“Stop,” Apexus said and the two women obeyed. They looked at the leading slime with mild confusion, when he stood there, left foot raised and looked around. “Is there a big tentacle moving?” he asked Reysha, since she was the most apt at spotting the early warning signs.

“No that I can se- Huh,” she interrupted herself and nonchalantly pointed towards one east of their position. “Would ya look at that, that one is getting ready.” The attack came about twenty seconds later, which was ample time for the group to relocate and just watch the pointy end of the tendril slam past the branch of the tree underneath which their current road was located. “How did ya know?” the redhead wanted to know, once the tentacle started to retreat.

“Noticed someth…” Apexus started, made an annoyed noise and then tried again. “I noticed something. Let’s see if I can show you.” They walked towards the crater the impact of the tentacle had left behind and Apexus started to look around. “It’s hard to notice, even without all the extra layers you’re wearing,” he said, straining his eyes. When he couldn’t spot it, he waved around with his arm. “I might just trigger the tentacle again, be ready.”

Apexus moved through something. It was thin and light, but definitely there. Following his warning, Reysha kept watch on all tentacles that seemed nearby enough to reach them. They froze for a moment. ‘Are they debating whether they should hit the same spot twice in a row?’ Reysha had an amused thought, only to realize that wasn’t entirely unrealistic. She wouldn’t have checked her roof twice if she already knew it was just a squirrel. The only part of her thoughts that didn’t quite make sense was that these tentacles could debate one another.

In the meanwhile, Apexus had managed to grab what he was looking for. It was a dark thin strand, nearly invisible in the shade. “See this?” he asked, pulling it taut to make it a bit easier to spot. Just like a moving fly, it was nigh impossible to keep eyes on this hair-like strand when it was waving in the wind. “This must be what triggers the tentacles.”

Aclysia narrowed her eyes and hovered closer. Following the strand with her finger, she slowly made her way up to the tree branch above them. She kept her fingers on until finding the origin of the hair at the underside of an ivy leaf. “It’s growing out of the yellowy-green ivy that covers the trees,” she mumbled, just loud enough for her sharp-eared pears to hear her. “I thought it to be just a visual distinction between two species. It appears the differences between that which covers the floor and the trees is larger than originally thought.”

“We have to move,” Reysha warned. Be it because of all the touching or because enough time had passed, the giant tendril that had threatened them previously was back in motion.

Apexus let go without any worries and Aclysia followed along with the tiger girl when he led them further down the path. The tentacle came down with an even harder thrust, causing the nearby trees to shake. The trembles in the ground were strong enough to cause a number of Thornspitters in the distance to rise.

Quickly shifting priorities, Reysha grabbed one of her throwing knives and delivered a direct hit to the fleshy centre of the closest Thornspitter. It fell over before its tendrils had even woven into the shield. Aclysia rose up and conjured a Sunlight Bolt. While the attack only charred the defences of the enemy she aimed at, it kept it occupied for long enough for Apexus to charge ahead. Running slowly and sprawling his bright green wings out wide, he presented himself as a natural target. There were four more Thornspitters, two of which were located on top of a small hill. Like all of the surroundings, it was covered by the leafy-green ivy. Part of it dangled down like a curtain.

A curtain out of which a Rammer burst when Apexus was close enough. The slime felt the vibrations before he saw the thing. The massive head-torso that looked like a fusion between wood and stone trampled in his direction. Trying to get out of the way, Apexus beat his wings, creating energy that assisted his backwards jump with the only muscle power he had. Simply correcting its course, the Rammer continued to charge and did its name justice. Pain spread through the slime when his ribcage dented in enough to press against his nucleus, then he flew backwards.

Graceless as the creature fought, the raw power of its single attack was stunning. The next step of its hunting strategy would have been to simply fall on top of Apexus. Before that could happen, Reysha stormed over and swiped the legs away from under the monster. It still fell, but uselessly to the side. Driving one of her daggers into the Rammer’s leg, she ruined it enough to prevent it from standing up again. These monsters had no easily accessible weak points, but they were immobilized with just one precision cut.

Apexus rose back to his feet as quick as he could. The broken and shattered bones hardly bothered him. Spreading his wings again, he provided a shield for Reysha just in time to block a flying thorn. It cut through feathers and flesh, but lost too much energy to do the same to the redhead’s armour. Staying crouched, she finished off the Rammer while Apexus baited out the remaining three Thornspitter attacks, then Reysha sprang back into proper action.

Darting around Apexus at a running speed he couldn’t hope to keep up with, she was suddenly in the lead. A mad grin on her face and a dagger in her left hand, she charged the closest Thornspitter head-on. The shield was raised in her direction, but she didn’t mind. As a matter of fact, she strictly ignored both it and the Thornspitter, suddenly taking a left cut. Bamboozled, expecting a faint, the plant-based predator reared its shield in the direction of her vibrations.

Only if it had raised its shield and looked around with its eye, it may have noticed Apexus diving at it. The slime grabbed the stalk on the final metre of his descent, ripped it out of the floor and made both of them tumble over the ground.

Reysha had reached the hill by now and sprinted up the elevation, sheathing her dagger in the process. The Thornspitters above immediately tried to shove her back down. Grabbing the shield of the closer one, Reysha instead jumped onto the attack. Before the enemy could react, she already kicked off, flying over both Thornspitters. If she had been more of a superhuman, perhaps she could have thrown a knife mid-flight, but as she was, she had to wait until she was on the ground again. Dashing under the slam that greeted her, Reysha grabbed the fruity centre of the Thornspitter before her and tore it apart with her claws. The other monster on the hill was looking in her direction, leaving it widely exposed for a Sunlight Bolt by Aclysia. Concentrated as the enemy had been on the Rogue, the metal fairy had been able to get close enough for a secure shot.

The two women then moved onto the last Thornspitter in the engagement. More were rising in the distance, but they were all north of the hill, the majority of the fight happened south of it. Simply dropping back down before the monsters were ready got the vulnerable Rogue out of the line of fire. Then they proceeded to kill the Thornspitter by simply running up to it, confusing it and then delivering a finishing blow.

Apexus looked at all of that from a distance, already busy eating the Thornspitter he had killed. With the kinds of enemies this dungeon threw at them being what they were, his job really was only to take the blows. Reysha was much more adept at actually killing stuff, while Aclysia provided supportive fire. Provided that she didn’t stretch her mana reserves, having her ready to heal was much more important.

“Do you require healing, darling?” the metal fairy asked, flying back over to him. She would have sounded more worried, had she not known that it took very specific hits to actually hurt the slime. Only because his nucleus could have been hit, did she come over to ask.

“Just broken ribs. They will mend in a few hours,” Apexus responded, putting the white-haired woman at ease. When it came to his Growths, they needed some time to regenerate. Wings, particularly feathers, would restore fairly quickly. Bones were a bit more difficult. Regardless, it was much quicker than natural healing would have been. Since the slime wasn’t hindered, it was better for Aclysia to keep her power in case they got ambushed again.

In the distance, Reysha was cutting the lasting parts of the Thornspitter, stuffed them into her bag and then devoured the delicious centre. When she came back to the other two, taking only a detour to retrieve her throwing knife, Apexus had finished his own meal and was cuddling with Aclysia for the sheer sake of it. There were enemies over the hill, but they had no intention to engage with them.

“Alrighty,” Reysha said and plopped down in the ivy in front of the other two. “You were talking about the yellowish ivy?”

“Yes,” Aclysia nodded, putting her thoughts back to the matter at hand. Her actual hands were around Apexus’ chest though, the two taking the moment to hug like proper lovebirds. “It appears that the ivy and the tentacles are part of the same organism. That is my best explanation as to how they react to us touching the hairs.”

“Might just be a dungeon thing?” Reysha offered a counter-suggestion, while looking at one of the massive tendrils. “Then again, they do seem pretty plant-y.”

“Let’s assume it’s true,” Apexus said. “Would that organism be the boss?”

“That would be my personal guess, yes,” the angel nodded. “I suggest that we check whether or not we can trace back the ivies. It might deliver us directly to the source. Best case, we find the boss. Moderate case, we find a special enemy that might let us temporarily neutralize the tentacles if we beat it. Worst case, we do the same thing we have been doing.”

“I’d like best case,” Reysha sighed and dug some pieces of edible wood out between her teeth with her claws. “How long have we been in here now? Two weeks?”

“To the day, yes,” Aclysia informed the redhead.

“I want to eat something that’s meaty again. I get that eating my greens is important, but this shit is getting really stale,” she complained. “How would you even go about tracking the ivy though?”

“There might be markers of growth direction, depending on whether or not the god that created this dungeon designed it so,” Aclysia responded. “Otherwise, we might be able to investigate for clues. Density of trigger hairs, position of the tentacles, such things. If all else fails, Apexus can fly up and try to find the area from above.”

It was a risky manoeuvre, given that flying came with the very real risk of getting slapped down, but it would be better than spending even more time where they were. After a few more minutes of rest, they decided to seek out Aclysia’s first suggestion. More accurately, Aclysia checked out her own suggestion. Where she had an easy time just hovering up to the ivy that covered the branches above, her party members had to wait on the floor.

“Anything?” Reysha, bored, shouted up to the metal fairy.

Raising leaves and checking the way the ivy had hooked into the wood, Aclysia looked for anything that seemed like a directional trend. If the ivy had spread its way along the branches, the securing network under the leaves must have shown some traces of it. Smart as she was, the metal fairy was not learned in this area and could only work with context clues. Of which, it turned out, there were just barely enough to give her a hunch.

“I guess we should advance in this direction,” she stated and pointed to where they came from.

“Ya want us to just tread back the ground we made today?” Reysha asked. “You know there won’t be food in that direction?”

“You just ate,” the metal fairy returned.

“Doesn’t matter,” Apexus chimed in. “Food is always important. Especially if it’s respawning, magically enriched monster stuff.”

“The big man knows what he is talking about,” Reysha nodded.

“Darling does not have a stomach.”

“At this point, I doubt I have one. Have you seen what I stuff my face with on a daily basis?”

“Your condition most likely converts most of it into fuel for its own advancement. It is, however, a wonder that you don’t even bloat after you gorge yourself.”

“Well, you’re not allowed to be the only girl around who always has a perfect figure,” Reysha giggled, only to have it escalated into laughing. “Man, imagine the amount of beauty obsessed oligarchs across the Leaves that would start suicide runs to try and get Noir if they learned it guaranteed them a goodbye from their lard asses.”

“A very low amount, I would reckon.”

“This direction, right?” Apexus asked, wanting to be on the move while they ran their mouths. A confirmation later and they began their following Aclysia’s hunch.