The strange forms that can occasionally be seen coming from the ocean depths have long piqued my interest. I have taken it upon myself, Theophrastus Eresos of New Dawn to do some study on these strange organisms, that local fishermen have taken to calling ‘Dizzy Jellies’. Such a name does not suit a scientific paper such as this, thus I will be referring to them as a name I instead came across, translated from the language of one of the Ocean Dwelling Folk: the ‘Abyssal Ooze’.
-Description-
Abyssal Oozes are gelatinous creatures, composed mostly of a watery substance, encased within a thin membrane. Within, little ‘organs’ and occasionally the remnants of their last meal can be seen within. These things seem to be of the same Order as other ‘oozing slimes’ such as the Gelatinous Cube, and Black Pudding, though more study is needed.
They are usually between the size of a mouse, to as much as your average bilge rat, though there are records of ‘aberrant specimens’. Whilst in the water, they are near invisible, and float, like perfect spheroids, whilst when they are out of water, they seem to flatten, unable to keep their spherical shape outside the buoyancy of water.
-Habitat-
These creatures come from the depths of The Black Drakon Sea, and are usually only found in much deeper waters. Many a time Fishermen will end up dredging the things up with catches of fish, needing to throw them, and the dead, partially devoured fish they latched onto back into the sea.
Occasionally, they are also known to be found in rivers, though in far less occurrences, and an anecdote from a traveler to the realms below the ground, makes a bold claim that, you can even sometimes find them in reservoirs of water in the earthen depths. If this is to be believed, it seems that are a species that can find a foothold in any aquatic niche.
-Diet-
Chiefly their diet seems to be of near any organic matter. Fish, Shellfish,and even corals and seaweed, they can be seen clinging to, and slowly absorbing into their amorphous forms. Usually they can only absorb things their own size or smaller, but if several are upon the same prey item, they seem to be able to digest it in tandem. It is not uncommon to see several upon the same corpse of mid size fish. An account of this comes from a group of sailors in New Dawn, who claim to have dragged up a large tuna from the sea, only to find it encased, and being slowly devoured by no less than 40 of the Oozes. The Fishermen did not inspect further, and abandoned the net wholesale into the ocean
Abberant Specimens
While there have been no official sightings, an anecdote came to me, delivered by a cousin of a friend who knows whom this happened to. Upon the isle of New dawn, a man claimed that the rat hunting pet The’vran he owned, (around the size of a cat, fascinating species themselves, must do more research. Damn Unknown for leaving no Notes for us researchers), had not been seen in several days, but this was not uncommon. The rats had actually near completely disappeared.
One eve, while walking back home from the tavern, he claims he heard the sound of a thrashing rat in the alley near his residence. Thinking it was his beloved pet, he had rushed into the alley.
There, he claims to have witnessed, quote:
A Dizzy Jelly (Abyssal Ooze) round the Size of a small child, catching rats by throwing forth slimy arms, and dragging the squealing vermin into its body. The screamin’ of the rats was awful, and inside….(he pauses for several moments. Memory seems hard to recollect for him)....inside I could see them writhing, and burning away into bones, and I could see among the bones, the little collar I had given my sweet Snaggletooth (his The’vran’s name). Then, the thing turned to me. And I could tell. I swear t’ya I could tell it was looking at me! Sizing me up! I beat a hasty foot out of there, but by the time I brought back a guard it was gone...
There have been similar sightings claimed at Sea, but no concrete evidence. Is this truly an Abyssal Ooze? More research is needed.