“...and so, to take any possibility of the Denethor scenario that I just described off the table, effective tomorrow morning, I will be stepping down as cap—“

Dozer stiffened his sensitive membrane, fighting back against the roar of outrage that had risen from the gathered bonesacks. This was not their first outburst, nor even the loudest. It would not be the last. Rain-King would be talking for at least three more whiles, which was effectively forever. Dozer had stopped listening a while ago, other than the occasional check-in.

Rain-King had told him the important part earlier. He was leaving. He would die if he did not.

Dozer was suddenly quivering with enough fury to make the bonesacks around him shout and step away, but he barely noticed. Grannybrain was not clean. She had fooled him. She was filth, and too strong for him to do anything about, and also too strong for Rain-King to do anything about. It was unacceptable.

Eventually, the trembling calmed, but Dozer’s rage still simmered as he checked on Rain-King again.

“...lair that Ameliah found in the basement is not the only one we can potentially access. The other, as some of you might suspect, is below Vestvall. Given that we don’t know if the Empire kept a presence there, we’ll need to...”

Hearing nothing important, Dozer began winding his way through the crowd spread beneath the trees to distract himself. Rain-King would not die, obviously. The scouring of Bug-Home would stop because he had to leave, though. That was a problem. The cleaning would need to be continued by someone else. Someone like him. Except he was leaving too. He had to go with Rain-King—not just because of the king-link, but because Rain-King would get in trouble without him.

And yet, there was filth.

Deeply troubled, Dozer oozed past Tall-Brother, who was standing at the edge of the clump of cervidians. They had gathered apart from the other bonesacks, sorting themselves by boneheadedness in spite of Rain-King’s wishes. It was too ordered, Rain-King said. Divided and segregated and bad.

Dozer understood. The ⟬order-need⟭ could be stupid sometimes. It was ⟬order-need⟭ that currently had his Crystal Slime kin battling over the stones in the play area Rain-King had made for them. Some were trying to sort them by size, while others were trying to pile them by texture, while others were trying to fit them together by shape. They did not realize how the ⟬order-need⟭ was creating ⟬disorder⟭. They simply followed their instincts.

If Rain-King followed his instincts, he would die. If Rain-King died, he wouldn’t be able to clean anything. It was the same reason he’d defiled the Whale. Defiled to live.

It was sense, but it was not.

It was better to die clean.

...

Somehow, that didn’t seem right either.

Dozer oozed on, no closer to solving moral philosophy than he was to solving the problem at hand. He was finally beginning to understand what made Rain-King brood so much.

Speaking of Rain-King.

“...this box holds what I’m calling the tech tree. I’ve been writing them out for a while now, but they’re more ‘what’ and ‘why’ and less ‘how’. Most of them should be self-explanatory. Anyway, the point is to bolster our industrial output, and the bills are grouped into tiers to make it easier for...”

Still talking. Pointless. Boring.

Talking would not scour the filth from the Bug-Home.

Talking would not...

Talking...

Dozer froze, clarity piercing through the headache-without-head he’d given himself. Rain-King did lots of talking! Lots of telling Ascension what to do! With talking, he got them to do things he could not! The other bonesacks weren’t nearly as strong as Ameliah-Queen and Tall-Brother, but they were many! Cleaning was the work of many! Many could do what one could not!

Dozer swerved, no longer oozing. By leaps and bounds, he shot through the crowd of listening bonesacks until he found the ones he hadn’t known he’d been seeking. The Crystal Slimes could do what he could not. They did not have to think. He just needed to show them the problem.

⟪ You! ⟫ he sent in a way he knew not how, landing in the playpen with a splat. The communication was like the king-link, but not. More instinctual, somehow.

As one, the Crystal Slimes paused in their endless sorting.

⟪ Why no ⟬clean⟭? ⟫ Dozer sent, then quivered with frustration. It was clear they did not hear him from the way they were already going back to their pointless task. It was also clear why they were not cleaning. There was no filth here. Not in the pen. Only disorder.

⟪ ⟬filth⟭ is that way! ⟫ Dozer tried anyway, trying to charge the command with a sense of direction.

There was no response.

That would not do.

⟪ ⟬clean⟭! ⟬clean⟭! ⟬CLEAN⟭! ⟫

Tamer Support System - Debug Output

Detected attempted activation of corrupted natural skill

Closest template: Noblesse Visqueuse

Error: Missing required class family: Royal Slime

Error: Contracted Tamer lacks required ability: Skilled Monster

Error: Contracted Tamer lacks required ability: Tame Monster

Error: Unsolvable Contradiction

Notifying Tamer of Error State

Error: Tamer not found

Notifying Administrator of critical error state

Error: Administrator not found

Entering debug mode...

Existing Shared Hybrid Interface Detected

Warning: visual interface unsupported by target entity

Compensating...

Hybrid Interface Boot Complete

Notice: unique monster species detected

Generating class options from template: Crystal Slime

Generating additional tailored options

Notice: Administrator approval required due to warning flags

Error: Administrator not found

Working...

Resolution completed with errors

Beginning auto-evolution...

Essence Slime King has been randomly selected

Error: tamer_veto_dialog failed - Tamer not found

Reverting to self-selection