“You’re joking, right?” I asked before anyone else could. “What does he expect you all to eat? Rocks? Delicious as they are, I don’t think they’d agree with your feeble stomachs.”

  It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. Food was one of the most important resources for life! I couldn’t imagine going with less just because some sour lordling decided he could live off air and water.

  Samara was in agreement. Her lip trembled and the dry heat of her inner mana pulsed with fury. Had the spoon in her hand been made of stone rather than wood, it would have crumbled in her grip.

  “That incompetent idiot!” she seethed. “And you agreed to this, Feydian?!”

  He shrank under her fiery gaze. “H-he’s just worried about the harpies. If we can’t stand for ourselves, then we’ll just become their slaves.”

  “They have been generous enough to share both their nest and the scraps of food they can spare for us,” she said. “Do you both think they’ll do that forever? The key to protecting ourselves is self-sufficiency!”

  Dorin reached out and put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “Easy Samara. Lord Pelslow picked Feydian specifically because he is under a Pelslow contract. It’s a difficult position to be in, since he can’t directly contradict his lord without increasing his debt.”

  “What use is a debt out here?” she growled.

  “Easy to say when you don’t have one.” Feydian picked at his stew, his eyes downcast. After several moments, he shoved his bowl to Jaden. “You can have the rest of mine.”

  “Won’t you be hungry?” Jaden asked, trying to push it back.

  Feydian smiled sadly at the boy. “Nah, you’re a growing boy. You need it more than me.” Then, he stood and bowed politely to the family. “I fear I have work to do. Councilwoman Samara, Sir Dorin, Suri, I bid you all a good evening.”

  “Will you be staying with Jaden tonight?” Dorin asked.

  The younger boy’s eyes lit up in expectation, but Feydian sighed, his politely cheerful mask cracking ever so slightly. “I don’t know. It depends on if Lord Pelslow needs me to polish his armor or not. I’ll try my best.”

  As the servant walked away, the table fell into silence. Samara stabbed angrily at a piece of meat in her stew while Jaden all but collapsed in on himself. Samri patted his friend on the shoulder.

  “So, correct me if I’m wrong,” I began. “But, humans do need to eat, right?”

  “He didn’t eat even a morsel,” Tanev said softly, following my line of thought.

  Dorin shrugged. “He’s an adult. He can choose his own portions.” He glared pointedly at his children’s bowls. “You two, though, need to finish those bowls.”

  “Yes, sir,” they chorused before diving into their stew with gusto.

  I engulfed my rock. It was part of the High Ridge Granite, having fallen from the upper reaches of the cliff. The humans had deemed it too small to build with, which was fine by me. Though I was perfectly satisfied with my task of cleaning loose rocks from the harpy nests, there was something different about the rocks that fell from the top. Exposure to the elements smoothed their surfaces, leaving behind traces of natural magic from wind and rain. This one even had lichen growing on it, which added a soft, springy quality.

  “Hey, Dad,” Samri began the moment his bowl was finished. “Do you think you could teach me to channel fire mana like you do?”

  “We’d need a rune writer to awaken your human core,” Dorin said. “I can teach you minor things, but without access to the level matrix, you’d never be able to channel enough to do much good.”

  Samri nodded. “But, you could still teach me some, right? That way I could set the shamblers on fire next time they attacked?”

  Despite maintaining his usual gruff appearance, I could tell that Dorin was pleased. His mana burned like a crackling fireplace, warm and strong against the night air.

  “I guess I can teach you the small spells I remember,” he relented. “But, it’s been a long time since I’ve used them. My mana is different now.”

  “Is it really that different?” I wondered.

  He nodded. “Mankind—including humans, elves, and other city-dwellers—all use a form of magic that is internal to themselves. They fuel their core through a rune connecting them to the level matrix, which was created by some goddess of magic in the ancient past. That rune regulates the mana they use and defines it into classes.

  “Monster magic is more innate and comes from the world around them. You and I have no classes, since our paths are more closely woven through our bodies. You are outright made of magic, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you know that your magic wells up from within. Humans have to access the level matrix in order to generate mana at the same rate and scale as a monster. Their bodies also aren’t built to process it as efficiently, so full mages are few and far between.”

  Magic was such an innate part of my being that I couldn’t imagine a world without it. That said, I could definitely see evidence to support Dorin’s explanation, even right there at the table. Even an adult like Samara seemed to have dimmer magic than even the lowest of the harpies.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “The level matrix is also what keeps people safe from apocalypse magic,” Samri continued. “Mom and Dad once fought and killed an apocalypse class vampire, you know! It wanted to shoot out the sun and bathe the world in darkness.”

  “Really?” I asked, my core twisting slightly at the mention of apocalyptic monsters.

  Dorin nodded. “Apocalypse monsters are beyond reason. They access magic that is anathema to everything civilization stands for, and it drives them insane. Their only goal is to kill people and tear down every trace of their existence. Even if they look intelligent, they can’t be reasoned with, and they can’t be diverted to another path. All that’s left for them is death.”

  “Huh. Sounds terrible. Why would anyone ever pick that path?”

  “Desperation mostly,” he answered. “Those who feel they have no choice sometimes see it as their only path forward. Yet, they don’t realize that they lose more by turning to madness than they gain. There has never been a good apocalypse monster.”

  I edged further away from Feydian’s abandoned spoon. I was only one consumed tool away from unlocking the Apocalypse Slime evolution. Though I knew that I would have to choose to take it, even if it was unlocked, I didn’t even want the temptation. A slime who only ate people and homes didn’t sound like a slime I wanted to be friends with.

  “Dad once faced the Vampiric Sunshot,” Samri said, his voice dropping to a dramatic tone as he set the stage for his father’s achievement. “He was a wicked vampire from Shadowmire who threatened a town. When the guards came and fended him off, he feigned his own death. But, it left him exposed to the sunlight for five whole days—”

  “It was only two,” Dorin corrected, but Samri ignored him.

  “By the time the sixth dawn rose overhead, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he gave in to the madness!” Samri leapt to his feet. “Over the town, he cast a great dome of darkness that sent the villagers into madness just from looking at it!”

  The knight shook his head. “That was just conjecture. We never proved they were linked.”

  Samri still continued as if his father hadn’t spoken. “He swore that he would shoot down Tasurel, the god of light, himself! For he was the Sunshot, master of the night! Crops withered in the gloom and people grew ill under his malefic reign!”

  “He gets this from his mother,” Dorin mused. “She told all the stories when he was a child.”

  “The people begged the crown for help, and so King Rugan sent the fair Lady Fallia and her trusty knight, Sir Dorin of Felsporo, to defeat the wicked villain! They swooped in and—”

  Samri coughed several times before drawing a ragged breath into his lungs.

  “You alright?” Dorin asked.

  He nodded and accepted the cup of spring water that was pushed into his hand. After greedily drinking it down, he cleared his throat.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I don’t know what—”

  Another fit of coughs shook the boy’s shoulders. Jaden patted his friend’s back gently, trying to help, but nothing seemed to relieve him. Tears began to stream down Samri’s face as he desperately tried to draw breath in.

  Dorin stood and walked behind him. Worry creased his brow as he watched his son. After a few minutes, the coughs subsided, and Samri wiped the tears from his eyes.

  “I’m dizzy, Dad,” he reported. “May I be excused from the table?”

  “Yeah, let’s get you inside. Tanev, Jaden, would you help Samara with the dishes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The knight kept a hand firmly on his son’s back as the young boy made his way into the small shack they slept in. Curiosity filled my slime, and I hopped after them. To my knowledge, Samri hadn’t shown any signs of illness before. Although, he and Jaden had been caught playing in the waterfall, and Dorin had scolded them for “trying to catch their death” in the water. Were humans allergic to large pools of water? Was that why Samri was sick now?

  Once Samri settled onto his blanket, I hopped onto his chest and let my slime spread across him. He laughed and ran a hand across my top membrane.

  “I’ll be fine, Suri. It’s just a dizzy spell,” he insisted.

  “You humans are so fragile. Get a little wet and you fall apart like sand.”

  “I’m not fragile! Take that back!” Samri tried to sit up, but his eyes unfocused and he fell back with a grunt. “I swear I’m not…fragile.” His words were unsteady and Dorin’s brow furrowed deeper.

  “Move for just a second, Suri.”

  I did as I was told and watched as Dorin pressed his ear to Samri’s chest. He remained there for a few seconds before lifting his head again.

  “Breathing is a little ragged,” he whispered. “But, a bit of sleep and we’ll check on it in the morning.”

  “Okay.” The boy clearly didn’t have the strength left to argue. He closed his eyes.

  Just as I was about to follow Dorin to the door, a shadow crossed the golden light of Samri’s mana. It passed as quickly as it came, and I wondered briefly if I’d really seen anything at all. I paused, watching him closely. Though the shadow never darkened his magic again, a sick, nagging thought grew in the back of my mind.

  “Dorin?” I called softly.

  The knight returned. “What is it?”

  “Something in his mana,” I murmured, hoping the boy was already asleep and unable to hear me.

  Dorin knelt with me next to Samri’s bed. Together, we watched in silence. The shadow never returned, but that only increased my anxiety. Something wasn’t right here.

  “What if you used that magic enhancing ability?” Dorin suggested. “I’ll get you an extra helping of rocks, or maybe even some actual stew, for your trouble.”

  I would have done it without the offer, but I wasn’t about to turn down extra helpings at dinner. I wasn’t sure if Arcane Ascendant would work, given that I’d never tried to augment Arcane Sensitivity before. My vision was inherent and passive, requiring no mana to use. But, there was no harm in trying.

  [Ability Activated: Arcane Ascendant

  Augmenting Arcane Sensitivity]

  My core radiated green and gold, and my slime shifted uncomfortably until my vision shifted to behold a spectrum of light and color in addition to mana. As I did not care a single bit for the silly light-vision of humans, I closed my eyes, cutting off that part of it and relying solely on Arcane Sensitivity.

  Samri’s inner magic glowed like a small sun within his chest, but with my increased vision, I could see more. Tendrils of gray magic twisted through his body like vines keen on choking the life from their host. I recognized the wicked magic of arcane decay immediately, the very same magic that fueled the shamblers.

  “It’s not good,” I told Dorin.

  Before letting me continue, he hooked his arms beneath me and practically threw me into the air before settling me into his arms. I yelped in surprise as my core flipped inside me.

  “Sorry, you’re lighter than I expected,” he muttered before he exited the shack and set me next to a table.

  “Why is Suri human again?” Samara asked as she turned, a rag and cup in her hand.

  “And why did you carry him out?” Tanev’s eyes narrowed the way her father did when he was thinking about something.

  To my great dismay, both Samara and Tanev had the same tendrils of darkness wrapped around them, albeit to a lesser extent than Samri’s had been. It was unnerving, seeing the family continue on, completely blind to the magic eating away at their bodies and souls.

  Dorin sat down next to me. “Because he doesn’t know how to walk and I didn’t want Samri to hear.”

  “I don’t blame you. It was a grim sight,” I admitted, opening my eyes to look at the rest of the family. “Samri’s been infected with decay. He’s turning into a shambler.”