Drip-Fed Pt. 10

Other Factors:

Divine Flight -- Can use her moth-like 'angel' wings to hover, as long as there is enough room to stretch them. This consumes a minimal amount of mana. If her wings are damaged, the ability to hover decreases accordingly.

Metal Fairy -- Is made from a metal that is lighter than flesh. This comes with several factors. Aclysia is unlikely to ever win in a melee battle, particularly without weapons, due to a lack of weight behind her movements. Aclysia only requires mana to survive, which she can win by eating basically anything living in creation or by absorbing it from a willing other.

Angel on her own -- Does not hold any natural sway over any member of the Church despite being a divine creation by the 33rd of the 33 original gods. This also prevents her from being recognized at a glance by all but the most the divinely attuned.

Physical Description:

Aclysia is 1,81 metres tall and has white hair, which is always combed back and falls down to the middle of her back, ending at the bases of her wings. Akin to a moth in texture and shape, she possesses a total of four wing segments, they are mostly white and have symmetrical patterns in black running over them.

Her skin is of a milky white and meticulous, not a single strand of hair anywhere. Her bust is of a moderate size, slightly below average, with light pink nipples. Overall, her figure is defined by her hips, giving her a pleasing pea-type body with long legs and nice thighs.

Her face is defined by its fair cut, having something ephemerally beautiful about it and the brilliantly shining emerald eyes. Her ears are pointy, like an elves, but not unusually long. Her nose has a well-rounded tip, her eyebrows are as white as her hair, her lips are pink and pillowy.

Reysha

Class: Noir Rogue [Unusual Basic Class]

Level: 13

Spell list:

Sneak -- Footsteps and other actions are more silent and careless glances glide over the user easily. Basic Rogue spell that helps with stealth.

Aimed Whisper -- The voice of the user travels in one direction only. Should it hit a surface, it will bounce from it as if it was the original source. If it hits the ear of someone, the sound will be swallowed entirely and the said thing only be heard by that one person.

Dis/locate -- Dislocates the joints in the arms magically. While painful, this does make it possible to slip out of many hasty or loose bindings. The first spell any Rogue learns, as it is fundamental to applying magic to joint areas.

Equipment:

Basic Light Leather Armour -- A common leather armour sold to novice adventurer's that prioritize speed and flexibility. Light brown, not particularly sturdy but stretchy in return. Accompanying leagwear is thick cloth. Not as protective, but also even less confining.

Iron Dagger (2) -- A basic iron weapon, sold to beginner adventurers. One serves as her main weapon, the other as replacement. She wears both on her body, one sheath strapped to the right side of hips/her right thigh and the other attached to her lower back.

Throwing Knives (6) -- Small, iron knives good for throwing. Worn on belt. Reysha has ten hoisters on her belt and all of them were filled when they headed out. In the recent flight, she used four of them and was unable to retrieve them.

Adventurer's Bag -- The usual. Holds up to 25 kilograms worth of stuff inside it.

Rogue Belt -- A basic belt with holsters for the tools of the trade.

Basic Boots -- Leather boots of sturdy character. Not as well optimized for sneaking as past footwear, being standard shoes, but good to reinforce kicks with and fitting for long marches.

Inventory:

Washcloth -- Reysha's personal washcloth. It isn't used for her body, instead, its there to clean her weapons after combat.

Water Bag -- A bag of leather used to transport water.

Monster Remains -- cut off pieces of slain monsters, used as rations to keep her Noir condition at bay.

Lockpicks (5) -- Sets of thin metal needed to carefully open doors that were meant to remain closed by physical means.

Leather Boots -- A second pair of shoes, in case the first one breaks.

Comfortable pants -- These have no protective qualities whatsoever, but they are something to wear besides the pants that come with her armour.

Shirt -- A one-piece, grey linen shirt with short sleeves. Not the most comfortable, but better in hot weather than her armour is.

Other Factors:

Tiger Girl -- Possess formidable sight and hearing, cat ears, eyes and tail, as well as retractable, sharp claws. Has a much higher chance to give birth to females.

Noir [Advanced Stage] -- Increased physical and magical attributes, improved senses. Can eat the meat of dungeon monsters and drink the hostile magic infused water of the structures without problem. Normal food and drink are absolutely disgusting, worse the stronger the natural taste. When not having eaten the meat of monsters for several days, negative symptoms begin to surface. Currently [days since last 'proper' meal]:

7 days -- Reysha can operate normally

8-14 days -- Senses will begin to dull, sexual drive dies down.

15-30 days -- Colour will begin to fade from perception, slowly greying out, constant white noise drowns out previously heard, fine noises. Reysha may fall into stretches of time where she is apathetic towards most things going on around her, acting like a half-asleep person.

31+ days -- All emotions and senses are heavily dulled and the stretches of apathy continue to grow longer. Eventually, the body overcomes Noir, restoring itself to a balanced state previous to the condition, at the cost of the subject's adventuring potential.

Demon Arm -- Reysha's original left arm was seared away by the magic that sealed Apotho. The warlock replaced it by utilizing the blood of a Tharnatos class demon, the Deathhound Kurlesh, as her reward for setting him free. As of this moment, Reysha is aware of the fact that the arm bleeds black demon blood and regenerates extremely quickly. If there are other attributes affiliated with it remains to be seen.

Physical Description:

Reysha is a 1,78 metres tall redhead with wild flowing hair. Despite her lack of care for it, aside from the occasional combing with her claws and baths, her nature as a tiger girl prevents it from matting and rarely does it look like anything else than a perfect scarlet mess. It grows past her neck and miraculously never gets in the way during fights, partly thanks to the pair of cat ears that grow out of the top of her head, the same colour as her hair.

With a naturally light brown complexion and a lot of time under the sun, Reysha has a colouration whose exoticness is only furthered by the tiger stripes. A few shades darker than the rest of her skin, they are scattered symmetrically over her body, adding chocolate to caramel.

From above the ankles, over the long, smooth legs and her athletic, hourglass curves, with the well-proportioned breasts with the pinkish brown nipples up to the last two stripes, the only ones on her face, that run around her blue eyes like natural warpaint. The stripes on her red tail, growing out where the spine ends and adding her primal flavour to her bubble butt, are the only truly black ones. However, they are notably absent from her crotch area, where only a moderate, usually trimmed, amount of red hair decorates her sex.

When her claws are retracted, her fingernails look, aside from their progressively reddening colour, like a normal human's. If they come to use, however, they lengthen a fair bit and the tips condense into the curved, needle-lip claws of a cat.

She has a sharp face, with clearly defined feminine features finalized to be both intimidating and seductive, savagely gorgeous, with dark lips often curved into a mad smile, showing the fangs inside her otherwise human teeth and a pair blue eyes contrasting heavily with the reds and browns of the rest of her body. Something only worsened by the steady blackening of her eyeballs by Noir. She has normal human ears in addition to her cat ones.

"You need to better conserve your resources," Apexus pointed out, while Reysha ate up the last of her reserve food.

The tiger girl stopped in her chewing for a second to think about that. That the chimeric slime wasn't actually talking about their food occurred to her relatively quickly. "Well, I'd rather buy some new knives than get hit by more fucking thorns," she responded. "But I'll try to be less trigger happy. Works for you?"

"Sure," Apexus nodded.

"I must inquire why you give in immediately when this advice comes from him. When I brought this up, you saw it fitting to discuss your behaviour," Aclysia's tone made it sound more like a complaint.

"That's 'cause ya complain about everything even the slightest bit wrong." Reysha took some of the sharpness out of those words through a teasing smile. Her tail lazily flopped on the floor while she secured her adventurer's bag back on her belt, then double-checked all of her belts, straps and wires. With all of the things an adventurer had to carry around with them at all times, it sitting tight could make a world of difference. Long marches were torture when a weapon's belt continuously rubbed against one's waist.

"It is paramount for our survival," Aclysia insisted.

"Kinda, kinda not," Reysha pointed out. "I guess I appreciate that you get me thinking, but let's be real: we'd be in quite a pickle if we all thought like you, miss overthinker."

"Reysha is right there," Apexus pointed out. "It's often better to make any decision now than it is the best decision later."

"And because you understand that, you're the leader," Reysha purred and stood up. A quick two steps brought her over to Apexus. She kissed his neck.

"I am?" the slime asked and looked at the two women in turn. "I thought Aclysia was the leader, she makes most of the decisions."

"While I certainly do, it would be incorrect to say that I am the leader, darling," the metal fairy said and hovered over to him. Feeling challenged by Reysha's affectionate action, she wrapped her arms around the slime's neck and kissed him herself. "It's not demanded of the leader to be the one who makes all the decisions. The leader is the respected centre of the group. They delegate the tasks to those most appropriate and mediate."

"Between my spontaneous bubble butt and her overthinking round ass, you're the happy medium," Reysha put it in simpler terms and then joined the angel in hugging their beloved slime.

Both looked up to and smiled at him. Blue and green eyes sparkled with adoration in the daylight. Apexus closed his arms around their waists. "Then, I am the leader." The certain tone of his deep voice only served to deepen their love for him.

Confidence was sexy and it was, for all the virtues the two women saw in him, rare for him to display it so outright. He was overtly curious, gentle when he could afford to be and decisive when he couldn't. He was protective and kind of clumsy at times. He may not have looked the part, but his behaviour was cute. Questions about accepted facts demonstrated that he was intelligent as well and his acts in combat showed his ability to decide on and be confident about a course of action swiftly. Few of these things shone through in social interactions.

"I like it when you're assertive like this," Reysha purred.

"I second that statement," Aclysia echoed.

Both moved in to give him another kiss.

"I'll see if I can figure out what 'assertive like this' exactly is and incorporate more of it into my behaviour." Apexus made it a mental priority to see if he could behave in a way that made hugs like this more frequent. The social circle from which his behaviour was conditioned was rather small. It had the disadvantage of him learning few things about other types of behaviour. It had the advantage of him getting the signal quite easily when there was a need to adjust.

Regardless of how much he liked how close they were at that moment, certain urges telling him to move his hands from waists to butts, he withdrew his arms and the two girls backed away. They had just spent a considerable amount of time bathing, soiling themselves with sexual juices, bathing again and then discussing their further strategy. As much as they liked to fuck, there was a silent agreement that they shouldn't waste too much time on it.

"Alright, I will lead the way," Apexus told the two and turned towards one of the gaps in their stone refuge. They followed him up to the edge and then stopped, waiting there.

"Just don't think too much about it," Reysha said, while the slime slowly wandered away. It was more about the last thing he had said regarding the assertiveness thing than him now being out there on his own.

Apexus wasn't sure he would take that bit of advice. For a start, he had yet to work out what 'assertive' even meant in the context of conversation. 'Should I just assert what I want more often? Wouldn't that be inconsiderate?' he asked himself as he looked for any familiar patches of ivy. 'Where are the Thornspitters?'

Over the course of their planning discussion, they had given the encountered enemy types names. For the project-launching plants, they had, by sheer chance, picked the same one as they were officially called. Given what they did, it was a high chance. The other creature, the two-legged monsters specialized in ramming people, they called Rammers. Quite a bit removed from the official title of Boulderwalkers, but the generalist term worked well for their purposes.

Apexus raised his feet much higher than he needed to with every step, stomping down along the ivy field. Soon enough, that had the intended effect of rousing several Thornspitters. Apexus backed off a little bit. He wanted to observe their behaviour and make them feel safe enough to attack him. While the former offered no new revelations, the latter went off without a hitch.

Three pieces of wood penetrated his membrane. One clashed against his fused ribs, without effect, another sunk into his leg and the third went almost straight through his stomach, where the membrane was the thinnest. None of them really hurt him. Whatever little energy healing from them cost him was restored by just eating the projectiles themselves. None of this was new information.

The reason why Apexus was out there on his own was to check what happened after the thorns had been fired. Tellingly, all three of the Thornspitters raised their shield and protected their fleshy centres. Apexus waited for something to happen. All that did was that more Thornspitters rose up in the distance. Those in range also shot their thorns, the other just stood alert and waited.

As did Apexus.

Slime and plant monsters just looked at each other. For Apexus, that was a much easier process than for the Thornspitters. A drawback of their biology was that their singular eyes could only see the enemy if they raised their tendril-woven shields. Another was that they were rooted in place. With no Rammer around to interrupt their stand-off, both parties just waited for the other to make another move.

"Yo, do something!" Reysha shouted from the not too distant safe area. The Thornspitters looked in her rough direction, but needed several seconds to actually spy her with their eyes.

'Bad hearing,' Apexus noted. Although he, with his fox ears, was above the standard at the current time, he remembered what it felt like to have worse sound detection. All the Thornspitters knew was the direction something was coming from. For the actual pinpointing of distance and origin of the sound, they needed to use their vision. They relied mostly on vibrations and sight.

Looking over the duo, Apexus waved with his right hand. It was the pre-agreed signal for Aclysia to come closer. Flying a fair bit of the way, she was only noticed when she entered the line of sight of one Thornspitter and only noticed by that singular one. Only when she was basically next to Apexus, her steps set the other two off. Because of how light she was, the Thornspitters had a hard time noticing the vibrations.

More importantly, none of them fired another thorn. Aclysia quizzically turned her head. "Peculiar. I theorize they need a long time to form a new projectile?"

"Appears so," her darling agreed. "Want to test through waiting or should I eat one of them and shape the organ?"

After a moment's thought, the metal fairy responded, "Both."

"Okay," Apexus looked at the three Thornspitters. Two stood somewhat close together, so he walked over to the more isolated of the bunch. "Let me fight it alone, for now," he told her before getting into range.

The Thornspitter kept his shield lowered and between them, as Apexus walked in a circle around it. One, two, three times, the slime circled around the enemy, keeping a close eye on the monster's stalk. Halfway through the third rotation, the plant monster suddenly twirled in the other direction. Extending its shield during the motion, it unwound its stalk and used the momentum of the motion to keep Apexus at bay.

The slime just observed the motion. Only when the Thornspitter was once more standing upright, did he attack it. Predictably, his charging body was met by the shield. Like a wave against the shore, the force of the impact was slowed and ultimately reversed. Just that, rather than gravity, it was the surprisingly strong tendril-weave of the monster that pushed him back.

Stumbling back, Apexus quickly regained his stance. A lighter, normal person would have been thrown back, but the attack itself was pretty harmless. Poking a bit more at the monster, Apexus always got the same response by any aggressions -- a strong backwards shove. A Thornspitter's shield wasn't meant for any overtly aggressive action. Looking over his shoulder, Apexus did see that the closer of the other two Thornspitters had, however, loosened up his own shield. If the slime had been a lightweight, he could have been catapulted right over into a constrictive grasp. That wasn't lethal by itself, but the next wooden projectile would be. Again, for the normal person.

Having had enough of this behaviour study. Apexus once more did three rounds around the Thornspitter. Predictably, the monster once more engaged in the whirling unwind. Rather than let it get back into position, Apexus jumped at it this time. Between the force of the whipping strikes and the regaining of proper stance was a moment of disorientation to exploit.

Apexus managed to duck underneath the shield and grab the creature's stalk. Left hand, right hand, then teeth all held onto the connection between centre and ground. The shield was unmade, individual tentacles weakly lashed Apexus' back, but the slime didn't care. The membrane around his jaw and fingers became thinner and thinner, until the acidic slime underneath stretched outwards and enveloped the stalk. A nimbler creature could have dodged or tried to get away, but all the Thornspitter could do was curl. By far too little to escape the slime's grasp.

Soon, the plant-based monster fell over. It continued to operate fine, even without its connection to the floor. Although its access to nutrients was cut off, it was still alive and would continue to be so for several hours or even days. If it hadn't been for the chimeric slime now turning it into nutrients.

With his prey largely immobilized, the rest of Apexus' body blobbed out until he could comfortably engulf all of the monster. It tasted alright. The fleshy centre was a treat, having a wonderful, fruity sweetness to it. The rest of it was a variation of chewing the crust of bread. After a few moments, it started to turn sweet, but otherwise neither the texture nor the taste were anything to praise. It was edible, but Apexus found it to be the most disappointing magical creature he had eaten yet.