The crown of the massive birch was surrounded by a dense net of branches. Although made out of relatively thin pieces, they were woven so tightly together that walking on them wasn’t much different from walking on normal ground. If one could ignore the fact that they were several hundred metres above the ground.

From up there, Apexus felt like he could look over the entire leaf in its flat entirety. The coral continent, the ocean separating it, the vast forest that filled the middle of the world, even the mountain underneath which he had spawned into existence could be seen from here. Somewhere down there, Gizmo’s house was as well. The chimeric slime had no idea where though. Even without the illusionary bubble around it, it would be impossible to make out such a small gap in the forest from this distance.

It was sight he would have enjoyed more without the sound of Reysha and Aclysia bickering over the limited water supply. This dungeon didn’t have convenient pools, but rather small waterfalls spilling out from within the wood. For taking a quick bath, those were less useful, since only one person fit in at any given time. Neither of them wanted the other to be first. That was the level of pettiness they had reached.

In the end, Apexus intervened by having Reysha open the chests first, dragging her off with clear intent. Once she got the message, she stomped the rest of the way in a manner more fitting of a Forested Dragon than a cat. Behind her, Aclysia showed a very pleased, self-righteous smirk. One that evoked in the slime the want to push her under the surface of the water for a prolonged period and hope she somehow developed lungs that she could feel suffocation with in the process.

The dark thought left quickly again and Apexus was left feeling somewhat guilty. ‘Rubbing off on me,’ Apexus thought and blinked tiredly. He wanted to sit down and digest something in a nice quiet. He wanted to have sex. He wanted to find a cliff, jump down, splatter on the ground and somehow only die for however long this stupid conflict took to unravel on its own, to then be revived into a working relationship. Was that really too much to ask?

“Nothing useful,” Reysha reported after returning, impatiently waiting for her turn under the water.

Apexus basically zoned out for the remainder of their individual showers. Not only did he not have the mental fortitude to deal with his tentacle-sprouting erection right now, but much less did he have the patience. He simply closed his eyes and thought back to that night he had shared with Aclysia on the lake and the playfight with Reysha shortly after they left the Clearwater dungeon. Precious memories, much sweeter than reality was right now.

Eventually, they put their bickering aside for long enough to get done with the preparations. The trio opened the door to the boss room, a thick assortment of brambles in the trees bark. The moment Reysha put a hand on it, they began to change colour, from white and black to green, as they became younger, smaller, and began to disappear as if they were aging backwards. The moment the group had passed them, however, the bramble quickly grew back into place.

“Let’s get this over with,” Reysha growled and it didn’t quite sound like she was talking only about the boss fight. The room was rather simple, if oddly shaped. The floor was curved like a bowl, not a single flat part anywhere. Through the branches closing behind them, they were forced to step into the terrain. Something the tiger girl did quite willingly, taking four steps ahead of them.

“Be careful!” Aclysia warned in a better-knowing tone.

“No shit!” the redhead retorted as they all looked for the boss. Quickly, the Rogue danced to away from the centre of the room when she saw something hang under the ceiling. Its round shape and wooden covering had given it decent camouflage, but it was still a large bump in the middle of the otherwise horizontal cut of the room.

“Hello – how – are – you?” a chopped-off, dull voice asked tonelessly before a bunch of clawing, short legs began to carry the insectoid creature to the edge of the ceiling, where it suddenly dropped down. For a moment, the group got to see the underside of the creature, a bunch of legs and mandibles squirming around like worms in a bucket, then the wood-plated exterior stretched and closed above as the boss monster began to roll towards Reysha. Slowly at first but, thanks to the room’s layout, quickly gaining momentum.

“What kind of stupid boss is this?!” the tiger girl laughed and jumped to the side. The dodge was easily successful and Apexus attempted to attack the rolling monster with a stab of his Archwood Walker legs. The action bounced off uselessly, the spinning momentum on the monster making for a good defence in combination with the thick wooden defences.

“Be – careful!” the dull voice echoed Aclysia’s earlier statement. It was clearly coming from the exoskeleton of the monster, and as it had remarkable similarities to the head of the Archwood Maggot, it was clear that this monster was in the same family, a more advanced or different evolution. For a lack of another idea, Apexus dubbed it the Archwood Roller.

The Roller reached the edge of their arena and its momentum stopped for a moment as it turned around. Shifting its weight, the monster aimed for Apexus this time. Although generally not afraid of physical attacks, the boss was about two times as wide as Apexus and doubtlessly weighed as much as a large pile of rocks. That kind of squashing would outright shatter the slime’s nucleus.

Beating his wings, long enough to raise off the ground, the slime managed to dodge narrowly to the side. Unfamiliar as he was with his new legs and exhausted as he was from the recent verbal fights, the slime made a slight miscalculation. The two back legs snapped under the birch-like exterior of the boss, causing Apexus’ landing to happen half on his flat lower half.

“Awakener!” Aclysia was right by his side, but there was nothing she could heal. Thin as they were, the legs had snapped clean off. Instead she turned to the boss as he rolled on in a straight line. “The moment of weakness lies within the moment it has to turn,” she stated, gathering magic in her small hands. If she couldn’t be useful as a healer, she could at least throw out her offensive spells. Divine light gathered between her palms and took a flickering form. A healing spell was steady, a soothing light, in comparison, this was spell looked like the heart of a raging fire.

As the creation of a summer god her spells were blessed with warmth and the attack she threw out concentrated this into a bolt of searing heat. The Sunlight Bolt flew across the room, right on the mark to hit the Roller at his point of standstill. Only to hit a suddenly appearing Reysha instead.

Having noted the exact same weakness, the tiger girl had started her own offensive at the same time as Aclysia had begun casting. Having not seen her use a single offensive spell since joining the group, Reysha hadn’t even been aware of the possibility and the heat that now hit her unprotected back, where her suit had a fatal weak spot, threw her forwards and right into the path of the boss as he began moving again.

Against the protest of her scorched back, the tiger girl twisted her body out of the way. Still scraping by her, Reysha’s face and left hand were covered in unsightly scratchings, quickly turning red. “What the shit, Aclysia?!” the redhead screamed when the boss rolled away.

“I told you to be careful!” the metal fairy screamed back, both of them red in their face from frustration.

“LIKE FIVE FUCKING MINUTES AGO!”

“Which only goes to show how bad your short term memo-“

“Hello!” was all the contribution Apexus could make to pull their attention away from each other and towards the Roller that had alternated his usual strategy to roll in a quick circle. Although that overall reduced the boss’ speed, it allowed him to make a quicker return to the spot he had just been at. Unprepared, the two girls scrambled to dodge in the oddest fashion.

Both of them tried to throw themselves at the other in an effort to push them out of the way. Thankfully, Reysha was heavier and bigger than Aclysia, making her own effort the superior one and saving them both from being rolled over. A balance in their weight, and they both would have turned into bloody paste.

Apexus saw a moment of weakness in the Roller, as his move now forced him to open his hide and crawl back to the edge of the arena. Slow as he was, the boss would have relied on its thick hide to protect it for the entire duration of such a travel, but Apexus had a way with biological defences. With graceless flaps of his wings, he landed as a splatter atop the boss and began dissolving the bark.

“Ow – Ow – oOooowww…” the voice repeated sounds of pain a couple of times and then vanished completely. Apexus quickly jumped off the boss when the edge of the room drew near, the damage was already done.

When the Roller tried to enact his namesake move again, he turned once around himself and then the partly-dissolved piece of its back cracked with the sound of splintering wood. Its momentum was absolutely ruined, the soft flesh underneath exposed. It turned around itself one more time before coming to a halt on its back, legs and mandibles squirming helplessly.

As they had basically won, Aclysia and Reysha went right back to fighting. Even with the threat, the hostility hadn’t ceased, so with it removed they were back at full capacity. The word-acid was thrown once more.

“What kind of shit healer are you, that you throw attack spells at your allies?!”

“Well, what kind of Rogue doesn’t have an eye on their surroundings?”

Apexus crawled over to the boss and began to process of properly eating it. The other two were too preoccupied to notice.

“The kind doesn’t know their HEALER can throw FIREBALLS!”

“It wasn’t a fireball, it was concentrated solar energy!”

“Potato – po-tah-to,” Reysha erratically retorted, thrusting her index finger against the metal fairy’s chest, causing her flying form to be pushed backwards. “You hurt me more than that boss did, you stupid cunt! Stick to what you are supposed to do in fights!”

“My purpose is to support Apexus – what is so funny about that?!” the redhead had started laughing out loud the moment Aclysia had uttered those words.

“Just that you only say that when it suits you. Does it come with praying to higher beings that you turn into a massive hypocrite? I wonder if somebody wrote a study on this yet… ah, why bother, it’s pretty obvious.”

“Oh, I am sorry that we sane people like to actually think about getting along with one another,” Aclysia answered with biting sarcasm. “Sure, let’s do it like you and never think about anything. Let’s just kill each other whenever it’s convenient and put all of civilization to the torch. That will resolve ALL of our problems.”

“You clearly have some experience with torching,” Reysha mocked, a pained expression crossing her face when she strained her back again. The fist-sized, very raw and red looking spot on her exposed back only hurt more when she move her back and the tips of her wild hair irritated the blank nerves.

Guilt hushed over Aclysia’s face but she visibly wrestled it down in favour of not losing the argument. “That doesn’t matter to this discussion whatsoever. This isn’t my fault.”

“So it’s mine, huh?!”

“Yes!”

Their argument turned in circles for several minutes until they both looked ready to burst. Reysha screamed out loud, “OH, BY YOUR GOD OR WHOEVER ELSE WILL MAKE THIS STOP! Just shut – up – already! Not everything that comes out of your mouth is true!”

“I do not believe that, although you seem to assume this about your own statements, given with how little doubt you look back at your- Ow!” the metal fairy cried out when she was suddenly stabbed in the side, harmlessly, by the forked tip of Apexus’ stolen legs.

“Hah! He is on my si- OW!” Reysha was also stabbed and then both of them looked at the slime. Suddenly they felt rather small, as the dark blue creature had formed his mass into a tall wall that loomed over both of them. His green feathers were spread out, adding even more to this intimidating illusion of size.

“Quiet,” neither of them expected to suddenly hear a voice from the slime, particularly one they didn’t find annoying. Originating from the wooden carapace freshly stolen from the Roller, Apexus voice was impressive. Deep and smooth like a learned baritone singer, a stark difference from the previous annoying high-pitched squeaking. “You two, entirely stupid right now… ARE… ARE entirely stupid right now!” The impressive voice was likely a side effect from his intense wish to not sound annoying to his girls, something he had been informed about numerous times in the last couple of days. When he had acquired this Growth permanently, it had bent a bit to fill his desires. “I am absolutely liquid… LIVID right now! No more patience!”

“You can spe- OW!” Reysha tried to say something but was stabbed again.

“Quiet!” the slime answered. “You two were…” he had to stop every now and again, already unfamiliar with thinking, finding the right formulations and assortment of words was difficult. “…focused, so focused on hating each other that you missed that I…” there were so many words for eating, it had no idea which one was the most accurate, “fed on the boss, completely ate it…”

The two girls did look over where the boss had been and where only a wet spot on the floor, from the spilled haemolymph (insect blood), remained.

“Even got to grow the entire… double large thing now on my back, then shrink it down after making permanent… making IT permanent… carapace, making the overly large carapace permanent,” Apexus stumbled on with the lecture.

“Well,” Aclysia gave Reysha some side eye, “if she didn’t keep talking back with insults and bad arguments then- OW!” The metal fairy couldn’t believe her beloved slime would stab her in the stomach twice, but there they were.

“Quiet! Just, be quiet!”

Silence.

Apexus loved every second of it.

“Wh- OW!” Reysha was shot down when she tried to talk up again.

Some more silence.

Apexus sorted his words.

Then he gave up and just spoke freely.

“Okay, listen, unsure how to say this,” the slime stated, “you two are behaving badly. I don’t like it. Reysha has a point, sometimes we need to do the stuff that is objectively bad to save ourselves. Aclysia also has a point, … which… are?... is! Which is that we shouldn’t do that stuff so easily or take glee in it. Okay?”

After a moment of looking at each other and the still very present and pointy legs, the two girls nodded.

“Okay,” Apexus continued. “Why hate… you and the other you… each other over this?”

“I don’t hate her,” Reysha stated, “I just don’t want her to annoy with this shit all the time. I am more than a bit wrong in the head, I already know, I don’t need her to remind me every time I do anything that she thinks is remotely wrong.”

“Then don’t do- OW!” Aclysia got stabbed yet again.

“No accusations, no more!” Apexus told the fairy. “I love you, Aclysia, please don’t make me more angry and stab you more. I want to stop this already!”

Taking a deep breathe, the metal fairy whispered, “Okay… I love you too… sorry…” then she turned to Reysha. “I am sorry that I am ‘zealous’ in this regard, but I also don’t hate you. I am afraid that you might become something that I would hate if I don’t put across that there are things you shouldn’t do just because they are convenient for you… you almost killed somebody!”

“No, I almost maybe killed somebody!” Reysha retorted.

“Do you not get how that is worse?” Aclysia shook her head. “You didn’t even know if you wanted to kill her, you treated a life like a dice roll. There was no goal behind that aside from your own amusement. Where is y- ow!” Apexus stopped Aclysia before she could voice yet another accusation.

At that, the tiger girl was quiet for a moment. “Well, if you put it like that…” she slowly admitted. “I just really hate her guts… but yeah… now that you point it out… that would have been a crossed line…” scratched her head. “Urgh, but I still REALLY want to stab that bitch.”

“I can…” it was clear that, after days debating this, the metal fairy struggled with the next word, “concede, in turn, that it would have been correct for our safety to end their existence.”

“So you admit that you are w- OW!” one last stab by Apexus, then he lowered his legs and his entire body back into the elliptic shape.

“Don’t,” he warned and let out that long, exhaling noise that seemed to be a signal for relief. The worst seemed to be over. “You two don’t need to agree, just please don’t make a stomach out of the world. I feel like I am dissolving in your constant word-fights.” As if to prove him right, his body didn’t stop reforming at the usual elliptic shape, but continued to flow into an amorphous blob instead. When he attempted to pull himself together, he suddenly felt the tiredness of the last few days crash back in as the heat of the moment subsided. He blinked once and failed to open his eyes again.