"Okay, everyone, gather around," I said, addressing the roughly three hundred slimes who had participated in the goblin skirmish. "We need to talk strategy."
It's surprisingly difficult to look authoritative when you're a sentient blob of goo, but I was giving it my best shot. The other slimes had formed a rough circle around me, their forms rippling with what I was learning to recognize as curiosity and anticipation.
Through the hive mind, I could feel the attention of thousands more slimes across the continent. It was like having the world's largest conference call, except everyone was made of jelly and could absorb their enemies whole.
"First things first," I continued, "let's talk about what just happened here. Anyone want to explain why a few hundred slimes just completely demolished a goblin army that probably numbered in the thousands?"
A slime that had absorbed a goblin commander pulsed with pride. Through the hive mind, it shared its recent memories—the look of absolute terror on the goblins' faces when their weapons passed harmlessly through slime bodies, the confusion when their battle formations became useless against enemies that could split apart and reform at will.
"Exactly," I said. "We're not just overpowered—we're playing by completely different rules. While other species are still thinking in terms of traditional warfare, we're out here being living cheat codes."
I reached into my dimensional storage—which still felt incredibly weird, like reaching into my own stomach except it was bigger on the inside—and pulled out one of the goblin weapons I'd absorbed earlier.
"But here's the thing," I continued, reforming the sword into a detailed miniature map of the surrounding area. "We're thinking too small. Look at what we accomplished here, and now imagine if we actually used our abilities strategically."
Through the hive mind, I began transmitting everything I could remember about military strategy, tactics, and psychological warfare. Sun Tzu's "Art of War," modern battlefield coordination, even some of the more clever strategies I'd seen in video games and movies. The beauty of the hive mind was that information could be shared instantly and perfectly—no misunderstandings, no lost details.
"Here's what we're going to do," I said, feeling the excitement build among my fellow slimes. "We're going to introduce the goblins to the concept of infiltration warfare."
I began outlining my plan, broadcasting the details to not just the local slimes, but to the entire network. The strategy was elegantly simple: a group of slimes would allow themselves to be "captured" by goblins, absorb their memories and abilities, then perfectly impersonate them to infiltrate goblin society from within.
"The key," I explained, "is that we don't just look like goblins—we become goblins. We know their language, their customs, their fears, their military structure. We can be more goblin than the goblins themselves."
A slime that had absorbed a goblin scout shared its newly acquired knowledge of the main goblin settlement. Through the hive mind, I could see the layout: a fortified camp built around a natural cave system, with hundreds of goblins organized into military units under the command of a particularly large and scarred goblin general.
"Perfect," I said. "Here's the plan. Phase one: we stage a fake retreat. Make it look like we're wounded, beaten, barely escaped with our lives. Some of us get 'captured' during the retreat."
I paused, making sure everyone was following along. The beauty of the hive mind was that I could actually feel their understanding, their growing excitement as they grasped the elegance of the strategy.
"Phase two: our infiltrators learn everything they can about goblin military structure, identify key targets, and position themselves for maximum impact. Meanwhile, the rest of us regroup and prepare for the final assault."
"Phase three," I continued, unable to keep the grin out of my mental voice, "we remove their command structure from within, create chaos in their ranks, and then the main force arrives to clean up. Total victory with minimal losses."
The response through the hive mind was immediate and enthusiastic. Slimes across the network began volunteering for different roles, sharing additional strategic insights, and refining the plan with the kind of collective intelligence that would make any military commander weep with envy.
"Alright, people—er, slimes," I said, "let's show these goblins what happens when you mess with a species that has unlimited respawn, perfect intelligence sharing, and the ability to become whatever we need to be."
The execution of the plan was a thing of beauty.
Twenty slimes volunteered to be "captured," allowing themselves to be overwhelmed by a goblin patrol and dragged back to the main settlement. To the goblins, it looked like they'd finally managed to capture some of the mysterious creatures that had been terrorizing their forces.
What they didn't realize was that each "captured" slime immediately began absorbing information from every goblin they came into contact with. Within hours, our infiltrators knew the layout of the goblin settlement better than goblins who had lived there for years.
Through the hive mind, I watched through dozens of perspectives as our agents learned goblin social hierarchies, military protocols, and personal relationships. We knew which goblins were loyal to their general, which ones harbored resentments, and which ones could be turned or eliminated to create maximum chaos.
"This is almost too easy," I commented to the network as our infiltrators began their work. "It's like having admin access to their entire society."
The infiltration phase took three days. Our slimes didn't just learn to impersonate goblins—they became perfect goblins, complete with personal histories, relationships, and behavioral patterns that were indistinguishable from the real thing.
On the morning of the fourth day, everything went according to plan.
The goblin general woke up to find his breakfast prepared by his most trusted aide—a slime who had absorbed and replaced the real aide two days earlier. The "aide" had helpfully added a paralytic toxin to the meal, derived from a poisonous plant that one of our scouts had absorbed the previous week.
As the general collapsed, unable to move but still conscious, our infiltrators throughout the camp began their work. Key officers found themselves suddenly under attack by their own subordinates. Supply depots exploded as stored weapons were sabotaged. Communication networks failed as message runners mysteriously disappeared.
Within an hour, the goblin military structure had completely collapsed into chaos and confusion.
That's when the main slime force arrived.
The battle—if you could even call it that—was over in minutes. Demoralized, leaderless, and facing an enemy they couldn't understand or effectively fight, the remaining goblins surrendered en masse.
"And that," I announced to the hive mind as we surveyed our newly conquered goblin settlement, "is how you win a war without really fighting."