Next was the whole arm, cracked and bark-like skin decorated with the same moss that grew plentifully throughout the entire region. It bent at the elbow and put a palm against one of the many limbs, hauling itself up and out of the ground to reveal the whole of the being.

What emerged was a tangled mess of roots and moss gathered loosely together to form a humanoid shape, its eyes glowing an eerie yellow within the mess of green.

“That… That kind of looks like what I imagine the boss might look like,” Michael mumbled as they stared, only the top of their heads peeked up over the edge.

The thing was more or less the same size as the Gohkamorian albeit slightly slimmer and more… planty. Judging by the way it trudged back and forth around the base of the fungus king, the thing wasn’t aware of their location. Attacking the fungus king must be the trigger to awaken some kind of guardian monster.

It stayed out for a little longer than five minutes before suddenly stopping. The roots of its legs and feet slowly made their way down into the soil as its body was reabsorbed by the fungus king. Or was the plant monster actually the fungus king manifesting into a body with better mobility — or rather, any mobility at all?

Eik rolled back down the slope to his bedroll and took another sip of water. “With Heath’s and my legs in this state,” —he tapped his own thigh with a finger— “we’re not ready to fight anything right now anyway , so how about we worry about that later. If it needs a trigger to come out, then I think we have time to get healed up before we begin,” he said. “And frankly, now that Menka Tokanami’s band of shitty assassins are dead and dealt with, water seems to be a more pressing concern.”

“But we don’t even know where to find water in the first place,” Heath said. “We’ve been looking for it for like, what, two days!”

“There’s still something we haven’t tried, if you recall,” Eik said with an expression of reluctant acceptance.

“What?”

“Well, do you guys remember that disgusting thing we killed earlier? It looked like, uhh…” he drawled, snapping his fingers a few times as he tried to come up with the best description of the monster. “like one of those slimy blob fish they fished up from the deep sea, but crossed with an axolotl with a—”

“Yes, of course we remember!” Michael said. “It was one of the most disgusting things we’ve ever seen and I have one of its weird back bladders in my backpack. You want to give that a try now?”

“Do we have a choice at this point?”

Nobody had a good counterargument so Eik retrieved one of the fluid-filled sacks from his rucksack and examined it. The fleshy membrane was distended and webbed with blood veins as thin as hairs. Holding it up in front of Michael’s hand when he had Heal active provided the same see-through effect as shining a flashlight through the cartilage of an ear or through the flesh of one’s thumb, only with a grayish green hue instead of the red in humans.

They had cut them off at the base near the spine of the creature so there was a bloody glob of slimy flesh hanging off the bottom of each of the fluid sacks. Deciding to keep as far away from those as they possibly could, Eik used the sharp tip of one of Sonja’s arrows to poke a tiny hole in the opposite side of the unappetizing flesh pouch.

The fluid inside turned out to be astonishingly clear with no visible gunk or floaters to be seen. Unfortunately, that particular stroke of luck provided Eik with absolutely no desire to consume the liquid. It had still come out of the back things of the ugliest creature he had ever seen.

“Anybody got a straw for this damn skin coconut?” he asked, letting his eyes wander from face to face as he did his best to keep the nausea at bay that had already announced its arrival.

“Just get it over with already,” Heath told him with a pained look on his face.

“I thought you were a tough guy who had no problem with this kind of thing?”

“How about you shut up and start sucking, bro?” Heath said and flipped his friend the bird famously native to Earth.

Eik put his finger on the tiny slit in the membrane and let Profound Toxin flow gently into and throughout the container. Looking like some kind of alien food coloring it permeated the fluid inside, likely killing off any potential parasites calling that particular sack home. Leaving it to do its work for a good minute, he reabsorbed it all through his skin, resulting in what was hopefully drinkable water.

Sonja had to look away when Eik put his lips to the hole and allowed the thankfully cool contents to flow into his mouth. To his dismay the taste was an unhappy mix of sour and salty which only reminded him all the more of the fact that he was drinking the bodily fluids of a deformed, alien tadpole creature.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Thrice he had to force himself to not vomit, the convulsions traveling through him in waves of goose bumps and cold sweat. Having taken in approximately a fourth of the clear but foul liquid, Eik replaced a finger over the hole as he once more fought the urge to vomit.

“How is it?” Michael asked. “Does it taste like water?”

“What the hell do you think, man?” he croaked weakly with a glare of undisguised contempt. “It tastes like—” he managed before another wave of nausea made him pause to compose himself. “It tastes like pond water strained through a double layer of old tennis socks into a sealed bottle full of farts…”

Sonja heaved and barely resisted throwing up. Heath had maintained a stoic face throughout Eik’s ordeal but he suspected that the man had simply fainted with his eyes open.

“What about poison? Do you think its safe to drink in spite of the flavor?”

Eik felt around his body for even the slightest sensation of Noxious Invigoration. Nothing. “Nothing. Not yet anyway.”

If there was any poisonous substances in those skin sacks, then it must have been so diluted and mild that it probably wouldn’t do anything worse than a benign stomach ache for an Awakened without the Resistance: Toxin skill.

Seeing the likelihood of Sonja getting the sack water down, Eik took another sip. “The two of you,” he said with a gesture to Michael and Sonja. “can get the rest of our water supply. Heath and I will do with this stuff.”

“What?” Heath exclaimed, coming alive with sudden and explosive vigor. “Why do I have to give up water?”

Eik held up a finger. “First of all, look at your sister, dude. She would not be able to get this crap down even if a single sip could power level her to A-rank. Second,” he said and raised another finger. “Mike’s still only late F-rank and you’ve got a Fortitude ability, so you’re much better equipped to resist any minor toxins that might have been too mild for my own body to react to. And third, I seem to recall you announcing to us that you’d be able to drink this with ease. I’m just giving you the opportunity to prove it.” At this last point he failed to completely conceal a smirk.

If looks could kill, Heath’s would have sent Eik to the intensive care unit. A shiver ran through the big tank before his eyes became resolute and he snatched the wobbly balloon from Eik’s hand.

“Fine!” he said and followed Eik’s example, downing the rest of the contents of the sack and leaving it wrinkly and drained. It was difficult to decide what states looked more disgusting between filled and empty.

Miraculously and admirably, Heath almost didn’t react at all. Whether that was because he had somehow overcome his natural aversion to the stuff or because his brain had shut down any sense of taste in order to protect his mind from the experience, would likely remain a mystery.

Eik and Heath each ate one of the food bars they had found in the hunters’ packs to get rid of the foul taste still stuck to their tongues before turning in for the night. With the strength of the healing potions still coursing through Eik and Heath’s systems, a night’s sleep should prove enough to get them on their feet again.

Eik made a note to himself to ask to be taught how to brew potions of such immaculate clarity, effectiveness, and not to mention pleasant flavor. He’d been thinking about asking to learn for a while now, but with everything that had been thrown in their faces anytime they interacted with Atla, Mikla, and the Nidafjeld Alliance, there just hadn’t been time to sit down for a day of studying.

If he could get an edge on the medicine market on Earth by pioneering recipes from the Nidafjeld Alliance, he would be raking in the money once he got around to reopening Eik’s Excellent Elixirs. He fell asleep thinking of the massive, unrivaled emporium of magical medicine he was going to head in the future.

The next morning Eik took off his boots, socks, and pants and put them to the side on the bank of the stream. The water this close to the crater where the fungus king grew was far too deep and powerful to simply step into.

Instead he sat at the edge and immersed his feet into the cool water, flicking and stretching his toes. Getting his feet out of the boots after a couple of days fighting, walking, and being on the run felt amazing. He lay back in the soft moss to enjoy the refreshing feeling when Sonja walked up.

“Want something to drink?”

“You think I want to drink any more of that damn slime water! Blegh!” he spat.

“So how long to do you think it’ll take to saturate the whole basin?” she asked.

He glanced down into the crater and then at his toes. He wiggled them in the water. “I don’t know, Sonja. Maybe a few hours if everything goes to plan. But all this water has got to be going somewhere and if it is, then there’s no way I’m going to be able to make a dent. It’ll never be enough to kill even a single of those creepy ass striders.”

“It’s worth a try anyway,” she said.

He nodded and let Profound Toxin flow out of his legs from calves to toes, the substance dyeing the river the now familiar luminescent blue. For the first few paces as the current carried the toxin down the stream it was luminous in the water, but before reaching the fall into the crater it had already been diluted into invisibility.

Eik found himself unable to release the poison indefinitely. At some point he hit some kind of blockade which could neither be described as physical nor mental. Perhaps… magical? Cosmic? Systemic? How the hell was he supposed to know?

Taking breaks throughout, Eik released poison on and off for almost three hours. He stood up and went to get the others. His leg was doing fine at this point.

Michael had worked on his leg throughout the entirety of his watch while Eik slept and then again this morning. Combined with the potent healing potion, Eik was now walking, running, and jumping with little more than a faint ache.

“Does it seem to be working at all?” He asked as he jogged up to the camp situated on the edge of the ridge.

“There’s no reaction from any of the striders, no,” Heath said.

“I think we’ll just have to do it the old fashioned way then,” Eik said with a sigh.

“Which is?”

“Face rolling and winging it,” Eik shrugged. “Heath, take a drink and let’s go.”

The tank fished a new membranous fluid sack out of a rucksack and glared at it with disgust. “Ah, shit…”