From start to finish, I’d say it takes me about three hours, give or take a little, to regain my energy completely. It was slightly after sunset when Alaina returned to us injured. Halfway to midnight, I was feeling that full warm tingle that warned me it was time for me to get out of the pool, and use my magic, before the gentle warmth turned into a burning heat once again.
“I’m ready,” I informed both the girls, as I slowly worked my way over towards the edge of the pool. I still can’t really swim, but I’ve had enough practice now, that I can successfully float fairly well. Honestly, I think it’s probably the two massive mounds of woman fat in the center of my chest which keeps me afloat so easily. I’ve always sunk like a rock as a man, but I really don’t think it’ll be that hard for me to pick up the basics of swimming, while I’m a woman.
“Alaina, you go scout up top for us first.” How the hell can Laulaia stand being such a dainty little woman all the time? I feel so helpless and dependent on others! My manly instincts say I should be the one leading the way and meeting any danger to protect the girls, but my brain tells me that I’m probably the weakest and most helpless of all the people in our group. All I can do is rely on others to watch over me.
Once again, I can’t help but feel like being a woman sucks. At least, being a “Daughter of Life”, sucks.
“On it, lady-boss!” Laughing merrily, Alaina saluted. Grabbing up her spear, she dashed up the steps with Shadow barking happily behind her. With the sun up, neither Laulaia or I tried to stop him, or call him back. Things should be fine up there, after all. Sending Alaina first is really nothing more than a precaution we need to practice and get used to, I reminded myself.
“Even if I’m a man, she’s faster than me. She’s the scout, I’m the tank.” Muttering softly under my breath, I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t losing my place in our hierarchy of usefulness. “She’s just scouting. If there’s trouble, I can change back into the tank and go smoosh it when she gets back,” I reassured myself.
“Or I can just go up and burn it to pieces.” Giggling lightly, Laulaia crushed my worth as a man completely, as she locked her arm around mine. Bouncing brightly, she tugged me up the steps towards the cool moon’s light.
It didn’t take but a moment of being in the cold night air for my still-damp, sensitive nipples to perk up hard. “Is it just me, or is it getting colder out here?” Rubbing my arms, I half shivered.
“It’s moving into mid-Autumn,” Casper informed me, mind-to-mind. “Every day now, the sun sets earlier and night lasts longer. You’re no longer in the Dead Lands, so the changes are becoming more obvious. Of course,” Casper chuckled, “going wet from a hot spring into the midnight air, makes it much more noticeable.”
“It’s not cold at all,” Laulaia denied, as warm steam wafted gently from her body. Apparently, fire mages don’t suffer from the chill like pampered priestesses do.
“It’s all clear up here, my ladies,” Alaina said, running back to heart-salute us. “The boogerman is inactive over in the back corner here.” Turning, she energetically jogged back over to where Shadow was clocking his leg and happily pissing on a swampy shrub.
Walking close to the foul thing, an odor of pure putrid rot and shit choked my nose and watered my eyes. “Damn! Lady of Life, may you forever plug your nose up a donkeys ass,” I prayed softly, under my breath, so as to not offend the overly-zealous girls.
Holding down the bile in my throat, I slowly forced myself to bend down and grip the central roots of the thing. With my nose pressed so close to the source of the stench, I felt lightheaded and faint as I forced out a prayer. “Casper, please rid this damn thing of any sickness or disease.”
As the soft pink glow slowly traveled from my petite fingers to envelop the plant in front of me, several limbs and leaves withered and then fell from its mass. At the same time as the limbs fell towards the ground, a thick dark smoke misted upwards, clogging my eyes and throat with its putrid wrongness. Completely unable the resist any long, I found myself crumpled over and spewing up the few mused fruits and berries that were the remnants of my last undigested meal.
“Stef!” Rushing over, Alaina gagged and heaved, dragging me back away from the still smoking bush by my ankles.
“Are you all right?” Using one hand to pull the hair out of my face, Laulaia firmly pounder my back with the other.
“Baawow! Woow! Woow!” Even Shadow was barking worriedly, as he liked my face furiously.
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“I… I’ll live,” I wheezed. Never has such a taste filled my throat, or such an odor clogged my nose. My whole body was violently rejecting exposure to the smoke, with all my muscles spasming from head to toe, while my stomach cramped and locked in a solid knot.
“You’re fighting off the corruption,” Casper informed me, mind-to-mind. “You don’t have to worry; as I told you, you’re now immune to all diseases and poisons.” Snorting slightly, Casper sounded almost offended as she snorted, “Something like that isn’t nowhere near enough to affect my children!”
My ass! I certainly was feeling affected, as the contents of my stomach forcibly evacuated out my nose and mouth. All I could do is moan and puke vehemently, until the dry heaves become the center of my existence. Dying would be less of an affect than this!
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“See, you’re fine.” Casper’s sing-song voice was the last damn thing I wanted to hear in the world, after needing nearly half an hour to recover from something which didn’t affect me.
Forcing my gaze up from the pool of vomit in front of my face, I was surprised to find the plant before me looked nearly as bad as I felt. Wilted and withered, nearly half the limbs had fallen off the shrub, leaving nothing more than a husk of its former vile glory. Crawling across the short distance separating us – I can’t trust my wobbling knees to be sturdy enough to carry me upright – I carefully gripped the dry and withered stem of the bush with trembling hand.
“Lady of Life, cleanse this damn thing of poisons.” It was all I could do to get the words out, my throat was so dry and slimy, from repeatedly losing my stomach. Slower to respond than usual – perhaps from my weakened state, I’m not sure – the pink glow finally enveloped my fingers and transferred over into the plant. Almost instantly, the shrunken shrub began to ooze a sticky black liquid that almost resembled a thick blood, but which slightly burnt my fingers on contact.
“Don’t let the others touch that,” Casper warned me. “It’s the concentrated poison from the corruption leaving the beast. It’s a pity you don’t have proper alchemy collection supplies,” the goddess mused, sadly. “The samples you could gather would be quite valuable and sell well for you later, if you did.”
“Don’t touch the ooze,” I coughed, pulling my hand slowly away. Even with the sting of the poison burning my fingers, I was simply too weak and exhausted to move quickly. Trying to concentrate to change back into my brute form, in an attempt to see if it might be more resistant, or less tired, was a complete and utter failure. Apparently, even when dealing with a blessing from the gods, it takes a certain amount of mental concentration to swap forms, and I simply didn’t have it at the moment.
“Alaina, kindly carry me down to the pool. Please.” It was all I could do to almost beg for her assistance.
“You’ll want to wait a few moments,” Casper chuckled, once again having no problem making me jump through her hoops. “Once the bush stops oozing, you can dig a hole and plant the remnants. If you do that, I’ll share another gift of my essence with you,” she teased, dangling a tantalizing carrot on the end of her stick.
“In a moment,” I had to stop Alaina, as she was already moving to scoop me up in her arms.
“Back! Shadow! Don’t!” Laulaia yelled at Shadow, causing him to stop and look back at her quizzically, as he slowly sniffed his way over towards the crumbling remains of the boogeyman.
“You don’t want to pee on that now,” I warned him. “Instead, be a good boy and dig me a hole here somewhere close,” I ordered.
“Woof!” Strutting as if he’d just gotten the most important job of all, Shadow snorted, turned, and kicked loose dirt in Laulaia’s direction. Proudly striding off a few feet to find a nice dry spot in the dirt, Shadow began digging in circles, tossing dirt in all directions.
“What are we doing? Can I help?” Hovering over me, Alaina’s face was wrinkled in concern as she gently stroked my hair.
“As soon as… As that damn thing quits bleeding,” I struggled to spit the words out, with my dry and parched mouth, “I need to drag what remains of it over into the hole Shadow is digging and plant it. The Lady Casper is going to give us some reward after that, but I don’t know what it might be,” I informed them.
“We’re we supposed to cleanse ten plants here on the temple grounds for a reward, first?” Frowning, Laulaia looked like she doubted my words. All I could do is shrug my shoulders slightly, to show I didn’t understand either.
“It is what it is,” I told her, trying to sound philosophical and wise.
“Is what it is, my ass.” Apparently silly old truisms don’t make one wise, in the eyes of a pampered wizard girl.
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“Good work.” Half an hour later, Casper was praising me softly in my head. All I really wanted to do was just to lay back, float in the pool, and sleep for the rest of the night, but my survival instinct wouldn’t allow me to pass up the chance to get any sort of reward – no matter what it might be – from a goddess.
“Now, touch the withered plant, or the soil under the plant,” Casper ordered, nudging me gently, in my mind. “Then offer up a simple prayer for it to grow. That’s all you have left to do,” she assured me, “and then you can rest.”
Stretching an exhausted hand over towards the spot which Shadow had dug out and I’d planted the last few wisps which existed of the shrub, I gently patted the ground in front of it. “Lady Life, grow this.” Four words – that was all I had the energy to get out, at the moment, but they worked.
As the faint pink glow of Casper’s magic channeled from my hand and into the ground, a small green vine slowly broke up from the earth. In mere moments, it went from a sprout to a weed; then from a weed to a small bush; and finally, from a small bush to a large, rounded rose bush. Small buds grew, then cracked open, before ultimately blooming into brilliant white blossoms. The gentle smell of fresh roses wafted gently on the wind, as the pink glow slowly faded from my fingers, and exhaustion closed my eyes as sleep overtook me.