Magic Student's Sentient Mistake

[X] Even if she told little sister the message wouldn't get to those to needed to know about it until it was too late anyway. (a well meaning but inefficient government)
[x] Although she risked breaking cover the homeland needed to know (There is a cold war that threatens to turn hot with the neighbor)
[x] anyone who would listen since it might be the turning of the tide (Hello death world)

After pondering for a moment Virginia decided that she would tell everyone. There were plenty of interested parties for a discovery like this. The government would have to be the first on the list. Mainly because it would take the longest.

She pulled out a tall sheaf of papers and started leafing through them, looking for the form she wanted. Form IIV-B-3? No, that was to requisition a new gardener for the college. Form IIV-B-4? No, that's the form to report a ship lost at sea. Why did she even have that? Ah, here it was, Form IIV-B-5, reporting an undiscovered form of slime. And with that she needed Form 65-IV-A-V, identifying characteristics, and Amplifying Form 5-C-21, method of discovery. And Form II-4-B-IV... She sighed. This was going to be a long afternoon.

Virginia was old enough to remember when the bureaucracy actually worked smoothly. The Emperor was still ruling then and evil despot he might have been he was invested in making the Empire the very best that it could be. Many people suspected that this was from vanity more than anything else since the Emperor considered the Empire a mere extension of Itself.

The Emperor had been ruling the Empire for long enough that the moniker Eternal had been applied to both. The philosophy of the Emperor was that the prime difference between sentients and beasts was communication and the team-work that this allowed. Instead of focusing on having the best the Empire had the most and in just the right place and time as needed. Every child was examined carefully and given a custom tailored schooling and carrier path, those that were not sacrificed to ensure that the Emperor would live forever of course.

The restrictions on personal freedom prevented many of the sparks of genius that were seen beyond the walled borders but by learning the cold calculus of war the barbarians were kept from the gate and the myriad varieties of monsters were prevented from making a toehold. On the few occasions that conventional forces were insufficient fell rituals were used to ensure the safety of the majority at the expense of the few.

This had been the status quo for longer than anyone other than the Emperor could remember and people were resigned to the necessity of the evils perpetrated in defense of their way of life. A change came when the Emperor announced a new threat from beyond greater than anything that the Empire had need to face before. The entirety of Its great concentration was needed to prevent catastrophe and the local governors were given far greater autonomy for the duration of the emergency.

As shocking as this apparent acknowledgement of insignificant power was it was nothing compared to when the Emperor started to lose. Greater and more terrible rituals were needed to keep the great demon from entering reality. It took a year of hard magical struggle in the beyond and the screaming sacrifice of an entire percentage point of the populace for the fight to be won. The made the survivors unhappy and whispers of discontent spread.

The Emperor called in the governors and showed them of the victory. It had been much diminished with Its soul in tatters and its magic barely flickering as its slithering form rose up over the mere mortals that It had left running things.

The Emperor was so proud at the success that It had had protecting the Empire. It was so very confused when the castle was stormed. So great was the discontent that the majority of the guards were in on it and most of the remainder left rather than defend the one that had taken so much from them. It could not understand why they would consider the death of their children too high a price for safety. No one bothered to explain the concept to It. The governors died first and the the Eternal Emperor joined them shortly after. Blood ran in the street as those most loyal to the previous regime were culled out of the government offices.

Bells were rung all over the Empire. Ding Dong the Emperor is dead. Parties were thrown and ran until the food ran out. When the hangover's faded the reality of an Empire without the Emperor started to sink in. The leader of the group of heroes who led the charge and was the one who swung the final blow had taken control but he didn't know anything about leadership, diplomacy or delegation. It turned out that the spells that run the bureaucracy were powered by the Emperor and anyone who knew enough to restart them with a different power source were either dead or in hiding. Paper forms were the best alternative and it just wasn't good enough.

Without the Evils invoked by a ruler willing to do anything required for victory the Empire stopped winning. Casualties were far greater across the board and territory was lost to neighbors who took advantage of any weakness. Monster's were not culled appropriately and places far within the walls stopped being safe. It was a dark time but the people consoled themselves with the knowledge that the current evils were at least honest about the terror that they caused.

Things had improved enough to reach a new equilibrium since then but the paperwork was still horrible. Every form that she filled out in triplicate reminded her of victories won and the costs involved. Personally it reminded her of her secret oaths to the Consulate. It's rulers were a lesser evil but at least they would make the hard calls for their own good unlike the Hero. The Hero of the people was a horrible ruler but felt that by going from one emergency to another killing the worst of the monsters he was doing an excellent job. It was unsustainable and she was certain that it would lead to the doom of all if it continued. She would keep playing the role assigned to her but if it came to war between the Empire and the Consulate she knew that she wanted the Consulate to win and bloodlessly as possible. It was the only hope for a future for the people that she loved.

She broke out of her revery as she finished the last of the forms. A roll of the shoulders and a crack of the neck set her right and she packaged the stack and took them with her as she left the office. The paperwork was dropped at the appropriate office on campus where it would be taken to the Capital and processed. She knew from painful experience that it would take the bureaucrats weeks to work through their backlog enough for them to see her work and that it would take longer before it was passed through the various departments to someone who had both authority and intelligence enough to realize what they had. She doubted that she would hear from them in time for it to make a difference.

The circuitous route that she took leaving campus would inform her Consulate handler that she had news and which dead drop she would leave it at. Then she went home. Telling everyone else would have to wait until the standard gossip meeting.

Empire members had become used to the inefficiencies inflicted upon them by the bureaucratic nightmare wrapped in the trappings of niceness and had adjusted each in their own way. Virginia had with her works backing joined a gossip group. There were members from a variety of organisations who would meet regularly and inform their counterparts of events of importance that had happened in their sphere's of influence. There were even members of government who attended. It was a known and accepted method of short cutting the never ending paperwork and actually getting information to those who needed it to ensure that something could be done.

Victoria sighed. Dealing with paperwork always made her feel just that little bit dirty. She was looking forward to a bath.

~~~

Jack was full. This had never happened before in its entire existence. It had eaten a feast that the other one had shown the maker how to prepare. It was just the right consistency and absolutely delicious. Jack lost itself in the joy of eating. It didn't stop eating until it felt like it. There was still plenty of food left and it rested upon the bounty covering the surface the entire surface of the cauldron content and turned its attention outward for the first time since it had been put in the container. Maker was nearby but he wasn't paying any attention. Attempts to gain his attention failed repeatedly. The old standby of surface shivering was ignored and Jack developed entirely new methods of control over its internals to allow it to extend a pseudo-pod vertically and waggle it in a rough approximation of the limbs that maker had, but nothing.

Jack was filled with a sense of gratitude for finally having its hunger dealt with. It wanted to show its appreciation for existing and for having its needs taken care of. Even all of the extra additions that Maker had inflicted on it were nice now that it was big enough that they were not causing discomfort. It had been paying attention when Maker and the other one were together. Communication between them seemed to contain a lot of body language but there have been more to it than the moving the jaw and limbs. Jack wanted to tell Maker, well it just wanted to be able to communicate, there was so much to say and even more to listen to, like what its purpose was. Jack hoped that whatever it's reason for existence was it would be able to have many more feasts in the future.

How does Jack try and communicate?

[] Practice it's body shaping. Jack can currently manage a single short crude growth that it can wave around. Try to emulate Makers shape.

[] Jack doesn't need to communicate the same as Maker as long as it can do so. Now that a dribble of water isn't needed for food perhaps it could be directed towards sending and receiving information. (DC70 out of D100 roll for telepathy. WARNING low rolls (>30) will cause unintended side effects.)

[] Vibration is the key. When the jaw moved there was a vibration through the air that went with it. Learn how to experience those vibrations and produce them (develop primitive hearing and sound production via a tight membrane that can be grown on its surface)

[] Write in.

[X] Vibration is the key

Jack decided that the tall ones were communicating in a way that it was unable to detect. Of the various options that it could think of vibrations in the air is the simplest to test. Throughout the night it worked on various methods of making the air vibrate. Eating the air didn't work but hitting it did, at least sort of. Jack grew some thin hairs on its surface to tell when the air was moved and when it thumped against the side of the tub the air definitely moved. Jack was fairly sure that this was not the communication that the tall ones were using but it was a start.

Jack moved on from hitting the air with force to hitting it as rapidly as possible. The slime struggled to find a way to hit the air quickly enough but the less of itself that it used the faster it could go. After a full night of experiments and failures Jack finally had something that worked. It was a flap of skin pulled tight by a ring of cartilage surrounded with pressure sensors. When it managed to wire the sensors up to neural tissue correctly the sensitivity that it could detect air vibration became almost overwhelming.

Comparatively making the tight skin push the air around to make its own air vibrations was much easier. The only issue was that if the skin was being moved then it could not be used to detect air movement at the same time. This issue was solved by having multiple skins. They were all very delicate and easily torn so Jack built itself a stalk on the top of its body. The stalk was long and thin and covered in small elevated circles that were its sound producer/sensors. It put a dedicated light sensor at the top of the stalk so that it could see over the top of the lip of the container easier.

This is a useful success so Jack experiments with more stalks. It grew a whole forest of stalks on its top but they got in each others way. Any more than 5 was too many. Further play has Jack decide that two stalks is enough normally but it can grow additional ones as needed. Having multiple stalks had the unexpected benefit of allowing Jack to hear from differing points which allows it to very roughly determine where the sound originated from. There were many issues with this and Jack decided to practice it later when it had a reliable external source of noise.

~~~

Dougie wandered back in to the lab that afternoon after a morning of classes while eating an apple. The message that Education was Important had been ingrained from a young age but sometimes it was just so boring. Dougie was partway through closing the door when he noticed Jack looking back at him.




The shock was enough that he lost his grip on both the apple and the door. The door slammed shut with a clang of metal on metal.

"cLanG" the slime said. The sound that came from the stalks looking at Dougie were not quite the same but it was a recognizable attempt at mimicry. Dougie swore in shock and Jack parroted back the profanity. Dougie started to laugh but quickly stopped as the slime's attempts at copying merriment were quite disturbing. The sounds were quiet and just slightly discordant since they were coming from a variety of sources at once which meant that its version of laughter was more like the distant cries of the damned.

Dougie tried telling Jack the names of the various things in the room but Jack just repeated the sounds with no understanding. This continued without any increase in comprehension until Dougie poured a handful of water onto Jack while naming it "Water".

Jack had a flash of understanding and bounced around screaming WATER as loud as it can manage which rather freaked out Dougie because in its excitement each of the sound producers ceased synchronization completely and there were dozens of discordant whispers. Jack finally calmed down and was able to link the sounds to the entity that Dougie had named earlier. It spent a minute of so pointing out the light and table and door and so on. Then it pointed to itself "jAck" and to Dougie "Daddy".

"Close enough kid, close enough". Dougie had tears in his eyes.