--- Your leg has been mended. Your arm has been mended. Your recovery has returned to normal.

Rikia awoke to this notification. Did I pass out? She wondered to herself.

“Yes. In the middle of a deadly forest. Next to a creature you knew nothing about. After almost being eaten by one of the most dangerous predators to date.” Aylia was sounding a little frustrated to the slime-girl. And maybe being just a little sarcastic as well. “I mean, what do I care if both you and Newb get yourselves almost killed every other day? I am only extremely dependent on you for my continued survival…”

Dealing with this displeased spirit was not something that Rikia could process at the moment. She tried to open her eyes, but immediately shut them again. It’s too bright! Why is it so bright? She squinted an eye open to take a look around.

One of the first things she noticed was the roof over her head. The room that she was in was luxurious compared to the conditions she had been met with these past few weeks. Not only was there an actual bed under her, but there was a cozy fire nearby which almost brought tears to her eyes. There were also several white-flamed candles in this room, the main reason for the extreme brightness she had awoken to.

Ok, so I am in someone’s house now… but who’s? What happened? I remember… the stupid giant Raptor tossing me through the air with its tail… Then, pain. Lots and lots of pain. Then a… nose… boop? What could that ha- “Eeek!”

A little child’s face abruptly appeared over her. The smile that was upon their face, despite the priestess’ scream, showed only delight. “Awake! Awake! It is awake!” The child, who, from what Rikia discerned from the clothes and still developing body, was most likely a girl, started to clap and giggle to herself.

“Isn’t that the-” Rikia began.

“Yep” Aylia responded in kind.

“But how could-”

“Most likely because that thing is not what it appears to be.”

The princess gave pause for a moment, assessing the girl that had just ran out the single door, slamming it closed in the process. A little unkempt and could use a change of clothes, but looked pretty normal to her. “I am not sure… wait.” How did that girl survive against a monster that was easily ten times larger than herself? She did not remember much right after she crashed into the ground, but surely that dinosaur did not give up merely due to the presence of a tiny, lost girl. Unless… “Is that girl a monster?”

“There you go. And a powerful one at that, given how she saved your life and all.”

“O…kay..? What kind of monster is she?”

“Well, that is something I am less sure about. If she wasn’t so freely moving around, I would think she was a very young dryad, but they are stuck near their trees, so that can’t be…”

Rikia stiffened at the mention of a creature so beautiful and rare. “Dryads are real? I thought they were a myth?!”

The spirit sighed loudly, “Of course they’re real. Don’t you know where myths and legends come from? Now what I am really concerned about is who she ran to go get.”

Rikia’s eyes shot open and she tried, and failed, to sit up. “What makes you say that she went to get someone?”

“Because she is a monster. And monsters don’t usually craft homes out of wood and fur.”

Looking back around the room, the semi-human noticed that the craftsmanship was similar to the way that many of the woodsmen made their homes. But cruder. Granted, she had only been in a handful of homes like that, but she could not doubt the similarities. The room had a fireplace off to one side, currently lit, and had several trunks that were lain about. There were many knick-knacks atop shelves lining each wall. A pot hung outside the fire-place.

At that moment, the door flew back open and in skipped the little monster girl from before. Behind her was an aging gentleman, a hood pulled up over his bearded face, and furs and leathers covered the rest of him. In his hand was an old, gnarled staff that looked like it could be a still living branch, if the indication of several new leaves sticking out of it were any indication. The sheer size of this man was daunting when seen next to the much smaller girl, and Rikia tried to sit once more. This time, she succeeded.

“Do not be afraid, child of the forest. I mean you no harm.” The man’s voice was calm, laced with a confidence that elders always seem to acquire over time. It did wonders to calm the princess’ fear at the abrupt appearance of such a giant of a man… Actually, now that she was looking around from a sitting position, everything seemed to be sized for a much larger individual than herself. “All creatures that find themselves in need of assistance from Gra-uhl will be safe here.”

Clearing her throat, she answered, “Thank you for your hospitality, sir. I did not mean to cause you any inconvenience.”

The man chuckled a little at her response, grabbing a stool from the corner to pull it up next to the bed. The girl, on the other hand, climbed up into the bed next to Rikia, grabbing hold of an arm. The slime-girl was a little startled by this, especially after what Aylia had told her regarding the compact monster.

“It is no problem at all, I assure you.” The man’s eyes twinkled in the shadows of his cowl, as he watched the two on the bed. “It isn’t every day that May brings a living creature to me. Usually, they are only small, inanimate things. A bird’s eggshell, a shiny rock of some sort or another, shells and claws. You can imagine my surprise when I saw her with a wounded young lady-slime.”

Said lady-slime looked back and forth between the man, Gra-uhl she guessed, and the girl, May, clinging to her arm, currently playing with her hand. The way that the little plant-girl was acting, it reminded Rikia of the young children from the city. There was a kind of innocence about her, something that made the princess want to protect her from going into the big bad forest again. At that moment, May looked up into her eyes, and smiled widely, eyes closing slightly. It melted the semi-human’s heart.

“So then… What brings you into the Heart of the Maze, hmmm? I can tell you’re not from around here. Slime’s don’t live long in a dangerous place such as this.” Gra-uhl’s voice drew her attention back to the matter at hand. The kindness that he showed, and the warmth that she felt, left her considering telling him everything. A thought that she shared with the voice in her head.

“This man is… strange. I feel like I shouldn’t trust him, but…” Aylia was quiet for a moment, as if trying to find some way to rebuke this comfort that the priestess was feeling.

“If he healed me, then he might be able to help our friend.” Having a roof over her head and sitting in a bed were doing funny things to Rikia’s head as well. Either that or she was just excited to have someone physically talking to her, instead of her considering that she might have gone crazy and was hearing voices.

“You’re right. You can tell him what you know… but leave me out of it. There are many people who don’t take kindly to finding out someone might be possessed.” Aylia relented.

“Thank you…” And so, Princess Rikia regalled May and Gra-uhl with the tale of how she ended up here…

“That is… quite the story.” Gra-uhl had stood some time ago and was now checking a pot he had placed over the fire. The smell of some sort of stew was wafting out, causing the slime-girl’s stomach to growl slightly.

“If I had not passed through it, I would not believe it myself.” Rikia consented. “To think that all you needed to change would be an immense amount of energy and an interesting being that was intent on surviving.” Because Aylia had requested that she remain “out of it”, the girl had told the man that she was rescued by the slime. They managed to escape her would-be murderer, but it was gravely hurt in the process. They ended up in a high-mana density field, and the slime ended up melding with her to stay alive. She had also said that she was willing to help it since she had been saved by its heroic efforts.

She had conveniently left out that she was royalty.

“I had thought you were rather odd, when I saw you.” The man continued, not commenting on the change itself. “Slimes are genderless, so there are not many that appear in any other shape than a round blob. But, it makes sense, now that you have explained it to me.” He grabbed a couple bowls from a shelf as he served each of them something to eat. May had long since fallen asleep atop Rikia’s lap, a small smile gracing her lips.

“I know it may be a lot to ask of someone I just met, but could you take a look and see if you can help?” The priestess accepted the bowl that was offered. Inside was a thick stew, potatoes and carrots floating on the top. As she filled her spoon with the meal, she also saw some type of meat.

“I can, but first, we eat. You need your strength. And from what you have told me, the slime could use it too.” Gra-uhl smiled as he, too, began to eat.

As the meal continued, Rikia could not help but glance down at May and wondered if this strange man could tell her more about the girl. “Gra-uhl… What kind of being is May? I mean, it is not every day that a small girl like her could fend off an apex predator.”

The older man was quiet as he spooned another bite of the stew from his bowl. “... While it may seem strange, May is a dryad.”

“She is?!”

“She is?” Both the spirit and the princess were stunned by that news.

Gra-uhl sat as if considering his next words carefully. “While it may seem strange to us considering the stories we have heard about them, that is what she is.”

The slime girl sat, waiting for the man to continue. When he did not, she attempted to pry a little more information out of him, “How can that be, though… I thought dryads were bound to their own trees, unable to move farther than a dozen or so meters away.”

“I… do not know. When I met May, she was unconscious in the forest alone, not a tree that she would normally be bound to in sight. I had not ever heard of any dryads in this part of the world, so I was under the same assumption, that there was no way a creature such as her could be a dryad. I brought her here and nursed her back to health. And after I taught her some basic language skills, I asked her where she came from.” The man paused for a moment. “She told me that there was nothing she could remember aside from wandering around, alone…

“I asked her if she could tell me if there was anything on her Stats under her species that would shed some light on the subject. What she told me was two words: Dryad, Orphaned.”

“Orphaned?!””Orphaned?!”

“But… What does that mean for her?” Rikia inquired, startled

“I am not sure, just have a few thoughts, but no evidence. But, she is not the first monster to be strange, is she? Why, a slime playing a hero seems quite out of the ordinary…” Gra-uhl quieted then, returning to his food. The semi-slime herself thought quietly over what she had learned from the man, and considered why things that were a certainty before were changing now.

A short time later, the man had the now empty bowls cleaned, dried, and stored in their original spot. Rikia sat contentedly, her hands petting May’s hair as she continued to sleep. Gra-uhl knelt down by one of the trunks, pulling out a few weird items: a long claw of some sort, a couple colorful feathers, a small bag containing something, a wooden bowl decorated with strange symbols, and a water bladder. He then stepped back over to the bed, taking his seat on the stool once more.

“What I am going to attempt is a reading. While I am not an expert on dealing with slimes themselves, I have extensive experience dealing with monsters.” The man turned towards a small table off to one side of the bed, upon which he began to set the items and the bowl upon it. “If successful, I’ll be able to determine if there is anything that can be done for it. If unsuccessful… we can address that later, should it arise.”

He set about preparing a different type of spellcraft from her own: a ritual. A ritual was different from a spell in the manner that it required a lot of preparation, and was not just something you could do on the fly. There were a few specialists who performed rituals in the castle, but those would be the bookworms, Wizards. During her study of adventurers, she found a certain account of different types of Ritualist Core combinations, namely the Wizards, the Clerics, and the Druids. The first was combined with the Adept Core, and the second paired with the Priest, or Priestess, Core. The Cleric route was actually what Rikia herself was working towards, but her mentor had told her she still had many years of study before she would be ready for the Ritualist Core.

As for the final one, nobody really knew what it was composed of, and the Druidic society would not share such details with outsiders. Seeing how the mysterious Gra-uhl worked, she could not help but see the Ritualist Core at work and wondered if the man was a Druid.

“Are… Are you performing a ritual?” She was so surprised at this sudden turn that the question barely came out as a whisper.

Gra-uhl glanced her way for a moment, his hands never ceasing their movements in preparation to analyze the slime. “I was. Once. But that was a long time ago.” He sighed, as if just thinking about that time was tiresome. “But those uptight pansies can have a tree fall upon them, for all I care.” With a harrumph, Gra-uhl ceased the conversation and returned his focus wholly upon his work.

The man reached into the small bag, producing what appeared to be a small pill of some sort. He promptly began to finely crush the pill into a powder which was transferred into the bowl. He added water to it, and began to stir with one of the feathers. After two slow rotations, he quickly reversed the direction for another two stirs, and then repeated the process of stirring twice more. At this point the water had turned a shade of sickly green while the bowls symbols also began to glow that same shade, and the feather began dissolving into the cup. Gra-uhl set the second feather over the top of the bowl, crossed his arms, and waited.

A few more moments of shocked silence passed. Before the slime-princess could begin the conversation anew, the man suddenly grabbed the claw and Rikia’s arm. Without giving enough time for the semi-human to so much as protest, he attacked.

--- You have been cut for 1 Life.

The sharp claw had been used to cut along her ribs, drawing blood and a little bit of something else. The damage was so small that it would almost return to normal in a brief moment, but the ex-Druid collected a small amount of the goop that leaked out of her and flicked it into the bowl.

“Ow! What was tha-?!” Her attempt at a complaint was cut short as the brew began to glow a bright purple, giving off a faint audible *pop*, along with a small ring of smoke. Gra-uhl then stirred it once with the second feather before, without ceremony, he gulped the concoction down…