about something very… peculiar about your nature as a jumper." Ben told me, his voice lingering in my mind as I slowly walked towards my allies. I heard something… strange in his voice as he spoke.

The emotion wasn't fear, nor was it something as simple as shock. It was a mixture of emotions, some of which were pleasant such as joy, and some of which were less so, like uncertainty. And this wasn't some sort of odd joke either, he sounded quite serious at the moment.

"You drank some rather curious essences, Andrew." He began, to which I mentally nodded. I drank every essence I could get my hands on, every single one in his shop. I had been selfish, i had been greedy, and I regretted nothing. He had chosen to give me power, I saw no reason to not take him up on his offer as fully as I could have.

Ben sensed my thoughts and I sensed him smiling at me. I chuckled inwardly as I continued to move towards my comrades.

"I certainly don't blame you for making the choices you did. Hell, they guarantee that you'll be around a while, at least. Nevertheless you took a touch more than I anticipated, including essences that make jumping from setting to setting a very interesting, and profitable, choice for you." He suggested, somewhat cryptically.

I knew what he was saying, and I didn't mind it in the slightest. The essences he was referring too were some of the best ones in his entire tent!

Some essences I drank had made conventional Choose Your Own Adventures busted, but a few… A small handful of essences in the tent broke jumpchains. I drank, without hesitation, each of those that I saw.

One of the jump-related essences was named "Essence of the Infinitely Fragmented Jumper" and it was broken. It was broken because it allowed those who drank it to be their own benefactors, which I didn't care for at all, but also because it meant that I could allow myself to have infinite choice points. And that… Well, that would be powerful.

I wasn't basing that conclusion on some sort of meta-knowledge that I possessed, I was basing it on even my pre-essence knowledge of pop culture. Jumps were tethered to fiction, in some strange way that even I didn't fully understand, so I was able to use my pre-essence knowledge of fiction and pop culture to realize that breaking jumps would grant me a lot of power.

Some might say that I was trying to become powerful. And they'd be right.

My whole life I was constantly teetering on the edge of disaster, just one financial or even one physical mistake from being overwhelmed. Hell, earlier today I had gotten a notification that I was being charged a late fee on my rent! I had been given a chance to change my fate, a way to resist the injustices and indignities that I had suffered, and I was going to grab that bull by the horns.

By drinking essences that had allowed me to break free of the limits that held me back, I had given myself freedom. I was still fully processing that, and all of the implications that came with it, but I knew it meant fun things for me in the future. By giving myself infinite choice points, and other fun gimmicks through which I could break jumps, I had given myself something I had never really had; the ability to be brave, and to live unimpeded.

Whether it was on Earth, in the Forgotten Realms, or even in the galaxy of Star Wars, I'd be able to live the sort of life that I wanted. And now all i really needed to do was figure out what that was…

Ben heard all of that and laughed. The sound of his laughter was loud in my mind. Loud and alien, like it belonged to some sort of technology I had never seen or heard of before.

"Well regardless of your character motive, Andrew, we ought to talk about your perks." He informed me, and I could hear a jovial tone in his voice as he spoke. As he spoke I was about to make it to where the goblin I had captured was now tied up, when all of reality froze around me.

I watched my allies freeze mid-movement, their bodies frozen even as they turned to face me. They were perfectly still, not at all aware of what was occurring. And then a yellow portal appeared in front of me, shimmering with potent cosmic power. A silhouette appeared inside of it, blocking the view of wherever the portal led.

"Come on Andrew. Let's go visit your new home while we talk about origins and perks." Ben beckoned, his voice coming out of the otherworldly portal that he had conjured by utilizing his own essence, the "Essence of the Portalmaster". He offered me his hand, and I took it without hesitation.

As I stepped towards, and then through, the portal I had a big smile on my face. I was excited to talk about perks, and whatever other exciting choices were awaiting me.