I look stunned as the large, winged man falls from his ascent. A sharp and brilliant beam of water looks like it must have been used to pierce his wings. Mouth agape, I can’t help but stare in utter shock as a beam like sapphire lights the sky briefly before dissipating.

Shaking my head, I muster my courage again. I need to help the person who saved me!

I pick myself up and stand tall, taking long and springing steps to reach the cliff’s edge and check on my savior. Fortunately, I’ve retained most of the mass of clay I took the time to absorb. I mourn for my fellow Almaej’s loss as disgust takes hold of my core. In normal circumstances cannibalizing a deceased clayman’s corpse is great taboo, but not looked down upon for short periods when situations such as mine occur. However, this sudden increase in mass and strength isn’t without drawbacks. This is my first time reaching a size anyway near this close, preferring to take a smaller male form suited to a fighter’s lifestyle. An immense need to split myself off when this large is greater than I’ve ever felt and I’m not entirely sure that I’ll like what’ll happen after.

Blerrrrgh

I stop suddenly and lean over to vomit out some of the mass, relieving some pressure but not all. I just need to hold it together a bit longer!

Reaching the cliff’s edge, I take a risky dare and look over quickly, disregarding the danger of such a rash decision.

I lean over and see a distantly slithering form running away. The slithering monster’s distant figure pours a deep blue liquid that’s been muddied by the clay of my dead allies.

A large crashing sound resounds and brings me back to focus. The burly man lies in a pile of obsidian shards directly below me, cuts covering his scaled and fleshy skin.

I act fast and leap without fear off the cliff to the ground a couple dozen feet below. While I may still be a new resident to this land and obviously unfamiliar with its terrain and creatures, I still don’t seem to have to worry about landing like the man just suffered. My soft and mucky skin can absorb impacts such as a landing with ease.

I touch down with a resounding splort, the jolt absorbed easily. Sharp bits of obsidian do jut out from the surface and cut my large mass however but aren’t bothersome thanks to my freshly gained size. Impacts are easy to absorb but cuts can still hurt me. I am able regain the clay-flesh with proper food and time, about one or two days, but the injury can slow me down and still cause pain. Even so, this amount is still nothing I can’t handle.

Striding over towards the fallen body of my savior, I stand over him and I aim to check on any possible wounds.

…Ok.

So, he seems to be…dripping red water? Is he related to the beast in the distance?

I nod my head firmly after coming to the simple conclusion. He drips red ichor as opposed to the beast’s blue. He came to my aid and fought with rage, having dived down as soon he spotted the beast while he was high up in the air.

He’s an anti-beast.

Nodding my head again, this makes much sense. While I may not be familiar with these strangely fleshed creatures, completely unlike the clay ones of mine own, I believe my theory is obvious.

The winged, semi-winged now, man stirs and seems to regain consciousness.

“…mmh brt,” is what it sounds like he speaks out loud.

I don’t exactly understand his phrasing while mumbling despite knowing he does speak my language, gathering this bit of info from our conversation during the battle a bit ago. I’ll try my best to do the obvious thing to help and push the red liquid back into his body. I press my gargantuan hand on his torn wing in an attempt to do so, my other arm much smaller and more worn out from the drenching blast I was forced to block earlier.

He lets out a low snarl in pain when I do and tenses up before loosening up again to speak once more.

“My…” He pronounces clearly this time through gritted teeth. “My pouch. On my belt.”

Ah! He’s gotta have some spare flesh to patch himself up like I did during the fight right now!

I start to rummage through his pouch with my smaller hand, keeping the other large one on his wound, and come out with a few things in my grasp. A couple of worn bound notebooks, several small pebbles charged with some odd energy, and three smaller pouches that feel as though they contain mushed paste of a kind.

The man lifts his head at this and looks with a pained grimace at what I hold in my palm. Eyes focusing on a specific item, he lays his head back down on the ground before speaking aloud again.

“The small pouches. Two of them…have a red poultice.”

I put the other items away hurriedly and look at the remaining pouches, my other hand still holding his torn flesh. Finicking a bit with one arm, I manage to open a pouch and, with luck, am greeted with a bright red sludge that must be what he’s mentioned. I put the rest back and am left with my chosen one.

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“Urrgh…” I give a bubbling cough to clear my throat. I’m still unused to speaking with a throat this large. “Urr… I mean I got it, sir.” I let my savior know, my voice trembling a bit with nerve. I may be a fighter in my land, but the sight of his odd, strange flesh is beginning to get to me.

“Ok,” he tells me with more focus put into his words. “Rub the stuff on my wing. Just…right onto where the stub is.”

“Mmhmm.” I grunt in understanding.

Not flesh like I thought, but it must be something to help him. I rub the poultice onto the remains of his wing, my natural ability to control my mass allowing me to spread it without mixing it with my loose flesh and ruining his paste.

I cover his missing wing with a heaping amount, almost the whole packet, and it instantly takes effect. The paste hardens and halts the pouring of his crimson liquid. It becomes a tough scab that look deformed, and ugly if I’m honest with this man, but at least he isn’t losing mass anymore.

I stand up and raise my hands warily, careful to keep distance incase his wings suddenly grow again and need space. Who knows, maybe he can regain mass faster than my record.

Maintaining distance, the man pushes himself off the ground and uses his other wing to stand up.

I watch him as he picks himself up, a sense of pride resonating too strongly from him for me to help. I use this clear opportunity and can get a better view of my savior. I identify as a male definitively, others of my species choosing a woman’s forms, mixed or neither, it looks like this man is the same as me. While he’s not as tall as I am right now, he is still much taller than what I normally appear as by nearly a foot. Broad shoulders pull themselves back and show a proud, strong figure that resonates strength like I’ve never felt, even despite his injuries. Eyes black like coal with a golden slitted center peer into the distance, focusing with an unnatural clarity before drawing themselves back to me. A brief flash of intense fury aims at me before fading.

“Thanks for the help, Almaej.” He thanks me with a deep and growling voice, a set of jagged teeth matching the ferocity of the shattered obsidian around us.

I make sure my throat is clear once more before speaking. I’ve already helped this obviously seasoned warrior but would like to make a good impression on our first true interaction.

“Beuuuurk.”

In a sudden rush, I’m unable to contain my immense mass anymore and am forced to release it. A large vomit of clay-flesh spews from my mouth and falls off from my body, splattering all around my immediate vicinity.

Including my savior.

I’m finally able to catch my breath after several seconds of unyielding vomiting, not that my race needs to breath for anything more than comfort. Wet, clay tears stream down my face more from sheer embarrassment than the sudden upheaval.

I look up from leaning down and find I must look up to meet the man’s eyes. I’m back to my normally preferred appearance now. Averaging six feet tall, I normally choose to appear as lean, built young man around his mid-twenties. This closely matches my true age and I find it just makes first impressions easier as opposed to more morphogenic members of my species. No shame on them for their preferences though, they’re free to mold how they want. My surface is smoother like my saviors now, the haphazard growth I undertook explaining my misshapen appearance. My skin appears a dull light gray now, like freshly shaped clay, and I have a narrow and long face with hazel eyes. The hazel in my eyes are the only feature I’ve chosen to color right now, anything else in color taking too much mass I don’t care to maintain. Wiping loose clay from my mouth, I apologize to my savior.

“I’m SO sorry, sir! My mass got too big for me to contain.”

Pulling a flask with symbol circling it, the gentleman pours water over himself and washes the clay off. A whole lot more water pours out than the container could possibly hold.

I get one answer to something pondering my mind at least. His flesh is definitely not clay-flesh, if it was that water pouring over me would sear me and cause sharp pain. This leaves me with a different question though, how does that container hold so much?

“It’s alright, Almaej.” He gives me a dismissive apology, being covered in clay-flesh not bothering him at all. A truly seasoned warrior. “Do you happen to have a name I may call you? It seems a bit rude to refer you as a neutral name like your race.”

Oh, right. Introductions are only right after spewing your literal guts to a person.

“Yes! My name is Arc. I am male in this form in case you couldn’t tell.” Only right I give him a full identification. Even if his race doesn’t change like me, it might be confusing later on if I do change.

An eyebrow raises from my savior before he replies again.

“Yes… I am male too then. You can call me Hal for now.”

I nod my head at him. A full introduction? Giving me a full id in return, he truly is a humble giant of a man.

“I thank you with all of my heart, Hal. If you didn’t come to save me, I don’t believe I would have lived.” Dark memories are brought back as I recall the clay I was forced to cannibalize. “Other Almaej were drowned by the terrible water dragon, but they were fellow Almaej warriors and knew they always risked their lives on our mission here.”

A burst of golden energy flows through Hal as I speak before being followed by wrath undirected.

I step back suddenly, unsure what I might have said, before this sensation disappears. In a shutter that shakes his whole body, Hal’s wing disappears, and golden scales disappear into the air as motes of light. His stumped wing has even receded and is gone from his body.

Hal closes his eyes and lets out a long sigh, stress and pain flowing out from his body.

“That creature wasn’t a dragon. It was a water Wyrm, nothing similar.”

“O-of course, sir! I’ve never seen a dragon in person, but I should’ve guessed that was too small!” I reply hurriedly, my own ignorance having made him furious for some reason

Hal waves his hands towards me dismissively.

“Never mind that, Arc. For now, I think we’ll need to update each other on what just happened, and I can explain a bit more on how you may have gotten here.”

He stops speaking abruptly and turns his gaze upwards toward the distance. I stare confused before, moments later, I start to hear a whistling noise in the distance behind me. I look back from myself and don’t see what he gazes at.

Seconds before I ask what he’s spotted, I can tell a small streak of fire soaring through the sky. At first, I thought that was nothing more than a distant ember! How trained is his eyesight? The whistle grows into a louder, but distant, shriek as Hal speaks up again.

“My explanation to you will have to wait a moment. Seems my partner is returning, we can all update each other when he lands.”