“You know, this thing tastes pretty good,” Reysha stated as she happily put the monster’s meat into her stomach, confirming the obvious that this was, indeed, some sort of dungeon spawn. “This leaf has existed for thousands of years, yet nobody ever found this place,” she continued on as she ripped some more of the scales off to access more of the meat underneath. “Guess that goes to show that gods are crafty bastards.”

“In absence of reason, discoveries are seldom made,” Aclysia stated, gaining herself questioning gazes from both Apexus and Reysha. “People don’t need to try and find things such as this chamber if there is an ample amount of easily accessible dungeons on the surface already.” After simplifying the concept like that, the other two nodded to the metal fairy’s statement.

“No need to find new hunting grounds if you are fed just fine where you are,” Apexus still felt the need to utter a metaphor more comprehensive to himself, if only to show the metal fairy he was intelligent enough to get the concept.

Reysha giggled, her senses going into overdrive again as she got a refreshment on them. That was the last thing she had to add to the conversation.

A constant tingle was dominating the mind of Apexus as he ate. Two tingles, actually, one was his regrowing wing, not entirely unpleasant but definitely itchy, the other was the awareness of a new permanent Growth being available. Originally, Apexus had wanted to get this thing’s sense of smell, but it was too good. How that was a problem was bound to the fact that it was the snake’s tongue. Apexus didn’t have a mouth to retract that thing into. Having it would be like being permanently blasted in the face with the marking scents of cats until he acquired a maw.

So, rather than put the knee before the foot and be blasted with all the stink in the world until he got a mouth cavity, Apexus considered his other options. The snakes skeleton was useless to the slime, it didn’t have arms and legs and without the musculature surrounding it, the way it crawled on its belly couldn’t be emulated. Even if Apexus could, he was actually looking forward to some permanent legs that meant he no longer had to drag himself through the dirt by default.

What else was there? This snake didn’t have a poison gland, was blind, and the only other thing remarkable about it was its sense of movement, which the slime already possessed naturally and the two didn’t play of one another. It would just be like have a second set of eyes that looked in the same direction as the first. That left Apexus with the teeth, but teeth were… complicated.

To deliver a bite, he wouldn’t need just teeth. He would also need something those teeth were fixed on, traditionally a jawbone, a way to quickly ‘unsheathe’ the teeth and to have force behind the entire motion. The last two he could simulate by opening his membrane and manipulating his internal slime. Weaker, in all regards, but at least it would work.

This was why the slime favoured mandibles normally. Way easier to grow and way less complicated. Those also could only sheer, which was way less versatile.

As it stood, the slime really wanted nothing the snake had. However, wasting a permanent Growth was not an option and it wasn’t like the slime didn’t want teeth one day. These thing's teeth were pretty good, their serrated sides let them cut through harder materials and they were pretty sturdy, acid damage notwithstanding.

Yes, Apexus decided to go with the teeth. They wouldn’t be terribly useful immediately, but they also wouldn’t hinder him. After being permanently acquired, they changed very little. The frontal teeth stayed largely the same, as did the curved canines, both of them clearly predatory teeth. Even the ones further to the back stayed large the same. Located just beneath the surface, they formed two parallel rows under his eyes.

An attempt at biting yielded the expected result. It was weak and the moment they hit something harder than fat, they began to shift in their position like Reysha’s breasts when he poked at them with his tentacles. He could extend them outside at least, but that was a pretty slow process that no prey that wasn’t already immobilized would ever fall to. Basically, they were useless, for now.

He explained this in a few short words to his female companions, “Teeth without jaws, currently all sharp and no bite.”

“No prize for me either,” Reysha announced, having looked around for loot or anything like that for the past minutes. “I guess we got what we came for though,” she gestured at the sphere.

“Yes,” Aclysia had waited for the complete recovery of her awakener before approaching the next part of herself. Now that Apexus had chosen his new Growth and his second wing seemed to be successfully restored, she was sufficiently calmed that she decided to land next the sphere. Still coiled around it, her feet landed on the corpse of the snake and carefully extended herself towards it.

Golden light filled the cave, blinding Reysha and Apexus, the sound of their displeasure became distorted and vanished completely as Aclysia felt her consciousness pulled away to her creator’s domain.

He hadn’t cleaned up his room since last time or, if he did, the chaos had immediately taken lead once again. Sheer endless amounts of costumes were hanging from the walls of the black and white world, if they were treated with enough respect, that was. Not a few of them, religious garbs more often than not, were scattered between the towers of books that grew all the way under the ceiling.

“And there you are yet again,” Hashahin sat in a chair, his gold masked face one of two sources of colour in this space. “I am afraid, I come with a warning for you this time, little Aclysia.”

The metal fairy’s green eyes widened, what could be important enough for him to warn her about? “I listen, creator, what is it that what you wish to inform me about?”

“There is… disagreement between some of us gods about how to handle your awakener. Never enough for us to get hostile over… the ascension’s curse ensures this… but Jersoja has sent his followers his verdict, so it is only fair that I do the same.” That was the limit of divine intervention, messages and information, seldomly when unasked for. Gods were allowed to aide the mortals in their convictions, but they were not to manipulate their minds. Every decision made in the leafs of the omniverse was that of a mortal for himself, such the Progenitor God had decreed. “You should know that an Inquisition has been called to hunt Apexus. That’s as much as I am allowed to say.”

Aclysia felt a tinge of panic in her stomach but she quickly relaxed when she thought about it more calmly. “This information… I value it, but it changes nothing about our plans. We were..." the metal fairy stopped herself, realizing that she wouldn't be part of that 'we' anymore, "My awakener planned to leave the leaf when we got my last part anyway.”

“Indeed,” Hashahin reached out and pulled a book out of a nearby stack. It fell over, away from the chair, but the god didn’t care, simply opening his new reading material. “You should go back and go about this, then.”

Despite having had her eyes open, Aclysia opened them. It caused a dizzy feeling for a moment, seeing only blurred shapes that were duplicated and tumbling through her field of view. There was a soft poking of her side, Apexus’ creating a tentacle no doubt. Blinking a few times, she managed to get her sight back under control. She raised her hands and looked at them, same as always, then she got up. That wasn’t the same as always.

Reysha let out an overacted sniff, “They grow up so fast.” Putting her hand on the metal fairy’s head, her cries pretty quickly became giggles as she dropped that act.

“I certainly seem to have grown a bit,” Aclysia agreed, standing on her own two feet, her eyes at the height of Reysha’s stomach.

As she continued being pat by the redhead, a thought crossed her mind, ‘I really hope I get taller than her… this feels demeaning.’ She looked to Apexus, whose face was now below her own. “This will take some getting used to,” she mumbled, hesitating for a second she uttered the words, “It seems an Inquisition was called on us, so my creator has warned me.”

“I FUCKING knew it would bite us in the ass,” Reysha laughed triumphantly. “I told you so! I’ll leave it at this one time, but I did!” A moment of silence ensued, then the tiger girl added, “Is that even bad?”

“On this leaf? I don’t suppose so,” Aclysia stated, unable to contend with the earlier parts of her companion’s words. “In effect, it means that the faithful are under order by the church to help in the search of our whereabouts. It is not unlike the price already on your core, awakener.”

“So, we are being chased by church and Adventurer’s Guild?” Apexus asked.

“That is the current situation.”

“Same plan as before then?”

That was the agreed procedure.