The Infinite Bk. 01 Ch. 01

"Keep this fire going while I get more wood. You remember what to do if something attacks?"

"Throw horse dung and holler for you?"

"Right."

Noah departed, heading back into the forest. He had to gather firewood from specific trees, hardwoods such as birch, oak, and maple. He moved cautiously, hearing movement all around him. Noah spent the morning hours hauling wood, moving back and forth between the forest and the campsite. By the time he was finished, the clay packed onto the sides of the pit had hardened and could retain water. He now had a functioning basin.

Noah handed tin the metal skillet. "Here, use this to shovel as much charcoal and ash out of the basin as you can, then fill it with water. Rain water would be best, but river water will have to do."

As Tin went to work, Noah started collecting stones from the river and putting them in the campfire to heat up. By the time Tin had finished with her task, the rocks were all sufficiently hot, and he moved them into the basin until it was boiling.

"Before we proceed, I need to warn you that what we're doing is dangerous. This is going to produce toxic fumes, and we need to stay upwind so that we don't breathe them in. The waterfall and the river are keeping the air moving in one direction. You got that?"

"Yes, Master."

Noah started shoveling hardwood ashes from the campfire into the basin, and as time passed, he would swap out stones, ensuring the water was always boiling. Soon, a film began to settle on top of the water. It was liquid lye, rising from the ashes. He and Tin harvested it from the surface, careful not to touch it, and put it in the skillet to boil away the moisture.

This process went on for most of the day. They kept burning birch and other hardwoods and shoveling the ashes into the basin. Once the basin stopped producing lye, they would swap in fresh ashes and water, get it boiling, and resume harvesting. In the meantime, Noah created more pottery with the river clay and baked it in the fire. The skillet was routinely filled with the lye mixture, and once the water evaporated away, Noah would scrape the lye into one of his clay jars. It was the middle of the afternoon when he declared that they had collected enough.

He collected a small bump with his knife and put it on his arm. He could feel it burning his skin like an aching sunburn. Had he taken his time with this, it would have burned a crater into his skin, but in this case, the quantity was better than quality.

"Yeah, this will work well. You did good," Noah said, rubbing the top of Tin's head.

"Thank you, Master," she replied with what he assumed to be a rare smile.

"Let's eat some lunch. I'm starving."

They left the fire, sick of its heat, and ate by the waterfall. While chewing on tough jerky, Noah watched the horses. They weren't tied to any trees and wandered around the campsite, nibbling on whatever they liked. The tripwire was doing an excellent job keeping them close, but they would probably run out of food by tomorrow. They'd have to move on by then.

"Master, if my may ask, how do you know how to do these things? I've never seen anyone fight like you do, at least not someone your age, and you have the skills of an alchemist. What kind of training have you done?"

"An alchemist? I kind of like the sound of that. Let's just say that I have a lot of life experience. I've lived through good times and bad. Anyway, we should move on to the next stage. Yesterday, while I was looking for rocks in the dark, I think I might have seen some slimes moving about. They're usually small, right? Not big like the ones I killed yesterday?"

Tin nodded. "They're usually the size of rats."

"Perfect. I'm going to go along the river and catch small slimes, but I need to do something first. While I do that, I want you to find the corpses of the big slimes I killed yesterday and try to collect their skin."

Tin was obedient, not voicing doubts and instead setting off to do as her master ordered. Noah went back into the woods with prey on his mind. He came across a spot he had just yesterday done his best to avoid. There was spider silk on the ground and an obvious trapdoor nearby. Noah put a stick on his foot and readied his bow, taking aim. He kicked the stick over by the trapdoor, and a spider burst out to seize what it thought was its meal. The thing was huge, almost five feet in diameter.

Noah released his arrow, striking one of its eyes and leaving it screeching in pain. Before it could duck back into its hole, he shot another arrow, this one drilling through its skull and ending its life. While it was still fresh, Noah rushed over, pulled out the second arrow, and thrust his fingers into the hole. He stirred his fingers in the spider's brain, causing its legs, now curled, to start spasming. While vaguely familiar with spider anatomy, he was tickling what he hoped to be the cerebellum.

"Come on, where are you... Ah!" He found the magic spot and the abdomen started expelling silk at a frantic rate. Het got to his feet and dragged the spider with him, laying out the silk so it wouldn't stick to itself. He had come up with this idea on a whim and was glad to see it work. When the flow of silk stopped, he removed his fingers.

"That's right, ladies, I am just that good."

He then began rubbing dirt into the silk to keep it from sticking to anything. Next, he started gathering the older, thinner webbing it had used for its den. It was already dried out and lacing much of its original adhesion, so it was ready to be collected. He returned to the camp, carrying the spider with him. He was sure he could think up something to do with its corpse, maybe use it like a scarecrow to ward off goblins. When he arrived, Tin had completed her task and stared in amazement at the dead spider.

Noah walked over to the wagon and pulled out a small wooden barrel. It had originally been filled with salt, which the slave traders used to preserve their food. Noah poured what little remained into some of his clay jars, then hung the spider to drain its blood into the barrel. Unfortunately, there wasn't much, and it had begun to congeal immediately after death, making it sticky like syrup.

Once it had drained out, he swirled it around the inside of the barrel, covering every inch, and then poured in a load of leftover birch ashes. He didn't touch the ashes with his hands, and upon closing the barrel, he shook it up, coating the interior with a layer of ash.

Noah then filled the barrel with water and began walking through the river, searching the banks. It was only up to his knees, and there were plenty of large boulders for slimes to hide by. On his hands, he wore rough leather gloves one of the slave traders had been wearing. The slimes he found were the size of his fist, and with great care, he'd pick them up and put them in the barrel.

Thanks to the ash, the water in the barrel had a raised pH level, neutralizing the slimes' acid and keeping them from melting through the sides. He also tossed in some food, hoping they'd still be able to digest it. If they were all still alive by the following day, his plan was a success.

"I'm sorry, Master, but the remains are too fragile for any kind of use," said Tin with a pile of slime skins. Noah put down the barrel and examined the shed skin. It was crinkly and soft, a far cry from leather, more like a snake's shed skin.

"No, they're perfect, just what I wanted." He handed her one of the daggers the slave traders had carried. "Here, start carving them up into squares, about as long as your hand."

She nodded and went to work. While she did that, Noah collected some hair from the horses. He took the squares that Tin had cut up and used them to wrap up small piles of lye, then tied them shut with the horse hair. The slime skin, despite its fragility, still maintained many of its characteristics. Slimes were like living acid, so they had to be able to control their pH level. Their skin kept their guts in and basic substances out, substances like lye, making it perfect for holding it. With their combined efforts, they created over thirty lye packs, plus another twenty filled with alkaline ashes.

"Ok, let's test one of these out." Noah took one of the extra squares, filled it with ashes, tied it off, and tossed it at a nearby boulder. The slime skin held together while being handled and thrown, but upon striking a hard surface, it burst open and sprayed its contents in all directions. "Perfect."

"So we're going to throw these things?" Tin asked.

"That's right. This lye isn't very strong, so it doesn't do much to skin, but if it gets into your eyes or you breathe it in, you'll go down. All we have to do is hit our enemies in the face and they won't stand a chance. We still have a few hours of daylight left, so let's work on a couple other ways to improve our situation, and tomorrow, we'll head for the nearest town."

When dusk finally arrived, they gathered around the campfire to eat and rest. "Now, we have one last job to do today, and that's make soap."

"Soap?"

"You've never heard of it?"

"I heard that the nobles use it. It makes them smell nice."

"That's the plan. No offense, but you stink, so we're going to change that."

Noah reached into his satchel and took out a lump of animal fat. He had gathered it from the carcass of the dead wolf, rolled it into a ball, and packed it with a shell of dirt to keep it from making a mess when he carried it. He cleaned it off, put it in the metal skillet, then set it over the fire.

"Now, while that melts, let me see your teeth." It was a request that Tin wasn't used to hearing, but she obeyed, flashing her teeth like a snarling animal. "Huh, not too bad."

Despite her poor lifestyle, her teeth were in good condition. She grew up in a world without processed foods, sugars, or chemicals, so despite never brushing, there was no rot that Noah could see. Her breath was pretty bad, but that was because she lacked the concept of flossing.

Noah walked over to one of the horses, cut a lock of its long hair, washed it in the river, and returned to the campfire, where he braided several strands into a strong thread. He made a second and turned to Tin.

"Take this thread and do as I do."

He used the thread to floss his teeth, something which Tin had never seen before. The line was thick, coarse, and fragile, but it got the job done, and he showed her the pieces of meat from their meals that he had gotten out. She mirrored the action to the best of her abilities, and Noah looked at the skillet. He added some lye, water, and a handful of ground-up pine needles to the melted fat, then started stirring the mixture together. He set the skillet back on the fire so that the water could be boiled away.

"Have you gotten every tooth?"

"Yes, Master."

"Then take a mouthful of this." From next to the fire, there was also a cup made, of all things, tin. It was full of water brought to a simmer, with ground charcoal and pine needles mixed in. He let it cool and then handed it to her. "You said you could count, right? Well swirl this around your mouth and start counting. Once you reach one hundred, swallow it."

She took a mouthful and handed it back to him so he could finish it off. With that taken care of, Noah took the skillet off the fire and examined the soap. It would never sell in a boutique, but it was good enough. Then, just as they had done so many times that day, they filled the basin beside them with water and got it hot with stones from the fire.

Noah took a piece of cloth, wetted it in the basin, and smeared some soap onto it. Then, he stripped down and began scrubbing off the sweat and dirt that had clung to him, satisfied with how it lathered.

"Here, you do it too," he said to Tin.

She held a piece of soap in her hand, staring at it with wide eyes. "It smells... sweet!"

She mimicked Noah, using a makeshift washcloth and the soap to scrub herself raw. She was frantic, leaving no spot untouched. The two of them cleansed their skin, lathering themselves with hot water and then rinsing off with cold. With the dirt removed, countless scars, bruises, and brands were revealed on Tin's body, but neither of them said anything.

Finally, he had her lie on her back, lowered her head into the basin, and then scrubbed her hair with the soap until the bathwater turned as black as ink. She sat up and wrung the water out of her hair as he stood up and stretched.

"Huh, so you're a brunette. I honestly couldn't tell your natural color. You were so dirty that I wasn't sure if the drapes matched the carpet." She didn't say anything back, just crouched by the basin, holding herself. She was trembling. "Tin?"

She looked up at him, and though her face was wet from the bath, he could see her tears. "I... I've never smelled this clean before!"

He rubbed the top of her head. "I'm glad."

She reached up and grasped his hand with desperation in her eyes. "Master, can I please service you now?"

A small laugh escaped Noah. "My, my, what a greedy little slave you are."

He leaned down, lifted her chin, and left a soft kiss on her lips. She shivered from that touch, gentler than any other in her life. Tin took the initiative, kissing him while her tongue slipped into his mouth. As they swapped saliva, she reached out and began caressing his manhood, erect and throbbing. She had been eyeing it since the moment she saw it, her mind buzzing with all the ways she would please her kind new master.

When Noah finally pulled his lips from hers, she knew what he wanted and was eager to provide it. She leaned in, his cock disappearing into her mouth, only to reappear with a glistening layer of spit. Tin wasn't shy and put all of her skills to work. First, she deepthroated him to make herself gag and salivate, then used her hands to work the shaft while she slurped on his head like a lollipop. Despite her joy at being so clean just a minute ago, she was making a mess, covering her face in spit with big foamy drops dribbling onto her breasts.

Noah rested his hand on her head and groaned. "I'm glad I decided to keep you."

She released his cock, gasping for air with her eyes full of joy. "Am I doing good?"

"You're magnificent, Tin."

She went back at it, this time with a different target in mind. While she jacked Noah off, she sucked vehemently on his jewels, rolling them around in her mouth and balancing them on her tongue. She switched her techniques with masterful skill, giving Noah no time to brace himself. He didn't even need to tell her when he would cum; she knew just by his breathing and how his muscles twitched. She swallowed his manhood like a voracious beast, pressing her face to his stomach as he swirled around inside her throat.

Several thick jets were pumped directly into her stomach, a salty dessert after her meal. Tin fell back, once again gasping for air. "Master," she panted, "please don't hold back. Use my body however you wish."

"You've done well in pleasing me, but has anyone ever took the time to give you pleasure?"

He sat down cross-legged and pulled her across his lap like he was about to spank her. But, instead, he held her by the throat, just a gentle grip to keep her still, while his free hand slipped between her legs and reached her honeypot.

"You're so wet. To think you took so much joy in your work."

Born and raised a slave, she had been abused and violated in all ways imaginable. She thought she had grown numb to it, but the feeling of Noah's fingers touching her most private, sensitive area made her shiver and gasp. His movements were strong without being rough or clumsy. Instead, she sensed that his experience surpassed her own, and he used that experience to give her bliss that she never knew was possible.

His fingers penetrated her, making her moan in a way she thought she never again could. His attack was relentless, probing every sensitive spot like an assassin striking her pressure points. She was a slender girl, body fat being a luxury for a slave, but her flesh rippled from the vibrations drumming from her ass. She could feel the weight of her breasts with every movement and the sounds he was making—the sounds he was forcing her body to make, the squelching of soft, wet flesh; it was like she was experiencing this all for the first time.

The pleasure was beyond words. Tin wanted it to go on forever, but her body wouldn't obey her commands. Her muscles spasmed without pause, like she was being tickled. She inadvertently tried to pull away, her body wanting to protect itself from these sensations it couldn't contain, but Noah's grip on her throat remained firm. This position, what he was doing to her, felt so strange. She felt almost like an animal, like livestock, and Noah was the farmer, preparing her for breeding with some unconventional husbandry technique. Ironically, that wasn't far from the truth.

She cried out as a climax rushed through her like a flash flood, but Noah didn't stop, even as she became limp. He continued mercilessly finger-blasting her while his other hand released her throat, and he forced his fingers into her mouth. She sucked on them like they had a honey glaze. They were her lifeline, all that was keeping her conscious. She focused on the movements of her tongue and lips as she slurped up the flavor of his fingers. If she didn't, the assault of orgasms would rob her of all thought and crush her mind.

Only when her moans finally stopped did Noah let her experience peace. He laid her on her back and leaned over her. The lewd, exhausted look on her face, the way she panted with flushed cheeks and swimming eyes, it was an expression he always loved to see, and he decided to tease her.

"You said I could do whatever I wanted with your body, right? Are you going to tell me that you can't keep up with your master? That you lied and you can't fulfill my desires?"

She reached out to him, her skinny arms coiling around his neck to pull him in. "Master, please, take me," she begged with rosy cheeks.

By the campfire's light, he penetrated her, just as numerous men had done before, but none of them made Tin feel like this. His lips joined hers, a passionate but gentle kiss, while his thrusts, so fast and forceful, made her cry out in bliss to the stars overhead.

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