“Brbrreeaaahhhhrrrrrrr,” Reysha made a series of indiscernible noises as she shook her body head to toe, a small number of droplets flying off her. It was a pretty futile gesture, as she lacked both the loose skin and fur of a normal mammal for it to achieve the desired drying effect. Young and smooth as her skin was, the only thing that somewhat flapped around were her breasts.

She did it anyway, out of the remaining cat instincts that her race had, on behalf of their dirty minded goddess. At least her hair and tail got somewhat drier as a result, but she was still cold. Plus the wetness had ruined the last few strings of what remained of her pants and when she got out of her soaked boots, pulling at the soles, they came loose. As the socks underneath were already defined more by being holes than cloth, it was fair to say that she now owned no clothing whatsoever.

At least the bruise on her ribcage was just a bruise. It was slowly turning red but was only lightly annoying. “Can somebody light a fire?” the tiger girl asked, her teeth chattering. The stone door was still locked and with it her way to the warmth of the healing fountain. On the floor in front of her lay the two items she could still call her own, being the sack and the spear, along with the core of the water elemental. It was damaged due to the thrust that had ultimately killed the boss.

Apexus was looking at the apple sized thing with the one functioning eye it currently had. The other was under restorative treatment by Aclysia. “This was all very reckless,” she berated both her awakener and the tiger girl, “it was pretty slow above water, we could have just kept shuffling its attention and poked it with the spear until it died.”

“That would have taken,” Reysha took a deep breathe and then shouted, “FOREVER! The longer a fight goes on the more chances there are to fuck-up and one proper strike from that thing would have done me in. I say this worked out perfectly.”

Aclysia’s face stayed still, but in her silence was an unspoken disagreement. However, due to the fact that their injuries were non-fatal, she had nothing to really make her point with.

Extending a tentacle towards the orb, the slime gently stubbed it. It was weird to touch, as it looked completely solid but felt liquid. It could be picked up, squished and stretched but it would always revert back to that spherical shape.

“That’s the elemental’s magic core,” Aclysia explained, her awakener was obviously curious and she had nothing better to do. “There are two types of magic enablers in the world. One are specific spell enablers and the other are general magic enablers. You will find the former mostly among dungeon monsters, like the Spirit Fox tail allows them to use that flame spell, or sometimes in the wild, like with that eagle and its low-class paralysis. The latter you will find amongst more powerful entities, such as elementals and humanoids.” She nodded towards the orb, “That would be a general water magic enabler.”

That sounded pretty good, like, an actual contender for a permanent Growth. Aclysia continued and shot that idea down. “I suggest you do not waste whatever mechanism allows you to permanently acquire one of your outgrowths on this magic core. There are plenty of creatures out there that allow you to cast spells of all schools and elements, albeit at a lesser natural mastery…” Her voice trailed off for a moment, “Although it is unlikely that we’ll meet a dragon or another higher monster anytime soon, so the closest choice would be a humanoid.”

Now, Apexus had no idea what schools and elements even meant, but it trusted the metal fairy that it wasn’t worth getting only one of them. People kept sounding tastier though, with all the things humans had and the slime lacked. Well, it did have that tingly feeling in its nucleus that it could pick some Growth, so it decided to go with the original plan.

The unfittingly red ears atop Apexus’ head switched their colour in response to becoming part of the slime’s body. The black tips switched into a white colour, the same as the fuzzy fur inside, while the orange-red switched into a nice light azure. It was a very close colour to the slime’s main body. Blinking with its largely restored eye, the slime could finally see what was right of it again.

Aclysia sighed in relief when her awakener looked around. Healing flesh or mending bones was the easy part, intricate designs like eyes, nerves and sinews were harder to fix. It spoke to the slime’s own natural healing factor that it could be restored with that little outside help, a normal human would have damaged sight in that eye until a higher levelled Priest took a look at it.

“I would still love a fire,” Reysha grumbled, less insistent this time. The fact that they could even hear her was odd, the water should have been overpowering her voice. For some reason, the water seemed to grow quiet, however. Almost like the roaring had just been an environmental factor to make it harder for more verbally reliant parties to communicate. “Is it just me or is it getting warmer?” the tiger girl added.

No, it wasn’t just her, Apexus nodded and Aclysia agreed as well that the room was slowly heating up. Eventually, the pool around the waterrise began to exude the gentle mist of warmth.

Golden letters crawled over the surface of the upwards falling torrent, spelling out a short message. ‘Brave adventurers, congratulations for weathering this journey. The barrier around the geyser has been lifted and these waters shall carry you back to the surface. I recommend taking a bath in the pool first though, it will heal you from the wounds you may have sustained. Also, don’t forget the loot.’

The front of each marble pillar began to retreat into the ground, revealing pedestals with items on them inside. Reysha should have been all over that, hoping for clothes, but instead she stared at the magic core that was now laying on the ground without purpose. “Are you going to eat that?” she asked.

Apexus was considering it, but the tiger girl did look interested, the slime had no actual use aside from being interested in the taste and since she did deliver the finishing blow it would only be fair if she got it. When extending it towards her with a tentacle, the slime expected her to stuff it into her bag, however, not try to fit the whole thing into her mouth.

Reysha had no idea what drove her to that, but once her initial worry about freezing had been cleared the good old hunger had made an immediate return and that core did look oddly attractive. Her teeth sunk into the oddly liquid object, half slurping and half chewing it as she forced it into her mouth. It tasted bland, with only a hint of both salty and sweetness, but the inlaid magic set her nerves on fire.

“Hrrrrrr,” she purred once she was done, shudders covering her body, the tip of her tail waving periodically in a motion of almost ecstatic happiness. Apexus saw nothing wrong with that, it felt a similar way after a good meal, Aclysia raised an eyebrow and the topic though.

“Reysha, you are behaving very oddly,” the metal fairy stated. “Beyond the odd state we met you at.”

“I just… haaaaaah, I feel soooo aliiiiveeeee!?” she stretched her words, laughed and then walked off before the sanest person in the party could continue talking to her. Simply not noticing that her fellow party member was genuinely worried, the mad cat was concentrated on the rush of life she was on right now. She felt the desire boiling in her blood again, but this time it was more intense, focused. Self-pleasuring was not the answer to this urge.

Aclysia decided to not chase after her and press the conversation. If the tiger didn’t want to talk about this now and with the metal fairy knowing very little about whether or not something bad was actually going on (all that happened so far were horniness, hunger and a streak of savage murders). Instead, she and Apexus went to enjoy the warm water. Even with the eye restored, the slime still had its wings to fix.

Reysha went from one podium to the next and was pleasantly pleased with many of the findings. First was a one-piece suit of an odd material, something between leather and rubber. It was of a midnight blue material, only decorated by a couple of slings at the belt area; it covered every inch of skin except hands, feet, everything above the collarbone and her back.

Putting it on was a bit odd. It slid effortlessly over her form, stretching and becoming tighter where she needed it to. There were no cords or anything to close the thing at the back, instead there was V-shaped cut-out, beginning where her spine and hips met and ending at its broadest point at her shoulders. It was secure and if she wanted she could peel it off, but the lack of protection of her back was an odd design decision.

After a moment, Reysha decided that it made perfect sense, though. She was a Rogue and a good Rogue was never caught off-guard, so why would she need a protected back? Either way, she was glad she had some clothes again. ‘Although just being naked in the wild has charm to it,’ she thought, she felt more drawn towards the weeks she had spent in the forest than she felt back to civilization right now.

The second item was a simple stiletto. There was no enchantment to it, a simple, well-forged steel weapon. For a beginner, such a weapon was already of great worth, especially if it drove off the need to buy a new one.

The last item the tiger girl had usage for was a belt. Although it was of a dark, heavy leather and the buckle looked like it was supposed to secure chainmail, she could use this at least temporarily as a way to better secure her bag and the stiletto. Sometime in the future she would get a proper Assassins belt with poisons and throwing weapons, at least that was her plan.

The remainders were a mana potion in a glass flask, a little jar of some strong-smelling liquid and a decorative necklace with the symbol of Hashahin, a black disk with a mask carved into it in silver, dangling from it. Doubtlessly, useful for Priests or Mages, but Reysha felt nothing upon putting the thing on. It therefore wandered into the bag along with the other things.

“So, seems like we need to get back in here,” Reysha commented once she was disrobed and inside the water, holding onto the edge to not sink too deep. It was just a small bruise she still suffered from, but there was no need to carry it outside either way. “Since we didn’t find that part of your body, Aclysia.”

“That will not be necessary,” the metal fairy assured in a deeply relaxed tone. Wings and limbs sprawled out, she was gliding over the water’s surface. Raising one of her arms, she pointed at the waterrise and Reysha squinted her eyes.

Apexus had already spotted it, an oddity within the endless stream, a sphere that refused to move, without any anchorage or logical way to keep it in place. It was hard to spot through the shifting surface, but without a boss keeping them from having a look, the black and white mass was easily spotted.

They had gotten what they wanted.