“That went about as well as could be expected,” Reysha said, while taking off her left shoe. After pulling out a thorn in her calf, she put the leg into the hot water of the healing fountain. Blood swirled in the streaming water. What started as a small cloud was quickly claimed by the stream and washed down the metal grid surrounding the pool. The band of blood grew thinner. Then it completely vanished.

Apexus had stripped completely in the meantime and laid down in the shallow rim of the pool, soaking his wings. His own regenerative capabilities would have taken care of all the holes. However, letting the healing fountain do that work was more cost effective. The slime hadn’t eaten or drank since they had taken off on the mainland; he had to be conservative with what he still had.

“Mind if I sit on your face for a bit?” Reysha purred.

“Later,” Apexus told her. “Now is not the time.”

“My sadness is immeasurable and my day is ruined.” Despite her dramatic choice of words, Reysha smiled when she looked over to Aclysia. “Can ya throw me a towel, bubble butt?”

“Affirmative,” Aclysia nodded and reached into the group bag. She pulled out one of the pieces of cloth they used exclusively for bathing purposes and tossed it over to Reysha. The tiger girl proceeded to wipe her feet with it. Simultaneously, Apexus got out of the pool. He dried himself by absorbing the remaining wetness through his skin. At least when it came to thirst, he was satisfied now.

“We should hunt some food,” the slime stated, after he had his legwear back on.

“Hmm… hmmm… yeah,” Reysha agreed. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she actually was. Adrenaline remained strong in her system and the sight of a healing fountain was automatically associated with lustful activities, so her brain had sorted horny over hungry in the short term. Now the order went back to survival priority. “We could just go back to the lake ri-“

Just as Reysha said that, there was a sudden series of clicks. The ceiling block above the corridor quivered warningly. If anyone had stood underneath it, they would have gotten enough time to get out of the way, before the entire block suddenly descended and sealed the trio in.

Apexus looked around and listened closely. Both the entrance they wanted to enter through originally, where the slimes had rained down on them, and the entrance they had actually entered through were now sealed. The ceiling was solid, as was the ground. There was no apparent way to get out.

“Did I jinx it?” Reysha asked, rising to her feet. “I feel like I jinxed it.”

There was a loud ‘CLUNK’ echoing from the ceiling, followed by the rustling of chains. The entire circular chamber they were in started to descend. The smooth crystal patches along the walls, the only natural light source around, were soon swallowed by the ceiling. A new one was not revealed by the floor. Only Aclysia’s Illumni spell kept them from being fully enveloped by the dark.

A quiet click announced the end of their descent, then a number of hatches in the walls opened up and out came crawling, oversized, naked rodents with big noses and even bigger incisor teeth, their bony colour tinted red by the imbued iron. Their bodies were covered in a thick mucus and smelled disgustingly sweet.

The Myrm used their oddly human-esque sniffers and slowly closed in on the trio’s location. There was a total of ten of them, coming from every direction. Reysha pulled both her axe and dagger out of their hoisters. “This is against the rules!” she complained.

“There was never a rule, only an accepted happenstance,” Apexus countered. The Myrm, practically blind and deaf, were still sniffing out the trio’s location. Once they were certain, they would all charge at once. “Concentrate on the ones closest to us,” he instructed Aclysia and Reysha, while pushing the pheromone duct on his left little finger into overdrive. Usually that was something he did for sex or to mark certain pieces of the landscape. Now it served to make every Myrm suddenly rear their head. First, in the direction the trio, then following the path of the severed and tossed finger.

Five of the Myrm, the five on the other side of the room, fell for the trick. Following the intense scent, they all pounced at the finger where it landed. They smashed into each other, wallowed in the liquifying body part, and spread the remaining scent all over themselves. In accordance to their instincts, they then started to tear each other apart.

The other five Myrm were attracted by the original source of the scent and started running a moment later. Apexus wasn’t fond of having to be the one to meet them head-on, but it was their best bet.

Three pairs of incisor teeth carved chunks out of his body. Myrm were more dangerous to Apexus than most monsters. Their bite was strong enough to threaten any part of his body, too quick to fill their mouths with acid and their bodies were too slippery to grapple. The remaining two of the five were dealt with by Aclysia and Reysha.

With a spell that basked the environment in intense, golden light, the metal fairy scorched the inside of one Myrm’s open mouth. Another found their immediate end, delivered by Reysha. A quick strike with the axe to the neck ended the wolf-sized rodent.

“I already love this thing!” she exclaimed and moved on to finish up the Myrm Aclysia had weakened.

Apexus retaliated against one of the three Myrm that had bit him by kicking it with as much force as he could muster. The loose-skinned monster landed over a metre away and kept sliding away on its mucus. A couple of ribs had definitely broken under the impact, but the monster was only dazed, not dead. The other two went in for seconds.

The humanoid slime fell on top of the Myrm.

It wasn’t an elegant way to fight, to just drop on one’s opponent with all of the available weight. With something as slippery as the Myrm, elegance wasn’t really an option. The two monsters were flattened under the weight of two metre of slime and bone. Their exposed teeth cut skin through sheer chance. Apexus ignored that damage and opened his jaw wide, biting the neck of the closest Myrm.

The monster struggled and it was incredibly difficult to keep it contained. Mucus and loose skin combined into a highly effective protection. Having been prepared for both, Apexus embraced the monster while his teeth sunk into muscle. The second Myrm recovered far enough to start gnawing into the slime’s stomach, wildly biting away. It was far from a pleasant sensation, but Apexus had to endure it to keep the first Myrm in a secure grip. His jaw clenched more and more until, finally, the bone snapped.

Reysha had finished off the spell-maimed Myrm and was quickly moving on to intercept the dazed one. With its last strength, the monster launched itself forward. Caught off-guard, the tiger girl only managed to get her left arm between the open teeth and her face. Sinew and bone were cut apart, separating the left half of her lower left arm from the rest.

“You slimy cuntwaffle!” the tiger girl cursed. The axe slipped out of her hand, black blood oozed out of the wound, and her dagger repeatedly sunk into the throat of the creature. The clenching of its jaw remained even after it was dead, leaving Reysha to deal with that first before she could re-join the battle.

Apexus rolled off the last Myrm, his stomach a torn-apart mess. The good news was that the Myrm, in its steady assault, had basked its own face in the acid. While its mucus protected it from any deadly effects, the nose of the monster had been destroyed, leaving it without any sensory capabilities. Apexus just waited for it to look in the wrong direction, then descended on its neck.

The vibrations of the feet alerted Apexus to the charge of two more Myrm.

Of the five that had attacked each other over the finger, two had survived and were now certain their true target lay elsewhere. Whatever wounds they had were healed, as their path towards the trio took them through the healing fountain.

Already resigning himself to taking yet more damage, Apexus concentrated on crunching the neck of this Myrm as well. His partners had other plans. Aclysia had charged up a spell and aimed the tip of her staff at one of the two Myrm. The Sunlight Bolt slammed into it. The force of the spell was enough to kill the monster instantly and send its half-cooked corpse flying.

The last Myrm leapt at Apexus, only to be smashed down by an axe. Now swinging it with her right, Reysha grinned widely, believing to have landed another instant kill. Her smile turned sour, when the Myrm slipped away under the weapon. She had left a trench in the monster’s skull, but she hadn’t broken it and now the slimy creature was coming for her leg.

Reysha let go of her axe to dodge to the side. Wild, like a rabid dog, the Myrm kept coming after her. Saliva flew everywhere, the large incisor teeth opened and clenched, always closely missing the Rogue. Apexus was still preoccupied and Aclysia uncertain how she could engage in an altercation of that speed.

Trying to confuse the monster by circling around it, Reysha quickly found out that she had miscalculated. A single step onto the Myrm’s slime trail had her falling to the ground. Immediately, the monster charged at her.

“JUST DIE!” she screamed, angry and annoyed. The nails of her left hand extended into thick, red claws, each almost as long as the finger segment they were attached too. Slashing at the Myrm, Reysha gouged out its throat. Breathing heavily, she tossed the corpse off her. After a couple of moments, she exhaled and relaxed, “Phew… I guess we got our food, eh?”

The other two members of the group got closer. The room started to rise again, but they were concentrating more on what Reysha had just done. “Show me your hands,” Aclysia demanded and Reysha raised both. The right was like usual, her nails, turned red due to the Noir condition, having turned into sharp cat-like claws. The claws of the left were more akin to that of a monster. No less sharp, a lot longer and thicker, and more of an extension of her fingers than only of her nails.

“What the fuck?” Reysha asked, looking at the unexpected mutation. “…Gods, I hate that demon arm,” she cussed. None of them had to think too hard on why it was her left hand over the right one that showed any odd symptoms. It was the one Apotho had restored with her, using the blood of one of his Deathhounds.

Before either of her companions could ask, Reysha pulled the claws back in like she usually would have. Right and left retreated back into their usual shape as usually sized fingernails. When Reysha extended her claws again, both hands were the usual cat variant.

“Weird,” Apexus said.

“Guess it only works when I’m really agitated?” Reysha presented the first possibility that came to mind.

“Perhaps,” Aclysia hummed. Unable to find another valid answer, she let out a long sigh. “Whatever it is, we can do nothing about it.” She dismissed the Illumni spell, as the natural light of the crystals once more flooded the room. “I do not like it when the demon arm expands in its abilities.”

“Same,” Reysha echoed.

“You strike me as someone who would rather enjoy having a natural weapon attached to each finger,” Aclysia pointed out.

“Ya know me so well, bubble butt,” the redhead cackled drily, somewhere between sarcasm and genuine affection. “I’d rather not become a demon and get pulled down to the Hellroots though. ‘Cause fuck that.”

“I don’t know if you are capable of becoming a demon… however, that is a gap in my knowledge, not something I can doubt,” Aclysia frowned and looked at her friend with uncertainty in her eyes. “We will have to have this investigated. I do not want to lose you.”

“Awww, so you DO like me,” Reysha smiled.

“I love you,” Aclysia stated. “Even if you can be obnoxious and uncultured.”

“Let’s keep the insults for another time,” Apexus put his arms around both and hugged them. “We do have something to eat, so now it's time for a proper pause.”

“Good call,” Reysha agreed.