“Haaaaaaa, finally~”
Lifting a leg out of the water and crossing it over the other, her toes wiggling in the air, crystal clear water and soap suds run down the length of her leg, running over lightly glowing scales before finally returning to the fountain. Emerging from the water and splashing back in, a shark tail happily moves about, leaving small waves of soapy water and bubbles rippling over the water’s surface.
Blessedly clean, finally clean, Bug lounges in comfort as she runs her hands slowly over her body and checks that ever scale is free of grit and sand and anything else. That the fur on her arms is clear of debris and dried blood. That her hair is tangle free and smelling of fruity shampoo.
Bug is clean, and she is in bliss.
Even her sore muscles are slowly unwinding and relaxing as she soaks up to her chin in the fountain, her head resting again a towel in place of a pillow on the rim of the fountain.
Switching legs and letting one dip back into the water as the other emerges, Bug can’t help but to smile as she sees her shiny scales glistening it the light of the hearth’s fire. The bottom tip of her shark tail’s fin parting the water beyond her legs as she happily wags it back and forth.
An interesting feeling that. Being able to wag her tail.
Being so busy, Bug hadn’t really any time to familiarize herself with the recently changed limb. Plus, her old rat tail never really did much, not that she ever really noticed. Honestly, most of the time she would sort of forget that it was even there.
It’s nice like this. Pretty big though, but it looks cool. I think I will leave it like this for now, especially if I have to do anymore swimming in this layer.
“Mmmmmm~~~”
Giving a big stretch, Bug sinks lower into the water until she is almost completely submerged, with only her eyes above the water. She stays like that for a long while, not worrying about breathing as her gills are taking care of everything. Just enjoying being clean and submerged in water and letting all the stress of a long day slowly leave her body like so much filth to be flushed down the drain.
And it has been a long day. In fact, it almost feels like this one day has taken weeks, if not months, to finish. And it is finally done and over with. Bug has her regrets about how some of today’s events concluded, but in the end, it is finished, and she is finally enjoying a nice bath.
Looking over to her side, Bug finds Mimmie where she left the little Mimic sitting on the side of the fountain. Spit open at the top, Mimmie is peeking out its eyestalk and watching Bug with a pair of sleepy eyes, slowly blinky as it looks like it is moments away from falling back asleep again.
“Hey, Mimmie~ How you doing?” Bug asks the sleepy brick.
The only response she gets is a slow, drowsy, blink. The sort you would see from a relative that ate too much during the holiday and is about to pass out on your couch.
With a smile, Bug reaches her arms out of the water and sits up, the water in the fountain splashing and flowing off her body as she moves and sending ripples in every direction. Picking up Mimmie, Bug places the little Mimic on her chest and gives it some pets, her smile only growing bigger as Mimmie actually allows her to pet the grey skin of one of its eyestalks with her finger. She makes sure to keep her finger away from the actual eye of course, not wanting to hurt it, but she is actually getting to petting it!
It feels just like skin. It’s so smooth; I thought it would be more leathery. It’s nice.
“Hehehee, Mimmie letting me pet~ Such a good, Mimmie. Is it because you love me now? Or is because you just ate too much to care about anything right now?”
Picking it up again, Bug lifts it up and down, Mimmie’s eyestalks lazily wagging with the motions.
“Definitely feel heavier.”
Peeking into the opening of Mimmie’s brick, where the red rock transitions into a grey mouth full of sharp pointy teeth, the insides definitely looks like it is bulging a bit, whatever it is that Mimmie has for a stomach in there is most certainly full to bursting. Which shouldn’t be surprising after seeing how much it had eaten. Where it put all that food, Bug doesn’t have a clue, because Mimmie definitely ate more than a brick’s worth of meat.
“Mimmie is such a little glutton~ Dirty too. Hold still, I’ll give you a wash…”
Returning the fat brick to rest on her breasts, Bug takes palmfuls of water and washes Mimmie’s brick of any dried blood and other dirtiness. Using her claws, she gets in the little spaces and scrapes out anything that isn’t washed away, just happily working away at cleaning her cute little pet as she hums a happy tune.
Mimmie, for its part, just watches her with sleepy eyes as it is cleaned and loved on, Bug cooing over it like it is a little puppy or something.
Mimmie has no idea what to think about this weird Gremlin. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that it is so full that it couldn’t possibly eat another bite, it would be trying to eat her fingers right now. Less so because it doesn’t want to be touched by her, and more so because her fingers are just so gosh darn delicious.
But that’s the thing. Mimmie is full. Mimmie, for the first time in its life, is not hungry…
It has never experienced this before. It doesn’t know what to think about this. The feeling of having its stomach filled to the point of being painful is just such a new sensation for it. But it’s a good pain. Compared to the pain of an empty stomach, the pain of one that feels like it about to tear open from the inside from being too full is… nice.
For the first time in its life, Mimmie doesn’t have to fear starving to death. It… It doesn’t have to fear anything. Not with this strong Gremlin here and these bone creatures that obey her. Mimmie is, as far as it knows, safe…
It doesn’t know why, and being just a dumb baby, it legitimately lacks the intelligence necessary to comprehend. But for some strange reason, this bigger creature with really tasty fingers is protecting it… Feeding it even!
Mimmie has safety.
Mimmie has food.
And it is all because of this strange creature that is currently grooming it…
Mimmie doesn’t know what to think about this. Again, it is too dumb to even be able to do so. But… What if it were to stay with the tasty fingered creature? Mimmie would be kept safe, right? Mimmie would be fed, right? Mimmie could eat those fingers again, right? Most certainly!
Maybe, just maybe, Mimmie should try and get this creature to want to continue these actions? But how would it go about doing that?
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Watching with sleepy eyes as Bug continue to wash its outer shell; Mimmie does the only thing that its simple mind can think to do. It gives the back of her hand a lick. In other words, it attempts to wash Bug in return. To return her grooming, with grooming.
“Haaaaaaaaah! Mimmie gave me a kiss! Awh, such a good Mimmie~ I love you toooo, yes I dooo~ Who’s a good little brick? You are!”
Mimmie let’s Bug pet it to her heart’s content, its sleepy eyes growing heavier as her scratches actually start to feel honestly pretty good, getting it at a spot at the base of its eyestalks that it normal struggles to reach with its teeth and tongue. Just a bit to the left and… ah, that’s the spot.
Narrowing its eyes and feeling good, Mimmie relaxes even more and returns the occasional ‘kiss’ to Bug’s hand as she loves on it.
“Mhm, that’s right. I don’t need those mean old humans to be my friends. What was I thinking, trying to get them to stay? I don’t need them anyways, I have Mimmie. Although, I am still looking forward to seeing Hannah again… Oh! I wonder if she would like to meet you? I think you would like her, she’s nice, you two would probably get along great! Just no trying to eat her, ok? She can’t grow back her body parts like I can, plus, she feels pain. I’ll be very mad if you hurt her, understand?”
Mimmie just blinks, not understanding a single word she just said.
“Good. Haaaah, I can’t wait to get out of here… No more caves, and moss, and all this Dungeon bullshit. Just me and you and Hannah, going on a journey and hanging out. Doing stuff and eating all sorts of different food… Get to see the sun and the mountains and the ocean…”
Bug lays back further, submerging her mouth and blowing bubbles as she thinks about all the things she wants to do on the surface.
Mimmie, held safely above the water on a pair of soft islands, just watches this weird creature blowing bubble curiously. Is she drowning herself? Oh, no, wait. It came out of the water again.
Bug gives Mimmie a big smile.
“Mhm, I decided. You’re sticking with me after all. At least I have you to come with me to the bottom of the Dungeon, right? And don’t worry, I’ll make sure to feed you plenty of food. And best of all, you can even level up! Isn’t that great? I wonder what will happen when you reach level ten…”
Bug give’s Mimmie another look with Identify, reconfirming her discovery.
‘Lvl6 Baby Mimic (Brick Form). Baby Mimics will often disguise themselves as bricks, boards of wood, or small rocks, and hide in the walls, the floor, the ceiling, or as part of the stairs. Lacking the lethality of their adult counterparts, baby Mimics will instead try to cause accidents by being in the worst places possible. If you ever tripped while going down the stairs, there is a very real possibility of it being a baby Mimic that was the cause.’
Hmm, let me think… At Level 17, that human was worth eighty-five Exp. At Level 5, the requirement was for me… forty? I think so, and then to get to Level 7 from Level 6 was sixty Exp if I’m not mistaken… I have no idea how much Mimmie had before killing that guy, but even if it was zero, Mimmie should already be close to getting another Level, assuming that Exp requirements are the same per level between us. So, it shouldn’t be too hard to get the next one. I already confirmed that the kill counts even if I weaken them first. I just have to catch a monster, beat it half to death, and then let Mimmie finish it off. Sucks that I don’t get any credit for the kill though. The System didn’t even mention anything when he died. Regardless, this can be a little side project. Let’s level up Mimmie and see what happens.
“I’m a make you big and strong, yes I am~ Big strong, Mimmie~”
Speaking of levels.
//Congratulations! You have reached lvl 29! – Your stats have been increased!
//You have earned 4 Free Stat points!
//You have earned 2 Skill point
…
Bug looks over at her notifications, the text scrolling by as more kills start to poor in one after the other. Her Cleaner and spider boss zombies are finally starting to bring in the kills upstairs. Bug can only imagine how far the mushrooms have already spread in the second layer by now, but for the next couple of days, she can expect a nice income of passive Experience Points to be rolling in. After the fungus is no longer considered hers, she will only be getting it from whatever her Undead up there manage to kill, but they should still be useful after that for slowing down any bounty hunters that might have manage to get that far. After all, if they are capable of getting through the mushrooms, then the only other obstacle would be the Undead.
If anything, they should serve as an early warning system. If I manage to get any human kills over the next couple of days, it could mean that I have pursuers. I should keep an eye on my notifications, just in case.
Shifting her position in the bathtub (Fountain) and gently petting Mimmie, Bug goes ahead and spends her Stat Points so the adjustment can hurry up and finish.
----------------------------------------
Stats
Name – Bug
Age – 0
Race – Half-Undead Gremlin
Class – Little Bodily Horror
Level – 29
EXP – 13/9000
Free Stat Points - 0
Heath – 278/330 [Health loss from internal damage greatly reduced by 70%]
Stamina – 108/108 [Stamina consumption reduced by 50%] [Stamina drain: Sunlight]
Mana – 261/265 [Total = 550] [-285 From Control Upkeep]
Vitality – 55 [+1 From Equipment]
Endurance – 36
Strength - 35
Dexterity - 51
Magic - 55
Intelligence - 51
*Luck – N/A
*Note: Luck is a work in progress stat. Points cannot be put into this stat at this time.
----------------------------------------
She had considered spending them on strength, her weakest stat, but in the end, Bug went ahead and spent them all on Magic, bringing the stat up to tie with Vitality as her highest at fifty-five. With the Undead Cleaner singlehandedly eating up so much of her total mana on maintaining her control over it, the extra mana is certainly needed. Luckily though, with Bug getting a little stronger, the cost for maintaining the Cleaner actual ended up going down a little. A nice little bonus.
With a big stretch and a tired yawn, Bug stands up and climbs out of the fountain after her stat adjustment finishes and her body cools down. Dripping with water and Mimmie half asleep and buried in her chest, Bug walks over to the fire to grab a dry towel and dry off. Setting Mimmie close to the hearth so it can warm up, she gets to drying herself off by the fire, the heat from the fire warming her half-dead body pleasantly.
Once she is dry, Bug takes some time to brush her hair out and then sets to work on getting some laundry done. Not bothering with getting dressed, as all the clothes are dirty, and just working with nothing but her towel draped over her shoulders. Dumping all her clothes in the still soapy fountain, plus all the new clothes she just got, she gets to work on scrubbing.
Shirts, shorts, pants, underwear, even the new leather armor she just stole. All of it gets a good scrubbing until the smell of dirt, blood, and sweat is faded enough to be made wearable again. A lot of it is torn or worn in places, but it is all still usable, and while her recently acquired outfits aren’t exactly in her size, that can easily be fixed later with the System’s assistance. Just need to gather some more points first. She is sort of broke after buying that potion…
Each piece that gets washed is then set aside by the fire to dry. With the laundry taken care of for now, Bug sits down next to Mimmie and digs out some food to eat, just happily munching away at some trail mix.
“Oh, can’t forget…”
Rubbing her hands together to get rid of some crumbs and salt, Bug quickly digs into her Inventory, stopping for a quick moment to gaze lovingly at her treasure hoard, and then takes out her unfinished jars of candies.
Carefully, like the jars are full of delicate gems, Bug sets them out in the room on an outcropping along the wall. Admiring their golden splendor, she can’t help but to lick her lips in anticipation of finally getting to try one. Maybe tomorrow.
Lastly, as she is stifling a yawn, Bug digs out her blankets and the good bed roll, meticulously working on setting up a perfect place to sleep for the night.
About ready to crawl into bed, Bug gets an idea.
I wonder if Mimmie would like to sleep in bed with me?
Picking up the brick that had fallen asleep while she was working, it wakes up again and looks around with drowsy eyes, curious about why it is being disturbed.
Giving its eyestalk a pet, Bug asks, “Mimmie, wanna sleep together? There is plenty of room~ Come on, let’s go to~”
Mimmie has no idea what she is saying, but that finger is awfully close… Sure, Mimmie is stuffed to bursting, but… Just one, tasty, finger wouldn’t hurt, right?
*SNAP*
“~bed. OH, YOU LITTLE FUCKER!!!”
Bug has to stop herself from throwing Mimmie across the room. Her hand bleeding all over a corner of her sheets from where her finger used to be.
“Haaaaaaaah…”
With a long sigh and a quick cast of magic, she regrows her finger, again… and then carefully sets Mimmie on the floor. The little bastard, having stolen a midnight snack, has already sealed back up again and fallen asleep like nothing at all just happened.
“Ok, guess I still have some work to do… Apparently, I need to find a way to keep this little fu-mrm~ A way to keep Mimmie from eating me in my sleep…