The way back was, aside from Reysha’s ongoing condition, uneventful. Learning to work with her new sense of taste, the tiger girl soon managed to find things she could eat without feeling absolutely disgusted. Typically, that came in the shape of things that normally bordered on tasteless.

As such, she could drink water without a problem, so the most essential thing was already covered. For the solid food, she went for things like potatoes, bread or very long boiled and very watery soup. With a full stomach returned some of her good mood, but by far not all of it.

“I feel like a Monk,” she joked as they made their way through the woods. “Except I am not starving myself for inner peace.”

“I doubt that whatever you are doing can be considered starving yourself,” Aclysia had to point out, turning around from her position on Apexus’ back. “Your diet changed, not your eating habits.”

“I stand by my point,” Reysha insisted, giving a weak chuckle while she walked after the pair. They were on the last stretch through the forest. Apexus had found an unlucky deer on the way and was using its legs to wander this ground as he travelled upon it. He could have also used the spider legs, but those made him very wide and awkward to manoeuvre through the uneven spacing between trees. “So, we just find the guy?”

Aclysia nodded, she had answered the question before but the tiger girl kept being confused about it. “He states that the magic that guards his home will guide people to him, as long as they have a wish that he could fulfil.”

“Sounds like a dumbass enchantment to put on his house,” Reysha commented. “Who the fuck would want to be bothered every other day by strangers?” She would soon have the opportunity to ask that question herself, as they stepped through the barrier. As usual, it happened suddenly. The camouflage spell worked perfectly, one step there was nothing but more trees before them, the next there was a small house peeking out between the small ring of trees inside the barrier.

Rather than going up to the metal fence that surrounded the green spot within the forest, however, the group quickly crouched into what bushes they could find. There was a man standing at the fence, armoured from neck to toe with plate. A mixture of spear and staff was strapped to his back, a long, gnarly piece of wood ending in a pointy tipped crystal of a pinkish-red colouration.

He had dark hair, which he made sure still sat properly gelled back every other moment. The slime recognized that person as Hemle, the adventurer (or rather adventurer trainer) that had threatened to end his life to gain access to Aclysia months ago. Despite their vastly decreased size difference, Apexus didn’t feel like he had any chance of taking that man on even now.

Lucky for them then that he stood with his back towards them when they entered. Crossing the barrier created a visual effect like a small lightning strike, but no sound. As long as they remained put and perfectly still, there was a chance for them to stay out of Hemle’s attention. Only Reysha would have had any interest in revealing their position there, she knew who that man was and what his plans with Apexus were from before her self-exile. However, she stayed put.

The Battlemage was occupied with the old man on the other side of the protective fence anyhow. “You cannot lie to me,” Hemle stated, they must have been in the middle of a conversation. “I am an instructor on this leaf, I know who you are and that the only way I could have found you is because you know about that slime I seek.”

Gizmo glanced over to the bushes where the trio was hiding terribly. Unlike Hemle, he had been facing the new arrivals. As quickly as Gizmo’s eyes moved on, the armoured man had no time to suspect something was off. “I see then… but this is a secret that is not mine to reveal, not even in re…” his words were cut-off by a sudden coughing fit.

Recognizing that tone, Apexus was filled with worry. Those weren’t the dry and simple coughs that shook the man periodically due to his age, but the heavy and prolonged ones from his worst days, those where Gizmo was bedridden. From the cold sweat on the old man’s face and the unhealthily pale complexion of his skin, it appeared that his condition had taken a turn for the much worse during the slime’s absence. A wonder, in several ways, that his body just refused to stop its prolonged grasping at life.

“Look at you, Apotho, a husk,” Hemle ridiculed, the ever present scowl on his face deepening, “A legend faded. Give me what I want and I will leave you alone to die.”

“Die? Me?” a quiet question, one that the Battlemage with his human ears failed to pick up, but Apexus heard clearly enough in the calm forest. “What you seek I can only give you inside,” the voice of the old man was still sickly, but a strange charisma was swinging underneath as well. He raised a quivering hand and gestured Hemle to step inside. Who hesitated. “Don’t be afraid,” it sounded more like a command than an assurance, “I am just a husk, am I not? What could I ever do to you.”

“Right,” Hemle grunted, as if enchanted. He climbed over the fence. An effortless gesture that every child could have executed, the metal construction failing completely in its apparent purpose. Plated feet came in contact with the grass floor, the armour cluttering. “Now show me-”

Quicker than a man of his age should have been able to move, the man known to Apexus as Gizmo closed the couple of steps between him and Hemle. His bony fingers reached up to the instructor’s face, the only part of him with exposed skin, and grabbed as tightly as he could. The walking cane dropped into the grass behind him.

Hemle felt the cold hands encapsulate his head like death itself. A desperate attempt at shoving the old man back with one arm and grabbing his spear with the other didn’t come to fruition. His body simply refused to move. The old man gave the grin of the wicked, his light blue eyes changing into a crimson red as the wrinkles around them began to disappear.

“I will NEVER die!” Apotho raised his voice. “No matter how often my body withers through time, no matter how much that fool on the surface wants to see us perish.” Apexus watched in disgust as the unnatural display played out on front of him and the group. “As long as my spell keeps guiding your greed to me, I will always have more of you fools to consume!” Red energy flowed out of Hemle’s and into Apotho’s veins, all the way up to his face, until, rather suddenly, the plate armour collapsed into a pile of dust.

The man that stood now alone, kicking the steel in front of him with utter disappointment on his face, was still old. However, the age spots over his skin had clearly shrunk and so had the sickness. Picking up the mage staff, Apotho’s chuckles slowly turned into a shocked sobbing.

“What did I… no, not again…” Gizmo stared at his hands, immediately dropping the staff he had just picked up. “Apexus… Apexus!” he turned towards the slime, who instinctively took a step back as the suddenly unknown person pressed his hands against a wall of green fire that connected with the metal bars in the ground through lines of energy. It had never been a fence to keep things out, always to keep this Warlock in. “I didn’t mean to… please… please…” the red in his eyes, slowly fading without an energy source, flared up again, “Drag that other human in here, I need more power to break out this laughable prison!” Apotho grinned again, a strange, unnatural undertone in his voice, even as Gizmo’s tears continued running, “The poison of the dungeons runs through her veins anyway.”

Reysha’s eyes widened in fear, not of Apexus, the slime wasn’t making any indication that it would follow that order, but at the prospect of having what just happened to Hemle done to her. He had been one of the strongest people in the city, as far as she knew, and hadn’t even put up a fight against this sick old man. “What do you mean?” the tiger girl asked, despite her fear.

“Your sclera is darkening and your fingernails are slowly turning red,” Apotho listed, speaking like a superior to her and with the glee of the self-indulgent know-it-all. “Your senses were at an all time high, especially hunger and lust, but now that you left the dungeon and stopped feasting on its creations they are dulling immensely. You can’t eat normal food anymore, as it fills your mouth with vile taste, but your senses let you know what deliciousness you are missing. You envy people indulging in their worldly desires, but cannot feel them yourself.” His grin only grew wider, “You should be proud of yourself. Few possess the gluttony to even fuel this transformation. Most just die of the magic overdose. There is no cure, the rest of your life will be ashen and hollow,” there it was again, that sweet authority in his voice, “so you might as well give up and give your lifeforce to me.”

“I… right,” Reysha nodded and begun raising from her crouched position in the bush. Before she could do as much as take a single step, Apexus grabbed her in a slimy growth. Her enchanted movements were dull and didn’t allow her to dodge.

The slime turned and ran. Ran as fast as he could, dragging Reysha with it. Aclysia was right beside him. “APEXUUUUUS!” an angry scream echoed after them. Then, a miserable voice added, “Apexus… come back… one day… come back.”