Resh’s eyes looked around and saw the road, further away broken glass shattered and pieces littered the road around it, a car had stopped with smashed windows and lay upside down with its wheels spinning and the roof caved in completely. Near the back, the end was smoking and a small fire had started underneath it, everything was grey and hazy, why couldn’t Resh see more clearly, the greys and whites and blacks painted a picture but something was missing in that picture, the image remained incomplete, just in a different way than before when it didn’t have a nose. Resh had never seen this “car” thing before but in the memory, this version of Resh knew it. Above that, as Resh rolled its eyes up it saw a much larger structure, long cables and metallic beams joined in an odd pattern, a bridge of some kind, again something Resh was unfamiliar with.

In Resh’s ears was a pounding, screeching of rubber tyres skidding on the road as a car was pulled to a hard stop, the rushing sound of water below and thunder from the sky above. It was darker, the night it seemed, and a storm was coming in. This was all too much for Resh, what was a car? A bridge? Rain? A storm? None of this was anything Resh had experiences before so how did it know? Where had the information come from? Again Resh thought to the body it was currently in, realising that this body was where the memories and thoughts and feelings were all coming from. It was both completely alien and intimately familiar at the same time. The conflicting sensations were making Resh dizzy.

Things about the situation were clicking into place for Resh quickly now, with all the information feeding in Resh felt through this skin that it was lying on the ground, face half-pressed to the road, jaw and nose broken, rib cage cracked and internally bleeding, it was in bad shape, Resh tried to morph and adjust its shape to aid in healing, Natural Plant Healing wasn’t working and neither was Meditate it didn’t make sense! Resh wasn’t moving! Why didn’t Meditate work! Why was Natural Plant Healing not working either? A frustrated tear ran down Resh’s face, hot and salty. It was a bitter feeling, its body was dying and there was nothing Resh could do about it, the pain and frustration culminating in a wordless roar from a partially ruined throat.

“Arrrrghhhh!!” Resh yelled. This was followed by more pain from its throat. He....him…me...

It was a soft and discreet thought in the back of its mind, it meant nothing to Resh. Less than nothing. Amidst all this pain and suffering and frustration where none of its Skills worked. Resh felt less than useless. It wanted to scream more but it would just end up more hurt than before. It was useless, pathetic and dying.

The screeching had stopped and another roll of thunder along with some lightning arcing from the sky. Then the rain began to pour. Dark grey and black water fell from the sky. It splashed on Resh and washed much of the blood and tears and sweat and heat from its body…his body, again a soft thought in its mind crept forward. The voice was a little stronger than before. Then there was the sound of glass breaking followed by silence apart from the rain and the occasional peal of thunder.

A boot appeared in front of Resh’s face, what Resh had mistaken for feet, it now recognised as black boots. Workman’s shoes were the ones with metal in the tip. That boot lifted. Wiped back and came speeding forward smashing forward straight into Resh’s already ruined face. Pain lanced again through Resh and it blacked out…He blacked out…

Resh was jarred awake by the spike of pain and startled as he came to. It again had many small fish nibbling at it all over its top while it was lying on the river bed.

You have gained all 5 of the core physical senses, the minimum requirement to be considered an animal or creature. You have the following senses, sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch. Congratulations! Your gaining of all 5 core physical senses has resulted in a mutation! You have gained the Organ Brain! +20 to all Mental Stats! You are now able to have full and coherent thoughts, if you knew a language you would likely be able to talk as well!

You have gained a complimentary Nervous System! +40 Reaction, +20 Speed!

You have gained a complimentary Circulatory System! +20 Endurance, +20 Vitality!

You have gained the Skill Pain Resistance Level 1! Gain experience for each second of agony you endure. This is a skill acquired through considerable mental and physical torture. Pain resistance will not reduce the damage you receive only the amount of pain you experience. Reduces the instinctive recoil from injury and by extension reduces the chance of becoming Dazed, Paralysed and Flinching from attacks of the enemy. However be warned while feeling less Pain might be a boon in some or even most cases, there is a reason that all creatures feel Pain. May also cause reckless behaviour and cause you to go into a Berserk rage with complete disregard for personal safety. You have been warned!

Resh was still shaking from the after-effects of such a drastic change to its body and mind. Not to mention the sheer amount of pain it had just had to endure as well. It was lucky that Resh had passed out when it did because the level of pain that it would have needed to endure was only going to continue to rise as the process continued. At some point, that amount of pain would not be possible to endure without completely losing sanity. Resh who had not had a mind before now possessed a brain! It was Resh’s first internal organ and it was incredible, also it was the size of a piece of Squitter dung…

Resh had some thoughts about what getting such a skill meant for how it had been living its life and what it had experienced thus far.

Trying to figure out if this whole process had been worth it or not turned out to be a lot harder than Resh had thought it would be. It was not so easy to understand the benefits of a stronger and more capable mind. A body Resh could easily test but this was complicated.

I need to understand what it is that I have gained here. Am I better off than before or it is just a delusion? What can I do that I could not before? My thoughts are clearer and flow more easily, but does that mean anything? I could think before, even if it was not as smooth is that such a large advantage?

For an outside entity looking in, it may have been obvious that Resh’s mental capabilities had skyrocketed compared to before. There was a huge and very tangible difference in the clarity of thought and articulation of ideas. Experiencing it yourself though is rarely that clear cut or easy to understand. With the lower intellect and acuity that Resh had access to before, it couldn’t understand how deficient it was. How could it compare that situation to this one now? Even the brain it was using to analyse itself was not something it had before.

Resh could feel that this was a turning point. From a slime creature surviving or in Resh’s case nearly dying from baser instincts to something more. This Water Slime was eager and willing to find out more about what it had to come in the future. Certainly, even if Resh couldn’t tell how much its capabilities had improved, there had been a fundamental shift in its own body and mind that would allow much more growth moving forward. That tipping point had been reached and now it could get a lot stronger and more capable. It would be able to explore its area much more freely now as well with its new and improved capabilities.

Clear thoughts and therefore more decisive action would be the name of the game moving forward and that encounter with the Human (Male) would be going down differently this time. That was going to be a high priority on its to-do list. The thing that it had not recognised until this last visit to the dream was that the body that it had inhabited during it was eerily similar to a Human (Male) maybe this one that Resh had encountered here was a little younger but essentially it had been almost the same. It warranted further investigation at the very least. It would get a better understanding of the Humans and see if there were any other variants of this species other than (Male) after all it was the first time it had seen that sub-classification.

The tingles had died down and Resh was feeling suitably relaxed now after its encounter with agony. However, the other problem that had occurred is that it had lost a lot of HP, MP and SP during the process, it seemed to remake its internal structure took a lot out of a Water Slime. Resh needed to recover and fast before it became food for the fishes….literally.