Alex awoke the next morning to find Merumeru already awake and curled up against him. He reached down and patted her on the head. "Good morning," he said.

"Meru!" Merumeru smiled and yawned. She seemed so happy that she couldn't even keep still. Her little hand reached out and poked Alex's face until he finally woke up and took notice of what was happening. As soon as he was awake, she smiled happily and hugged him again. She looked up at him with her big blue eyes and gave him another kiss on the cheek. It took Alex a few moments to realize what had happened, but as soon as he did, he tried to move away, but it was too late. Merumeru had latched onto him like a little limpet.

Alex climbed out of the makeshift bed, annoyed by the slime girl's constant attention. "Why are you clinging to me?" he asked.

She just cheerfully replied, "Meru ru Meru!" in her perpetually cute voice. He looked to Fufi for answers. Fufi just shrugged her little shouders and smiled. She really had no idea what was going on either.

Merumeru crawled over to Fufi and hugged her tightly as well, saying, "Meruru ru!"

Fufi didn't seem to mind being hugged by the little slime girl either, as she just happily said, "Aren't you just a little cutie, Merumeru?"

Merumeru just giggled and clung even tighter to Fufi. Alex sighed and said, "Alright, alright, let's get some breakfast."

Alex got dressed while Merumeru clung to Fufi, who was happy to have her around. The little slime girl was about the size of a toddler, so Fufi had no trouble carrying her. Alex led Fufi and Merumeru outside and they headed to the river. Fufi and Merumeru played childish games the whole way, making it easy for Alex to forget about the slime leech clinging to him. When they arrived at the river, they were the only ones there. Alex had expected to see other people fishing, but the town was abandoned. He worried about how he would carry her if she grew any larger. He looked down at Merumeru, who looked up at him and said, "Muru!"

Alex was frustrated by the girl's unintelligible speech, but he hoped that she would learn to speak his language so that they could communicate. After eating a meal of fish and berries, Alex pondered their goals. The most ambitious goal was to set up a water wheel, but he didn't have the necessary tools or supplies. The next goal was to build a cart or carriage, but that would be a very time-consuming project. The last goal was to fix the town fountain, which would require repairing a clay pipe. He didn't have any clay pipes or the tools to attach them, so he would need to find a solution. He decided to explore the riverbank to find the intake and outlet of the pipe. He guessed that the intake was upstream of their fishing spot and the outlet was downstream. He hoped that his assumption was correct, as he didn't know if the laws of physics worked the same way in this magical world.

Puzzled, Fufi looked at Alex. "What are you planning to do?"

"I'm going to check out the river," Alex replied. "Let's go upstream first and see if we can find the water pipe's inlet. If that looks okay, then we should head downstream and see where it has an outlet."

Alex looked along the river's shore, checking for man-made features. He stopped at a low spot in the bank near where the water flowed into it from upstream. Merumeru swam next to him and stood in the same way he was as he examined the riverbank. Merumeru made her little face as serious as possible in an attempt to copy him. He surveyed the shore and she did the same.

"You sure are good at being cute." Alex eyed the slime girl copying him.

Fufi waded out of the water and joined them. "Want me to fly ahead and take a look?" she asked.

"Please do," Alex replied. "If you find any man-made structures in the water, let me know. There should be a pipe underwater on a grate letting water flow into it."

Fufi flapped her wings and flew up over the flowing water. "I will take care of it," she said.

"Just remember to stay safe," Alex said.

Fufi looked at him and replied, "Yes, yes, I will be fine." And with that, she took flight.

 

Merumeru looked up at Alex with a frown on her face and clutched his hand tightly.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked. "Fufi shouldn't be gone long. Want to help me look around the shore? How's that sound?"

Merumeru nodded, and Alex took her hand. They walked along the shore, looking for a pipe. After about two hundred feet, they found something interesting. At the bend of the river, where it went under some low-hanging tree limbs, were bricks stacked into a box shape and set into the ground. It looked like a cache.

Alex opened it up and looked inside. There was a spoiled bait box and some rusty metal lures. "It looks like the local fishermen used to store things here when this was a working community," Alex said. He didn't have any fishing poles or fishing wire, but it wouldn't be the hardest thing to create. He picked up the bait box and showed it to Merumeru. "Hey, look what I found, Meru."

Merumeru clapped her hands happily. "Meru! Meru!"

"Don't get too excited, Merumeru," Alex said. "It's empty. People used to use it to help them fish when they were out here."

Merumeru seemed disappointed but Alex didn't really expect much more than that. They moved on and kept exploring as they moved further up the river. Eventually Fufi flew back and landed feet first in the shallows of the river. She said, "I found a breached dam about a quarter mile up ahead."

 

Alex became encouraged at the good news, "Really? That's really close then. Let's head over there and check it out."

 

Alex turned around and started heading upstream. He looked back and saw Merumeru had jumped in the water and shot after Fufi like a little torpedo. "She sure can move through water fast." Alex mused.

 

They made their way quickly up the river until they came to where Fufi had said the breach in the dam was. 

As Alex looked across the water he could see the small waterfall cascading down the rubble. It was a nice little feature in its own right but it wasn't really what he had come out here for today. The stonework that doubled as a bridge was full of cracks. Perhaps at one time someone could get a cart across here but not anymore. Alex thought about this while he climbed up on the dam looking for a pipe or a grate in the deeper water on the other side. As he looked around he could see the remains of several wooden posts that had once stood here but they had all been reduced to nothing but crumbling posts that stuck up out of the water at odd angles.

 "That might have been a dock perhaps?" Alex questioned the sight.

 

Merumeru held on to Alex tightly as they searched for clues. He found a grate-covered pipe near one of the stone dam structures. It was built into the side of a large rock and appeared to be held in place by a set of iron bolts. One of the bolts had been eroded by water over time, and the whole thing was barely attached. He pointed to it and said, "I suspect that is the intake for the town's fountain." 

Merumeru immediately jumped into the water and swam towards it with the speed of a fish.

 Alex said, "Oh no!" worried that the current would get her if she got too close to the intake. He ran across the stones to stop her, but her little hand got stuck in the grate. 

As her body stretched out, she began to swirl and get sucked down the drain like something being flushed down a toilet. Merumeru was sucked down into the pipe's intake. Neight Alex or Fufi could get to her in time to pull her out of the drain.

Alex panicked, "This could be really bad. Merumeru might drown."
Fufi craned her neck back to address him, "She doesn't have lungs, Alex. She's a slime. She might be in danger, but not from drowning."
Fufi took to the air and circled a few times. "I can't see her in the water anymore."
Alex sighed heavily. "Okay, let's go back and try to think of how we can save her. If I'm right, the pipe goes to the sewer where we found her."
As they approached town, Alex felt relieved to see the fountain. The grate was right next to it. He pulled the grate and started to climb down the ladder into the darkness. He felt his way down until his feet hit bottom and he stood up and looked around. He was standing in a low, dark tunnel with a pipe along one side. He turned around and looked up into the sewer and saw no sign of Merumeru or Fufi.
"It's too dark here. I forgot to bring a light source," Alex groaned. He got ready to head back up the ladder when he heard the flapping of wings. Fufi had come to save the day, her pink gem glowing on her forehead. She flew down into the sewer and landed next to Alex.
"I thought you might need a little help," she said.

Alex smiled. "Thanks, Fufi. I knew I could count on you."

Alex smiled and said, "You are always so helpful Fufi. Though why didn't we try this the first time?" He gave her a hug as he turned to face the way they needed to go. They started moving along as Fufi lit the way.

 

Continuing down the tunnel Fufi answered, "Well, it uses up my magic quite a bit to keep it lit up like this. I don't regenerate it as quickly as a magical girl. The magic that I used to summon you from the dungeon will take me about a week to get back."

 

"Oh, I never thought about that," Alex replied, "Well, let me know if you don't have enough magic to light the way back though if we go too far."

 

Fufi nodded and said, "I should be able to keep this light going until we find Merumeru. Are you sure she got sent down here?"

 

Alex looked around for a moment before he answered, "She might be stuck inside of that pipe. But if she was cleanly flushed away, we should find her at the spot where the pipe was broken."

 

They moved along quickly now that they knew where Merumeru was going to be when she finished her trip through the pipe system. They arrived at a point where the battle with the sewer slime took place to find Merumeru jumping up and down at the downstream of water. It looked like she was happy and wanted to climb up to hop on the ride again.

 

"There she is!" Alex exclaimed in relief as they came upon the scene.

Merumeru seemed surprised by his presence as she looked up at him and said, "Meruuuuuu." while pointing up at the pipe. It was as if she was asking for help to get back in.

"You gave us quite the scare there young lady." Alex said in a stern voice. "But I am glad to see that you are back safe and sound." He gave her another big hug as she looked up at him in confusion.

Fufi watched with curiosity as Alex held Merumeru in his arms inspecting her for damage. She seemed fine other than being wet from when she had been sucked down the pipe. She was a slime so being wet was normal for her.

Now that Merumeru was lifted up in the air she saw her opportunity. She reached one arm out and it elongated into a tendral sticking into the wall. Some of the stones started to dissolve into her arm, "Merumeru stop that. We need to get you home!" Alex chided.

Fufi had a more curious tone, "Wait Alex, I think she is trying to do something. Give her a chance."

Alex held her up until she dissolved a hole into the wall after a few minutes and turned squishy enough to fit her whole body into the wall. Looking at Fufi Alex asked, "What in the world is she doing, melting the rock like that?"

Fufi said ponderously, "I think she understands us more than you know."

Merumeru emerged from another hole she made near the other end of the broken clay pipe that led to the fountain. She molded her slime around the pipe, and the brown dissolved stones began to form a cylindrical shape around it. Alex's eyes widened in amazement when he saw what she was doing. After she fixed that end of the pipe, she came back out the end she had entered and tried to do the same on the pipe that was gushing water. However, the water pushed her away. Alex decided he could help by holding her up so she could wrap herself around the pipe. With his help, she was able to fix the pipe. The trio then headed back to the fountain to see if it was working now.

Alex commented, "That was quite an ordeal we had here today." He hoped that the repairs would be enough to fix the fountain.

Alex saw Merumeru climb up onto the fountain ledge and notice the clear water bubbling out of the top into the basin. Merumeru seemed very pleased as she started playing with the water.

Alex went over to Merumeru to look at her face more closely. He had been worried when he saw the slime girl get sucked down into the pipe. "It looks like everything worked out well then," he said with a concerned tone. "But please don't scare us like that again."