I barely peeked over the edge of the cliff before yanking myself back. My core churned in discomfort just looking at the size of the gap between the harpy caves and the ground. They really made use of their flight, and even the lowest cave was nearly forty feet off the ground. It wasn’t as far as I’d fallen during the harpy flight, but that didn’t make my healthy respect for gravity any less.

  At least I could sense the ground beneath me, this time, and even from here, I could see many cracks crisscrossing the stone beneath me. With a quick squeeze, they’d provide a good hiding spot for me as I worked my way down, but from my angle, I couldn’t tell how far they went. If they only went down ten feet, I’d be stuck.

  I could go up? I floated the idea around my mind, shifting my focus to the cliffside above me instead. It was an even further climb, but an easier one given the number of cliffs carved into the stones. However, there were harpies in that direction. I couldn’t afford to be seen and recaptured.

  “It cannot have gone far!” the shout of the intimidating harpy echoed down from a cave above me. “Find it and bring it to me.”

  My core pulsed faster. They were looking for me! I just knew it. I was too young to become a ritual component! I still had too many things to see! Too many rocks to taste! I hadn’t seen the green rock, the one Dorin said looked like me!

  Wingbeats stirred the air, and several harpies leapt from the cliffs and took to the air. Their eyes were trained on the earth beneath them.

  I only wish I’d made it that far, I grumbled. I should have been flattered they thought I could move that fast, but in the hour since my escape, I’d only managed to sneak through the cracks and crevices down a few caves to the bottom of the colony.

  Up was no longer an option. Even if I jumped from wall-crack to wall-crack, using the faults between them to ascend though the rock, the odds of having to enter the caves at least once was high. Not every crack was connected, and with the harpies on high-alert, I’d never make it undetected.

  I peered over the side again. Bones rested in a spiky heap at the bottom of the cliff, the remains of years of harpy meals. If I were bigger, braver, and not suffering from long-term core damage thanks to my poor choices, I might have been willing to gamble on the pile breaking my fall. If even one bone was sharp enough and long enough to pierce through my slime and damage my core, the injury would very likely kill me outright.

  I wobbled a frustrated string of words that ultimately did nothing to help my situation other than making me feel better. The cracks below were a gamble, but they were the only option I had left.

  With a squeeze, I flattened my slime and my core down to fit into a nearby crack and began shifting downward.

  Dorin took a deep breath as he stepped past the line of bone chimes hanging from the trees. They clinked together in a haunting melody as each surface shone bright white in the evening sun.

  Every man, woman, and child of Felsporo knew where the harpies made their home. It was from High Ridge that they terrorized everyone within a hundred miles. Trade caravans were raided, goods were stolen, and on rare occasions, people would be snatched right out of their beds.

  Dorin remembered one such kidnapping from his childhood. A young woman named Sivara, soon to be married to a handsome count, had been taken right from her hearth as she cooked the evening meal for her parents. They said that in the struggle, the stew doused the fire and the ashes were spread across the floor. Talon marks left behind showed multiple harpies had entered the home, taken the woman, and left. Without adventurers to rescue her, the guard were unable to retrieve her before it was too late. The harpies sent back a lock of her hair and a human skull to prove their point.

  If she’d lived, she would have been a grandmother by now, Dorin mused.

  It was a reminder of his own children. If he failed to rescue Suri, would they send some of his hair back to Samri and Tanev? Maybe wrapped around one of his horns? If they did, would his children even recognize the sign that their father was dead?

  He shook his head and continued forward into the dense trees. He didn’t want to continue that line of thought. His children would be fine for a while. They were tough, and his cousin would take care of them in his absence. They would be fed and clothed in her care. She might ask them to help around the tavern, but they’d manage.

  Suri, on the other hand, wouldn’t. The slime was all alone and suffering from a grave injury that made him a sitting target for the harpies and their wicked magics. No one else would care enough to save him from whatever fate awaited him in their talons. It was up to him.

  He brandished his bone pick and forged ahead with purpose. If the harpies wanted to kill a helpless slime, they’d have to go through him first.

  Night fell and the moon rose full over the forest, but it didn’t seem as dark to Dorin. He wasn’t sure if that was thanks to his recent experiences in the dark depths of Dragon’s Gate, or due to his new eyes. His ability list didn’t say anything about dark vision, but that didn’t mean his vision wasn’t slightly improved. The transformation had given him orange eyes and vertical pupils. Why not a bit of low-light vision, too?

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Whatever the cause, Dorin wasn’t going to question it any further. He would need every advantage he could to take on an entire colony of harpies, and a bit of stealth never hurt anyone.

  He heard the nest before he saw it.

  Damned sky sirens, he thought as a patrol of them passed overhead.

  Their voices joined together in a song that, at times, sounded like the chirps and cries of birds and other times sounded like a language as ancient as the stones. Every few lines, Dorin would catch a word or phrase in Western Merchant, the common tongue of Kyelnor and the surrounding countries, but before he even realized it was something he knew, they’d move on to something else.

  He tuned the song out, focusing only on avoiding the stray bones and branches strewn across the forest floor. Creeping closer, he finally caught sight of the ridge through the trees. Each cave on the cliff glowed with the heat of fires within, but shadows moved frantically within. Just as he was trying to figure out a way to climb the cliffs unseen, a glowing green liquid seeped from the base of the cliff and dove into the pile of bones at the bottom.

  Clever slime, he thought. Got himself out all on his own.

  Now, if he could just get Suri’s attention without alerting the harpies.

  I hid in the bone pile. It had taken me nearly two hours of squeezing through cracks and doubling back when they got too narrow, even for me, to finally reach the bottom. Through it all, I was exhausted. The harpies had not relented in their desperate attempts to find me. Their songs, though pretty at first, had quickly started to fray my nerves. Even pressed into the wall-cracks, there was a chance they’d see or sense my mana and home in on me as they patrolled the cliff face. Every time they got close, the music got louder, and I pressed myself deeper into the earth and prayed that they wouldn’t find me.

  As I rested in the pile of dead things, I let my mind go blank. Slimes may not have needed as much rest as flesh beings, but it had been a long day. Engulfing a large bone, my hunger retreated, and I allowed my slime to relax ever so slightly. I ate three more, just to be safe.

  [Substance Eaten:

  Bone: 1/40 to ability unlock]

  What a wonderful world. The Creator was truly generous to offer even the smallest reward to eating such a lackluster meal. I wasn’t sure what kind of ability I might get from eating bones, given that I had none myself, but it was nice to hear the Creator’s calming voice.

  I didn’t dare eat more, though. In order to eat enough to unlock the ability, I’d have to eat a sizeable portion of the pile. The harpies might notice, and new abilities do nothing for dead slimes.

  Yet, I couldn’t stay here forever. Sooner or later, I’d have to eat more than the bones available to me. Even as I tried to still my mind, my core still pulsed quickly, ever aware that danger wasn’t far.

  In the end, scanning my surroundings was the minimum I could manage. Threads of mana trickled down from above. The blues, browns, and reds of the harpies were thick, lending the taste of blood to air that was already thick with death and suffering. They came in waves, growing stronger as the harpies flew directly overhead, and thinner as they retreated on their patrols. The mana of the earth lay thick beneath my slime, and traces of comforting copper welled up from deeper still, proving that the dungeon that was my home ran somewhere beneath.

  If only it could open up and eat the harpies like it did Dorin and I, I lamented silently, but Dragon’s Gate did not react to my pleas. Not that I expected it to. I was just another one of the billions of slimes to wander its halls.

  Heat began to filter through the bones, giving me pause. Had it really been all night? Was this the heat of the sun warming the earth with the dawn?

  It didn’t seem right. The stones of the cliff face were already long cooled by the time I began my descent, meaning they faced away from the evening sun. If the sun really were rising, it would be filtered through the trees beyond, and the bone pile would see little until midday.

  Curiosity overcame weariness inside me and I slowly crept towards the edge of the pile. Extending a pseudopod towards the top of the pile, I surveyed the cliffs. Above me, threads of fire magic radiated from every cave in long threads like snakes reaching out from their dens. None of the caves were low enough to reach the bone pile, though, so where did the heat come from?

  I crawled a little higher, reaching with my tendril until it pierced the top of the pile, in full view of any who looked down.

  A beacon of orange and red flames burned like a small sun beyond the tree line. My core soared. It was Dorin! He’d come to rescue me! He could not rush to my side any more than I could rush to his, but that didn’t matter. He’d followed and found me.

  If I could push just a little farther, hop just a little longer, and reach him, we could disappear. The harpies could search to their hearts’ content, but surely Dorin knew the forests at least as well as they did. Maybe we could even go back to the human town and seek sanctuary there! I just needed to reach him.

  Carefully, I made my way to the edge of the bones. The harpy patrol passed overhead, completely ignoring Dorin’s mana flowing through the area. The draken must have been trying to make sure only I could see it. As they flew off around a tree, I made my move.

  My slime surged across the bare field between the safety of the bones and the shelter of the forest. The distance wasn’t far, but it felt like miles to me. I hopped and rolled with all my might, desperate to reach my friend before—

  A piercing shriek cut through the air like the cry of a falcon diving for its prey, only I was now the mouse.

  “There! It’s the slime! Wing Mother it’s here!”

  The winds began to stir. Azure mana filled the air as the intimidating harpy emerged from the cliffs and threw herself into open space. She tucked her wings and dove. Behind her, the harpy shaman, K’esil, was right behind.

  Heat turned to blistering flames as Dorin joined the battle, leaping from the trees with his drake-bone pick already ablaze. Orange clashed against blue in the air above me and I squished myself down, only narrowly escaping the explosion of mana that resulted from their initial blows.

  “You shall not take it from us!” the wing mother shrieked, diving for me with an extended talon.

  Dorin growled, his eyes glowing with magic. “Then you’ll have to take him from my cold, dead claws!”

  “That can be arranged.”

  only a handful of followers and even fewer readers take the time to rate a story, even one or two 0.5 star ratings can really hurt the average, and on top of that, it's incredibly demoralizing to the author. So, here I am with my soap box and a PSA. If you're enjoying a story, let the author know! Ratings take 5 seconds, and reviews can really make an author's day.