Drip-Fed Pt. 09

It only took a few of those incidents for farmers in the area to gain both an appreciation for adventurers and a burning hatred for those things. Paying extra for Steproot heads was a sort of traditional protection money at this point.

Steproots were also notoriously weak. They were basically blind towards anything further than one metre away, unable to give chase and killed with one good hit. They could meld well with the insides of the Summer Rest dungeon and made for good ambush predators, but their attack was rarely powerful enough to kill outright. Even if they grievously wounded an unprepared adventurer, chances were the Steproot got killed in return. If the adventurer had as much as a healing potion, the Steproot was basically dead.

They were weak and valuable, exactly what the group could have asked for.

Reysha ran forwards, her steps feather-light, only alerting the Steproot when she was in its direct vicinity. Again, however, her limbs didn't quite synchronize properly. The intent was to use the momentum of her charge for a quick stab, but she only raised her arms when she was already leaning into the motion. Curving its long neck into a C shape, the Steproot dodged to the side.

The monster attempted to lash out, and ram its pointy head into Reysha's flesh. The attack succeeded, but failed to produce the desired result, leaving an unsightly scratch in the leather armour but not penetrating.

Even sloppy as she fought today, Reysha managed to retaliate properly. She grabbed the Steproot just below the head. Like a snake, the monster was basically helpless against that. Its head didn't have enough wiggle room to build up any force and it had no extra limbs to help it out. All it could do was try and writhe itself out, something that the redhead didn't let happen.

"SPINDLY PIECE OF CRAP!" she shouted as she hacked away at the neck, the wood fibre fraying and finally tearing as she thinned it with wild cuts. The head came loose, the neck lashed against Reysha's leg one time before going limp and the tiger girl hissed and kicked the corpse of the creature, looking like the unearthed underside of a tree stump.

A few metres away, Apexus absorbed the leg of a common dungeon spider into his stomach. It was about the same kind they had faced in the Clearwater dungeon before, just an arachnid the size of a wagon wheel. In the past, he would have just flowed around the thing, but he tried to maintain his humanoid shape as much as possible inside the dungeon, so he had to tear it into pieces and digest it one bit at a time. Eating the spider the traditional way and then condensing his slime back down to levels that let him mimic a normal humanoid shape would have taken a lot of the energy he got out of eating it in the first place.

Although Apexus had a voracious appetite, as long as he just maintained his current form, he wouldn't need nearly as much sustenance. About twice as much as the average adult needed would be enough to keep the slime sated and half of that would leave him functioning normally, provided access to water. He just wouldn't enjoy it all that much.

"Congratulations," the chimeric blob praised the tiger girl, who put the head of the Steproot into her adventurer's bag. He and Aclysia had watched her fight the monster, Apexus just keeping back and the metal fairy remaining on the ready to assist the redhead by healing. It wasn't the first time during this dungeon crawl that they had done so.

The usual approach with monsters during this trip was to either let Reysha fight it alone or pick one out of a group to spare and leave for the tiger girl to spare with. An initiative that greatly decreased their speed but was deeply necessary. Reysha herself had asked for it.

"...Thanks," the tiger girl responded in a somewhat snappy tone, while she went down on her knees. The floor of live wood wasn't the most comfortable, but it was better than stone. "...Sorry for sounding annoyed," she immediately apologized. "I just can't believe how fucking hard it is for me to kill something this weak!" Her dagger hacked into the Steproots many 'legs'.

It wasn't purely a motion fuelled by frustration. Although useless to almost anyone else, the legs of a Steproot were something Reysha appreciated having around. They tasted like bitter carrots, which wasn't great but it beat the absolutely vile aroma that regular food left in her mouth. More importantly, they didn't spoil unless kept in damp environments. After a few weeks, the magic would seep out, but that was still much better than all of the complications that came with trying to store flesh.

"You managed to kill it without our intervention, that's progress," Aclysia tried to cheer her up through the use of facts. "It is certainly an improvement from the past months."

"Yeah, see, that only makes me more depressed," the redhead responded and shoved one of the cut roots into her mouth to have something to chew on. "I can't get my body to move properly, its frustrating as fuck... or the fact that I haven't fucked in months."

"It's just sex," Aclysia said. "As pleasurable as it is, I don't think it warrants getting hung up on like that..."

"Okay, listen here, big booty angel," Reysha stopped in her answer only to swallow the pulp that had been a root. "For YOU getting fucked might not be that much of an issue, but I haven't gone this long without SOMETHING in my cunt since I hit puberty."

"Perhaps you can use this time to reflect on your promiscuity, rather than feel bad over a lack of intercourse," suggested the metal fairy and crossed her arms. "Sleeping around a lot is not a virtue, you know?"

"First off, younger me doesn't give a shit about you saying that -- I was horny so I went and sought out cocks... or tongues... or fingers... whatever was available and attached to someone I found interesting, really," Reysha waved off. "Point being, I was having fun and nobody got hurt, so you take that advice and shove it up that beautiful, fat ass of yours. Second off, I haven't slept around anymore since I met that delicious slime," she pointed at Apexus, who, not knowing what else to do, waved, "now have I?"

Aclysia sighed, "I see your point, but I think a life lived in sensible moderation makes for a better experience."

"Yeah, see, that's easy to say when you're immortal," the tiger girl retorted. "When you know your body is going to age and die, indulging becomes a bit more tempting. Everyone needs a vice to take the edge off and, yeah, okay, I like behaving in 'immodest'" she put the word into air quotes, "ways more than the average gal, but if I had to give up all but one, it would be having sex. Because sex is fucking awesome and it was even better with the lewd slime over there, because he pays attention and tentacles turn out to be fucking awesome," she sheathed her dagger, closed her adventurer's bag and stood up.

"I still fail to understand why this is such a big deal for you," the metal fairy admitted.

"I don't even know if you CAN understand, Aclysia," Reysha said, delivering it with a straight face and no mockery or malice in her voice. "You don't need to eat, you don't need to sleep, you miss basically all bodily functions and you're obviously not as horny as I am. Truth be told, the only reason why you can even remotely relate to how Apexus and I feel is because you were made that way. Your actual body lends itself better to a detached, far away guardian."

Hesitating, Aclysia could only nod by the end of it. "That is what angels are meant to be, usually, so that is no wonder. Darling," she looked over to Apexus, "would you say she has a point?"

"Yes," the slime kept it simple. He had listened to the entire conversation while eating the rest of the spider. While he had been ready to intervene if things went shouty, Apexus had been pretty interested in the subject at hand. "I think Reysha feels like I would if I suddenly didn't want to eat anymore. I would ask myself what is wrong the entire time."

"Something like that," the redhead agreed and then had an idea. "Not the best comparison of all times, but imagine if you suddenly lost any motivation to cuddle but still had the urge to."

"Oh," that was something the metal fairy understood. Although it wasn't as much a fundamental urge as sex or eating, both based on deep-seated, biological needs, it was something very real for the angel. Bowing her head in apology, she said, "My condolences. Although I still disapprove of promiscuity, that kind of feeling must be awful."

"Again, I don't plan to be whoring around again anytime," Reysha pointed at Apexus, who waved again. "I somehow love this thing. Don't ask me how that happened. Okay, the life-saver part helped. And the tentacles. The lifesaving, the tentacles and the vibrating. Holy shit the vibrating," she remembered that unique sensation. "Fucking hell, think you can make a tongue do that?"

"Don't have a tongue," Apexus said. "Guess I could make a tentacle in my mouth and have it vibrate by extension. Should work."

"Fucking Hellroots below, there are gods," Reysha exclaimed and got herself an unappreciative glance by the literal divine creation in the room. "...Even that prospect fails to make me horny, shit..."

In the silence that followed the end of the topic, Apexus rose to his feet and rotated his ears, always listening for any other adventurer's that could be approaching. Reysha and Aclysia could just talk to people, but his own looks were too hard to explain. Wearing one of his robes would have fixed that, but they got in the way during combat and if they tore that would lead to problems of its own. Best to just go about things in the nude, so to say.

The dark blue, translucent slime stood in the wooden room, a cavity of the innards of the gargantuan tree that made up the dungeon. Harmless fireflies the size of thumbs sat on the walls, easily illuminating the environment through their sheer number. Aside from that, the Summer Rest dungeon was quite boring to look at and even easier than the dungeons in Ctania. It really was the ideal vacation for low-level adventurers.

That the group had ventured into this dungeon and, Apexus in particular, cleared it a number of times before certainly helped in making it even more of a cakewalk.

"How is our progress?" Apexus asked.

"Good," Aclysia answered, running estimations for their earnings through their head. "We had already saved up around three gold coins and I estimate that our current yield today will get us another thirty silver."

That was a good yield. On average, what they got out of a delve into this particular dungeon were about twenty silver a day. Over the two months, they had earned just above six gold coins in total, half of which had gotten reinvested into their new equipment and the little things they had bought to make life more pleasant.

Nudru's owed debt stretched to four gold coins. He assured he could at least contribute half of one himself. It wasn't like he had just sat on his behind the entire time he had been on Summer Rest, but as someone who needed to eat food that was cooked and pay rent, saving was a lot harder for him. Adventuring was also a lot more profitable than the bureaucrat jobs he had been pushing since he put the dangerous life behind him.

They just needed to earn a little extra. It would cost them all they had gathered for themselves, but the group only ever really needed money when there was a need for new equipment. They preferred to hunt for themselves, given their unique food preferences, didn't mind sleeping or bathing in the wild and were just generally less inclined to partake in the goings-on of society that required a level of liquidity.

A word whose application to money Apexus still didn't understand. He was liquid, money clearly wasn't. Aclysia had explained that it had something to do with cash flowing, but that sounded even more stupid. The slime just accepted it as another odd thing about language.

"Wish I had someone who just took my entire debt back then," Reysha complained. This entire thing was because of her, but that didn't stop her from bantering about it. "I owed the Adventurer's Guild five gold and nobody went out of their way to help me."

"Yes, but at least his debt is comparatively small, given that it was for several people" Aclysia returned. "Your loan was designed to finance initial equipment and pay the rent for the first few weeks that were needed to get settled. His loan only paid for whatever equipment his group was missing or wanted upgraded. As he told us, they were hunters beforehand."

"Just hope... I just hope the debt collectors will be satisfied with getting the agreed sum," Apexus chimed in. That was a common fear between the three of them and they hadn't quite decided what to do if that turned out not to be the case. They didn't arrive at an answer at that moment either.

Instead, they made their way deeper into the dungeon.

Apexus couldn't quite help himself but stare at Reysha's ass. Crouching on all fours, her head lowered and her behind raised, her leather pants stretched over those magnificent twin spheres. Only the red, black-striped tail just above managed to slightly distract him, the dark tip waving around in slow and hypnotic fashions. Then the tiger girl shifted the position of her legs and his eyes instinctually were back to her bubble butt.

The slime was very happy to have two companions of this level of attractiveness.

"You were really stingy with applying your pheromones," Reysha complained, as she continued to sniff around for any traces on the floor. "I can barely pick anything up!" Irritated, her ears flicked at a nearby firefly and she crawled a step towards the wall.

"It's supposed to be so little it fades after three weeks, if I don't reapply it," Apexus justified himself. "Makes it harder to track us."

"Makes it harder for me to track it!" the redhead answered. Although her tone was aggressive, the slime knew she wasn't seriously annoyed. Otherwise, the fur on her tail would have been fluffed up to an absurd degree. "It's almost faded already. I wouldn't even be able to find it if I didn't know the smell already."

"Precisely why I advised this course of action," Aclysia chimed in. "It aids us in remaining not only untraceable by later search parties but also unremarkable in the eyes of current adventurers."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Reysha easily conceded the point and perked up. "Alright, caught the whiff of it!" she announced and got up. After dusting off her hands stroking her blood red hair back, she pointed towards the left path. "That way."

Apexus took the lead position and the trio went through the tunnel. It had a slow descent, but the footing was quite stable and there were no monsters in sight. Any ambush that they had to deal with would first assault the slime and, with his healing speed, that wasn't exactly an issue. "This wouldn't be necessary if I just remembered the way," he apologized.

Although Apexus' memory was quite good, better than most humans at the very least, it wasn't perfect. Even after hunting inside this dungeon for two months, he still didn't know his way around all of it. Much of that had to do with the fact that he usually didn't go this deep. Completely clearing a dungeon, even if they were too strong for its inhabitants and knew much of the way, was a heavy time investment.

Summer Rest was middling in the size, among the dungeons the group had visited so far. If they hadn't been familiar with the layout already, they might have needed over a week to explore the entire thing. Even the one time they had pushed to kill the boss before had taken them four days and they had just stumbled over the boss room early by pure chance.

Because the dungeon was this vast, Apexus hadn't gone too deep all that often. Unless it had been a good day for Reysha and all three of them were up for some delving, the slime had only dabbled in the early segments of the dungeons in an effort to find food or, out of pure boredom, items. The majority of days, he had only been in there for about eight to ten hours. Not nearly enough to get to the second half of the dungeon and, from there, back to home.

They were now in that second half. Having taken a previous rest at a healing fountain, Apexus was pleasantly surprised by how stable Reysha was at the moment. With something to focus her mind on, the tiger girl seemed more able to stave off the lingering effects of her trauma. It wasn't a sudden fix, her still diminished ability to fight proved that much, but it helped.

"Don't beat yourself up over it," Reysha told him and pat his shoulder from behind. "I was here before too, so I should remember something, but this entire place looks the fucking same!" That was another complication. Given the very monotone design of the wooden hallways and rooms, there were very few hallmarks to orient themselves by.

"Certainly, this is my failure," Aclysia stated and got herself two questioning stares. "I have the best memory out of the three of us, recalling details should be my obligation."

Apexus entirely disagreed with that view, "Memorizing things should be a group effort. We all have to work together and individually if we want to succeed."

"What the liquid man said," Reysha stated.

Their conversation was put on a sudden pause when Reysha and Apexus both spotted a spider on the ceiling. "Do you want to...?" the slime asked the tiger girl, who nodded and stepped forwards. With one slow and fluid movement, she drew one of the throwing knives from her belt, drew her arm back and sent it flying at her target. It did a half spin sideways, stabilized in its trajectory and then buried itself blade first in one of the spider's squishy eyeballs.

Startled, the large arachnid fell to the floor, where Reysha immediately set out to attack it. Jumping on her target, Reysha tried to land an immediate, deadly blow against her target. As much as the spider thrashed around, however, all she hit was one of the creature's eight legs. The continued movements ripped the dagger from her hands, just as the spider retaliated by ramming its fangs in Reysha's own leg.

The tiger girl hissed in pain and quickly pulled her second dagger. Committed to the bite, the spider didn't realize that it opened its entire back for repeated stabs, until it was already too late and Reysha turned part of it into mincemeat.

"Useless garbage," she cussed at herself, when she pushed the dead spider off her. The, thankfully smooth, fangs slid out of her and revealed two puncture wounds that immediately started bleeding. Sitting against the wall, Reysha extended that leg to allow Aclysia to do her thing. "I would have died about five times today if you weren't around."

The wound by itself was, most likely, not lethal. Gruesome as it looked immediately, it was a lot less threatening than a stab by a proper knife and didn't run that deep. If the common dungeon spider was venomous, that may have changed things, but as it was, it was just a pair of bothersome puncture wounds.

Inside of a dungeon, any wound that could classify as 'bothersome', however, was lethal. One small disadvantage would lead to further ones in following fights, leading to further wounds, until pain caused that one misstep that ended it all. Either that, or blood loss.

"Perhaps that will teach you to treat me more nicely," the metal fairy remarked, while her magic first stopped the blood from flowing out and then began to seal the wound. The healing started further in, the core of the body mending first and then slowly building outwards until fresh skin, indistinguishable from the surrounding area, made it look like there had never been any issue in the first place.

As fascinating as that was to look at, Apexus instead went over to the corpse of the spider. Not to eat, they had done so not too long ago, but to take Reysha weapons. After cleaning them through a bit of a slime-grooming and aftercare with a piece of cloth, he handed them back to the tiger girl. This way, they could move on immediately once her leg was back in order.