Spare the slimes and (wo)man the oars

You raise your hand in judgement of the slimes, your palm glowing with holy fire. Both creatures cower against one another, their whole forms shuddering with fear like a disturbed pond. You hesitate at the sight of their fearful vulnerability. Would it be right to kill the two? They are not innately evil, unlike the imp who hovers around the boat. A sense of compassion washes over you, the warm forgiveness the Burning Rose carries with her, the same which drives demons to steal the purity of her followers particularly. You lower your arm, your hair slowly coming to rest about your shoulders.

“Sabine?” Glenda questions uncertainly.

“They meant us no harm,” you say with a sigh. “Else they would have melted more than merely our clothes.”

“Not complaining,” the imp whoops from where he’s hovering.

“Then, what do we do with them?” Glenda asks.

You sit down and take hold one of the oars. “We’ll drop them off somewhere they can’t do any harm to others,” you say. You shiver, the heat of the Burning Rose’s warmth fading, your skin growing rough with goosebumps in the cold sea air, your nipples jutting from the smooth globes of your breasts. Already you miss the tatters you had called robes. Glenda is in little better shape, shivering fitfully. “Grab an oar,” you say. “Some exercise will warm us up.”

You snap your head back to the slimes which both shrink back against the stern of the boat, their figures running against one another but not quite joining. “You two stay put,” you order.

“Getting regular collection!” the imp cackles.

You do not respond to its taunts and haul on the oar. Glenda follows suite, and after some initial awkwardness, you both develop a beat which splashes water sparkling through the air and skims the little boat over the surface of the sea.

You were right. Exercise quickly serves to warm both of you up, but even as you labour on the oar, night begins to creep in. You keep to the rocky shore though it is unwelcoming, looking out with tall sheer face or jagged stone poking from the foaming surf, and from over the waters a steady cold wind begins to blow. In no time both you and Glenda fill the night with the chatter of your teeth, to say nothing of the ache of exhaustion in your arms. Only your hours a day of swinging about a sword has kept you up this far but even you are feeling the strain, to say nothing of what Glenda must be suffering.

“How…how much further?” Glenda gasps.

“Dunno,” you reply, trying to save your breath for rowing.

The two slimes remain at the foot of the boat, watching you and Glenda carefully with their strange, gelatinous features. You hear a flap of leathery wings overhead and suddenly the imp is hovering nearby.

“Fire hair! Elf slut! Found shelter. Nice little thing. Can rest there.”

“You did? Oh thank the goddess!”

“Glenda,” you say sharply. “We don’t know if we can trust it. It could be leading us into a trap.”

“Hmph!” The imp crosses his arms in the moonlit twilight. “Do a favour and see what I gets!”

“Come Sabine,” Glenda groans, abandoning rowing, bending over her oar in exhaustion. “He told the truth about the boat. We need to find shelter before it gets too dark, or we might run into the rocks.”

You hesitate. Though true as it gets darker, the harder it will be to find shore, and you both are exhausted. Still, you’re not so sure about trusting the imp. He did help you with the boat, but that does not change what he is. Unlike the slimes, he is a being of pure malice, and one only too happy to corrupt the innocent. Should you really trust it?