Okay, sitrep. There’s a lot going on here right now, and I need to lay it all out in my head.

Penelope and I are here to kill all the Nawra, or failing that, retrieve Remus’s sword. The Nawra here think that we are also Nawra, but they’re mostly wrong.

Remus is the ringleader of this whole thing. He and his controlling slime are both bonkers-strong, and I doubt my soul-nab will work on them, even post-hatching. We need to get Penelope to infect him, or I need to poison him.

Both of those things are a pain in the ass, though, because Theodora is a metamancer. If I recall right, that’s magic about magic, or something? It probably means she can detect the flow of mana really well, and she’ll notice if I pour from the Everfull or if Penelope activates her talent. She’s slimed, and like Remus I’m not sure if I can just yoink her back to humanity. The tattooed lady is strong.

Seong, meanwhile, is a poison expert, which is another nail in the coffin of using the Everfull. Their soul is humungo, but the slime in them is young and weak. I can probably just kill their slime with a soul-grab, but I have no idea how the human Seong will behave afterwards. If they start acting suspicious when I free them, it could be bad.

Taline is a former hunter scout, like me. I don’t know exactly how her power works, and to be safe we should probably find out before I start murdering anybody. Her slime is pretty strong, but not quite Remus’s level; I might be able to just soul-yank her. The real wild card is the boy, Melik. He doesn’t have a Nawra, but his mom does and seems to think he does too. Does he have a talent like mine? Did he figure things out and dodge them somehow? Did he get lucky and eat a poison mushroom by accident? I need to know why he is free and if we can use him to our advantage here.

Finally, there’s… well, all the rest of the villagers. Over a dozen weak randos are also slimed around Litia village. I figure we save them for last, though; I can probably just walk past them and thresh the slime souls with a tentacle. A simple sweep of the island and we should be clean.

“What do you think, Vita?” Remus asks, snapping me out of my thoughts. Oh yeah, I should be paying attention to this strategy meeting.

“Oh, uh… sorry, I kinda got distracted,” I admit sheepishly, scratching the back of my head.

“You need to be paying attention,” Remus insists, sending a stern look my way. “You’re the linchpin of this operation. If Penelope was successful in destroying the Burrow Hound colony, our brethren would have had to flee out of the tunnels before locating a new host. If you can find those exits, they will be the best spots to start looking.”

I nod, pretending to think while I get in character.

“I can’t guarantee that, pops. I sense living things and relative strength. If there are new monsters that moved into the tunnels, I’ll be able to feel those. If not, I can’t see underground any better than you can.”

“That’s what I thought,” he agrees, nodding. “So we’ll have to rely on you, Taline, even with your lower range.”

Oh, perfect.

“Sorry, what all can Taline do, again?”

“Ha ha, I’m kind of a weird one,” Taline laughs cheerfully. “My only talent is to pull things towards me. I can vaguely feel whatever I’m pulling on, though, so I use it to scout by imperceptibly tugging on everything around me. Took me a few years to get a handle on it, but now it’s second nature to me.”

It took her host a few years, she means. She, as in the person actually talking, is probably only a few days old.

“How detailed is it?” I ask.

“Pretty detailed, now that I’m used to it. It’s almost like a full picture of my surroundings. It doesn’t go through objects like yours does, but we can use it to find burrow holes that are nearby.”

Perfect. If I keep a wall between me and her, then, I shouldn’t have a problem on that front.

“Sounds handy!” I say. “Go team double scout!”

She gives me an odd look for a second, then smiles back.

“Go team double scout!”

Remus chuckles. His slime just seems so goddamn happy with all his kin around. It kind of hurts to have to kill him. Penta lightly squeezes my spine. Yeah, there’s no way she doesn’t feel even worse than I do. I almost give her a light pat with a tendril before remembering she doesn’t like that.

Someday, I will find someone that I can soul-snuggle.

During the rest of the meeting we cover our strategy for tackling the forest, though I don’t pay a ton of attention since I have no actual intention of participating in that mission. Remus wants to leave tomorrow, but Penelope and I manage to negotiate him down to a few days from now to keep him in the village long enough to give us Gladra’s full time limit. He doesn’t like it, but a lot of the others agree with our points; Penelope presses the idea that we need to practice working as a team for a bit rather than rush off after just meeting each other, and the argument sticks.

“I know you’re strong, Remus, and I know the others need rescuing,” Penelope affirms. “They’re not going to die in the next couple of days, though, and if we’re not careful in the forest, we might. You know better than anyone that there are things you can’t fight out there. No matter how unlikely we are to run into them back where we found the burrow hounds, risking it out of impatience is stupid.”

The meeting ends soon after he relents. I want to grab Melik and take him somewhere private to figure out his deal, but the kid’s mom grabs me first.

“Let’s chat at my place,” Taline insists. “Scout to scout.”

I can’t help it, I glance at Penelope. She meets my gaze and shrugs lightly. May as well. Yeah, that makes sense. Getting them alone is more or less what we wanted, and while I don’t know if freeing Taline immediately is a wise plan yet, it would be good to get her comfy with me.

“Lead the way!” I answer cheerfully. “I’d love to hear some professional tips! Pops is more of a school of hard knocks kinda guy.”

She snorts, grinning a little.

“That he is.”

The wooden houses are interesting, and I’m surprised at how sturdy and clean Taline’s is when we get there. Wood housing is almost invariably shitty in Skyhope, but I guess there’s no reason that has to be the case. Something about stone being a status symbol, I think? Eh, I don’t know shit about houses, I live in a shack.

Well… lived, I guess. I suppose I don’t live there anymore, but it’s still my home.

“You have a very nice house,” I tell her seriously.

She laughs.

“Well, thank you! I built it myself.”

I tilt my head.

“Not ‘my host built it herself?’”

She shrugs.

“Eh, same difference. Now! I wanted to ask you about your talent. You can really see Nawra in people?”

“More or less, yeah,” I confirm again. “It’s not really ‘seeing’ but that’s basically right.”

“Of course, of course.” she answers, nodding. “So, how many of us are there here?”

I do a quick count, mentally adding one extra for Penelope and Melik each.

“Thirty-three, I think,” I answer. “Unless there’s more out deeper in the fields than I can feel from here.”

“And you sense two in me,” she presses. This is getting weird. Didn’t I just say that in the meeting?

“Yep,” I confirm. “Two in you.”

“And one in my son,” she continues.

I smile my best conwoman smile.

“Yep!”

She gives me an odd look, and I start to worry that I’ve fucked up. She’s the one that introduced her son as slimed. Wait… was that a ruse? But why would she bring her human son to the strategy meeting if she knew?

“You’re covering for him,” Taline says. “Why? You don’t even know us.”

I blink. So she does know? Why is she—

“So you’re lying to Remus about him?” Penta asks, suddenly asserting control.

My tendrils shiver at the sudden takeover, though it’s much easier to detach myself from the need to control my body when I have something else to move instead. I almost chastise Penta for yanking my body away again, but I suppose we did agree to share more.

“I… I am, yes,” Taline admits. “I can’t let someone else control him. You’re not going to tell anyone, right?”

Her question wasn’t asked out of fear, but as a warning. I won’t have to stop you from telling him, right? In a normal situation it might be threatening. The short, stocky woman is more than a match for Penta and I in soul strength, though at this distance I could probably kill the slime without trouble. Thankfully, there’s no need for that yet. I’m just surprised, and a little disturbed.

“I won’t,” Penta confirms. “But why? Won’t he tell someone?”

She shakes her head.

“He won’t. He’s a good boy. Even if he wasn’t, there’s no way I can let a Nawra into him. He’s my son.”

Penta moves my lips into a frown.

“I see. Your host loves him very much, so you… also do.”

“Exactly. Yes! You understand. I could never let someone replace him. I had to tell him about us. I had to keep him safe.”

Penta chews on that for a while as I watch with interest.

“So… how does he feel about you possessing his mother?”

She swallows.

“He… he doesn’t know.”

Penta raises an eyebrow.

“I lied to him,” Taline continues. “I said that I used my power to pull the Nawra away from my neck.”

I make it known that I want control of the body back, and Penta reluctantly relents.

“Would you say that your host is a good liar?” I ask bluntly.

“When she has to be, yes. Why?”

Good enough for me. As interesting as it is for her to have mercy on her son, she’s in our way. I reach a hand out, moving my soul down the arm in order to extend the range of my tendrils far enough to reach into the woman’s body. At least until Penta seizes control of my arm, dropping it and taking a step back.

Excuse me? I think at her.

“D-do you think there’s any chance that you and your host can work together?” Penta asks quickly. “You know you’re torturing her in there, right? Melik loves her, not you, and you’re torturing her. I-If you love him back, you should—”

“I can’t, Vita,” Taline’s slime says. “She’ll kill me. You know that. That’s what hosts do.”

Can I kill her now? I grumply press.

“Don’t you think we could find a better way?” Penta begs us both. “If we just had more time? If we could just get people to cooperate?”

We don’t have time, and most people don’t cooperate unless you make them anyway.

“No amount of time is going to make my host like me. What are you on about?”

Penta takes another step backwards. I glare at her from within.

You can’t wimp out about our mission now, Penta. We’re not going to have a better opportunity. Give me control.

“Why me and not her?” Penta whispers, so quietly even I barely hear.

You know why. Now give me control, you’re making us look suspicious again.

“But—”

Give. Me. Control.

Penta hesitates, and to my surprise, disobeys. I glower internally, firmly resisting the urge to end her. She wouldn’t outright fuck us over. I’ll see where she’s going with this.

“How about this,” Penta says quickly. “You help me with something, Taline, and I’ll be sure to keep the secret about your son.”

The woman frowns, but nods.

“Anything for Melik. What do you need?”

“Well, in the absence of a better option for coexistence… I at least want to celebrate what we’ve built here,” Penta improvises desperately. “I want help making a feast for everyone. Eat some good food, have a toast… that kind of thing. In honor of family.”

Oh! She’s setting up an opportunity to poison everyone! Well, okay, go Penta! Taline laughs.

“Ah, is that it? You’re a good kid. That sounds great! And here I thought I was about to get blackmailed out the ass.”

Penta smiles the pleasant smile she no doubt learned from Penelope.

“I don’t know much about preparing food or any of that, I’m afraid. I had the idea but I’ll be foisting almost all the work on you.”

The stocky older woman flexes an impressive bicep.

“Leave it to me, little lady! I’ll whip up the best damn feast you’ve ever seen!”

Hrm. Well, as Penta walks us out of the house, I have to admit that she got us both what we wanted. The mom-slime lives another day, so that we can better kill them all at once. It’s better to get the mom-slime to participate in our plan for us, as there’s less risk of accidental discovery. The woman trapped inside is probably living in constant horror, but… well, I don’t know her. I’m not going to go out of my way to release her early when it worsens our chances. It would be one thing if she was dying or likely to suffer some permanent harm, but another day of torture on top of those she’s already had probably won’t make a big difference.

“Vita, you do realize that mental trauma is potentially permanent harm, right?”

Fuck, Penta, do you want me to kill her or not?

“Of course not!” she hisses. “I don’t want the humans to suffer and I don’t want the Nawra to die! Why is that so hard to understand?”

It’s easy to understand. We just don’t have any way to accomplish it.

“She’s a slime that loves a human! There has to be something there!”

Maybe, but if we waste time looking for it things will get way worse. Look, I know this doesn’t sit well with you, but I REALLY can’t have you fucking up the operation. You realize that will just get everyone here killed, plus us? I figure that if they die around me I can at least maybe make them revenants later.

My face frowns.

“You’re not just going to eat them?” Penta asks.

I mean, I wanna eat the big ones, but… we’ll see. We can work something out. Now gimme my body back before Penelope sees us and makes you explode. And DON’T try this shit with Seong. The poison expert being on our side is non-negotiable and you know that.

She detaches from my spine completely, perhaps to think without my mind getting in the way. Fine by me. The person I need alone next is definitely Seong. I feel where they are and start heading their way. Annoyingly, however, I’m cut off by someone else first.

“Hey,” Melik says, the young boy looking down from nearly a foot over my height. “Um, Vita, right? Can we talk?”

I sigh.

“Sure, what do you need?”

“I was wondering…” he mumbles sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. “Can I see your artifact?”

My artifact? As in, the Everfull with all the Nawra poison that would definitely make Remus think something is up and fuck over everything? As in the artifact I’ve made absolutely sure to never once take out or use since I’ve gotten here?

“Let’s make sure our chat is private,” I answer, smiling as broadly as I can.