I really need to stop wandering around alone, I thought, as I hung held by vines.

I was happy, I didn't have much in terms of tendons and muscles because I wasn't as uncomfortable as I could have been. That was a small comfort given how I was captured by a fucking tentacle monster.

On the plus side, I haven't actually felt any ill effects from the spores. In fact, the sensations I got from them have since passed.

I haven't been exposed to toxins much here. Maybe that was me neutralising them?

Still… I would need to pay attention to the expectations of the ruler of this place. I couldn't help but think they had plans that didn't involve killing me.

What could those spores do then? Poison? Nah. No need to capture me then. Unless it was slow-acting. Paralyzing? Probably the same. So… drugs of some kind maybe? Come to think of it… I have been far less freaked out about this than I should have given the circumstances. So maybe I am not as unaffected as I would like.

It took my captor more than fifteen minutes, based on the clock from the interface, to finally show themselves, which seemed to confirm that they wanted whatever was in the air to build up in my system in sufficient amounts. Whatever else could be said about them, and believe me I have had enough time to create quite a list of epithets, they knew how to make an entrance.

I saw that a new plant started budding in the foliage. It grew larger and larger and eventually unfolded into a large blue-and-pink flower, releasing another massive cloud of spores. It was thick enough to make me cough, which wasn’t pleasant with the vine around my neck.

In the middle of the flower stood a naked beautiful green-skinned woman. I noticed that her blur-and-orange hair was, in fact, made of grass. She looked at me with her yellow eyes and said in a voice like the rustling of leaves:

‘So… you are the one who was killing my children.’

‘What the fuck are you supposed to be?’ I asked, in lieu of answering her. ‘A fucking dryad?’

‘You are pretty insolent for someone in your position, mortal. Watch out that I don’t remove your tongue for that.’

‘Bite me, tree bitch.’

‘And here I thought we would get along, mortal. You have proven yourself quite a nuisance, but I can’t bring myself to end you just yet… You are too capable of a resource.

She sighed and continued in a more pleasant, and weirdly entrancing, voice:

‘So let’s try this again. My name is Helrika. As you have noticed, I am a dryad. What is your name, sweetie?’

‘Lilyth,’ I said, despite myself. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘See… it wasn't so hard. Now… since you have proven yourself quite resistant to my spores… I think it would be prudent to ensure a sufficient build-up of these in your body.’

Wait… what?

Another tendril began to rise from the ground, this one ending in a flower bud. It stopped in front of my face.

‘Open wide!’ Helrika said with a wide and pleasant smile.

FUCK!

My internal resistance turning out to be futile, I opened my mouth, the vine shoved itself inside, released a cloud of spores directly into my body and retracted itself.

‘You should be nice and compliant now. Don’t worry. I think you should enjoy it.’

Like hell, I will bitch.

I knew I had to act quickly and soon since all my resistance would soon likely melt.

The Dryad lost interest in me, probably waiting for the spores to take effect. That was my chance. I turned my hands into slime and got them out of their bindings. Then as I had seconds to act I activated [The Swiftness of the Wind]. I was still held up by the vine on my neck, I summoned a knife into my right hand and threw it at my captor. It embedded itself in her side. Helrika yelped in pain and her concentration lapsed, causing the vines to let me go. The moment my feet touched the ground, I summoned my other knife and pounced towards her. I landed on her and pinned her to the ground with my body.

With a smirk that made me furious, she said:

‘Stop!’

I wanted to comply, I really did… but that smirk… that smirk…

I plunged my other knife into her chest.

The smug confidence in her eyes was replaced by pain and fear that only fueled my feral nature. I ripped both my knives out of her body and readied to strike her again.

‘Puh- please…,’ Helrika made a last-ditch plea raising her hand. ‘Please… d-don-’

‘No,’ I interrupted her and stabbed through the chest with Luna.

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‘No,’ I snarled again as Sol pierced the dryad’s stomach.

‘NO!’ I roared as my fingers turned into claws and I raked them across her throat.

‘No,’ I whispered as Helrika let out her last gurgly gasp.

No, I thought as I felt the spores finally overtake my will.

Aki

It had been two hours since Lilyth left to look for whatever was hounding us. She was supposed to check in by radio every now and then, so we were getting seriously worried.

I wish I didn't get hurt. I would have run after her.

‘I’ll go search for Lilyth and the exit,’ Caei sighed heavily, echoing my own anxious thoughts.

‘And when you don’t come back?’ Rennie asked bitterly.

‘If Lilyth is dead, so are we,’ I croaked. ‘We’re going together. We owe her that much.’

‘Are you feeling up to it?’ Caei asked me.

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘But I think it is irrelevant under our current circumstances.’

‘Let me heal you up a bit more then,’ my wife said.

I started to protest but she ignored me.

‘I don’t want to risk losing both you AND Lilyth,’ she explained, teary-eyed. ‘I still left myself some mana, but I… I… am… not… not…’

I took her hand in mine.

‘She’s fine,’ I said quietly. ‘We must believe it.’

Caei nodded and wiped her eyes.

We did our best to progress as quickly as possible, but being constantly on guard slowed us down. It looked like Lilyth did a fairly thorough job of clearing the place as, in the end, nothing came after us.

We got seriously worried when we got to the room with three knife-wielding mannequins as their blades were covered in Lilyth's blue blood, so we hurried down the stairs in that room and ended up on a battlefield. Almost two dozen mannequins lay smashed all over the floor among, often shattered, sheet-covered skeletons of adults and children. There was more of Lilyth's blood there, not as much as before, but still, it was highly concerning.

‘Down the corridor, I guess,’ Rennie sighed and our little group soon came across a large room covered in dead foliage with a large wilted flower dead centre.

Half-digested remnants of a body lay in the middle of it, their surroundings savaged by something.

No.

Not something.

Someone.

Lilyth's clothes lay next to the remnants, not so much taken, as torn off. Their owner wasn’t that far away, sitting in a fetal position in the far corner of the room, covered in some sort of green liquid.

‘Lilyth!’ I called out to her. ‘You’re alive!’

‘D-don’t… don’t come near me…’ I heard her ask us meekly, as we started approaching her. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘Hurt us?’ Ren asked. ‘

‘I r-recently came back to my senses,’ she explained with a breaking voice. ‘The spores… the spores… they… I… Her…’

Ignoring my slimy cutie’s warnings I ran over to her and wrapped my arms around her. While approaching, I noticed that the pupils of her eyes were now fully vertical and instead of wisps of hair she had a blue blade of grass on the left side of her face and an orange one on the right.

What happened?

‘It’s okay, my love,’ I reassured her, ignoring that problem for now. ‘It’s okay.’

‘It’s not…’ she cried. ‘I’m a fucking monster…’

‘No, you aren't,’ Caei, who came up as well, stressed. ‘You are the woman I love. As does Aki.’

‘And me,’ Ren added with a smile.

Caei sat on the other side of Lilyth and also hugged her, while Rennie sat cross-legged in front of my wife and took our slimy cutie's hands into hers.

‘Now tell us what happened,’ I said, and Lilyth began her tale.

‘... The next thing I know… I am naked… translucent and bits of… of…’ Lilyth tried concluding her harrowing tale, but I could see how much it was costing her.

‘You don’t have to finish,’ I said. ‘We heard enough…’

Lilyth simply nodded in gratitude.

‘For the record…’ Caei sighed. ‘You are not the one who… who… you know. It was the spores… that… by the gods… sorry…’

‘Yes…’ Lilyth nodded. ‘So… if you don’t think… if you don't feel safe with me… I’ll understand. Fuck… If I hurt any of you due to this… No… it is best if I leave you…’

‘Oh can it, gummy fox,’ Ren spat. ‘The bitch reaped what she had sown. You are not responsible for your actions after she fucking drugged you. And If memory serves… this predatory side of you was always there, wasn’t it?’

‘Y-yes… t-the h-hunt…’

‘The fucking Huntress yes. She just took your body on an unplanned joyride. Fuck her. You are back in control now.’

‘If it helps…’ Caeileera sighed. ‘You are not the only person I know… who may have self-control issues.’

She told us about what Ereshkigal advised her and Rennie about Anika.

‘It’s not just her…’ Caei got really quiet. ‘I… I know what you are going through… Remember the cup of blood Ereshkigal offered me? Blood… it is highly addictive to my people. Back… back… before… before… I was a concubine… of a Crimson Vicar. A real piece of shit. During one of the parties he organised… there were captive humans and elves there… there was this young… elf. He was maybe twenty… we shared him… the sight… no…’

By the gods…

Lilyth wrapped her right arm around Caei and hugged her tightly.

‘Thank you for sharing that, my love,’ she whispered. ‘That… that took a lot of courage.’

‘Both of you are idiots,’ I said. ‘I’m not gonna say what you’ve done wasn’t horrible, Caei…’

I remembered the sick pleasure I felt at watching the man in the basement burn.

‘... But all four of us have done pretty horrible things at this stage.’

Ren simply nodded, and I continued:

‘You are no longer that woman, Caei. You weren't yourself when that happened, Lilyth. I could never bring myself to hate either of you. You two… no… you three are the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I love you. Together till the end, remember.’

‘Together till the end…’ my, I realised, three wives repeated.