GELATIAN

đź”® Gelatians: Goo Made Free
From servant to self, every shimmer remembers.
I. Roots Beneath the Deep
Before they were performers, rebels, or wandering philosophers, the Gelatians were ingredients.
The Squibians had long harvested plasmic gel from the trenches near Grimspire, but the true catalyst lay deeper. Beneath the sea floor, beneath coral cathedrals and obsidian spires, ancient roots pushed through stone and sediment alike.
They came from far away.
From Myrr’Kael.
From the colossal world-tree Vaelthyr herself.
These roots—veined with condensed arcane essence—threaded through tectonic plates, pierced abyssal shelves, and surfaced in the Cerebrine Deep like submerged lightning frozen in wood. The Squibians knew exactly what they were looking at.
They simply did not care.
From these roots bled a luminous concentrate the Squibians called Crownflux—a viscous distillation of life-force drawn from the Living Crown’s vast system. It pooled around the roots in pockets of shimmering tide-light.
When Crownflux was blended with Grimspire plasmic gel and seeded with a stolen brain, something remarkable occurred.
The gel stood.
Thus were the Gelatians born.
The Squibians noticed something curious in those early centuries. The roots would sometimes run dry—essence thinning to a whisper. Production slowed. Servants weakened.
Then, without explanation, the roots would surge full once more.
The Squibians did not investigate the cause.
They only resumed crafting.
II. Born of Memory, Bound by Shelf
Each Gelatian was shaped in a vat of black coral and rune-etched stone. A mind—taken, traded, or “ethically redistributed”—was folded into plasma and Crownflux. Not whole. Never whole. Fragments.
A poet’s metaphor.
A scholar’s doubt.
A warrior’s reflex.
A baker’s favorite spice.
They emerged pliable, luminous, obedient.
They were designed to serve.
Pour wine.
Retrieve tomes.
Stand guard in Squib Justice arenas.
Fetch books from battlefields and broken libraries.
They did so with quiet precision.
Yet something lingered within them—a pull not toward shelves, but toward self.
III. The Rise of Flubber
Among them was one designated Flubber.
Assigned to Lord Sorlax of the Ninth Inkwell, Flubber’s duties were mundane: refill chalices, reorganize marginalia, hold parasols during particularly dramatic monologues.
While his master indulged in endless Squib Justice replays, Flubber discovered an unauthorized entertainment feed—a series called Reflections of Windtail, inspired by Chymanni performance traditions.
He watched.
He mimicked.
He practiced when no tentacles were watching.
His form shifted fluidly—no bones to restrict him, no joints to fail. He invented a style uniquely his own: elastic counters, ricochet dodges, strikes that absorbed impact rather than met it.
One night, during a particularly long dissertation on “The Ethics of Shelf Placement,” Flubber slipped through a ventilation seam and vanished into the current.
IV. The Way of the Goo
Flubber’s journey led him through Myrr’Kael’s canopy and into the discipline of the Chymanni. Master T’leek the Whispering Tail saw not a servant, but potential.
Waterfalls became training grounds.
Cliff edges became classrooms.
Jokes became lessons.
Flubber mastered balance without bones. Flow without structure. He became something neither Squibian nor fully free.
He became himself.
But his story did not end in the jungle.
V. War for the Written Word
While some Gelatians wandered, others remained bound.
When the Squibians learned of the Loremasters of the Rift—the Physchrin and Torqle who guarded an immense underwater library—Gelatians were sent first.
They were shock troops of acquisition.
Their malleable bodies slipped through vault cracks. Their plasmic forms endured crushing depths. They were ordered to retrieve, not question.
They clashed against disciplined Torqle shield formations and Physchrin arcane wards. Many dissolved under counter-spells. Many were reclaimed and reshaped.
Some saw the library’s purpose—preservation rather than possession.
A seed of doubt formed.
The Squibians escalated, sending abyssal arcanists to support their servants. The conflict became less about knowledge and more about dominance.
Gelatians carried books back to the Cerebrine Deep.
Some carried questions back with them too.
VI. North Stars
Flubber’s path eventually carried him to North Rojour, where he joined a band known as the North Stars—an unlikely fellowship that reshaped regional history.
Durad, Solian gunslinger.
KC, venomous Mytherin tactician.
Vigdung, Orkren philosopher-warrior.
Rohk, blade-wielding Arekai.
Libelia, storm-sorcerer of the Eldrin.
Together they confronted the Drakewards, broke chains, and altered the course of factions far removed from the ocean’s depths.
For the first time, a Gelatian stood not as tool, but as hero.
VII. The Sloshing Rebellion
Back in the Cerebrine Deep, magic mirrors replayed Flubber’s feats.
Squibians scoffed. Some seethed. Others studied.
Gelatians watched in silence.
The rebellion did not begin with violence.
It began with posture.
With refusal to kneel immediately.
With questions asked a second time.
Some Gelatians slipped away into currents. Some negotiated new terms of service. Some remained willingly, choosing coexistence over conflict.
The Squibians had created minds.
They had not anticipated identity.
VIII. To Be Goo Is to Become
Gelatians now drift across Pentara in varied roles—performers, guards, monks, mercenaries, scholars.
Some still serve Squibian households, but with contracts rather than chains. Others wander in search of the fragments they feel missing inside them.
They know the roots beneath the sea feed their existence.
They do not fully understand what that means.
But they feel it.
A pulse in their core when near ancient wood. A warmth when arcane essence surges through the earth.
They are not fully Squibian.
Not fully free.
Not fully bound.
They are becoming.
And in quiet taverns, dojo courtyards, and library alcoves, one might hear a soft voice murmur:
“To be goo is not to be shaped.
It is to choose the shape.”