I couldn’t do much more than watch as K’esil straightened into a kneeling position. Her feathers still lay in the dirt, but she didn’t seem to care. Her eyes were filled with hopeful tears.

  “You…you healed me?” she breathed in awe. My magic shimmered across her chest and stomach, healing blistered skin until scarcely a trace remained of the injury I inflicted.

  I wobbled in a gesture similar to the shrugs I’d seen Dorin use to indicate nonchalance. “It was nothing. The injury was fresh, and I was only trying to reach the doll.”

  “Vi’yera—Suri,” she corrected herself, “Monsters with innate healing are rare gifts of the Great Mother. You are extremely special, indeed.”

  Really? I knew I was a paragon of slime kind. There was no competition; I was both the cutest slime to ever live, and one of the most powerful in the region. The fact that I was special was known. But, to be special for my ability to heal? That was new to me.

  The way K’esil looked at me as if I were a cherished gift from on high warmed me deep into my core. No one had ever looked at me that way before, and I doubted that anyone besides her and the other harpies would ever look at me that way again. Slimes weren’t known for being popular, given that most lacked the intelligence required to communicate even basic concepts to each other let alone other monsters. Though it was very unslimelike, I liked the attention.

  K’esil opened her mouth to say something more, but a gale force wind drowned out her words. It howled around us, and my grip on the ground loosened. Before I knew it, I was lifted into the air and thrown towards the edge of the clearing.

  The Blood Sister acted, throwing herself between me and a nearby tree before I slammed into it. I trembled as she cradled me in one blood-soaked wing while she fought to block the wind with the other. Azure magic seeped through the barricade of feathers, and I curled against her chest in order to keep from being blown away again.

  “I don’t suppose your friend would be more willing to listen to you than us?” K’esil said through gritted teeth. “L’aera may shred him if she keeps this up!”

  I poked a pseudopod over the top of her wing, careful to keep my main mass and my core safely in K’esil’s grasp. At the center of the clearing, a hurricane raged. The wing mother’s magic whipped the air into a frenzy as she slashed at Dorin from the eye of the storm. Her claws raked at his arm, but he remained firm. Despite having no shield, he still held his left arm high as talons tore at his bracers. The whole scene gave the impression of a determined falconer trying to tame a particularly spirited bird with little success.

  “Just give up already!” L’aera shrieked, her shrill voice piercing the howling of the wind.

  Dorin’s response was swallowed up amidst the chaos she’d conjured, but his actions were clear. Flames surged along his bone pick as he shoved the harpy back and swiped at her midsection. She flapped her wings, surging backwards and upwards until she hovered over Dorin’s head, well outside the range of his attacks.

  “Fine. If you cannot be convinced to leave Vi’yera alone, then I will rip your flesh from your bones!” L’aera let out a screech of fury that shook the air and made my slime tremble. Dorin cringed and raised his pick defensively, and even K’esil grimaced at the shrill sound as it pierced her ears.

  The next instant, L’aera was gone, swallowed by the storm around her. The wind shifted, and darker threads of azure joined the mana swirling in the air. On the edge of my vision, directly above, I spied a flash of dense mana before she disappeared into the clouds once more.

  “Wing Mother!” K’esil shouted. “Wing Mother, stop! We can—”

  Blades of wind magic burst from the trees, interrupting K’esil and slicing straight for Dorin’s head. The knight saw them coming. He slammed his pick into the first blade, dispersing it in a flash before he ducked out of the way of the second. Another set of blades streaked towards him from his left. Again, he blocked the first and dodged the second.

  L’aera’s shriek of fury cut through the forest moments before she appeared from another side entirely, her claws eager for blood.

  She’s so fast! I thought. It was incredible. The harpies must have had insane [Agility] to move with such speed and grace. I could barely keep up with her movements as she darted around Dorin’s head, striking first at his eyes, then at his scalp.

  The knight ducked his head, tumbling forward to escape the harpy’s onslaught. As she followed, a burst of orange flames surged between them, blinding the harpy. She reeled back, trying to correct her course, but she moved so fast that her momentum dragged her forward.

  Dorin plunged his hand into the burst of mana, drawing out a blade made entirely of flame. He let out a mighty warcry that, for a moment, drowned out the raging storm. L’aera shrieked as the flames clipped her side and burned her secondary feathers. She retreated again into the storm, giving Dorin a chance to breathe and switch his sword to his right hand and the pick to his left.

  “They’re not going to stop unless we intervene directly,” I noted.

  K’esil nodded. “L’aera is proud. She will fight her enemy to the death if she must, especially if she sees them as a threat to the colony.”

  “Which she does.”

  “Correct.”

  But what could we do to stop them? If I left K’esil’s arms, I’d be blown away by the gale. And if she got close, Dorin might attack first and ask questions later.

  That line of thought was quickly interrupted. Traces of dark, sickening magic crept through the trees behind K’esil. Were it not for the omnidirectional sight of a slime, the others may have missed it all together.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Shamblers!” I shouted, not knowing if Dorin could hear me over the storm.

  K’esil did, though. She spun on her talons, eyes scanning the tree line for the threat. Meanwhile, I crawled onto her shoulder, letting her hands remain free for the fight.

  As soon as the first one stumbled into view, it became clear just how dire the harpies’ situation was. Two of them, their feathers tattered and flesh eaten through with decay staggered forward. Their eyes latched onto K’esil and I, a burning hunger entering their eyes.

  “Our sisters,” K’esil mourned. “We chased them out, for they could no longer hear reason.”

  “Their magic is shredded. They must have been drawn by all the mana in the air.” I said, recognizing the same patchwork of holes surrounding their mana as had befallen the human shamblers around the town.

  Three more shambling harpies stepped from the trees on K’esil’s right, then another four on her left, suddenly outnumbering us by a wide margin. Once again, I cursed the unfairness of my injuries. All I’d wanted to do was save Dorin from certain death! Yet, now, I was without Wild Magic Wave—the one ability that could damage all five of them at once.

  “L’aera!” K’esil cried, taking several steps back.

  She reached into her feathers and yanked a feather in each claw. Blood flowed from the wounds, surging with her crimson mana moments before she hurled the two feathers at one of the shamblers. The bloody magic formed a sharp edge along the blades which cut deep into the deathly harpy’s flesh. Yet, it only paused before surging forward on unsteady talons once more.

  K’esil spread her wings, and I only had a brief chance to panic before instinct and fear instructed me to hop off her shoulder. She took to the air, joining her wing mother in the gale just as I tried desperately to cling to the grass beneath me.

  “I’ve got you!” Dorin said. A strong boot slammed down next to me, and I raced up his leg and onto his belt. He took several steps back, clearly about to run in the face of the danger.

  I reached a pseudopod up to stop him. “We have to help them.”

  “They just kidnapped you, and you want to help them?!”

  “It was a misunderstanding,” I explained. “But if we abandon them, K’esil and L’aera could be hurt, and that could spell disaster for their colony.”

  Dorin was quiet for a long moment as he stared down at me. I split my focus, keeping part of it on the threat and another part on him, meeting his gaze with a determined one of my own…not that he would have noticed.

  He sighed. “Fine. I guess it’s just a few shamblers, right? We fought worse at the gates.” He brandished his weapon, ready to fight the oncoming monsters.

  Overhead, two voices joined in song. To my surprise, it was swiftly accompanied by a shift in the mana in the air. The gale died, its ribbons of mana repurposed to carry the song towards us. It fell on Dorin and I, seeping into my slime with a pleasant coolness that made my slime tingle.

  [Condition received: Emboldened

  +10% damage dealt]

  The Creator’s voice delivered the news of the condition coolly, as always, but I could have sworn there was a note of joy behind her normal stoicism. Was she pleased to tell me about the harpies’ song? Or was I just imagining things?

  “Well, isn’t that something,” Dorin mused, no doubt having just received the Creator’s message for himself. “Never thought I’d be on the receiving end of a War Minuette. It’s the signature skill of a Harpy Wing Mother.”

  “I guess she decided to call a truce to deal with the current problem.” That, and K’esil probably told her that I was willing to talk.

  Dorin shrugged. “Enemy of my enemy, I guess.” He tossed his bone pick aside, brandishing the flame blade in both hands. “What do you say we take them down?”

  “I was starting to get hungry, anyway.”

  Six decayed harpies. Each one didn’t glow that strongly with mana, but it was hard to tell with the holes eaten through by the gray strands of ashen magic that wound around them and ate through flesh and spirit alike. They stumbled forward, unsure of their motions without wings to carry them.

  It was clear why they didn’t use them. Their feathers were tattered, their clothes were torn, and their eyes lacked the life of their living brethren. Though the bodies still moved, the harpies they once were had long since perished.

  What a sad way to go, I thought. To have every part of you wither away until there’s nothing left, not even your spirit.

  Dorin’s sword flashed. The light and mana within the blade drew the attention of the harpies as he stepped to the left. Each feathered head tracked him like a group of cats watching a mouse.

  With their attention on him, I hopped forward, crossing the distance as quickly as I could. By the time the first one gathered the courage to lunge at Dorin, I was already at the feet of her sister. I threw myself at the decaying creature, shifting to Slayer’s Stance, and focusing magic into my acid.

  She shrieked in agony as my slime spread first over her wing, then down her back. The sound sparked the others to action. Two remained trained on Dorin while the another two turned to assist their burning friend. Wing claws tore at my slime, ripping it away at an astonishing rate, but it mattered little. Slime Sacrifice was paying dividends, and I barely felt the loss of my gooey exterior.

  On the other side of the clearing, Dorin fought off several assailants with his flaming sword. They screeched as their feathers were set aflame and whipped into an inferno by a much smaller display of L’aera’s wind magic.

  The first harpy fell as I ate through her spine. She twitched, trying to claw her way forward as I threw a pseudopod at one of the remaining harpies. This one stumbled back, nursing her head for a moment where my pod cracked her skull.

  In the next moment, two feathers shot through the air. One was coated in crimson mana, falling from on high. It pierced the throat of another harpy, but not before her decay-tipped feather tore through my pseudopod, severing it dangerously close to my body and core.

  [Warning: Health less than 50%]

  I reeled back, checking on my health to see where I was at.

  [Health: 4/11

  Mana: 11/23]

  That wasn’t good. They didn’t hit hard, but there were too many of them. I needed options, and fast. Remembering something from days ago, I eyed the crawling harpy. She was still trained on me, gnashing her teeth as she desperately pulled herself along the ground with her wing claws. In order to buy some time, I used Stoneskin. My outer membrane hardened to a crust, and I hopped over to her.

  Guess you didn’t eat me fast enough.

  I threw myself on top of her, spreading my slime until it covered each part of her body. Much as I wanted to eat the corpse in one clean act, my mass wasn’t enough after my lost pseudopod. Piece by piece, I ate through the last remaining demonic shambler before…

  [Creature eaten:

  Demonic shambler: 10/10

  Ability Unlocked: Control Decay]

  Slimes don’t plan for the future. The present is often far more pressing. What good does it do to wait for better things if you don’t live long enough to see them? Though actually using the power of these twisted, sickened creatures made me a little ill inside, the idea of being eaten was of far greater concern.

  [Control Decay - Analysis into demonic shamblers has taught you to manipulate its threads. Creatures afflicted by decay will follow your commands. Unlocks evolution to Plague Bringer Slime.]

  That was almost too good to be true, but as another of the decayed harpies descended upon me, the time for thinking had passed.

  Accept the ability!

  [Ability Selected: Control De-

  Warning: Consumer of the Fourth Anchor is not compatible with Control Decay.]

  Claws lunged toward me. My life flashed before my mind. It was certainly all over.