Syl-Chapter 215: Pixie Chaos

"Is there something wrong with that hat?" I asked Trixie.

"Other than taking up my favorite sitting spot?" Trixie replied with a sigh.

"I did get it from a Cat Sith..." I admitted. "The dungeon spawned it, and the hat, or crown, has been attached to me ever since..."

"Oh!" Trixie gasped with surprise.

Trixie left her favorite seat, fluttered down, and repeatedly poked the hat rather aggressively.

"Nope. Looks fine to me, although I think it tricks people into thinking you always had the hat?" Trixie replied.

"How? Is it messing with their memories?" I asked.

Trixie giggled and shook her head. "Nothing as absurd as that; it’s sort of like a perception filter. It’s pretty harmless, nothing to worry your slimy little head about."

"Can it... Do anything?" I questioned. "Something beneficial for me."

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"Well, it can transform into other hats," Trixie pointed out as if that were obvious.

"No... I knew that. I meant, does it have any other benefits?" I asked.

"Well, why didn’t you say so?" Trixie teased mischievously.

She hummed and smiled as she poked the hat a few more times. She scratched her chin, licked her fingers, then shrugged.

"At the moment, no. It might once it grows a bit," Trixie answered.

"It can grow? Should I be concerned?"

"Hardly! You should be celebrating!" Trixie replied. "I’m sure people would kill for a magic item with potential."

"Okay... Any idea what it could develop then?" I asked again. "And how is it growing?"

"No idea, and from some of your leaking Mana. Just what a growing hat needs to grow big and strong!" Trixie giggled.

"Of course..." I sighed. "Anyway, with that out of the way, let me introduce you to my friend Vee."

I gestured towards the spider, who was staring at the pixie with great hesitation.

"Nice to meet you, Vee! I’m Trixie the pixie!" Trixie said with a twirl.

"Oh hell, what a stupidly ironic name..." Vee replied.

"You’re telepathically connected..." I informed her.

"What!? But I didn’t even agree, what the hell?" Vee cried out.

"Yeah... Trixie can do that; she’s a master of telepathy..." I warned.

"Oh balls... That sucks..." Vee grumbled.

Trixie, on the other hand, giggled. "What an interesting friend you’ve found."

"She won’t force us to dance evermore, right?" Vee hesitantly asked.

"What?" Both me and Trixie asked in unison.

"Okay... Guess that’s not a thing..." Vee muttered embarrassedly.

"I dare say she’s even jumpier than you were..." Trixie commented. "Although, she hasn’t tried to explode the room yet."

"You were exploding rooms back then, too?" Vee questioned.

"No, that was different. It was more like a burst or pop than an explosion. I couldn’t detonate back then," I tried explaining.

"You can detonate now?" Trixie asked with worry.

"Oh yeah, I’ve eaten an orange slime!" I answered excitedly.

"Gods... What has been unleashed upon the world..." Trixie grumbled.

"If you think that’s bad, she became a giant worm and exploded!" Vee exclaimed. "Took out an entire underground kobold area! I thought the mountain was going to come crashing down!"

"It wasn’t that bad... I held back a little," I downplayed.

"That was holding back?" Vee questioned.

Trixie giggled. "Sounds like I’ve missed out on quite a lot of fun. So, are you just relaxing here in Dwarfville, or do you have plans?"

"Well, I’ve been trying to tutor Vee with some magic, and I even have a quest to do so," I replied.

"And I got a quest to visit the beach!" Vee added enthusiastically.

"Magic tutoring is good. Has she broken through her Mana aura yet?" Trixie asked.

"Not yet, unfortunately..." I admitted.

"Did you try the rock method?" Trixie questioned.

"Oh bloody hell, not the stupid rock method!" Vee complained.

"It’s how all spirits are taught, and it worked with Syl here," Trixie said with a gesture toward me.

"It really works!" I confirmed.

"Saying it worked with Syl is hardly a fair comparison," Vee complained. "I’m just a spider, not a magical slime prodigy!"

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"A teleporting, size-altering, dimensional spider..." I corrected.

"Ooooh! Now that sounds fun!" Trixie giggled. "You monsters are absolutely fascinating; it almost makes me upset that I’m a spirit."

"Well, if you ignore the people killing us part for thinking we will go evolution crazy," I added, a hint of dread in my voice.

"And you’re absolutely sure that won’t happen to us?" Vee questioned. "No offense, but I’ve seen the way you look at slime cores..."

"It’s no different to how you look at a plate of cooked food!" I teased back.

"Okay!" Trixie said, clapping her hands. "I can confirm that if Syl was evolution crazy, she would’ve tried eating both of us in this room."

"Well, she did mention eating me..." Vee grumbled.

"That was once! And only in the case of your untimely death!" I countered. "I just spent a fortune on magic rings to prevent that!"

"True..." Vee said before giggling. "I’m only teasing a little."

"Hey, what’s a few nibbles between friends?" Trixie said. "Syl definitely tried to eat me a few times. It’s a good thing she couldn’t touch me, or I’d be in trouble."

I grinned mischievously, transforming my finger into a slimy solution of lead-silver and giving Trixie a poke. "I can touch you now."

Trixie visibly shivered, and I even caught the briefest moment when her happy face dropped to one of slight panic.

"Oh gods... That’s slightly terrifying..." Trixie whispered. "Remember, I’m on team Syl? Your old pal Trixie! Taught you magic! Got you a super rare class! How’s that Air affinity treating you?"

I burst out laughing at the exaggerated panic coming from the pixie. "Only teasing... And it’s been good, although you didn’t tell me how long it would take!"

"What? It’s only a few class levels before you unlocked deriving elements?" Trixie asked, dumbfounded.

"Only a few levels..." I grumbled. "I was paying off a level debt for so long... I only very recently got it."

"Well, I couldn’t exactly predict that!" Trixie said, waving her hands energetically. "I’ve never even heard of a level debt before!"

"Good thing there’s no loan sharks, or they might have broken your legs!" Vee joked.

"Why would sharks break Syl’s legs?" Trixie asked.

"I technically don’t even have legs," I added.

"Boo! You two are no fun!" Vee complained.

After a few more playful pokes and giggles together, we began catching up. We started by discussing how Vee and I met, then gave a brief overview of Vee’s origins, and then rounded it off with what I’d been up to since I last saw Trixie.

Trixie was hanging on to every word and genuinely looked like she’d wished she had been there. When it came time for the pixie to reciprocate, she tried to brush it off.

When both Vee and I pressed on, she started blabbering.

"Oh, you know... I went and saw the family; most of them were still around. The fairy queen took a break, but the replacement was so disastrous that she was forced to return.

They also tried having a fairy king for a bit, but then it turns out he was actually a gnome in disguise! They should have known he was too round to be a fairy, but everyone was too scared to call the king fat! Talk about embarrassing!

Anyway, like I said, they all suck! They blamed me for getting caught! Said I could have escaped sooner if I really put in some effort. I’d like to see those rainbow-bedazzled assholes try to escape from a prison of lead-silver!"

Vee and I were left speechless by such a deluge of words.

"Um... Well... Did Syl mention the elf assassin?" Vee blurted out.

"What? An assassin coming after my friend?" Trixie asked, outraged.

"Well, he’s dead now..." I shrugged. "I think he was after who I look like."

"Oh," Trixie replied deadpan, her anger deflating. "That makes sense. It would be pretty weird for a random elf to attack you unless someone discovered you were actually a monster..."

"I don’t think anyone has discovered it..." I replied. "I’ve been careful, and the assassin was certainly surprised to learn the truth."

"Yeah, especially considering you’re a slime. Most would probably think you’re a doppelganger or some kind of demon," Trixie said.

"Good to know I’m not the only one who found Syl being a slime unbelievable," Vee teased.

"I swear I’m tempted to reveal the truth just to try to repair the reputation of slimes..." I grumbled.

"I think you’d just damage it further; you’re far away from a normal slime," Trixie giggled.

"I think anyone in this [Experiment] is far from normal... I wonder if any of the others have been revealed," I mused.

"Beats me, I’ve certainly heard nothing, and you’d think strange new powerful monsters appearing would be on the rumor mill," Trixie shrugged. "The fairy queen and the dwarf king certainly didn’t mention anything."

"You talked with the dwarf king?" Vee questioned.

"Yup, he’s a decent fellow; I delivered a letter from the fairy queen as an excuse to teleport here. Saved me a lot of flying with that clever maneuver!" Trixie said smugly. "But enough about me and people wearing silly hats, tell me about being a dimensional spider? You must have all sorts of cool threads, right?"

"I... Do..." Vee replied hesitantly.

"Trixie likes to knit," I quickly added. "She had me create a bunch of spider silk when she learned I could shapeshift."

"Oh nice, like the Weaver class I took?" Vee asked.

"Oh dang, you replaced me with a better model... I’m wondering if I should start feeling jealous!" Trixie pouted.

"I wouldn’t call myself exactly a knitter..." Vee said dismissively. "I mostly want to see if it lets me make better webs, traps, or maybe some protective wraps?"

"Mind showing me what you’re working with?" Trixie asked.

Vee looked toward me, and I gave her a reassuring nod.

I felt Vee ease up a little from our bond, and she spun a small amount of [Rift Thread]. I noted she appeared to be braiding it somewhat, although I still found it almost impossible to see and look at. She presented it rather proudly.

"What the hell is that?" Trixie asked, pointing toward the otherwordly creation and looking as if she’d seen a ghost.

"[Rift Thread]!" Vee said proudly.

"That’s terrifying!" Trixie replied with a shudder. "How are you even touching it safely? That stuff is like... A void of nothingness."

"Yeah, it was not fun to be on the receiving end of it," I replied. "The fact it’s so hard to detect is what annoys me."

"You’d probably need a special sense... Or be able to see how it removed all the essence in the area it occupies," Trixie mumbled.

"Hey, that’s how I spotted it!" I replied happily.

"Stop disassembling my secret weapon like that..." Vee grumbled.

"Hey, don’t worry, your secret weapon is safe with us," I reassured her.

"Yeah... I think any other spirit would laugh at me if I told them I’d seen a spider who could weave threads of effectively anti-essence," Trixie added. "It’s almost as unbelievable as a walking talking slime."

"So, what are your plans?" I asked Trixie, trying to move away from the slime-teasing subject.

"Honestly, I was hoping to just follow you around a bit and see what chaos happens around you. You really caused a lot of turmoil with that floating island," Trixie answered.

"More chaos than what happened with the kobolds?" Vee questioned.

Trixie looked toward me expectantly.

"No..." I replied. "The worst I did on that floating island was freeze a lake; the explosion over there turned all the essence rather chaotic."

"Oooh! Chaotic essence?" Trixie said excitedly, then snapped back and looked at me questioningly. "Wait, since when could you see essence?"

"After I ate an ant princess," I answered.

"Oh... That explains it," Trixie nodded.

"That doesn’t explain anything!?" Vee replied.

"Ants lay their eggs where there is optimal essence flow," Trixie responded, then she turned toward me with a shit-eating grin. "Does that mean you got another egg-laying trait?"

"I have no idea what you’re talking about..." I attempted to dodge the question.

Trixie was about to say something when Vee spoke first.

"Please, no talk of egg-laying; it reminds me of the awful Broodmother evolution option I have," Vee begged.

"Agreed! No talk of eggs!" I immediately added.

Trixie giggled but nodded. "I think we should definitely investigate the chaotic essence area."

"I’ll add it to the list," I agreed. "I also wanted to see what monsters it might spawn."

"Although we must be extra careful if there’s another assassin..." Vee said cautiously.

"Ha! I’d love to see an assassin try to sneak up on me!" Trixie gloated.

We made quite a powerhouse team with the three of us, and I actually hoped another assassin might confront us.