Drip-Fed - The Hunt 3 (Patreon)

“I really miss,” Reysha whined while repeatedly stabbing a giant rat in a terribly nonchalant fashion, “the ability to put a number on my power. This whole thing is way less tense than last time.”

“Has gotten easier, hasn’t it?” Apexus asked while wrestling down another one of the dog-sized rodents, slowly dissolving it while watching the metal fairy of the group raise her arms. One extended forward, the other used to stabilized her aim, Aclysia’s body was revealed by necessity, the sleeveless robe parting at the front as she gathered magic from within her and formed it into an orb that glowed like the sun.

With a warped sound, it flew through the air, dissipating into scorching energy when it hit yet another rat. The rest of the pack stared at the trio, intimidated, looking for an opening as Apexus visibly devoured their frontrunner. Of the original ten, only three remained, guarding a treasure chest that stood on its lonesome.

Suddenly turning fervently from mutilating the corpse of her rat, Reysha threw the bloody knife with a half-spinning motion. Burying inside the hindleg of one rodent, it put the remaining two in a panicked frenzy, storming at Apexus and Aclysia. Storming at a slime, particularly one with razor-sharp teeth under the surface, was a terrible idea.

Although he had no proper way of utilizing those teeth to bite, the rat took care of that for Apexus with its own momentum. Letting the dungeon monster dive straight through a part of his body where he opened the separating membrane. Before his own body fluid could spill out, the rat had already sunken in and stupidly scrapped its flesh over the fangs loosely hanging within the slimes frontal area.

Attempting to raise the rat into the air, making its absorption into his hungry body a foregone conclusion, Apexus was disgruntled when this dull creature managed to do the correct thing on accident. Stemming its legs on the floor, it pushed itself backwards quickly, freeing itself in a shower of acid, turning into water before it even hit the ground.

Once something was completely inside Apexus, trapped behind his membrane and barely able to move, all was well. The slime did not possess the necessary suction to ‘slurp’ something into it, however. It was either fixing an enemy in place and flowing over it or letting gravity do the work.

Not only did this successful pull-out hurt Apexus, more on a biomass scale than physically, but it also ripped out a bunch of his loosely sitting teeth in the process. Not that he was too worried about those, they would regrow, as any permanent Growth would. That aside, they were stuck within the rat’s fur, making it bleed, and the creature’s eyes were already damaged from the time it had spent exposed to slime acid.

So, despite that small setback, Apexus was able to finish it off a few moments later. Another bolt of sunlight mutilated the next rat. While not killing it immediately, the rats left front leg was scorched down to the fur, leaving it unable to continue its assault, only to be killed by Apexus a few moments later. Reysha, in the meantime finished off the last rat, the one whose hindleg she had hit.

“Lucky shot,” the tiger girl stated, waving around the blood-coated iron. “Can’t believe that actually hit something.”

“That wasn’t intended?” Apexus wondered.

“Oh, it was INTENDED,” Reysha giggled. “The same way a drunk guy intends to be successful when he slaps a sexy barmaid on the ass and asks her to marry him. That doesn’t mean it should have worked. I’m good, I’m not THAT good that I could just throw knives accurately while not seeing the target before having whirled around,” she tossed the knife into the air, catching it again with ease. “Not yet anyway,” then she licked her lips and looked at all the corpses. “Meal time.”

While this abundance of slain creatures was indeed nice, Apexus still had size to regain, it wasn’t the actual reason why they had fought a pack of ten rats. No, the answer was in the treasure chest they guarded. According to both Reysha and Aclysia, they wouldn’t get the pre-boss rewards again and the actual boss rewards would be limited to one chest, since they had already looted those.

They did, however, need equipment. Clothes for Aclysia were the most pressing concern. Best for her would be some sort of light gown that Priests used. Reysha would also have appreciated an armour replacement and some extra weapons. Also, when they finally decided to get out of the dungeon, it would have been best if they had a bunch of stuff to pay someone with. The larger the amount and the higher the value of the stuff they brought with them, the broader the scope of potential uptakes on the mission. Given that they had to convince someone to ignore both the Inquisition and the money on Apexus’ core, that wouldn’t be too easy.

That was why they freely engaged into attempts to get whatever treasure chest they could get their hands on. It helped that they were clearly above this dungeons intended difficulty already. Not enough to trivialize the encounters, but so that, with just a bit of strategy, they could take out even a swarm of opponents.

While Apexus and Reysha voraciously did what they liked to do the most, follow the base desire of stuffing their face after a fight, Aclysia kept her everything clean by taking large steps around the spilling blood. Her soles were already dirty enough as it was without getting them sticky in body fluids. Carefully, she opened the lid and was presented with a basic iron cutlass, a sword of the curved kind that ‘unique’ people from water dominated leaves liked to use while they rolled their Rs.

She took it while sighing whole-heartedly. “I wish for the day when this nudeness ends.”

“I like it,” Apexus had to admit. “Is distracting, but I like it a lot.”

“YOU are basically naked all the time,” Reysha pointed out after swallowing. Compared to the usual, she was pretty civilized at eating her raw meat today. Most likely because she had gotten her fix before Aclysia and Apexus arrived. “If I had your ability to just regenerate most of my body, I would probably wear even less armour myself.”

“To state it as directly as possible,” Aclysia informed them. “You two are primality incarnate in two different forms and I want to be civilized. Not exposing my skin to everyone all the time is part of this.”

Apexus would have scratched his membrane in confusion if he had the arms to do so. “Weren’t you technically naked all the time when dress… the dress was your skin?”

“That was different.”

“But why?”

“Because it is.”

“…Okay,” Apexus gave up, knowing better than to pursue things deeper than three layers of non-answers.  Understanding was optional at that point, it was just a taste thing.

After the cutlass was stowed away within Reysha’s adventurer’s bag, Aclysia sat down on the now closed chest and watched them eat. “I suggest,” she spoke up again. “That we should actually explain to each other the spells we are currently able to use, Reysha.”

“Shur’?” the tiger girl answered, with a mouthful of rodent. “Why naow sthou?”

“Because I am beyond the basic Bolt spell by now and you keep pulling new tricks I wasn’t aware off,” Aclysia explained. “As well as my mind no longer holding the entire catalogue of skills and spells you should be able to use. It would therefore be much appreciated.”

“Alright then,” Reysha nodded and Apexus listened closely. This could be rather important for future instances of battle planning.