The giddy stallion quickly rushes over to a small tape recorder, his face plastered with the expression of unending glee. With a soft click, the recorder starts recording.
"This is log one on my in-depth analysis of what I have classified as 'grey goo'," the stallion speaks, coughing shortly, before grabbing the recorder and walking back over to the small glass box sitting on the clean countertop. The glass box was around two feet in size, with walls, floor, and ceiling being made of thick, shatterproof glass. The glass box, however, was not the item of interest, what was of interest was the small piece of grey slime-like material, sitting in the middle of the box. It was tiny, sitting at last then an inch in size, almost undetectable to the naked eye.
"After many months of work, I have finally managed to get this creature to not only work in the way I have theorized but to actually come to life, instead of being a piece of inanimate goo," the stallion continued after sitting in a chair, placing the recorder down on the countertop. "This creature, this grey goo, has the ability to not only consume any material, but it will also grow and adapt the properties of the material consumed."
"Due to these aggressive abilities, the container in which the grey goo is within is constantly sustained under a magically created vacuum, and the surface of the container is magically cleaned of any form of particulates, I am unsure if the grey goo can consume microscopic organisms, but I feel it was best to be safe rather than sorry," the stallion spoke quickly, yet clearly. "I had to feed the grey goo something in order to determine its abilities actually worked, and what I fed it was a small metal carpet nail, which was 13 millimeters long. It took the grey goo several hours to finally approach the nail and consume it, and upon consumption, the Grey Goo grew approximately .65 millimeters, after 20 minutes, and was easily moved with a magnet placed on the bottom of the container."
"Any other physical traits are either unnoticed or currently untestable, as I have deemed it unsafe to do so," the stallion stops, placing the recorder down and approaching the small glass case, and looking at the small grey blob. It had no eyes, but the stallion had an unmistakable feeling that it was aware of his presence and was looking back at him curiously. As the two were staring each other down, inspecting the other with curiosity and admiration, the door to the lab was slammed open, as three guards rushed into the small lab. The guards had their swords drawn and pointed at the stallion, his face a look of disappointment and anger on his face as he stared at the lead guard, her color scheme almost similar to the stallion. "Hello, Aura."
"Dad, as your daughter, I will ask that you calmly and peacefully surrender, and I will ask that your punishment is more lenient," Aura spoke, her voice strong and sturdy, the sword hovering in her magical grip. Her tone held little admiration or familial love for her father, only disdain and disgust.
"Bullshit, you'll ask them personally to make my life in the dungeon a hell, assuming I'm not executed right away," the stallion spoke calmly, but his tone wavered slightly. He knew he was caught, and that there was no leaving this situation free. The stallion clicked off the tape recorder, and let himself be captured, speaking no more words, his eyes glancing back at the grey goo before he was pushed out the lab past a small platoon of royal guards.
As her father was led away, Aura took a deep breath, sheathing her sword and glancing around the gloomy lab. The lab was clustered with various lab equipment, heavily detailed diagrams of the ecosystem, and many anatomical diagrams of various animals. Aura looked at the small grey goo, but ignored it and glanced at the few guards that walked in and stood in the doorway or right outside.
"Clean this lab up, everything here is evidence, scour everything and take everything," Aura ordered before leaving the guards to follow the task, leaving the gloomy bunker, climbing a small staircase up, and breathing in a lungful of fresh air.
Sitting inside a small glass world, I slowly slid around, exploring every inch of the glass surface. I had no notions of prison or cage, hell, I didn't even know what I was, or what the thoughts, views, and images flying through my perception were. I only really understood one thing, which was that I was hungry, but there was no food anywhere, nothing on the surface, nothing in the air. That was, until a small object, only slightly smaller than me fell onto the surface of the glass floor. For a while, I was apprehensive of this new creature, and I assume it was also apprehensive of me. Aside from the small movements, it made when it landed, the creature stopped moving completely.
It was weird-looking, it was long on its body or shaft, pointy on its end, and flat on the other end. After it didn't move anymore, I took the first move assuming the creature to be dead and ate it. I quickly consumed the creature, and it was delicious, finally having something to eat. The flavor of it exploded throughout my cells, as it dissolved and I consumed every part of the creature. Before long, I was empty and alone again, but I felt as though my body changed, shifting and growing. After I stopped shifting and growing, the world grew calm and I grew hungry once more.
Consumed Steel Carpet Nail
Gained Magnetic Trait
Gained Stainless Trait
Gained High Fire Resistance Trait
Grown .65 millimeters
I couldn't read the words that appeared in the air before me, and I also confirmed that I was unable to eat them, but I instinctively knew what they meant as if they had always been a part of my being. I sat there, unmoving as I tried to understand what the things the words meant. Just because I knew what the words meant, doesn't mean I know what the words entail or what things like Gained or Trait were. However, I was unable to contemplate my position as I slowly felt my body being moved without my control, confused and intriguing me more than the words. I was slid around a little bit on the bottom of the glass box, sliding slowly along the base, finding even a small spec of fun out of it.
I eventually found the source of my movement, seeing the massive giant creature outside my box, holding a weird circular object that had a strange attraction to me, pulling me along with it as it moved. The creature was staring intently at me, but I felt no fear or danger from this giant, mostly because I was safe in my glass world, and secondly because I didn't really know what that emotion was. I could barely understand some emotions that came naturally, like hunger. This giant kept sliding me around, before stopping and walking away from the glass box, outside of my view, before returning and pulling me to the side of the glass box and trying to pull me up the side. While I could slowly climb up the side on my own, the attraction this object had with me dragged me up the side. The giant left again, after returning me to the base, and vanished into the fog in the distance, before returning and just staring at me for a while.
I stared back at the giant, curious as we watched each other for around an hour, before the giant moved away and grabbed another object, and began making noises at the object. The giant's noises were loud and vibrating, and they made no sense. It eventually came back over, continuing to make noise as it stared at me, before falling silent and just staring. Before long, however, a loud noise echoed throughout the room, and the giant looked in the direction the noise came from. I watched several more giants enter my view distance, they had these weird objects floating next to them. The new giants took away the original giant, much to my displeasure, but that quickly vanished as I thought that maybe these new giants would feed me and satiate my hunger.
But no such thing happened. In fact, several giants began to move in the outside world and began taking things away. Two giants approached my glass world, and picked it up, carrying me away as well. The outside world began to move around and quickly, as the giants carried my glass world away, and before long, a bright light shined down from above, the two giants walking upwards towards the light. Once my perception adapted to the light, I saw green below me, and around me everywhere. I was placed into some brown table-like thing with other things I noticed from the outside world, like the object the first giant made noises at. The two giants left me and finding myself alone, I felt a small tickling at the back of my consciousness, a feeling I didn't like. Boredom. I began exploring my safe glass world, trying to see more of this new outside world.
Author's Note
Man... writing a creature without proper sentience is hard... Also, I ain't dead! Just lazy and busy... so... hopefully I will get another chapter out for this and Wolf of the Everfree in the next month or so...