There were two kinds of waiting and Apexus was only good at one of them. The first kind, the kind he found mindlessly dull, was the time-wasting kind. Purposeless sitting around until something happened. Staring holes into the air. Imagining something that wasn’t possible just for the mind to have something to do.

The slime much preferred the kind of hyper focused waiting he was currently engaged in. His skin was covered with moss and other recreated flora, hiding the downsized wings and other colourful parts of his body from view. Pressed against the half-withered remains of a tree, he was as effectively camouflaged as he could be. It had taken him thirty minutes to prepare his body in such a fashion and several hours to design this look. Senses raised, he listened to the movements of nearby beasts.

Apexus wasn’t a dreamy student of books and theories; he was a practically minded predator. When he waited, he waited with purpose. His thoughts were silent and reverted to that wordless state that had exclusively been running through his nucleus before he was aware of spoken language. There was only raw information and emotion. Excitement over approaching trembles. The growing sound of grunting. Finally, a body stepping into the chimera’s field of view.

A lean trunk of about half a metre in length was attached to an elongated face. Two eyes of a simple black colour were attached to the side of its furless, wrinkly head. Underneath all of that sat a mouth that lazily grinded pieces of bark and green between its sturdy teeth. The body of the creature was also furless and its skin stretched and smooth. A ridge of spiky outgrowth along the spine interrupted the otherwise barrel-like shape, shapes of bony white reaching out of the black shape.

The Verapyr was a creature of about two metres in length. Their insides were protected by thick layers of fat underneath sturdy skin and a ridge of spikes along their back. Foraging the jungles of Azenia-Ray, they primarily ate loose plants, nuts and mushrooms, all of which they picked up with their trunk, but they were omnivores. They did not hunt for meat but if they came across a carcass or something small enough, a fallen down nestling for example, they would eat it without hesitation.

They were relatively smart and, what made things even more bothersome, extremely cautious. Combining greeted defences, a high reproduction rate and basic herd behaviour, they dominated the forest floor. By sheer size, one of them was dangerous for the average person to take on.

It was less dangerous for Apexus, courtesy of being primarily slime and therefore hard to trample, but they were difficult to catch. Before he could get even remotely close enough to jump on them, they had already either bolted or grouped up with so many of their kin that it was not worth the risk that one of them somehow did stomp on his nucleus. Necessity was the mother of all innovation and so Apexus had arrived at his current state of waiting.

Sniffing and poking, the Verapyr inspected Apexus’ outer layers with its trunk. Its instincts told it that moss on trees was easy to remove. A regular part of the diet. Apexus’ instincts told him to wait, something his calculating mind agreed with. Only if the Verapyr lost interest, was it time for any hurried action.

The beast did not, instead continuing to sniff around and looking for one piece of moss it could easily pluck off first. There was a certain smell it was looking for, the kind of mild rot that indicated that there were weak roots around. In its search, it went further up and up.

Then the sense of smell was replaced with pain. Apexus leaned forward, snapping his hidden jaw at the soft limb. Squealing, the Verapyr tried to back off. Both the attempt and the screams were in vain, and the sounds were soon silenced. The slime had already wrapped his arms around the Verapyr’s head and held on. Powerful as it was, even it couldn’t throw its neck around enough to shake off the heavy blob.

Moss retreated and condensed slime bloated out. His humanoid shape was stretched into unnatural angles and the bare bones shimmered where they were visible in his translucent body between the plants that covered him. If any adventurer had seen him at that moment, they wouldn’t have been sure if he was undead or a slime or both.

The look was intimidating enough for the other Verapyr of this herd to look at the situation and turn tail to run, rather than help this single member of their group. It was the correct decision. Even if they somehow managed to remove Apexus, the slime had now spilled around the entire face of the beast and begun melting away at it. The infections from such wounds would have killed the animal within a few days and it would have been even less pleasant than the mixture of being dissolved and asphyxiation it was currently experiencing.

Soon enough, the Verapyr fell unconscious due to lack of air and soon thereafter, Apexus had eaten its brain. At that point, the rest of the meal was pretty straightforward. Absorbing the moss and other things back into his body, Apexus continued to feast on the large body. When he was done, there was only a subset of the ribs left, with a lot of the deliciously fatty meat still attached.

Apexus picked that up and carried it with him on his way back to the rendezvous point. It was quite a lot more difficult than one would imagine. Tall as he was, the physical strength of Apexus was still quite abysmal, comparable to a human that worked in a bureaucratic occupation. He looked the part as well, since he was just slime and bones, without muscles to speak off. Given that lack of certain kinds of fibre, it was supernatural that he could even muster that much power with the manipulation of his fluid alone.

It also meant that he looked pretty bean-stalky, as he strutted through the forest. Through the manipulation of membrane density, he was able to make himself somewhat representable, but his humanoid features still lacked any kind of definition. His body mass was unnervingly evenly distributed around the limbs. No matter what colour of skin he chose, Apexus would currently have creeped out anyone that saw him naked. A lack of sexual markers only furthered that. The smoothness of his skin was only interrupted by the tiny spots of the spread-out pheromone ducts.

When he was flying, he had a lot of strength, courtesy of the wings actually having come with the muscles needed to use them. That was just about the only thing where Apexus was strong. Everywhere else, he needed to leverage mind, weight and his unique biology. Something that he wanted to fix as soon as possible, but he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. The slime did not know what kinds of monsters lived where, after all.

‘Maybe…?’ the first word in a while surfaced in his thoughts as he looked at his hand. ‘No, it’s not a hoof,’ he thought and moved on. Taking the muscles from the Verapyr would have been a bigger detriment than help. Not only would Apexus have needed to learn how to use all of them, they would only have been temporary and improperly layered onto the skeleton. It was still better to wait for something else that fit to come along.

He arrived at the rendezvous point and took the adventurer’s bag out of a cavity between some roots. Moments later, he had his robe back on, added the mask just to be sure and then sat down on one of the dead trees. There were seven of them and five had slouched over in such a way that they leaned against one another in a formation that appeared like the skeleton of a tent. The remaining two had been moved into position by people in the past to serve as seats.

The same insects that took care of dead trees in the north stayed clear of these areas for reasons of humidity, so this formation had been left to stand for a while now. Apexus appreciated it, but wondered how much genuine wilderness actually was still out there. Wherever he went, the biome had been influenced by sapient creatures in some fashion. Those with the ability to do so had every right to change the surroundings to their advantage, a rabbit digging a borough was not too different from a man building a house, but the scale of the changes humanoids did still caused the slime wonder. His mind went back to the bridge as he engaged in the kind of waiting he did not like.

Apexus was deliberating whether or not he should eat the remaining Verapyr now and go for another hunting trip, when he saw the two of them in the distance. On the last fifty metres, Reysha suddenly broke into a sprint and Aclysia flew after her. A few seconds later, both of them crash-hugged a standing Apexus, who embraced them while barely remaining standing.

“We’re back, darling,” Aclysia hummed. Magical energy flowed from him into her, replenished her reserves while she pressed her lips against the side of his face. “Did you miss us?”

“Yes,” Apexus kept his answer simple and earnest, while squeezing both of them with his hands. They travelled naturally to the squishy places. Ever since he had discovered just how great human limbs were at groping, he wanted to indulge in it whenever he could. Aclysia’s fat bottom was perfect for it as well and Reysha’s bubble butt was a close contender.

“It was quite the trip,” the tiger girl said while taking a deep inhale of his aroma. It had been a while since Apexus had let his pheromones spread freely and he would stop doing so the second they moved on from where they were. Getting her fix was important and after the events this morning, Reysha really needed her fix.

Apexus noticed the weirdly obsessive behaviour by the redhead. While Reysha was unpredictable at the best of times, her so blatantly sniffing him this much was out of the usual. “Did something happen?” he asked and felt the answer in the way her body went rigid for a moment. The worry rose, “Did you get hurt? Do you want food?”

“Yes, to the food, but you can relax about the other stuff,” Reysha giggled and turned her nose towards the smell of the Verapyr remains. Resting on one of the toppled tree trunks, the tantalizing treat tempted Reysha to trot over. Since Apexus had only left her with meaty bits, she didn’t have to worry about internal organs and just dug in. “Just had another flashback. Wasn’t pleasant, but when were they ever?”

“We succeeded in leaving without making another scene,” Aclysia added, while Reysha ripped strips of meat off the whole with her teeth. “She came back after a minute, by my estimation. As far as traumatic re-livings are concerned, it was mild.”

“Okay,” Apexus let his worry fizzle out and sat down again, pulling his metal fairy down with him. She happily sat in his lap, arms slung around him, and hummed an angelic tune. “Did you learn what we needed to?”

“Hm? Oh,” Aclysia had actually managed to forget about her purpose for heading out for a moment, being too content with just being back in her beloved’s arms, “Yes. Our previous information has been confirmed, there is a portal in the Long Way dungeon. In order to access it, we are required to beat all other dungeons on this Leaf. The Infestation remains and we heard of no alternative paths. Unless something else is revealed on the way, I therefore suggest that we approach this in the previously discussed route and maximize the number of Growths acquired while heading towards the centre. Let me get the map.”

Aclysia reached into her bag and soon the paper was sprawled out on the grass between the two logs.

“We’re about here,” she said and tapped on one spot on the map. “And our first target is west of here.” She trailed along with her finger. “I suggest we fly until about there and then go the rest on foot. We don’t need anything else from any of the locals, so our best course of action is to avoid them. After we clear the dungeon, we should visit the city up there and sell whatever unnecessary items we may have gathered while stocking up on whatever items we lost or need. Afterwards we make our way back over the bridge and north to Myrlight. Once we are done there, we decide our approach towards the rest of the Leaf.”

“Why don’t we fly north?” Reysha wanted to know, while nibbling the last pieces of meat of the bones.

“Primarily, I want to avoid Apexus’ flying form from being spotted and the north is noticeably more populated. Additionally, I want to keep gathering information and we have already been seen in that area,” she sighed. “Exposing ourselves there again will create little extra risk. That aside, we’re talking about several days of flying here. Do you wish to be carried the entire time?”

“I guess I would prefer having some ground under my feet every now and again…” Reysha conceded that point, while taking a stone and smashing the now blank bones with it. With no more meat present, she went after the marrow. Whenever she was done with a piece, she threw it at Apexus. Nothing would be wasted. “I could deal with it though, if its quicker. We do have a vengeful godlike warlock in our neck.”

“Please do not compare the divine with Apotho,” Aclysia pleaded.

“It’s just a power comparison.”

“I am aware, my request stands.”

“Alright,” Reysha rolled her eyes. “What about my actual point, though?”

“We would not save a great amount of time flying north,” Aclysia responded. “Darling would be forced to change forms whenever we land to avoid potential passers-by, costing him a lot of energy. In turn, this would require we hunt more every day to satiate the resulting hunger. It would certainly be worth these drawbacks if we were moving at his top speed, but I cannot fly that fast and he cannot carry both of us. I also remain adamant on not wanting to be seen. Whatever Apotho sends after us is going to come only when he manages to overcome Gizmo’s resistance. The Church and Adventurer’s Guild are my more immediate concerns.”

Apexus stroked Aclysia hair. “You should learn to fly quicker,” he teased her a little bit while indulging in the silky softness.

“I will do my best, Darling, but I am a supporting angel, not an offensive one,” the metal fairy answered in a factual tone, leaning into the gesture of affection even as she stored away the map. “I was not created to be fast.”

“We’ll take that bit on foot then. We managed to get here that way, so we’ll manage to get back,” Reysha stated, using a sharp splinted of bone to pick some remaining meat out between her teeth. Once she was done, she stood up. “Let’s cross this jungle, then.”