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Icrotic Slime

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Icrotic Slime is a rare and dangerous organism found in the badzones of Necromunda's underhive.

Appearance

The Slime is a transparent, gelatinous blob, roughly the size of a grown man's fist. It is extremely slow moving and lacks any form of agility.[1]

Life Cycle

Icrotic Slime will usually attach itself to its victim's head when they are asleep from where it is slowly absorbed through the flesh and into the brain. Without any ability to defend itself, it releases psycho-chemical stimulants into the host's system, producing a sense of euphoria and feeling of power, preventing the victim from removing it because they simply have no desire to.[1]

Once inside the host's brain, the Slime reproduces by encysting in the way of ordinary amoaebic parasites. Millions of offspring emerge from their shells as the amoeba divides over and over, sustaining themselves by devouring the neural matter for psychic and physical nutrition. The host is eventually reduced to a drooling, gibbering state until after only a couple of hours the sheer numbers of the feeding and engorged larval Slimes cracks open the victim's skull.[1]

The larval state of the Slime is extremely small - only a millimetre across - but those that survive grow quickly by repeating this process with increasingly larger organisms.[1]

Use as a Narcotic

The state of euphoria, as well as the mental and physical enhancements granted to the host by the Icrotic Slime are so extreme that it has led to many people utilising it as a drug. Methods of avoiding death vary, depending on the resources of the person using it in this way. A person can have a friend standing by, ready to remove the Slime before it begins to reproduce, but this must be timed correctly, as once the Slime begins to encyst, its outer shell hardens and it can only be removed by major surgery. Anti-parasitic drugs can be used to kill it before the point of no return. While in the upper hive, the wealthy elite can use these drugs to "Slime" with near complete safety, the drugs available to the denizens of the underhive may be out-of-date or diluted by unscrupulous doctors. Also, in recent times there have been strains of Icrotic Slime encountered which have developed an immunity to these medicines.[1]

See also

Sources