Shadow Of Mine

Soon the scaled-looking sphere became an obvious problem for the Dungeon: it was sucking energy from every surface facing at it, slowly, but no matter how many monsters it sent to it, the sphere couldn't be stopped

And everything that touched the surface of the thing was lost… even attacking it with a spear sucked the monster wielding it inside, too fast to let go of the weapon before being swallowed…

Before the Dragon became that, at least some information arrived from inside the body before the connection with the monster was lost, but this floating sphere…

Was bizarre…

The Dungeon never realized that it was losing energy, because it was still trying to recruit her

/////

Sunset… she couldn't remember the last time she had the pleasant feeling of sunlight on… skin… the… skin she had…

‘I suppose that it is a bad thing to call it the “Wrong skin…” it’s… the only one I have, even if I can… even if I could earn enough to get the treatment while maintaining my siblings, this is the skin I got to work with…’ she could admit that to herself… but she still didn’t wanted to look down… she didn’t wanted to sour the good mood that… that…

Good mood…? How…?

A creaking sound made her look to the left, towards that tin can of a car that had a huge dent on the copilot’s door… and a wheel laying on the ground

Remembering that moment as if it happened long ago… and it didn’t just had happened merely hours ago. The door didn’t wanted to close, so the pig just kicked the damn thing, making the whole car creak loudly, and whatever was holding the front right wheel snapped off

A snort escaped her lips, because at that exact moment, the door opened again with another creak… and another wheel started to deflate

It was as if a dam broke. She laughed merrily, even if she hated her voice, leaning against the front door of the house while sitting on the ground at the absurdity of the situation, almost falling to the ground due to…

‘…?’ it… felt as if she was leaning against something… someone…? But she glanced to that side while laughing and saw nothing… she was alone there, laughing like a maniac because… ‘Why…?’

The more pressing question was, why she felt so… happy? What had happened for her to be able to ignore everything that was wrong with…?

Tap Tap Tap

A sound to her left pulled her attention, barely managing to held her laughter back for a moment, to see Max and Jess smiling and waving at her behind the window of the house. Mirth clear on their faces as they also glanced at the mess the pig had made

Her smile widened and laughed again, enjoying a brief moment of contentment, before looking to her right… and down…

To her shadow… her dark shadow…

/////

An eye opened, Miriam knew it was open, but she couldn’t see through it. So she opened the other-

Wincing at the amazingly bright light that shone right to her eye… at least she understood what was happening in that blinding instant. She was partly covered with that-

‘Ugh!’ she remembered it, and pushed up to get out of the darkness that surrounded her and the only source of light of the… place…?

Miriam got ready to hiss a warning… but the darkness wasn't moving, it touched her body as she surrounded the light, while her body looked… hollow… as if she was about to vanish, scales holding together by sheer stubbornness, but a breeze would put her in danger of…

‘I don’t like that idea…’ she shook her head sending ripples of movement along the her scales, her gaze getting lost in the darkness… before looking back at the light ‘What-?’

She hissed at that moment. The darkness started to climb over her to attempt to reach the light

Part of me

‘SHUT UP!!!’ and that insidious murmur became the only sound that existed around her, coming from everywhere at once, being held back by her threats

Again she was troubled by the dark thing wanting to eat the light, she was the only thing in the way to stop the dark from…

The light, her, the dark… the light… her… the dark… the light illuminated everything, Miriam was in the way from it to…

‘My…’ it couldn’t be that easy…? ‘Shadow…?’ the murmur died and a shiver traveled along the whole place… as if that idea clicked something in place… or rather, Devoured something that didn’t belonged there… causing everything to make sense

Her body couldn't be keep still anymore, so she started to move, describing a circle around the light, seeing how the… how her shadow… how Absorb followed…

It was that easy…

‘Absorb is part of me… I don’t need to fear… this is how I am… if I don’t want to, then I won’t hurt the light… I won’t hurt… I won’t hurt those close to me’

Miriam started to circle closer and closer to the light, feeling the dark radiance flowing inside her, being protected by her scales, fitting perfectly in the place where it always belonged in, being what she always was

Part of her

Once Miriam reached the light, there was no darkness around and she could see that she had always been above the surface of a large body of… water…? Surrounded by a starry void. What was below was not the dreadful ocean inside the planet, this one was…

Nostalgic…

She moved a hand, touching the light with the back of a claw and her shadow was just that, a shadow

“Hello Helper…”

She sighed, and slightly unfurled the shiny, white wings that were making that light all along, only really exposing her head to her while floating there, covering the rest of herself with the wings

“Hello idiot…” and glared at her with the crystalline red eyes on her youthful face, her short ‘Hair’ were short crystalline strings of the same gorgeous color and…

Miriam laughed, not feeling any bad emotion coming from the small girl, even her glare felt amused by her being there. Before she could think of what to say next, she lifted an arm from under her wings and waved for her attention

“Before we get mushy…” she rolled her eyes at the idea, making Miriam’s smile widen until she pointed down “You have one last thing to do…” towards that sea… “And it better be quick”

“How deep?” she couldn't see anything

“Deep…” there was no trace of humor in what either said, Miriam understood that this was important

So, she just nodded and after pushing her hand inside the water, her whole body sunk following her will easily, without making a single ripple on the surface as she started to dive. There was no need of holding her breath, or to make sure she was moving in the right direction, because a small pull instantly started to call for her, making sure that she had a beacon…

That soon became a literal light in the darkness, revealing cracks that were deep below. Miriam winced internally, knowing that she did this damage to herself… but had no idea of when… nor she had an idea of why… the way those cracks looked, reminded her of dirt being pushed by roots… but those thoughts soon became irrelevant as she passed through them

She arrived to a large chamber that was formed by a nonsensical mess of stone types: sharp obsidian existing together with granite, bauxite, and gneiss on the same ‘Wave’ of cooled rock, right next to another wave of clay, diamond, pumice, and copper. Many of those nonsensical structures were just there, with no rhyme or reason for such different rocks and metals being mixed together… and she was in the middle of the place…

Not her, but the enormous snake made of the same mess of cooled rocks and metals was herself… and her mouth was open widely revealing the glow of…?

‘I… I have seen this before…?’ she hurried towards the glow, easily swimming in her mouth without worry about she biting herself

A darkened hammer was on top of a cracked anvil, trapped in the stone of her mouth… and her body, again. She was coiling around the anvil while holding the glowing sword and looking forwards… a smaller glow was on top of her head. A small green scale that she, Miriam, didn’t had…

This smaller statue of herself felt ancient, stronger, wiser… and tired. But she was nothing more than a statue, weathered by… something she did to herself…

Miriam extended her hand towards the green scale, carefully touching-

The sound of a chime filled the chamber

And the smaller statue was gone, with the sword sinking to rest on top of the anvil with a metallic sound that reverberated beyond the chamber. That sound snapped her out of her… euphoria…?

‘I…’ she blinked, her eyes focusing on the weapon, the anvil, the hammer… it was euphoria ‘I feel complete…’ even more so than ever before. Everything was perfectly in place… and she could feel the chamber warming up… the cracks above her closing once more, fixing part of the damage she took… while she could feel one last thing that was off… and in need to be fixed

She took the place were she was before taking the weapon on her hands, seeing the engraving of her jaws crushing a skull and spinning the weapon to the other side. The other blank side, she almost rolled her eyes at having left a work unfinished like that, but instead she touched the fuller with a claw and the drawing of a tree growing from the guard, and of three flowers clinging to her bark, was etched on the glowing weapon…

“Better… not my best job, but better” that was the right thing to feel, it made perfect sense to her. Just like she was finally complete… not being tied by anything

Closing her eyes, she felt the chamber warming up even more, and once she opened them again

Her Helper was staring at her from the other side of the surface, her expression was flabbergasted enough to make her giggle, which earned her a glare from the small one

“Have I ever said how ridiculous you are…?” and yet, she was obviously struggling to not smile with her

“Maybe…?” the annoyed tone she managed to use made Miriam smile widely, barely noticing how her inner sea was glowing around her “But I’m not sure why you keep pointing out the obvious” and she made a joke that was met with rolling eyes and a snort

“Ugh…” her Helper rubbed her neck, before her expression soured a bit “Whatever, time to finish your…” she made a spinning gesture with her hand… but she was obviously at loss for words “I would like to say evolution, but I honestly have no idea of what you are doing to yourself”

“I said it before” she closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth around her “I’m devouring a new path…” the green scale on her forehead glowing even brighter…

/////

The Dungeon couldn't continue its attempts to recruit the Dragon. It was sudden and felt exactly like trying to recruit a human or a humanoid: impossible

Meaning that the week where that sphere just floated there, was a huge waste of time, but the Dungeon couldn't really focus on that kind of thing, because after a second had passed from receiving that feeling-

A powerful sound reverberated along kilometers of the Dungeon. Cracking the walls, ceiling and floor, surrounding the vibrating sphere

The damage was fixed after a few seconds, but that was the breaking point. The Dungeon couldn't recruit the Dragon, couldn't kill the Dragon (At least not while it was that close to the surface), couldn’t even get a single blood sample, and was wasting energy while keeping it inside. So the thing made the first smart decision since her capture

A straight path was made from the chamber with the spinning sphere towards some stairs connecting to the surface, and all monsters were given the order to retreat from there… except for the one that was closest to observe directly at it: the sound broke a lot of its bones, leaving it useless for anything other than observing at the sphere that…

Was spinning faster…?

From under the scales, the shape of an insatiable mouth appeared. Visible only through the eyes of the monster and not the Dungeon itself. That void looked far bigger than the Dungeon, far bigger than the world… but it silently sunk inside… before a head-shape appeared next, and another, and another, and another. Many heads pushed from under the scales, all of them from a different serpentine creature… no…

Each of them, was the head of a thing far more dangerous than the Dungeon could ever make, and all of them sunk, making the sphere denser, smaller, giving it a new winged shape that was slowly descending to the floor…

The Dungeon let that monster die and recycled its body, quickly creating lit torches along the exit path. That thing needed to leave…

Even if the Dragon now was just somewhat stronger than before… that world ending sphere was still inside it…

/////

The earthquake had been a surprise, not as much as the two priestesses running towards the place where the sound came from the moment it ended, but it had been surprising…

All of them ended on the ground of the forest soon after it started. More than just a bit startled, because none of their senses hinted that it might happen before it suddenly hit…

The four adventurers reached the running women quickly, they didn’t even managed to leave their sight, but only the screams of the their two guards trying to catch up, made the priestesses stop running for long enough, for them to resume moving as a group, at a clip faster than what the guards were happy about

The unusual sight of an illuminated entrance to the Dungeon made them freeze once they walked around a large rock

“Shiiiiiiiii-! Ow!” and the complain of the only cat Heir in the group was interrupted by a smack on his back, courtesy of the dog eared adventurer

Who glared back at him, daring him to say anything that would made the priestesses with them, also know as their clients, angry at the group…

He just grumbled meaningless sounds and started to stretch, glaring at the stone entrance… and while his tail wasn't moving, his pinned ears revealed how much apprehension he had. The rest of his group also were making some preparations with their equipment

“Do you hate snakes that-?” when one of the guards tried to relax the mood

“I can’t help it!” making him snap, before rubbing the back of his neck while walking in a circle “It’s a cat thing…!” huffing and growling while looking at the entrance

“Ignore him, he also believes that his luck is so bad, that we are going to find her today…” the leader of the four adventurers sighed and looked at the excited looking priestesses “Ready?”

The two of them looked at each other for a moment, before the tallest one, a rabbit Heir, nodded and traced a circle on the dirt with the thin side of her staff around her, looking directly towards the entrance. Before stabbing that tip outside the circle. Slowly going to her knees while making sure that only the hand holding the staff was outside the circle, and that her prayers remained just barely above a whisper

The wooden ring of her staff ignited with a white fire, that the other priestess touched with her own wooden ring, quickly catching the same fire before she took a deliberately heavy stomp backwards, pulling and stretching that fire

Turning towards the entrance while rotating on the balls of her feet and taking another deliberately heavy stomp away from the source. That made the fire vanish on her staff, but the white glow condensed in the center of the ring, proving that she was ready to go on, making the two guards pull out they weapons and move to either side of the kneeling priestess, completely serious and looking at the surroundings

“I’ll take that as a yes” the leader of the group smiled while looking at the other fox Heir, that was looking at the bones on her staff with interest “They aren't glowing…” a little too much interest…

“I know, but…” she sighed waving her own staff from one side to the other carefully “It got heavier…”

“Magic fuckho-! Urk!” the cat Heir got another smack on his back while he pointed to the Dungeon “Stop that!” his complains got cut short

“The trees and this place don’t leak magic…” surprisingly not by the mage of the group, but by the priestess, the mostly human-looking Heir, that was going to enter with them carrying that side of the tether

He growled… with his ears still showing fear, despite the wild expression on his face. The rest of his team was surprised instead, the mage because she didn’t expected someone else to answer, and the other two because that could meant a magical creature was nearby…

Or a possible Matriarch…

But soon they all heard something

“Laughter…?” the leader whispered while the mace wielding vanguard nodded

“It sounds like grumbling!” and the mage got exited by that detail

While the one terrified by snakes yowled again…

/////

One eye opened… revealing the same accursed stone floor and walls… almost…

‘…?’ the room was illuminated to her eyes, and was ridiculously large compared with the hallways that-

-Really…? GET UP!!! DAMN IT!!!-

But that shacking screen made her lift her head-

“Ow…” and her neck cramped at the… “Ah…?” angle she was trying to make with her shoulders…?

Miriam blinked… slowly realizing what was the problem before moving her hand towards her neck… easily being able to touch both her jaw, and shoulder with her fingers, while keeping her hand relaxed. Following that, she noticed that her field of vision had changed a bit, and touched her face with her other hand, enjoying how her head moved to the side

Resting on a shoulder…

She smiled, she couldn't see a nose, but her palm revealed that she had a humanoid head (Unless the size of her body became even more ridiculous), with a small bump in the area where a nose should be. No smell came from any of the deep breaths she took, but she could smell something burning nearby on the tip of her tongue once it was back inside her mouth after parting her thin lips-

“Ah?!” together with the delightful smell of fresh air… “Breathe…” after she spun, she had to close her eyes, making sure that her magic sense told her the same thing that her eyes- “Ah!” and there was a straight path, illuminated by non-magical torches along the magic-filled walls that moved up

Opening her eyes again she nearly screamed, feeling those two senses overlap perfectly again, Miriam managed to exhale instead and stood up, closing her eyes once more at-

‘Still a snake…’ the feeling of her body moving under her… hips? And how her twitching wings reacted to her excitement

Resisting the urge to look down, straight down at least, Miriam looked at her wagging tail, which she struggled to keep still, and it started to move again once it was out of her sight. Her scales and its colors still looked like before, perhaps her body was slimmer? It was difficult to tell without a tree to compare, but she calculated to be of the same length (Apparently her neck didn’t vanished, it just got moved somewhere else), so she quickly was looking at her wings, that were definitively bigger

‘Can I fly with her…?’ she bit her lower lip, which gave her pause at that weird feeling ‘What the…?’ and moved a finger to her teeth. Which were similar to what she had as a human before, excepting for her canines, that were replaced by fangs… ‘The fuck…?’ moving fangs of a snake…

“Language…” her chiding voice made Miriam groan

“Come on, this is weird…!” her mouth now had the proportions of a human, meaning that her long fangs now occupied a lot of space along the ceiling of her mouth… “How can I bite…?” too much space…?

She grabbed her lower jaw and pulled down… and down… and down… and to the sides, before wiggling her fangs a bit

‘Yeah… I can bite…’ she let go of her jaw, which made her lower jaw move together again, but she had no trouble maintaining her mouth open, being perfectly able of slowly closing it ‘I don’t want to see me in a mirror when I do that…’ the feathers on the fins that took the place of her ears, ruffled with apprehension as she flapped them…

That topic was dropped and she looked at her hands… and the not quite “Skin” she had… she still had tiny scales, very tiny scales that looked like skin if she didn’t focused too hard on them. The lines that they formed were more noticeable that a human’s, but to her tact, her “Skin” was just as smooth and flexible…

Unless she touched the many scars she had… the large one on her right forearm looked particularly nasty… and touching her right eye, let her fell another nasty one before shaking her head…

Miriam had short claws in each finger, but thankfully she managed to retract them…

“Please tell me I won’t need to use Sapphire to cut my nails…” leaving a bit of a tip poking out…

“That’s a good question…” he mussed

“Tooongue tim-!!!” while she ignored the one getting chocked from behind…

But looking straight down seemed to be a bad idea to ignore the Trickster… while her Draconic Core remained the same in the middle of her chest…

“Why do I look like a kid?!!!” her torso had the dimensions of a human girl… of about twelve years old, if she ignored how she looked from under that spot on her waist…

That spot…

“What…” Miriam had to force herself from reacting at how happy she was, due to what she didn’t saw there. She spun and looked under body, near her tail… “How does this work?”

-On success at becoming humanoid, their bodies have a youthful appearance in order to indicate that they need to learn how to behave in a more social setting, how to interact with younger humanoids, and to start dealing with laws. At least that’s the idea… your previous cloaca seems to be “Exit Only” now, while your upper torso now has what will become your reproductive organs after puberty-

“Again?!” the shook of reading that, made Miriam forget about asking why she wasn't talking

“Not quite ‘Again’ in your case, Miriam”

“Oh…” and she understood “I’m still a new species…” before looking clinically at the things to both sides of her core “I have mammary glands…?” she had no growth in that area at the time, but she did had the structures that hinted at that possibility…

Was she getting The Talk…?

-You do, but they haven't developed at all. Soon your body will start producing chemicals to cause sexual maturation in your body. I shall mention what side-effects these hormones cause, as you develop-

“Not the weirdest thing I have ssssseen, or turned into~”

She was getting The Talk…

Miriam sighed shaking her head to escape from that, and did the last thing she wanted to confirm: move her hands to her head. Feeling at the base of her three horns over her forehead-

“Not bald~!” before laughing very loudly at the fluffy feeling on the rest of it “Status!”

-The EP options will disappear if you ever buy that last Item. You will level up very slowly from now on too-

“Hmm…” she tilted her head “Weird, I was expecting… ah, never mind. There is No Path there, right? Not even with Ab… not even with what I am capable of doing?”

“Correct, a True Dragon need something else first” Mordauntless said sounding very relaxed

“Then I’m happy with what I got for myself… unless I got weaker?”

A chorus of laughter bounced in her mind, even the crystalline chimes sounding amused

“That’s encouraging” she felt her mouth turn into a smile, making her even more happy, because she was able to show emotions “Time to leave” but she grumbled and stretched her arms above her head, deciding to leave celebration until she was basking under the sunlight…

…

Miriam looked to her right and down… with a hollow feeling on her chest as she remembered the dream… the memory. She had no idea of what could be causing her to feel like that… but she shook her head again and started to slide to what smelled like the way out-

“Crap…!” feeling a lot of vibrations coming from that direction, that made her hide to the side of the opening

That was not the smell of creatures… it was completely different. The sound of metal rubbing against fabrics was also making her worry

Her core glowed for a moment and she exhaled mist that quickly condensed into an ice blade, hearing the word “Magic” being said loudly from the direction of the vibrations. Resting the back of her head against that wall gave her a more detailed feeling of the mass of vibrations that resumed walking in the only direction available… she barely realized that the tips of her horns were also touching the wall

‘Ugh…’ her aura was hidden inside her ‘That is the smell of… terror… in a cat?’ it remind her of the time were she helped Jess… ‘Good, that murmur is gone’ and thinking about the Fae helped her remove a worry from her list

-Ding. Deed complete: Fucking. Finally…- Miriam almost laughed at that message

“That’s far enough…” but managed to growl loudly enough to stop whoever was making those sounds…

“W-who is there?!!!” the panicked voice made her feel concerned by the guy…

“Oh! Good! We share a language~” so she tried to add some cheer to her voice as she switched to Cutil, pretending to not have heard that exact language with the warning from before…

Cheer that became genuine the more she heard of her girlish voice, without being distracted by her body

“Miriam…?” a male voice asked, some hope was obvious in his tone, but she frowned upon hearing her name

“You are going to need something more than that name for me to-”

“Brenna asked us to look for you!” and the feminine voice that said that…

“Jackpot~♥”

Gave the Trickster an excuse to ring a few bells while laughing in her mind…

“All right, nice to met you…” and for some reason she felt heat on her face… making her frown and rub her cheeks with some concern-

-You are blushing… idiot…-

‘Oh…’ she felt the heat intensify for a moment, but shook her head, desperate to make that feeling go away… at least for the moment

One of them was moving backwards before another one grabbed them, according to what the sounds and vibrations told her. The one that got grabbed sounded like the panicked man… and the terrified smell intensified a bit

“So, how much did you heard about me?” Miriam tried to get some extra time to stop the heat on her face and to give them a chance to not being scared upon seeing her

“Do you mean the Dragon thing…? Or that you used to be human along with Brenna?” the only other guy that had talked asked

“Or that you are going to become a priestess of Aufiea?” a different, and exited, woman asked next

“I…” she sighed upon hearing the confirmation about her goddess’ name “I meant about me being fu-”

“Language…” goddess that sounded annoyed by what she was about to say…

Miriam cleared her throat

“Me being a terrifying snake, before the Dragon thing, or this, happened…” she had no illusions about her body-

“Brenna called you pretty-” her face ignited… “Well, she called you shiny, but I’m sure that’s what she meant” making her miss the rest of the comment, from the woman that detected her magic…

“And I really haven't heard anything about you being scary…?” barely listening to the man, before the other woman laughed

“You haven't talked with the people they rescued, right~?” she sounded very amused, but coughed before adding “Don't worry about looks, in a relationship you must connect with the soul of the person that you love, not the body”

The Ruler bit her lips to keep a sigh from escaping… hearing that, which she already knew from learning about the First Mother on the other world, made her feel moody and look at her body…

‘Quite difficult to do in this case…’

“I mostly said that” she shook her head, to remove that emotion from her voice “Because I can smell fear…”

“So do we…” the guy sighed while the two women giggled, the sounds coming from the gear of the silent one, gave her the idea that they were amused too “Tun is just… he is also worried about this place, how about we leave now?”

Miriam looked down… glancing at the glowing core on her chest… then she glanced lower…

“I’m naked…” her blush came back with a vengeance, only then she realized that important detail… and crossed her arms to cover herself

“Ah!” the Magic woman was giggling, so the other one was the one that spoke “I have some clothes with me, can I get closer?” she had no idea of how the others reacted

“I…” she knew that she could… that she should trust them…

Instead she turned the sword on her hand back to a liquid ball, before flattening it into a blunt, thick, disk that she froze again and vertically floated it to the entrance to the chamber…

“Can you place it on this?” there was shame on her voice… “Some rope too, please?” before she moved the disk to be horizontal and floated it towards them, stopping it at a good distance from them

“Sure!” the answer she got back was a warm one…

The first time her crystal was seen, it was called valuable… Miriam didn’t wanted that to happen again… she didn’t wanted to hear such a warm voice, twisted by greed…

Some shuffling sounds later, she was told to get dressed and she took that as a signal to pull the disk towards her, but she left it floating by the entrance and grabbed the white cloth and rope from it. The group gasped when her right arm came into view, but she accurately assumed that it was due to the scars and just started to get dressed

The dress…? Tunic…? Robe…! Was fairly big, which she liked to ensure that her human-looking side was covered, the rope also helped to ensure that it remained closed and hid the important bits… even if the magic glow on her senses made it impossible to know if it was actually hidden or not, and she needed help from the goddesses to figure out how to tie the thing…

While that was happening, Miriam formally introduced herself and the others did the same while waiting. The priestess that gave her the clothes, was a mixed blood Heir, as they told her was the preferred term over humanoid, and her name was Ginask, the female fox Heir, a mage, preferred to be called Ko (Because her name was too long and had too many ‘R’s), they had a mute vanguard that was a dog Heir and her name was Juniper. The male fox Heir was called Sen, and the cat Heir was Tun, both had close combat classes

“Ah… mine is a mixed class?” Miriam mentioned while struggling with the rope (Her nails kept getting stuck in it) “But… Juniper is mute from birth, or, by wound…?”

Ko winced, but eventually answered

“Wound, she doesn’t likes to show it…” her tone was pained…

“Can I try to heal it? Or it’s too late for that?” but Miriam pushed past that and get to the point she wanted to make “I have a Healing affinity, and I regrew my left arm once, maybe I can help…? I mean, my spells hurt like a moth-”

“Language…”

“… like a moth catching flame… but they get the work done… and leave scars…”

The silence that came after she said that was deafening…

“It can be healed…” Ginask said eventually, sounding carefully optimistic “It just takes a lot of power to do the whole thing and… while it’s not unusual for a healing spell to hurt…” the sounds of arms displacing the air, and some smacks against armor interrupted her

“You know I’m a Dragon… right?” the priestess in the hallway stuttered a bit “And I regrew my arm while I was still a snake, if I have something I can actually be proud of, is the sheer amount of magic I can put behind a spell…”

By the end of that comment, she was wearing a dress… or, rather, she had tied the robe from the base of her wings, up to her neck, making sure to not leave any gap of her human-looking side

“I’m just mentioning what I can do, it might be a good idea for me to talk to the one doing the treatment before actually attempting it, but it’s her choice. I’m done with the dress too. Ready…?” they answered positively

Which made the wince they had, the moment she appeared on the hallway, hurt Miriam a little…

“You… had a difficult life…” Ginask recovered first and gave her a pained smile, some tears forming on her brown eyes

“That’s… accurate…” she didn’t wanted to mention the previous one, but even without that, her answer probably would have been the same

The priestess was a stocky brunette, in the sense that she was pure muscle and shorter than the others in the hallway. Her appearance explained why Miriam had to roll back the massive sleeves of the robe, and use a lot of rope to tie them out of the way: those sleeves were form-fitting for her chiseled arms. What little skin she could see, was tanned by the sun, excluding the natural green stripes of skin that she had, those stripes didn’t made any pattern that she could notice and looked random

She also made the staff she was carrying, look like a toothpick…

The two fox Heirs were curious, his hair, and what covered his ears, was tan colored (Wherever any of them had fur, or it was just hair, she didn’t ask), while her hair was black and what covered her ears was of an intense red color. Both had green eyes of different hues, with Sen wearing armor with an ax waiting next to his hip, while Ko had blue and black robes and a staff with glowing bones

Juniper reminded her of the girl she had helped with her ears and tail. Both had similar black hair color, but the woman had white tips on her ears that looked really fluffy… she was also the tallest one in the hallway, and the one wearing the most armor and a heavy looking mace. She was giving her a hopeful look on her brown eyes while pointing at her throat (Completely covered by her armor), that she returned with a smile and a nod

Making Tun tilt his head while looking at her… with confusion instead of the terror from before…

“You do the snake thing?” his hair was a multicolored mess, of grays, browns, whites and a bit of black, that she had no idea of how it worked. His yellow eyes were also the only ones that didn’t looked like a human’s, he had cat eyes

“What snake thing?” Miriam tilted her head, with her fins moving with her own confusion. Tasting the air to see if he-

“That” he pointed at her face, and she noticed that he had a dagger in each hand and was wearing mostly leather armor

Miriam blinked and extended her tongue to pay more attention to it, before answering. It was still purple, forked, and long… wider than before too, but she didn’t noticed anything new, so she focused back on the conversation

“That, is how snakes smell the surroundings” she took a deep breath… wondering for a moment just how big her lungs were… “Doing this, doesn’t lets me, or snakes in general, sense any smell” she did the tongue thing again “Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable… it’s hard to not smell after this long doing it”

“That sounds… awful…” Sen said, and Miriam didn’t quite understood why…

“Only when I have to eat monsters” she grimaced “Those things taste beyond awful…”

Tun and Sen weren't the only ones that looked confused by what she said, but everyone had tensed somewhat, with their ears aiming at the room behind Miriam…

“You have wings?!” but Ko’s excited question pulled some of their attention away from that “How does it feels to have seven limbs?!”

“Eh…?” Miriam saw Juniper sigh and pinch her softly in the arm, before she started counting “Two arms, two wings, and my tail…” slowly moving more of her lower body inside the hallway…

Surprisingly, the cat guy didn’t looked, or smelled, scared anymore. And judging by Sen’s glance, she wasn't the only one that found it unusual…

CRACK!!!

But at that point the five invisible monsters got close enough for Miriam to shatter her ice disk and pierce them. They remained invisible, even if the brown-purple blood pooled around them before the Dungeon swallowed them…

“We should leave?” Miriam smiled seeing all of them relax, now that there wasn't anything getting closer to them

“All right!” Tun looked almost cheerful at what happened… “We found the Dungeon and the girl. We got back home and it’s a job completed! Right?” he was even smiling at Ginask

“Yes!” who was smiling for ear to ear

/////

Once they left the Dungeon, Miriam froze while looking at the sky through the gap of the branches… ignoring how the entrance buried itself immediately, the moment her tail wasn't touching any of it, nor how the underground structure moved away from the group, causing a small quake that would have let her follow its movements for hundred of meters…

If her eyes hadn't filled with tears while looking up

Ginask and Star, a rabbit Heir priestess, both hugged her until she stopped sobbing, which ended being half an hour later

Then she met their two guards, a pair of boar Heirs…

The shook on her face made the group laugh, while explaining that yes, it was very uncommon for a boar to become humanoid, and that they were a very small minority, but it had happened before…

Which made her ask about Roxanne…

And the way how the two men winced, made her worry, before they managed to explain that while intense during training, or while sparring, Roxanne understood that the boar Heirs weren't at fault for what had happened to her, much to Brenna’s (And Miriam’s) relief

Soon after that, she started to heal Juniper…

Her expression during the whole process was answer enough about wherever it hurt or not. But after she started screaming “Keep going” to Miriam, no one tried to stop her

Ko looked very distressed the whole time, and once Miriam was done, the tackle and deep kiss she gave to the laughing Juniper, explained why

Miriam apologized many times about her spell for the next two days, but no one was angry or bothered by what had happened. Juniper herself wasn't, so, no one else did

The woman instead just chatted the whole trip to the city, telling her about the city, the ocean, the adventures the group had since meeting each other, and many other things while the blushing Ko was hanging to every word that came from her lips

And like that, they arrived to the city, two days after being freed…

/////

“Title stone…?” with Miriam freezing a few meters after crossing the Terror line of the city… her voice becoming a whimper full of dread…

“Yeah~ but you don’t have anything to worry about~” Juniper laughed and pulled at her hands “It just says the important ones. Or, the bad ones like, rapist, slaver, and that nasty stuff~”

“B-b-but…!” it was a bit distressing (But not surprising) that the woman was able to actually drag her, even if she wasn't using her whole strength to fight back

Ginask also laughed and helped by lifting Miriam from under her wings, incidentally ripping the sleeves of her clothes, again…

“And don’t worry about things like ‘Muscle Bound’ or ‘Priestess of Fitness’ and the like!” she ignored her pleas to not be carried like that “Those things are a mark of pride!”

The rest of the group laughed as they got closer and a set of five soldiers moved out of the city. Except for Star, she made sure to get closer to Miriam and try to calm her down

“There is no reason to worry about Titles like ‘Kin Slayer’ and the like, many creatures get forced to situations where those things can’t be held against them before evolving” it would have worked better, if her eyes were looking at her, and not to the arms carrying her…

Not that Miriam could blame her: Ginask’s appearance would have made her feel gender envy if she had seen her on the other world… but…

‘They are married! She should be used to the sight!’

“Had a good hunt?” the soldier in the middle of the five asked as they dragged her closer

“We got lucky~ we found her by the entrance~” Miriam was screaming internally paying little attention to what they were saying “Someone called Brenna yet?” but she did noticed how the soldiers flinched once Juniper started talking

And she got stared by everyone once the two women put a hand on her shoulders and nodded to the soldiers…

‘I can’t avoid this…?’ she looked up

“Nope~” her own voice sounded weird when the Trickster copied her…

“Ugh…” the group was giggling at her reactions, while she looked at the glowing circles on the ground that were connected to a stone triangle on the upper side of the gate…

Her shoulders dropped, but she did moved forwards…

MMMMMMM

Seeing how the rock glowed…

HIGH DRAGON MIRIAM, BRUTAL DRACONIC WARRIOR

“Ugh…” the voice was awful to her senses…

IMPORTANT TITLES

“Can you stop it?!” she blushed

SELF-SACRIFICIAL SAVIOR

NATURAL ENEMY OF THE UNDEAD

RESTORER OF BODIES

Making the ones in front of her, stare at her with that desperate request…

ENVOY OF THE GODS

“Eh…?” that one was new, and she could feel how everyone around froze upon hearing that…

PSYCHOPOMP OF THE FOREST

“EH?!” she had two anti-Undead titles? She thought that the other one was an upgrade of this one…

PRIDEBREAKER

“SHUT UP ALREADY!!!”

FOURTH RULER OF DEATH – ALLY OF THE FIRST RULER

It was too late… the secret was out, and now everyone was watching her cover her blushing face… feeling as if her embarrassment was steaming out of her head…

“Miriam!!!” only for a melodious voice snap her of that pointless embarrassment…

Easily lifting her torso above the soldiers in front of her looking directly at the gate-

‘C-c-cute!!!’ feeling her face turn crimson as her Singer was running towards her with a smile on her face and huge wings spread to the sides