The majority of slimes originate from The Misty Island and this is where our story begins.
Few have delved deep into the depths of the realm of the Slime. The Misty Island is shrouded in mystery. Home of the Giant Slime Cubes this secretive intelligent race lives a life of complex social ritual, crafts, clans, alliances and trade. The reef off the East Coast of the Falanar acts as a natural barrier.
Ships have wrecked onto their shores. As the slimes absorbed the flotsam, they learned more of the cultures across the sea. One of the most significant discoveries was metallurgy. Sliding through their tunnels their bodies harvest pure iron from the cave walls, shielded from oxidization by their very nature. What the outside world forged in fire, the slimes of the Misty Island replicate through themselves.
Few travelers from the mainland had made it to the isle. Some of the slimes could communicate with these foreign species. Others found them to be a rare delicacy. They would offer trade for these impressive metals and smithing crafts. The merchants themselves kept the safe passages to the Isle a secret.
Much of the life of Slime still remains a mystery, what we do is that Slimes rely on what lays on the floor for their food.
Here many moss employ slime as their wet nurses, or perhaps it is the other way around.
But this wasn’t the original contract.
When moss first arrived on the world there were no slimes. The first growing moss depended on shady indirect sunlight to harvest stale air and create its own food. Today many types of moss still do. As the sun lets the moss grow it can also scorch it if it strays too far into the direct sunlight. This was the original arrangement.
The moss and sunlight relationship has been long and successful, but at a certain point some strains of moss dropped their sunlight synthesis; the reason can be found in the Southern caves of the Misty Island. Here the caves are cool and damp. The Sun can’t shine through these thickest parts of the mist nor penetrate into the natural caves.
There was a need for a more reliable source of synthesis. Here the slimes arrive, on the cave edges their first encounter was antagonistic, the blind oozes absorbed the moss on the cave edges entirely up to the edge of the cave mouths. This left this particular moss on the brink of extinction between the harsh sun and the hungry slimes.
But the moss developed a defense mechanism. A toxin that would kill any creature that consumed it. The Slimes that would absorb the whole moss clusters indiscriminately, ultimately perished. But the oozes who died there left a coating on the earth, this slightly corrosive compound allowed the moss to digest their food without the need of sunlight.
Furthermore some of the slimes found simply sliding over the moss without eating it produced a euphoric effect. These two species changed each other's biology over time. The moss would need to entice the slimes to return, this created a drive. This became the first stepping stone of consciousness in slime.
The toxin shaped their biology and the moss adapted to the slime. The moss was no longer bound to the tyranny of the sun and found new partners that let them grow far and deep into these cave systems. The waste of the moss secreted into this goo and the slimes removed it from them while providing surrogate digestion.
This arrangement required neither party to sacrifice anything they couldn't spare. The moss offered what it could not use. The slime consumed what would otherwise become a burden. In the economy of the cave this former predation became a partnership, perhaps the oldest partnership on the Misty Island.
It is not certain what became blue first between the moss and the slime. Perhaps the moss picked up pigments from the slime after abandoning their chlorophyll. Or perhaps the moss colored the slimes with their neurotoxic nectar. Or perhaps the cobalt in the mine colored both the organisms. But both the slimes of this region and the moss among which they live share this blue color that we see today in creatures such as Blue the slime girl.