Veinlick Slime

The mine wall looked as though it was sweating. Then the sweat licked the head off Rusk's hammer.

Metallic tongues came through the ore line, pulsing with copper and iron colors, dark with coal. The rest of the body hung inside the wall. We saw it when a wet seam opened. It filmed our tools with minerals and spread a slick on the floor. The rail under the cart softened. The load tipped toward the vein.

We fed zinc scraps into the opposite gallery and packed the exposed seam with dry furnace ash.

The small marks on gear come first. Slick channels then draw the marked objects toward its richest exposed tongue. It usually leaves flesh alone unless it needs salts from bones or implants. Hit it with metal and the struck section feeds; the weapon can become a new route into reach.

While feeding, it may close a passage with hardening slag skin. Concentrated ore bait draws it reliably, especially an unfamiliar alloy. It values a continuous mineral path enough to leave a fight for a richer one. Dry ash breaks its body into beads that must reconnect before it can retreat into the wall.