They left the fire, sick of its heat, and ate by the waterfall. While chewing on tough jerky, Mike watched the horses. They weren’t tied to any trees and wandered around the campsite, nibbling on whatever they liked.

The tripwire was doing an excellent job keeping them close, but they would probably run out of food by tomorrow. They’d have to move on by then.

“Master, if my may ask, how do you know how to do these things? I’ve never seen anyone fight like you do, at least not someone your age, and you have the skills of an alchemist. What kind of training have you done?”

“An alchemist? I kind of like the sound of that. Let’s just say that I have a lot of life experience. I’ve lived through good times and bad. Anyway, we should move on to the next stage. Yesterday, while I was looking for rocks in the dark, I think I might have seen some slimes moving about. They’re usually small, right? Not big like the ones I killed yesterday?”

Ember nodded. “They’re usually the size of rats.”

“Perfect. I’m going to go along the river and catch small slimes, but I need to do something first. While I do that, I want you to find the corpses of the big slimes I killed yesterday and try to collect their skin.”

Ember was obedient, not voicing doubts and instead setting off to do as her master ordered.

Mike went back into the woods with prey on his mind. He came across a spot he had just yesterday done his best to avoid.

There was spider silk on the ground and an obvious trapdoor nearby. Mike put a stick on his foot and readied his bow, taking aim.

He kicked the stick over by the trapdoor, and a spider burst out to seize what it thought was its meal. The thing was huge, almost five feet in diameter.

Mike released his arrow, striking one of its eyes and leaving it screeching in pain. Before it could duck back into its hole, he shot another arrow, this one drilling through its skull and ending its life. While it was still fresh, Mike rushed over, pulled out the second arrow, and thrust his fingers into the hole.

He stirred his fingers in the spider’s brain, causing its legs, now curled, to start spasming. While vaguely familiar with spider anatomy, he was tickling what he hoped to be the cerebellum.

“Come on, where are you ... Ah!” He found the magic spot and the abdomen started expelling silk at a frantic rate. Het got to his feet and dragged the spider with him, laying out the silk so it wouldn’t stick to itself.

He had come up with this idea on a whim and was glad to see it work. When the flow of silk stopped, he removed his fingers.

“That’s right, ladies, I am just that good.”

He then began rubbing dirt into the silk to keep it from sticking to anything. Next, he started gathering the older, thinner webbing it had used for its den. It was already dried out and lacing much of its original adhesion, so it was ready to be collected.

He returned to the camp, carrying the spider with him. He was sure he could think up something to do with its corpse, maybe use it like a scarecrow to ward off goblins.

When he arrived, Ember had completed her task and stared in amazement at the dead spider.

Mike walked over to the wagon and pulled out a small wooden barrel. It had originally been filled with salt, which the slave traders used to preserve their food. Mike poured what little remained into some of his clay jars, then hung the spider to drain its blood into the barrel.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much, and it had begun to congeal immediately after death, making it sticky like syrup.

Once it had drained out, he swirled it around the inside of the barrel, covering every inch, and then poured in a load of leftover birch ashes.

He didn’t touch the ashes with his hands, and upon closing the barrel, he shook it up, coating the interior with a layer of ash.

Mike then filled the barrel with water and began walking through the river, searching the banks. It was only up to his knees, and there were plenty of large boulders for slimes to hide by.

On his hands, he wore rough leather gloves one of the slave traders had been wearing. The slimes he found were the size of his fist, and with great care, he’d pick them up and put them in the barrel.

Thanks to the ash, the water in the barrel had a raised pH level, neutralizing the slimes’ acid and keeping them from melting through the sides.

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He also tossed in some food, hoping they’d still be able to digest it. If they were all still alive by the following day, his plan was a success.

“I’m sorry, Master, but the remains are too fragile for any kind of use,” said Ember with a pile of slime skins. Mike put down the barrel and examined the shed skin. It was crinkly and soft, a far cry from leather, more like a snake’s shed skin.

“No, they’re perfect, just what I wanted.” He handed her one of the daggers the slave traders had carried. “Here, start carving them up into squares, about as long as your hand.”

She nodded and went to work. While she did that, Mike collected some hair from the horses. He took the squares that Ember had cut up and used them to wrap up small piles of lye, then tied them shut with the horse hair.

The slime skin, despite its fragility, still maintained many of its characteristics. Slimes were like living acid, so they had to be able to control their pH level.

Their skin kept their guts in and basic substances out, substances like lye, making it perfect for holding it. With their combined efforts, they created over thirty lye packs, plus another twenty filled with alkaline ashes.

“Ok, let’s test one of these out.” Mike took one of the extra squares, filled it with ashes, tied it off, and tossed it at a nearby boulder. The slime skin held together while being handled and thrown, but upon striking a hard surface, it burst open and sprayed its contents in all directions. “Perfect.”

“So we’re going to throw these things?” Ember asked.

“That’s right. This lye isn’t very strong, so it doesn’t do much to skin, but if it gets into your eyes or you breathe it in, you’ll go down. All we have to do is hit our enemies in the face and they won’t stand a chance. We still have a few hours of daylight left, so let’s work on a couple other ways to improve our situation, and tomorrow, we’ll head for the nearest town.”

When dusk finally arrived, they gathered around the campfire to eat and rest. “Now, we have one last job to do today, and that’s make soap.”

“Soap?”

“You’ve never heard of it?”

“I heard that the nobles use it. It makes them smell nice.”

“That’s the plan. No offense, but you stink, so we’re going to change that.”

Mike reached into his satchel and took out a lump of animal fat. He had gathered it from the carcass of the dead wolf, rolled it into a ball, and packed it with a shell of dirt to keep it from making a mess when he carried it. He cleaned it off, put it in the metal skillet, then set it over the fire.

“Now, while that melts, let me see your teeth.” It was a request that Ember wasn’t used to hearing, but she obeyed, flashing her teeth like a snarling animal. “Huh, not too bad.”

Despite her poor lifestyle, her teeth were in good condition. She grew up in a world without processed foods, sugars, or chemicals, so despite never brushing, there was no rot that Mike could see. Her breath was pretty bad, but that was because she lacked the concept of flossing.

Mike walked over to one of the horses, cut a lock of its long hair, washed it in the river, and returned to the campfire, where he braided several strands into a strong thread. He made a second and turned to Ember.

“Take this thread and do as I do.”

He used the thread to floss his teeth, something which Ember had never seen before. The line was thick, coarse, and fragile, but it got the job done, and he showed her the pieces of meat from their meals that he had gotten out.

She mirrored the action to the best of her abilities, and Mike looked at the skillet.

He added some lye, water, and a handful of ground-up pine needles to the melted fat, then started stirring the mixture together. He set the skillet back on the fire so that the water could be boiled away.

“Have you gotten every tooth?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then take a mouthful of this.” From next to the fire, there was also a cup made, of all things, tin. It was full of water brought to a simmer, with ground charcoal and pine needles mixed in.

He let it cool and then handed it to her. “You said you could count, right? Well swirl this around your mouth and start counting. Once you reach one hundred, swallow it.”

She took a mouthful and handed it back to him so he could finish it off. With that taken care of, Mike took the skillet off the fire and examined the soap. It would never sell in a boutique, but it was good enough.

Then, just as they had done so many times that day, they filled the basin beside them with water and got it hot with stones from the fire.

Mike took a piece of cloth, wetted it in the basin, and smeared some soap onto it. Then, he stripped down and began scrubbing off the sweat and dirt that had clung to him, satisfied with how it lathered.

“Here, you do it too,” he said to Ember.

She held a piece of soap in her hand, staring at it with wide eyes. “It smells ... sweet!”

She mimicked Mike, using a makeshift washcloth and the soap to scrub herself raw. She was frantic, leaving no spot untouched. The two of them cleansed their skin, lathering themselves with hot water and then rinsing off with cold. With the dirt removed, countless scars, bruises, and brands were revealed on Ember’s body, but neither of them said anything.

Finally, he had her lie on her back, lowered her head into the basin, and then scrubbed her hair with the soap until the bathwater turned as black as ink. She sat up and wrung the water out of her hair as he stood up and stretched.

“Huh, so you’re a brunette. I honestly couldn’t tell your natural color. You were so dirty that I wasn’t sure if the drapes matched the carpet.” She didn’t say anything back, just crouched by the basin, holding herself. She was trembling. “Ember?"

She looked up at him, and though her face was wet from the bath, he could see her tears. “I ... I’ve never smelled this clean before!”

He rubbed the top of her head. “I’m glad.”

She reached up and grasped his hand with desperation in her eyes. “Master, can I please service you now?”