After Marasa left, the two men walked out of the lab, Aarav leaning heavily on Haemish to make it possible. Haemish had offered to carry the Slime, and Aarav had no doubt the man could do it. However, this was the perfect time to test out and practice with the new legs. If he could balance these, he would learn to do it with a fully humanoid form.

“Alright, if you don’t want me to carry you, you want to test out your new legs. I thought you wanted to wait for the full skeleton? Since you can’t do that yet, wouldn’t it be better to wait?” Haemish asked.

“Honestly, I would like to be able to balance in both circumstances. What happens if I lose some mass and then have to walk? It would become doubly difficult to do so if I have not practised under all circumstances.” Aarav replied.

“Can that happen? How do you lose mass?” Haemish asked, trying to work out how the Slime’s body worked.

“You are asking me that? You know how it is possible to lose weight. You took some from me!” Aarav exclaimed, but without any of the bite he might have injected just a day ago.

“Ah, right. But that is a one-off, and I do not plan to keep taking from you like I am harvesting wheat. If that is what you are worried about, rest assured that I will not do it again. I have taken the sample I needed. No more, think of it as a health check. I would draw blood from any new person that we suspected.” Haemish said like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. “Although the more I get to know you, I think that adverse possibilities are unfounded. We were not to know that at the time, though, were we?” Haemish chuckled as if at a joke. Yeah, hilarious big guy.

“Okay, I understand that you would want to run some tests, but you won’t even tell me what those tests are. It would be nice to know.” Aarav said, still leaning heavily on Haemish. He hadn’t tried walking on his own yet. “Do you have a staff or stick of wood that I can use?”

“To aid you in balancing? Yes, of course! I should have thought of it.” Haemish dipped a hand into his nifty pouch and pulled out a bit of wood, or it started, and the of a piece of wood and just kept going...and going...and going. Eventually, it ended, and the stick of lumber he produced was about ten feet tall. Much more than Aarav needed, but he could cut it to size, assuming he had enough strength and tools. I looked like an ordinary piece of wood, so that should be easy enough.

“Thanks, Haemish. Do you have a way for me to cut it down to size? That is way too big for me.” Haemish simply chuckled and passed the stick over to Aarav. “Okay, but it is still too....“ As soon as Aarav’s fingers touched the wood, it shrank. It slowly but surely reduced in size until it was just above Aarav’s height. The perfect size for what he had in mind. “Woah, what just happened?”

Haemish laughed and took the wood back, which promptly returned to a ten-foot monstrosity. “Fun little item, isn’t it? A pole of Wish Wood; I coined the term. It is not rare in the forest, but not many have heard of it in Brewyn. I wished this out of the tree myself. It will need to grow back, but the tree allowed me to take this small sample.” Haemish started, “it seems large now, but according to the holder’s wishes, it can change shape and even size up to a point. It seems to change density to accommodate the size adjustments but other than that, I have not been able to discern anything more from it.”

He handed the wooden pole back to Aarav, and sure enough, as soon as the Slime touched it again, it returned to five feet. Aarav took it reverently, “this is unbelievable. It feels dense.” The Slime commented. Haemish simply nodded, and as Aarav shifted his weight to the Wish Wood, Staff eased himself out of Aarav's grasp. The Slime wobbled on the staff before it slipped out from under him, and Aarav landed Slime first in a clatter of wood and bones.

“Ah, I should have thought about it, the floor, the Mana coating slicks the surface a little. Perhaps a slightly different design for the walking stick?” Haemish asked.

Aarav worked his way standing with Haemish’s aid, practically clawing his way hand over hand up the man’s body. Then took the proffered stick in hand again.

Aarav had created a stick with a knob-type protrusion at the top and tapered towards a smooth rounded point at the bottom. While it looked stylish enough, it was also not very practical for walking on the slick tiles of the palace. “You’re right, of course, and I need to adjust it. As Aarav thought about an improved model, the bottom of the staff thickened, and the top thinned until it was the same thickness the whole way. Then the bottom split three ways and ended in a tripod-like bottom finish. Next, Aarav set the staff on the floor to test its structural integrity, and it worked well. Until he decided to let go of it to celebrate. As soon as his hand left the wood, it reverted to its ten-foot structure, clattering to the floor again.

“Oh, if I had known you were about to let do, I would have held the image. Never mind, though, now that you have it in mind, the structure should be rather forthcoming.” Haemish said. “It takes some practice, but it does get easier. You should keep this.”

Aarav was touched, “you have already given me a lot; I can’t take more. Thank you for the offer, though; I do appreciate it.” Haemish waved away his sentiments.

“Not at all. I am a scientist. Do you think I got just one of those? I found a whole grove of them and convinced each to give me a sample, and I had to check that they were all the same or if there were subtle differences between them.” With that, he pulled out a grander piece of wood. He then fashioned a staff of his own with thought.

“Okay, I don’t feel so bad for taking you up on your offer now. Haha.” Aarav chuckled as he bent to pick up the ten-foot staff and change it back into the more stable walking stick within a few seconds. Then he once again eased his weight over testing it, and this time it held. “Okay, I think I am ready to go now!”

Haemish grunted in appreciation of the design, and they started walking forward. It was slow going initially, and Aarav felt like he was walking on two peg legs and the staff. As time went by and he funnelled a little Mana into his feet, he could start using them to balance a little better. It was still nothing like walking on feet, but it was progressing.

“Right, the first stop is the gardens! You can see the whole palace from there, and I want to show you the areas you will freely have access to once your presence is more widely known.” Twenty full minutes passed, and they were making plodding progress. Haemish was starting to get a little irritable, but he also tried to be as supportive as possible. “You are no longer stumbling over your own feet. That is progress, I say.”

Meanwhile, Aarav’s frustration was building on the back of Haemish’s. He could feel what lay under the surface of Haemish’s words, and he couldn’t agree more. “Urgh, this is the worst! I want to get back to all fours, not to mention the people we walked by. I think they would have attacked me if they hadn’t seen you.”

Haemish’s irritation waned as he realised the Slime was also feeling frustrated. “Aarav, it will come with time. It takes babies years to learn to walk properly; you are unlikely to get it in a day!” Sometimes it seemed Haemish forgot that Aarav had only just acquired legs. But Aarav knew he had been walking for twenty years before this new life, and he wanted to get back to living it.

Is this how accident victims feel after they lose the feeling in their legs? They have to learn to walk all over again like they never learned in the first place. Aarav couldn’t stop the thoughts from piercing his mind, Ami...she had never been the same after the incident. No, don’t think about it.

It might take a while, but eventually, he would get it. There was no way he could give up after thinking of her. “Let’s keep going.” He said.