TRC - Searching for the Sky Ch. 26

"And me?" Sera asked.

The fox put a hand on the gorgon's shoulder and pulled her closer to Kal's cock. "I'm claiming the treat at the end but was hoping you could help me out," she said before running her lips over her side of the mage's shaft.

Sera looked up at Kal. A smile slowly crept onto her face as she leaned forward and began running her lips up and down his prick opposite of the vixen.

Kal stared down at the women who were both looking up at him as they worked over his cock. "With a sight like that, I may need to lose a few more bets."

---

As Kal, Velt, and Sera ventured out the next day, Graff stayed behind claiming that she was a lover, not a fighter, and that she would check things out once it was declared safe.

They'd hardly gotten close when an errant breeze brought a sweet smell to their noses.

Velt dashed in front of Kal and began pushing him back the way they had come.

"What are you doing!?" said Kal, stumbling slightly as the fox propelled him backward.

"Sundew," she explained, though she hadn't stopped pushing. "It's an alarune that's an indiscriminate carnivore. It will eat whatever it can get its sticky drops on."

"Drops?"

Sniffing the air, she quit shoving the mage around. "It has long spines on its arms and torso, each with a large drop of nectar on it. The drops are sticky enough to entrap a human if they touch you and also cause your body to go numb so she can gather you up." The fox thought for a moment, "She should have gone underground already, food must be scarce."

"You know her?"

"What? No, I don't know her, but sundews are a common hazard around bogs and marshes down in the southern forest. We should probably just head east from where we left the tent and go around."

Kal shook his head, "I want to get some of those drops you were talking about."

"Are you nuts?" cried the fox. "Look at what she's done to you with just a bare whiff of her scent." she said while pointing at the prominent tent in the front of his trousers.

"No, I'm a mage. Specifically, one who needs to find highly magical substances so I can keep making more of these," he said holding up the new vambrace he made to replace the one burnt shielding the rabbit and fox from the archers. "The last time I went home I didn't have Ria with me so I couldn't collect a lot of Aradelle's nectar for ink. By the time I purified what I came back with, there was hardly any left. If there's a chance to get more I can't ignore it."

"Then why didn't you try to get some from the one we saw before we met Velt and Graff?" Sera asked.

"Because she looked like 'Dell," he answered, looking sheepish. "Because I didn't want to take a chance on her turning violent and have to hurt or even kill her. Because the song she was singing would have made me feel horrible if we tested to see if your gaze works on alarunes. After hearing Velt's description of this type, I won't need to feel bad."

"Much as I hate to admit it, that last part might be a good enough reason by itself. Do you think I should bite her too?"

Kal shook his head, "I don't see a need to kill her."

Velt stared at Sera "Why are you encouraging him? And what are you two talking about with her 'gaze?'"

The gorgon shook her head, "I'm not going to tell you. You can join us and see for yourself if you want but it will change how you act around me so I'd rather you didn't. Suffice to say that if it works on the sundew Kal won't be in any real danger."

The fox sighed, "If you two aren't back in two hours, Graff and I are leaving. Without Ria's stock of meat, I'll need to get hunting as quickly as possible.

"Understood," said Kal before turning and walking west with the gorgon in tow. They would need to get upwind of the alarune to approach her safely.

---

She could smell them coming, a female with a reptilian tang to her scent and a human male, something she had not seen in a very, very long time. The way they were stomping through her forest meant they didn't know she was here. More importantly, they probably didn't know what she was.

Once she enticed the human she would need to deal with the female as well, but her nectar could probably immobilize the extra food until she could get some of her spines touching the woman. Unless a predator came and tried to steal her kills, the extra would stay alive long enough for the man to expire. At which point, she would wrap herself as best she could around both of them and enjoy her best meal in a decade.

She began hearing voices among the trees. With as noisy as these two were, it was a miracle they had managed to stay alive so long. She was going to do the reputation of adventurers everywhere a favor by eating these two. If they were this dumb then they certainly weren't giving the profession a good name.

"Are you sure we shouldn't be trying to be at least a little quiet?" said a female.

At least one of them was showing a little sense.

"No time, I want to get what we need and get moving as quickly as we can."

The human's voice made her shiver with excitement. She couldn't count the number of years since her last male. Her only regret was that the flower in her hair withered and fell off weeks ago meaning she wouldn't get a seed out of this coupling.

She ran her hands over the featureless bumps on her chest and down to her legs, picking off anything that might look like a blemish on her waxy yellow-green skin. Her legs turned into a stalk just below her knees and ran into a shallow bulb which rested on the ground. Maroon lines running up her sides and down her arms were the hiding places of her numerous spines, each able to produce a large drop of the sticky fluid she used to immobilize her prey.

She had always felt that her arms looked strange, nothing like what she had seen on humans and other monster girls. There was no discernable elbow despite bending where one would normally be. They were also thinnest at her shoulder and got gradually thicker until ending at large, sucker-like palms with equally large fingers. She understood that they looked much like the leaves of the non-magical variant of her species but still wished her limbs looked more... normal. Then again, during those lonely times when she needed to take care of her urges she was perfectly happy having unusually large fingers.

Once these two were digested she would draw all of the fluids out of her upper body and allow it to die off for the winter, creating a new one next spring. With a large meal so late in the season, she should be able to make her new avatar in a fraction of the normal time.

As the man and woman came into view, the spines lying in the sundew's stripes began to lift up and form the clear drops that her kind got their name from.

"Come closer," she called out. "It has been such a long time since I've had anyone to talk to."

The two halted for a moment then began slowly coming directly towards her. It was too bad they hadn't come in from the other direction. With the scent of her nectar on the wind, the man would have been running into her arms already.

"No need to be so cautious, I won't hurt you." There was a bit of truth to her words. Despite being killed and slowly digested, they wouldn't be in any pain at all. Two of the spines protruding from her shoulders bent back, ready to fling the liquid at the end toward her visitors as soon as they were in range.

"Sera?" said the man as he looked down at the woman.

Glancing up at him, the woman nodded and flipped the hood of her cloak back revealing a head full of tentacles... no these had scales and heads, they were snakes.

The sundew had never seen anything quite like her and watched with fascination as the serpents fanned out, forming a halo around the monster girl's head. The snake's eyes glowed for a moment before the woman's eyes lit up bright yellow.

It took a couple of seconds for the sundew to realize she was frozen in place. A couple of seconds later she wanted to scream in a mixture of rage and fear as the interlopers approached her with impunity.

---

The drops of the sundew's nectar were far bigger than what Kal had expected, each one could have filled a tankard back at Telsin's Inn and there were dozens on this lone plant girl.

"Ria, I'm going to need a bowl, a funnel, and a bunch of bottles."

"You have that small keg of water you picked up for your first trip out onto the plains, you could dump that and use it instead of the bottles," the sprite suggested.

"Good idea but I'd rather keep that filled with water in case I need it again." That had been their only water besides what each of them brought in waterskins. They never tapped it. Only Elden was running low by the time they returned to Lantaris, and Kal wanted to have it available in case of an emergency. "Besides, I'm not sure what kinds of properties it will have, so we'll stick with bottles."

"You got it," said Ria as specks of light began flowing out of her bag. "I just hope you aren't wanting to make any more potions any time soon, it looks like you won't have any left."

"No worries. I'll use some for testing and have to purify some more for ink. I have a plan for the rest, but I'll tell you about that once we get back to the tent."

"Why back at the tent?" asked Sera.

Kal picked up the bowl and carefully brought it up under one of the drops. As it touched the bottom of the container the liquid quickly flowed down, filling it just over halfway except for a tiny filament that remained attached to the sundew's fleshy and flexible spines. He waited for the filament to break before holding out the bowl to Ria. "Store the contents of this bowl, please."

Ria shook her head, "I can't, it belongs to her," she said, indicating the plant girl.

Kal nodded and turned to Sera. "Since the sundew can renew these, her claim to them will expire in a couple of days. At which point Ria can just store the liquid directly."

"Then how is putting it in bottles going to help?"

"I... I don't know," Kal was at a loss for an explanation and looked over to Ria for help.

"Once the bottle is filled and stoppered he's effectively captured it, which allows me to store it."

Sera thought for a second then picked up the funnel and one of the round-bottomed bottles. "I want to try something. Fill it up."

"Okay," Kal said cautiously then poured part of the bowl's contents into the glass container. "Now what?"

The gorgon picked up a stopper and pressed it into the neck of the bottle, then immediately pulled it out with a pop. "Ria store this, please."

The sprite smiled. "That works," she said and with a wave of her hand the bottle was empty but for a speck of light that flew out the top.

"Nice," said the mage. He then looked over at the frozen plant-girl. "We're going to be here for a while," he said with a sigh.

---

Awhile later Sera held the funnel above one of the bottles as Kal finished emptying his bowl into it. They'd sent Ria to tell the other two they were okay, but they would be gone for some time yet. A row of bottles with stoppers awaited the sprite's return.

"There's something that's been bothering me," said Kal.

"What's that?"

"Your hair."

"What about my hair?"

"Back when we first ran into Velt and Graff one of them got hurt and... well by the time I got done with Graff it was gone. You didn't seem upset about it when I woke up from the lust craze and I didn't see it later, so I thought it had healed itself or something. Honestly, I felt so guilty I didn't want to ask you about it. Velt told me yesterday that it actually died and that you said I could have saved it. I feel I need to apologize. When I got my wits about me again I should have checked on you first."

Sera scowled, "I appreciate it, Kal. But you should have left this alone. I've moved on and I didn't need you bringing up those memories. In fairness though, by the time you were free of Graff's mating scent she was already beyond saving." The gorgon tilted her head down and the serpents moved to reveal another snake growing out of where the one she lost had been but was only around a quarter as long as the others. After letting him see, the serpents moved back into place. "She'll wake up in a week or so and be back to full length a couple of weeks after that. This isn't the first time this has happened; I've even had them pulled out while they protected me from predators. This was the first time someone could have saved one of them," she couldn't hide the bitterness in her voice, "but he was too busy trying to fuck a rabbit-girl."

"I... I'm sorry," he said lamely.

"I know you are, Kal. Now let it go, I don't want to think about it anymore." She said, holding up another bottle with the funnel in it.

Nodding, Kal turned to collect another drop from the sundew.

---

By the time they returned to the tent the tension from the earlier conversation had mostly dissipated.

"Where's Velt?" asked Kal upon realizing the vixen wasn't in the tent.

"Running," said Graff. "It's what made her fall in love with the plains to begin with. She said she'd be back in an hour or so. I'd join her but I want to wait until we've found a nice patch of forest that I can hide in if I need to."

"Well, if she's going to be gone another hour then we may as well spend another night here. No sense in packing up only to set back down a few hours later. I really hate how early it gets dark now. I can use the extra time to test some of the sundew's nectar and see how good of a replacement it will be for Aradelle's. I'm not hoping for much but it should still be better than nothing."

"You mentioned this Aradelle before," said Graff, "What's so special about her nectar?"

"'Dell is bonded to me, we can speak to each other over long distances and her abilities are amplified for a time after we've made love. Her nectar becomes infused with magic during this time as well and makes an excellent base for my inks."

The rabbit seemed skeptical.

"The best example I could give you is when we were going over the wall. If I had used any other ink you or Velt might be pincushions or I could have a huge scar on my arm from where the rune burned me."

The rabbit nodded sagely.

"I'm going to get things started while we are waiting for Velt," said the mage before heading over to his alchemy room.

"Psst, Sera," whispered Graff as she waved the gorgon closer. "What's a pincushion?"

---

Sera hopped up after they were done with supper and disappeared into the library for a moment. Coming back out she handed Kal a book, opened to a specific page. "While you were playing around with your bottles and flames, Ria and I did some digging and found this."

"An entry on sundews, interesting," he said handing it back to her.

"Aren't you going to read it?" she asked, clearly disappointed.

"Nope. You are."

"Me?!" the gorgon's voice came out in a squeak and she immediately looked over at Velt and Graff.

"Don't worry about us," said Velt. "I can only read a little common and from seeing what you are working on during your reading sessions, I can tell you are far beyond what I know."

"Velt tried to teach me how to read but we don't have any books to work with, so I only know a few words," added the doe.

"I've read this author's other entries," said Kal. "This will probably be dull and annoyingly complex but it's a good challenge."

"I'm curious to see what this man learned about the sundew," replied the vixen. "They're surprisingly common in places with poor soil."

Kal smiled up at the gorgon and patted the carpet next to him. "Sera? Would you please?"

With a final look at those waiting for her to start, her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Fine," she mumbled before stepping in front of where Kal was sitting and turning her back to him.

"Oof!" he grunted as the gorgon flopped down onto his lap. Acting like nothing had happened, Sera opened the book and began reading...

---

My apprentice and I arrived in late summer with prisoners in tow, after setting up camp we sent the porters on their way, I detest the constant chatter of those with little more than the intelligence of a canine."

("Hey now, I know some pretty smart dogs," said Kal, only to have Sera glare at him.

"Why does he have prisoners?" asked Graff.

"Unfortunately, you are going to find out, and if his other studies of monster girls are anything to go by, it won't be for biscuits and tea," he said before indicating that the gorgon should continue.)

We presented the male prisoner to the alarune and began our studies.

My apprentice and I were garbed in protective clothing and wore masks to filter out the sundew's scent. While we were protected, the prisoner was not and immediately ran toward the plant-woman. Disrobing as he ran he proceeded to fornicate with the woman with complete abandon. The sundew was quite pleased with this arrangement and began folding the long red spines upon her body inward and touching the fluid at the end to her victim. It has been posited that sundew are able to fling this fluid at prey or potential predators, the anesthetic effects rendering them immobile long enough to gather them up or simply deterring them from further attack. Sadly, there was no opportunity to test these claims during this study.

The numbing effect of the liquid appears to only influence the victim's primary muscles while the secondary muscles for maintaining breathing and blood flow remain unaltered. The genitals also escape influence, however, the victim's legs are now useless and the alarune must supply all movement to continue copulation.

Prolonged exposure to the sundew's fluid induces a state of euphoria in which the victim loses any sense of reality and begins babbling incoherently, often speaking to persons appearing only in visions within their head.

Once a sundew has ensnared a victim it will ignore any other potential prey. It is even possible to have a cordial conversation with the plant-woman as she takes her meal. I assume that if a predator were to arrive, the aforementioned ability to fling the drops of fluid would be used at this time.

The victim's flesh quickly becomes pale and wrinkled, much as it would after a long bath. However noticeable signs of digestion did not occur until the second day after capture. When the fluid became cloudy, it was drawn back into the alarune's spines and quickly replaced with fresh to continue the process. Another three days passed before the victim expired, presumably from blood loss. Unfortunately, it happened overnight so neither myself nor my assistant was able to observe the exact mechanism. It was another week before the plant-woman released her victim's remains consisting of bits of metal, from the clothing he failed to remove in his mad dash to copulate with the sundew, and some bones which the alarune was able to crush with her hands before sprinkling it about the base of her bulb.

Before the prisoner expired I offered the services of my apprentice in exchange for a few drops of the liquid she produced. Despite assurances that she could accommodate both of them at once, my apprentice was unwilling to share space with a ruffian who was currently being slowly digested. Thankfully, she was willing to take him within her fundament, which my apprentice found at least passingly acceptable.

The fluid produced by the sundew is an extremely strong and fast-absorbing contact anesthetic, which is rare in my experience, most substances with numbing qualities only affect the upper layers of skin. The numbness fades after an hour to an hour and a half when its secondary properties as a muscle relaxant and aphrodisiac begin to take precedence. It is my belief that the euphoric effects are tied to the digestive fluids as the samples I took contained no traces of digestive markers.