Drip-Fed Pt. 07

That was a question none of them had a satisfying answer to. They were stuck between two equally odd possibilities. Number one, the archer had not sensed Reysha at all and that tracking attempt had been simply half-hearted. That begged the question of why the guy came out there in the first place and why he then tried to shoot down Apexus with such fervour. Number two, the hunter was way too lazy to actually commit to taking a hostage and bait Apexus out. Very odd, in the eyes of the entire group, but the more likely of the two, given the strength of the arrow.

"To be able to shoot an arrow straight through your body... I would assume him no lower than level thirty," Aclysia presented her best guess. "At worst level fifty. Although that seems like a stretch."

"Yeah, I don't think a level fifty or higher would miss that shot," Reysha backed the metal fairy up. Apexus had no sense of scale on that matter, he knew that Hemle had been around level twenty and Apotho had been probably several times that, judging by everything he had been capable of doing. He had never really seen either of them fight, so he just had to trust the two of them and their estimates.

Aclysia hummed to herself, "Do we have to worry about Hunter's Mark?"

"Hunter's Mark?" Apexus asked.

"It is a renowned tracking spell, like half the reason to get a Hunter into your group," Reysha let him know. Like Sneak and its many upgrades for Rogues, Bolt for mages and the particular healing spells of the supporting classes, Hunter's Mark was rather famous. Sure, there were other Classes that had access to location tracking, but none of them were as accurate, making it famous despite being a bit harder to learn than those basic spells. "But it shouldn't work at this distance, we should be more worried about Mehily and her lot."

"...Right..." Aclysia agreed slowly. The Inquisition was the one force they couldn't bet on forgetting them no matter how much time passed. Didn't help that they would be able to reach this dungeon eventually. Reason for the metal fairy's hesitation was, however, that she was forced to echo a course of action she had previously stopped. "They will come here. It won't take them long to realize we're in this dungeon either. If we run into them again, using lethal force will be necessary."

"Yup," was all that Reysha had to comment on the matter.

"Are you... not going to scold me for getting us into this situation?"

"Nah, I did that before and you're just going to give me some moral justification, aren't you?" the tiger girl put her bloody hands together like a nun in prayer. "Those faithful souls have made their choice despite knowing what awaits them in pursuit of my beloved's life," she spoke in a mockingly melodic voice. "As much as it pains me, we cannot let them escape again."

"Insulting... but accurate," Aclysia conceded. Even her disdain for murder had to take a step back when confronted with certain situations. Having a trio of people able to roughly estimate their position from a world over, highly motivated to either kill or imprison and then kill her darling, was such a situation. "I am nevertheless sorry for our current predicament."

"I made the choice," Apexus reminded her.

"You wouldn't have, were it not for your love for me, Apexus," the metal fairy refused his attempt to share the blame. "I hoped it would make them realize that you were more than a monster and that they, at the very least, would give up their pursuit. I let my wish for peace and the best outcome hinder what was the easiest and most reliable way forwards." After a few more moments, she added. "And I find myself unable to promise that I won't act on these ideals again."

The slime gave her something approximating a hug by flowing up to her and then wrapping himself around her up to the bust. "It's okay, you don't need to," he assured. "Knowing where it led us is a bad way to measure our decision back then. Hindsight is made with a new pair of better eyes. In that moment, I supported your decision, otherwise I wouldn't have made it."

"Thank you, darling," Aclysia put her arms around his liquid form and the two of them just stood there in tranquillity for a few moments. Then Reysha had to be Reysha and jumped into the hug with her crimson stained smile. For some reason, the metal fairy didn't really mind it.

"In the root's name, you two are overthinking this," the tiger girl laughed. "We'll just deal with this shit as it comes. We might not even have to kill Mehily anyway."

"No?" Aclysia asked and then realized what she was getting at. "Right, those three are normal humans. Even if they come here, they will have to leave once their rations run out."

"While we can stay down here for as long as we want," Reysha grinned. "Our senses are finer as well, so we can avoid them should they ever come even close."

"And they only know the direction in which to go, not our exact location..." now that she was no longer hung up on her guilty conscience, Aclysia's mind was working on the situation at large. "It is likely they will first hit the ocean before realizing we have fled all the way up here. It will take them at least another week to get here. That is, if they hunt rather than buy their meals."

"They might just camp the outside instead," Apexus informed them about what he would do in their stead.

"Would that change our strategy in any way?" Reysha asked, unnecessarily rubbing the side of her face against Apexus in what was an equally spontaneous and affectionate gesture. She would have done the same for Aclysia, but the metal fairy would have cried about the dirt that got on her face in the process.

"It means we shouldn't leave before we're certain... Right, we should defeat the boss before they arrive," Aclysia pointed out. "Defeating it will leave us with no other option than to be ejected through the fountain."

"Plan is set then... do you remember the way?" Apexus asked.

That was a very good question.

They did not. Or, to be more exact, they remembered some of the way, but not how to get to the parts they knew from their current location. Having relied so heavily on scent-tracking last time, the only real bits of their surroundings they remembered were the healing pools. It helped, and they made their way through the dungeon much quicker than last time, but it still took them several days before they arrived at their target.

Several days measured by the times Reysha had to sleep. Days spent acquiring some more loot from different places and generally having a nice time. Even Apexus slept once, during this final 'night' of their search. During one rest at a healing fountain, spent just lazing around in the warm water, it just happened. His mind wandered off, his lids got heavy, he first snoozed off and then fell into a deep sleep. At that point enough time had passed that he could no longer grow any of the things acquired in the Birchia dungeon.

Apexus woke up so well rested that he didn't really care about the loss of that particular great set of legs though. To him, that he even needed sleep was still a new discovery and getting tired came with signals he didn't quite get yet. It came with the increased complexity of his body, that much he was in the clear about. It did make him wonder if he was eventually going to have to rest once a day like all those humanoids, however.

To his pleasant surprise, aside from the fact that he was feeling refreshed, Apexus awoke under the two naked bodies of Aclysia and Reysha. The metal fairy didn't need sleep, but she could enter a similar state to conserve mana. Evidently, she had decided to do so rather than sit alone and wait for something interesting to happen. That Apexus tripled as her lover, a comfortable pillow of soft feathers and slime, and a charging station as her place of rest surely helped. Reysha, on the other hand, curled up next to him in her own sleep.

The tiger girl looked surprisingly innocent, her sleeping face a relaxed and fulfilled, light smile rather than the broad smirk usually spreading over her attractive face. Indeed, in that moment Apexus thought he was looking at a kitten more than a tiger, although he had never seen either, some pictures Gizmo conjured aside.

That changed immediately when she opened her eyes, though. Slit pupils adjusted to the dim light immediately, growing just a bit narrower compared to their closed state. Blue in grey surrounded by the dark stripes that covered the area around her eyes like warpaint, they stared up at Apexus with the always present sense of danger. It was something about Reysha that never quite went away, a wildness that could not be tamed and was ready to break out should she feel mistreated at any moment, bringing fangs, claws and every intention to hurt with it.

It appealed to Apexus' own savage origin and the bloody necessities of his continued evolution in a way that Aclysia, in her civilized and divine way, just couldn't. That wasn't a comparison out to make either of them look bad, just something that made him realize how happy he was having both of them. Feelings were awakening for that insane feline femme fatale that were quite similar to what he felt for his guardian angel. Not the same, not as strong, but present nonetheless.

Reysha knew nothing about what was going on behind Apexus own blue cat eyes, simply grinned at him and tapped the noodle-like extension he had made to look around without moving his main body. "That looks super weird," she giggled and the slime got back into his usual form quickly. Stretching out like that was unpleasant over long periods anyway.

Stirred by the shifting slime under her and the loud moan that Reysha let out as she stretched, Aclysia also awoke. Immediately and with movements that Apexus would describe as the opposite of his own. Rather than seem like she had no bones, like him, the metal fairy's stifled motions seemed like she was only able to move along one axis and one joint at a time. It was almost creepy, more than that, however, it was incredibly funny.

Reysha began to laugh in her careless, unsteady and very loud fashion while Apexus own amusement found sound through deep, hacked off vibrations from his voice plating. Blinking a couple of times, each time with a bit more awareness in her eyes, the metal fairy eventually looked at both of them with confusion. "Does my way of rising from slumber amuse you two?"

"Yes!" Reysha exclaimed out loud. "ABSOLUTELY YES!"

Unsure what to respond to such brashness, the metal fairy just said, "I suppose that is a net positive." Of course, that only prolonged Reysha's immense giggling.

They had taken this, the final pause, right in front of the boss room. As such, it only took a bit of refreshing before they were ready to tackle that challenge. Although they had beaten the water elemental inside before and had only gotten stronger since, Aclysia insisted they made a battle plan. The chaotic fashion they had won last time, with quite a risky finish, was not acceptable to her.

Although Reysha let her know that this was boring, they did agree and quickly discussed what to do in the different phases of the fight. Then they went inside and executed it with very little problem.

The battle began, like last time, with a bit of a quiet period. The pond at the heart of the room lay still, only for oddly smooth waves to begin rippling all over the surface. Having long taken shelter behind the pillars before the explosion of water even came for them, the group stormed out immediately to face the massive torso of a water elemental.

The first phase was finished quite easily. In its initial stage, despite looking quite bulky, the creature was pretty fragile. One solid hit at the grey core swimming inside would be enough, as past experiences had shown. A simple three-hit combo took care of that. Apexus initiated, by diving straight at the creature's head. It was a feint, designed to make it raise its arms and get them out of the way for Aclysia to fire a Bolt at the target. The immense heat sizzled away protective layers of water and Reysha immediately reacted by throwing a readied knife at the target from as close as she could get without entering the water.

It struck true, causing the water elemental to collapse. After a few moments, five smaller versions appeared, conjuring Bolts of their own, just of the water variety. Reysha's job in that segment of the fight was to hide behind a pillar and wait while Apexus kept attention on him. The water elemental were not smart enough to realize much beyond having a target and their bolts always came as one volley that could be dodged pretty reliably by flying circles around the pond. Whenever a volley had been fired, Aclysia quickly stepped out from behind her own pillar, snipe at one of the lesser water elementals, and hopefully take it down.

She missed a couple of times, but it wasn't even necessary for her to take all of them out. When they were down to two, the volley's had lost much of their danger and Apexus could pick them off by just ramming through them during a dive. Then came the last phase, the large water elemental reformed and even it wouldn't fall for that feint a second time. Instead, the group resorted to the safest strategy of them all.

Hiding behind the pillars and waiting for the boss to make a mistake.

It was more experimental than the previous two plans, but the metal fairy had vehemently refused the idea to finish this like last time by jumping into the water. The only recourse the water elemental seemed to have to their new scheme was to use the initial spell that explosively flooded the room a few times. Aside from making Reysha hiss when she was hit by cold water, however, that did nothing.

Then the boss did get impatient and moved his body onto the walkable stone. At which point, the group immediately descended on the dull monster, showered it in attacks and had it beaten within less than a minute. It had perhaps been stronger than any one of them, but between more heat-based spells, Apexus weight crashing into it and the flurry of stabs from Reysha, the water elemental didn't really have the time or resources to reshape its body and formulate a violent response.

The grey pearl that was the monster's hardened essence fell to the floor as one of the pillars opened to reveal to the group the chest with the reward. "That was so dull," Reysha complained as she picked up the remains of the boss.

"It was safe," Aclysia answered firmly, checking if her robe still hid her body.

"Yes, I said that," Reysha cheekily returned.

"You said it was dull."

"Yes, I said it was safe."

"You... okay," Aclysia sighed and stepped away to inspect the chest. 'I should know better by now,' she thought to herself.

"You want or can I has?" Reysha asked, waving the pearl at Apexus.

"You can use has in that context?" Apexus was confused by that more than he was hungry for the dropped item. It was supposed to give him magical powers over water, at least for a little while. Last time he ate something that was supposed to do that, he had tried to figure it out for hours and got nothing. Aside from a curiosity for the taste, the slime therefore wasn't that eager.

"You cannot," Aclysia quickly shouted over her shoulder.

"I thinks is funny this way, yes, yes," Reysha stated and then giggled. "For serious though, do you want to eat it or not?"

"You can have it," the slime stated, reading the tiger girl's want for it on the way her tail was impatiently waving.

Apexus hadn't even finished the sentence when the thing was already flying into the redheads mouth. Jumping from one foot one the other, she let out series of delighted squeals. "Thish ish better than chocolate," she announced. Apexus just guessed chocolate was supposed to be something on magical spider meat levels of good.

"What is this?" Aclysia wondered out loud and pulled both his and Reysha's attention towards her.

The metal fairy was holding the reward for their efforts. A dress, from the looks of it, but majorly different to the sleek one that used to be part of her body. It matched her colour scheme, mostly black with a long skirt and sleeves, decorated with white frills around the edges and a stretchable white segment around the chest, framed by more black.

"That," Reysha said, her amusement only held back by the food she was dissolving in her mouth. "Ish a maid dress."

It was just the dress. No boots, underwear or gloves attached. Quality-wise, there was very little to complain about, it was as soft as spider silk and was easy to put on. It was, however, utterly lacking in any useful enchantments. "Why is this even here?" Aclysia wondered.

"Sometimes dungeons drop items for non-combat Classes or just general items of fine quality," Reysha explained, continuing even as the metal fairy shot her a glance that the question had been meant in an unserious fashion, "That is perhaps one of the rarest outcomes of a treasure chest period."

"I suppose that is true," Aclysia admitted and stripped of her robe. It was hard for her to get into that piece. Between the somewhat wet skin and having to squeeze her wings through, pulling the cloth over her head seemed almost painful. Like Reysha's bodysuit, it had an open back, so there was at least one convenient design decision, allowing the metal fairy to spread her moth-like wings once she had freed them from confinement.

Quickly, Aclysia figured the thing out. A couple of corset cords kept the cloth secure and tight around the waist, with a few more strings that went around the back of the neck providing extra support. The skirt almost reached her ankles, her naked feet still visible, its frilly, folded design allowing for quite easy movement.

Softly, her petite bosom stretched the white chest segment once she was done adjusting the corset via with the strings. "It looks good on you," Apexus commented when she was done. He wasn't lying, the colour scheme was the same and such a proper dress did fit her personality quite nicely. The slime also much appreciated that, legs aside, he could still make out her curves. If she had to wear clothes, clothes like this were the optimal choice.

"You think so, darling?" Aclysia asked with a slight smile on her lips, grabbing her skirt and doing a diligent little bow. "That does please me."

"Fits with your character too," Reysha stated, bluntly but not in a mean way. "Oddly so. Think your daddy pulled some strings?"

"I do doubt that," Aclysia shook her head. "Aside, with the amount of chests we have opened down here. Pertaining to your initial comment..." her wings folded and added the effect of a neat little cape to the servant's outfit, "...I feel that you are correct. Attending to my darling's needs is indeed my highest priority."

"Dawww, can you be any more precious you black-white-green muffin?" Reysha giggled and swallowed what remained of the boss pearl. At the same time, Apexus took the more direct approach of wordlessly coming over and full-body hugging his beloved fairy.

Since their way back was sealed now, they had to exit through the roaring stream that endlessly catapulted water upwards. Their plan to simply re-enter the dungeon and stay there hadn't changed. At least for another month, that was their current idea. Less time would likely be necessary if they could get out the news that Aclysia's quest was completed. That should have removed a considerable amount of interest of hunting Apexus, money was to be had elsewhere but a divine quest was too rare for many to pass up on.

However, they had no means of getting those news out there bar catching some adventurers and telling them, or going to some gathering. Both had a considerable risk of getting them caught, not to mention that adventurers were unlikely to believe their target that there was no reason to hunt it.