After that, Kaladar accepted them into the warhost. It happened suddenly. The red dragon looked over his subjects, found none of them willing to get into a proper fight, and therefore decided he’d rather sleep. He’d had a meal and that made a dragon sleepy. What more would be done with the newcomers, he could decide tomorrow.

The quartet decided to put their tents up a fair shot away, where the grass was still green and the ground was less muddy. That they’d have a long way to the river was the least of their worries. “One of us should remain here at all times,” Aclysia suggested. “I trust these savages to pillage us at the first opportunity.”

“That one should also never be you,” Reysha added. “Like, you’re strong and all bubble butt, but these fuckers…” She pointed at the camp, almost a hundred metres away from them, “…will eat you alive. One good ambush and you’ll be filled with three strangers’ cum and left in a ditch.”

The only reason why Aclysia did not nod immediately was that the mental image made her shiver. “I request one of your knives to keep with me at all times.” The benefits of civilization were more apparent to her than ever, now that she had to deal with a crowd of marauders. “It will achieve more, I hope, as an immediate response.”

“Wear it somewhere where they can’t see it,” Reysha started and handed over one of her throwing knives. It was small, which made it perfect for the job. “No offense, Aclysia, but you wearing a weapon isn’t a deterrent. You just radiate ‘I’m civilized and easy pickings’ energy.”

“I deem that to be a positive statement,” Aclysia retorted.

“Uhm…” Korith raised her hand, to get their attention. “What about me? Should I move around alone?”

“You should just be aware of what goes on around you,” Reysha advised. “After the way you fucked that guy up, no one will come at you alone. All these rapist bastards care about is their balls and if they can fight well enough to force their contents down someone’s throat.” Nervously, Korith and Aclysia wrung their hands, the latter shooting the tiger girl pleading glances. She raised her hands in surrender. “I don’t like the fucking rules either, but it’s the law of the Death Leaf. If you’re strong you get to take and if you’re weak you get taken advantage of.”

“That is a viable reproductive strategy,” Apexus thought out loud. It was the first thing he had said since they had put the tents up and it at least got a chuckle out of Reysha. That it wasn’t a joke didn’t matter to the tiger girl’s amusement.

“What are your current views on our situation, darling?” the metal fairy asked.

“We got the easy part of the hunt done.” Apexus placed stones in a circle, a meditative exercise more so than a useful one. Procuring any source of fire around these parts would be difficult. “We prowled close, now we need to find the opportunity to pounce. I’m afraid of what we may have to do to get it.”

“Pretty much depends on what Kaladar’s eating habits are, doesn’t it?” Korith wondered. “Aside from… you know… his people…”

“Maybe Apexus should piss the dragon off until Kaladar eats him and then Apexus dissolves him from the fucking inside?” Reysha suggested, semi-jokingly.

Apexus explained in seriousness, only because the idea had crossed his own core. “I may be able to block his throat before I enter his stomach,” he said, “but I hear dragons can breathe fire and his insides will likely be exceedingly hot. It might kill both of us. Maybe his internal muscles are strong enough to crush my core or swallow me. I haven’t been in a stomach yet. Might be that he will dissolve me first.”

“We will not execute this experiment,” Aclysia decided and hugged her beloved tightly.

Reysha grinned and leaned back as much as the lack of chairs allowed. “Instead, we’ll risk our lives the old-fashioned way.”

“Suits me better,” Korith confessed. She looked ahead, more focused on her fingers than her vision. Her claw repeatedly tugged at one of the leather straps that kept her armour in place. Wordlessly, Reysha crawled over and helped her loosen. “Thank you.”

“Ain’t gotta give me any reason to undress ya,” Reysha responded with a mischievous grin.

Korith breathed a little easier when the chest plate was pulled from her. Although adjusted with her proportions in mind, an armour was more than the outer layer and she was really happy to get out of the leather vest underneath, to which the steel was secured. The simple shirt she wore under that dangled down her protruding chest, creating a curtain-esque effect.

The first thing Korith did was lay down on her back. “It hurts,” she gasped.

“Bad?” Apexus asked.

“Well, I got an iron spine, so it's not too bad,” Korith responded and sprawled out her limbs. “Still, it’s nice to lie down.”

“I could aid you with a healing spell?” Aclysia suggested.

“Appreciated, but not necessary,” the shortstack assured, her somewhat baggy undergarments slouching and making a rough outline of her curves visible. “Uhm, anyway, weren’t we discussing something really important? How do we get the poison inside Kaladar?”

“As you aptly stated, the matter of his eating habits is the primary vector of importance,” Aclysia stated. “There is no livestock around, so it may simply be that he hunts on his own. Alternatively, he subsists on what his followers bring him. It would be my guess that both are true to some extent. We require the latter to be at least sporadically true to attempt the poisoning.”

“Do ya think he’s that much of a simpleton that we can just step up to him the second day and offer him a fat poisoned tuna?”

Reysha posed a genuine question, one none of the quartet had an answer to. All of the behaviour they had seen Kaladar exhibit pointed to wretched cruelty and a callous disregard for life. Nothing he had done really pointed towards his intelligence. Melios had been aware of adventurers being out for his hide. Any dragon, especially one as prone to making enemies as Kaladar, would have not survived long enough to be an issue if he was that easily fooled. The quartet had an appearance to match their status as people from outside the island. A healthy bit of doubt was justified by even the dullest of creatures.

“We’ll probably have to endear ourselves with him in some way, before he’d trust us with presenting a meal,” Aclysia pondered.

Apexus nodded, his hand repeatedly gliding up and down her side. “Which is the problem. To prove our adherence to this community, we will be required to pillage ourselves.”

Reysha crossed her hands behind her head. After a few seconds of general silence, she suggested, “We could just murder everyone else in the camp.”

“That is… actually not entirely unfeasible,” Aclysia considered. “Through a combination of ambushes, duels, denial of resources and field ‘accidents’ we could gradually whittle away at their numbers.”

“To what end?” Apexus wanted to know. At the back of his mind, he was digesting the morality of that course of action. These were universally terrible people. Although the slime’s dislike of killing fellow creatures of sapience remained, if there was an exception to be made, they would deserve it.

Reysha threw her arms around Apexus and practically hung over his back. “He’ll have to trust us if everyone else is dead.”

“I was reckoning that regular combat would be feasible once he has no back up,” Aclysia presented her sober view. “Poison would be preferable, for various reasons. However, if it is only the dragon on its own, we perhaps have a mild chance.”

“Whatever we do, we ain’t gonna die anyway,” Reysha stated.

That made the other three members of the party raise an eyebrow. “Uh, do you have an immortality potion you didn’t tell us about?” Korith asked.

“Those only prevent death by aging,” Apexus threw in.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.” Korith blinked a couple of times. “Heard so many legends about that, but I guess nothing is ever as good as it sounds.” Her back somewhat relaxed, she looked up and saw Aclysia and Reysha so closely attached to Apexus. ‘Should I…? I mean… why shouldn’t I? Come on Korith, you’re part of… whatever this is… a harem, I guess.’ She made her way over to the slime and sat her squishy derriere down on top of his crossed legs. Apexus embraced her small frame with his left hand.

It was nice to be surrounded on all sides by his partners, but the slime was still considering what they had to do. “How did Melios think we would administer the poison?”

“In my personal estimation, he would advise us to simply follow the path of the pillager for however long it takes to feign our allegiance,” the metal fairy stated, as she looked over her shoulder to make sure no one had sneaked close to their location in the meantime. “Although he aided us in this endeavour, a dragon is a dragon.”

“That is likely true,” Apexus agreed. After about a minute of further pondering, he came to a simple conclusion. “Let us approach this patiently for now. We’ll gather information and try to behave as fittingly as possible in the meantime.”

“Sounds great,” Reysha answered for the rest of them. Then she added her personal thoughts. “So, how about you pound me so hard the entire camp hears it? Ya know, just to make everyone jealous.”

“Right here?” Apexus asked.

“Nah,” Reysha shook her head and pointed at the greenery between them and the proper camp. “Over there.”

“I, uhm…” Korith glanced over to Aclysia.

“We will remain here,” the metal fairy stated.

________________________________________________________________________________

Apexus was upstream of the river, drinking handful after handful of the water yet unsullied by the filth and loose dirt further downstream. Between each scoop, he drank some water through the membrane of his hand. A much quicker and more effective way to absorb liquid. One he could not rely entirely on.

He was being watched.

On his own, the humanoid slime squatted by the flowing water. He looked to the side, his gaze crossing that of a trio that had been walking closer for two minutes now. They wore their intent on their sleeve as openly as a salivating dog. In their hands lay metal clubs, which they swung around to warm up their bodies. It was morning and they were already preparing themselves for violence.

“Yo, fucker,” the leader of the trio shouted at Apexus from a distance. “Nobody likes a show-off and even fewer like to be kept awake by some whore’s moaning.”

“Reysha is very loud,” Apexus agreed immediately, still by the riverside. “You should not insult her though.”

The trio positioned themselves in a semi-circle behind him. “We’ll insult whoever the fuck we want,” the leader cussed back. “Think you’re some hot shit because you managed to beat one of the favourites up in a duel? Too bad for you we aren’t fighting for Kaladar’s amusement anymore.” Metal smacked against the flat palm in a steady rhythm that was meant to be threatening.

Apexus looked at his reflection in the softly streaming water. This reaction was neither unsurprising nor unprovoked. Obviously, he and Reysha had known what kind of reaction it would have on the camp to have sex out in the open. It would rile their opposition up, particularly the young men among them.

To say this assault on the slime was part of some grand scheme would have been to overstate their thoughts behind the action. It was just another event in a series of demonstrations that the quartet aimed for the peak of the pecking order. Each one would demand a reaction from the current de-facto powerholders in the camp. Failure to respond came with a shift of prestige, until the general consensus among the marauders was that it was the quartet that had to be considered when taking an action.

“You will want to consider very carefully what you are doing,” Apexus gave them a word of caution.

“Should’ve told yourself that line,” the leader of the trio grunted.

Dirt crunched under boots, as they charged at him. Apexus jumped forwards into the river. Water splashed and soaked into his pants, as the club hit one of the stones jutting out of the ground with a loud ring. Whirling around in a battle stance, Apexus readied himself for the next attack.

Mindlessly, the trio charged into the water. None of them were as tall or heavy as the humanoid chimera. The water that barely reached halfway to Apexus’ knees almost tickled theirs and the resulting sloppiness added to their actions made the ensuing battle an easy affair. The first assailant he grabbed by the sleeve after dodging the overhead swing, ripping them forwards. The impact fully submerged them, leaving them confused for long enough that Apexus could side-step the second attack and leave the range of a potential grab of his foot. An elbow to the side of the head sent the second young man toppling into the river as well.

The third, their leader, executed three wild swings, before Apexus found an opening. Before the fourth swing could even begin, the considerably more powerful slime grabbed the bat with one hand and executed an uppercut with the other.

The force of the impact was terrible. Teeth crunched and grinded, while the head tilted backwards. Pain, shock and force created an involuntary reaction by the bandit, a spasmic release of his own muscles sending him flying backwards. Unlike his two comrades, who had landed in the water, the leader of the trio only had half of his body hit the river. His upper half, most importantly his head, smacked against one of the rocks.

The remaining two fought to the surface to see their comrade passed out, blood oozing from the corners of his mouth and the back of his head. Jaws clenching, they looked at Apexus in anger. That this was the logical conclusion of violence did not occur to them. All that mattered was that one of the few members of the circle of people they actually trusted in this camp had just been injured.

Apexus jumped out of the river to inspect the body. Behind him, he heard the two men wade through the water, ready to bash him over the head again. It took them a few seconds to approach, long enough for the slime to get a pulse and feel relief settle in. It was short-lived, considering the amount of blood the young man was losing. The landing had cracked his skull.

Carefully, Apexus grabbed the man. Carrying him on his back, he started walking as quickly as he could without shaking the limp head too much.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” one of the other two bandits hissed, now at the shore. They were both quickly setting after Apexus, but stayed their attacks for fear of hitting their ally. “Put him down.”

“He’ll die,” the slime responded in a dry, factual tone. It didn’t reflect the duality of feelings inside him. They behaved in such a manner that they practically asked for an accidental end and Apexus had accepted as much. Yet, when presented with a life he could save, even one his own actions had endangered, he could not just walk away. If there was just one person in this camp that could be redeemed, was that not worth the effort?

“What’s it to you?!” the other one of the duo shouted.

‘Can’t answer that honestly,’ Apexus thought and pondered the question for almost thirty seconds, steadily walking the entire time. “The camp will be weaker for each lost member,” he gave an answer even they would agree with. “If you can’t die peacefully in your bed, at least try to make it meaningful.”

To the bandits’ ears, the implication was that they were better off drawing a couple of arrows for the hulking, unarmoured man than to die right where they were. Apexus meant it as general life advice. Either way, they lowered their clubs a little bit. “Where are you taking him?”

“Aclysia, the white-haired woman, she’s a Priest.” That was the entire explanation they needed to follow quietly.