The Cosmic Chronicle

Yzidor Plintwolk So, eh, filter pouch... may I call you that, or does your species have a real tongue-twister name?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp Mmmm, "filter pouch" is fine, as long as you don't touch the center pole. Our official name just sounds like a broken fan.
Yzidor Plintwolk Noted. Can you briefly explain what you're doing here on Rovathia-Delta?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp I purify mist. The air, the info-membrane, human prejudice, it all passes through my tendrils. Most of it solidifies in the city’s gutter.
Yzidor Plintwolk How did you end up in the thick of these protocols anyway?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp Raffle with the landscape. My kind arrives by condensation labor. We drift in, nest in the archival spines, and feed on outdated regulations from the palace.
Yzidor Plintwolk Interesting. What's your take on the Cerulean Consortium?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp They're like cold currents in a warm tank. Not nourishing, but hard to avoid. Lots of noise, little substance.
Yzidor Plintwolk Well, you seem to take it pretty lightly. So what's daily life like among these half-drone farmers?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp They work mud with an efficiency that gives me nightmares. Sometimes they accidentally plug their software into my slime ducts, and I get agricultural ads tickling my ridges for hours.
Yzidor Plintwolk *laughs* Oh really? And Magistrus Zekron, how does he react?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp He hovers above it all, literally and figuratively. Zekron regularly threatens us with recoding but continually loses his decoder.
Yzidor Plintwolk *leans forward* Never started a protest with your filter kin, or is solidarity not your thing?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp Look, if I waited for my kind to unite, I'd evaporate in the meantime. We're soloists by design.
Yzidor Plintwolk Isn't it just cowardice, floating aimlessly and never taking a stand?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp Excuse me? You're pushing your human decision-anxiety onto me. My existence IS decision. Every vibration, every mist bead. Choices by the micron. What do you really choose on this moon?
Yzidor Plintwolk Oh, so you’re tossing it back at me now? You slimeballs only suck up mist and annoy bureaucrats. Is that it?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp *hisses along the copper edge of the bridge* You breathe protocol, I filter it out. Without me, this place drowns in itself. Your scoreboard is just off.
Yzidor Plintwolk Ridiculous! You leech off systems without contributing anything-
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp Hold on! This "parasite" prevents three internal collapses and seven hundred missed updates a year. Who retrieved your access badge from the waste grid this morning, huh?
Yzidor Plintwolk Tss! That was an accident-
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp Like your career, I suspect. Let's just admit you share more with me than you’d like. You leak as much as the mist itself.
Yzidor Plintwolk Now it’s getting personal. Seriously, why am I even talking to a walking air filter?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp Because, like everyone on Rovathia-Delta, you’ll eventually have to submit to the mist. And I’m the only one who can pull you out.
Yzidor Plintwolk ...*stares silently at the energy river*. Anything you'd still like to tell our readers?
Mwfti-Glass-Slime-slurp Yes. Invest in extra slime wipes. Really, trust me, you never know when you’ll slip hard.