Petra felt no small amount of relief when the giant poking her didn’t immediately start screaming about monsters or the like upon her attempt at introducing herself, nor gave any indication that particularly sounded as though they saw her as a potential meal.
Even better, she managed to get some good information out of the giant’s response – well, maybe not quite good information, per se, but certainly useful. From the sounds of things, this world either didn’t have other talking slimes like her, or if it did, they were sufficiently rare as to make encountering one an interesting event. Extrapolating from that, Petra felt more confident in the idea that whatever she was – at least regarding her apparent intelligence – was something fundamentally different from a normal slime, which would seem to match up pretty well with her observations of her own neuroanatomy.
Unfortunately for Petra, it seemed her relief was destined to only be short-lived, and she didn’t get the opportunity to ask for any further information or clarifications, before the giant decided to perform what was quickly becoming one of her least favourite interactions, and promptly scooped her off the floor.
“Your name was <Name: Self> right? My name's <Name: Giant>! Nice to meet you!” the giant babbled as Petra scrambled to make her body pull itself into a more stable shape, lest part of her simply slough off under its own weight. Even if she wanted to answer the giant – and honestly she was more inclined to start screaming at them to please put her back down – Petra wasn’t sure she could actually do so safely; the idea of trying to form a communication pseudopod seeming like a really bad idea given how roughly the giant was handling her.
For several long seconds, Petra managed to do little more than blindly panicking, before finally pulling herself together – in both a literal and metaphorical sense. Presented with yet another challenge that her life as a human had done absolutely nothing to prepare her for, Petra once again turned to one of her few lifelines in this world, and tried to will her magic to somehow solve the issue.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, simply trying to magic away all her problems didn’t achieve a whole lot, but she did get the sense at least that her Biomancy could target the giant, which, in hindsight, she probably should have expected. Compared to observing her own biology, Petra felt as though trying to do the same for the giant’s probably felt something along the lines of trying to pass through a brick wall by pushing against it really hard – was that because she was a simpler organism or because she had a Resistance of 1… a question for when she wasn’t at immediate risk of falling apart.
Petra pushed until she finally felt something give and her awareness was flooded with the overwhelming information that described a living organism. Ignoring most of it, she quickly set about filtering out everything she didn’t need, honing in on the parts that were close to her body, then specifically the nerves, and then even more specifically the mechanosensory nerves. Could she just command them to all fire at once?
Petra hesitated. If she could manage it, it would almost certainly hurt like a motherfucker and make the giant drop her, but she didn’t exactly want to hurt the giant, who thus far didn’t seem intentionally hostile… actually for that matter, would she even be able to survive being dropped from however high up she was?
Abandoning her original plan, Petra instead zoomed out her organic sense, unfocusing it to try and get a better idea of the big picture and…
oh. While Petra had realised that her improved hearing had somewhat skewed and exaggerated her sense of scale, she’d still subconsciously held onto the idea that whoever the giant was, they were big. The proportions outlined by her organic sense, however, were not that of a giant, hell, they weren’t even that of an adult.
Honestly, that explained a lot, actually. She couldn’t imagine many people being so willing to just pick up a slime, any more than most people were willing to pick up a random bug, but a child? That’d probably do it. Petra was suddenly very glad she decided not to go ahead with her initial, hurt them till they drop her plan. She’d have felt pretty awful if she had.
Still, having an explanation for what was happening didn’t do a lot to make Petra feel better about the situation – a child wasn’t anywhere near as non-threatening when they could easily crush her fragile body – and it certainly didn’t do anything to actually solve her current predicament.
For a moment, Petra considers simply hoping for the best and trying to wait out the child’s manhandling – surely they would have to put her down eventually – but then she imagined the countless alternative scenarios and quickly abandons that overly optimistic line of reason.
What were the chances that the child would stumble and drop her or squeeze her body just a little too hard before they ever got to putting her down? What were the odds the child would try to show her off to an adult, who, not knowing she was anything other than a normal slime, would freak out and kill her? Or that if and when they decided to put her down, they’d be a bit too rough and pop her like a ballon? Way too high all round.
Petra wracked her brain – or whatever magic it was that was currently doing its job – searching for a way to communicate to the child that she needed them to put her down, in a way that wouldn’t in itself risk her falling apart. If only she could use the messaging system on the child…
Had she not been freaking out, Petra probably would have felt rather stupid at that moment, and as it were, she still felt more than a little silly. Even if she couldn’t communicate with the child, that didn’t mean she couldn’t communicate at all. As if to punctuate her stupidity, Petra apparently had been the only one to forget about this function of her status screen, because apparently at some point while she’d been she’d missed a message from Down.
Contacts: "Down"
WHERE ARE YOU!? ARE YOU OKAY!?
Well at least it looked like they knew she was missing, that was something at least.
Contacts: "Down"
I’m okay for now, but have big problem.
Someone picked me up.
Not trying to hurt me but they’re being pretty rough. Worried I might fall apart.
Pretty sure he’s a child, but he might be a hobbit or something.
Don’t know where they’re going. Can’t ask because I’m worried something will fall off me if I try.
Please help.
Crimson Flame
Noctis
Squirrel98
Xaltwind
BunniesOfDoom
Choking on Mud
CitrusArms
Sky Blue
Expendable