Mono Mondays: Collab, Part Three
On Mondays, we like to support our resident artist, Mono! They're an up-and-coming scribbler of things dark and weird, and we consider ourselves lucky to have leeched onto— er, formed a mutually beneficial relationship with them. You can watch Mono hard at work creating various pieces on their YouTube channel. For those who don't feel like watching digital paint getting splashed around, we'll be showcasing a different piece of theirs right here every Monday.
This week, we examine the circle of life.
Another "joint effort" between the art dragon and the art slime, this demonstrates part of the process of reincarnation for slimes. Slimes are formed in all sorts of ways, but one of the more common methods is for a slime to develop from a creature, plant, or object that has been soaked in magic. Eventually, this magic accumulates into a core, which generates magical, sentient slime that has similar qualities to the original object. It's kind of similar to the way that slimes can evolve over time by eating enough of the same object, but in reverse.
Slimes that develop in this fashion have options beyond evolution, however. One example, which is fairly rare but part of how different objects manage to "migrate" around the world over time: the slime can choose to revert to its original form. This reversion is permanent. A second option is to give up its original core and form a new one; this is how slimes typically evolve, changing due to the origins of the new core. It's also how slime cores can be safely harvested. The final option is to "lock in" their form, which prevents them from changing shape but is the most stable choice of the three.
Demonstrating these options in the "infographic" above is a slime that formed from a foxglove plant. It may choose to return to being a foxglove plant, to eject its "foxglove" core and evolve, or to wander about as a slime with foxglove tendencies. Mono reports that those tendencies include being able to inject digitalis into its prey so, no matter how cute a slime with a spotted bell flower growing from it may look, don't pick that one up.