Several slimes later...

“All right, try now”, Karen ordered and Reader ducked around her, plunging the electric pushblade into the slime. A few seconds later he got the notification he’d been hoping for.

“Yes! I leveled!!” He cheered as he opened his character sheet.

“Does that mean you’ll permit me to finish the rest quickly?” Karen demanded, clearly impatient.

“Knock yourself out” Reader answered, too elated to be overly worried about XP efficiency. She had indeed refused his offer to party, though she’d been gracious about trying to let him get the killing blows – unfortunately, her nonphysical attacks seemed absurdly high-powered, and she’d one-shotted two slimes before finally figuring out hot to pull her punches.

Like she’s doing now Reader thought as she splattered another slime, taking her time to breathe heavily over the kill spot as reader jogged to catch up.

“I am beginning to doubt whoever created this barrier is still present” Karen said as he arrived. “It may be best to simply leave and – “

“Do you hear boss music?” Reader interrupted, and Karen looked at him in confusion as a notification popped up:

New Quest: Defeat the Slimegirl!
A slimegirl, a thinking ooze entity with a taste for human bodily fluids, has spawned nearby – bring it to heel by any means necessary!
+500XP
Bonus objective: Take her alive!
+Her eternal gratitude, at least until she gets distracted

Karen hefted her hammer, auburn hair whipping in the breeze as she looked all about. “Something’s wro-“

KKKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The sound cut through reader and his companion like a knife, he saw the deafened condition appear but heard nothing further. Karen sprinted towards the source of the sound, leaping towards the roof of a nearby house before another cone of sound that Reader saw more than heard robbed her of momentum. She landed heavily, shouting silent curses as Reader sprinted to catch up. The Slimegirl perched on the roof of a tall building was grinning down at them wickedly. As reader watched her entire seethrough, buxom body began to vibrate, a similar buzzing rattling his joints as his HP began to tick down.

RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Reader shouted back up at her, trying to pitch his voice to disrupt her sonic attack. He dismissed the perk notification that popped up, threatening to obscure his vision as Karen readied herself for another leap. This time she looked as though she had accounted for the resistance from the slimegirl’s sound… only to be carried too far when the latter abruptly stopped her vibrations, seemingly giggleing as Karen’s leap carried her over the house entirely.

Shit. Reader thought as the slimegirl began vibrating again, adding momentum to the furious paladin’s flight. He quickly cast Heal on himself, seeing the deafened status indicator disappear.

“HEY, YOU LIKE FLUIDS RIGHT?” He shouted towards the slimegirl, trying to give karen more time to work. “How about some of THIS?” He added hocking the largest ball of phlegm he could in her direction.

The slimegirl seemed to get still, turning her humanlike body in his direction. Reader almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation as he realised where her gaze was focused.

“One of THOSE monstergirls, are you?” he asked with a grin, stroking his already naked cock. “Maybe we can work out a deal. You stop trying to kill us, I give you regular- “

The slimegirl pounced off the roof to land before him, just as Karen landed on the roof, her warhammer destroying the spot where the slimegirl had just been perched. She tumbled into the building in a cascade of shingles, cursing loudly as the slimegirl wobbled her way towards Reader. The two stared at each other for a moment, and then Reader very deliberately reached out and cast induce arousal on the strange creature.

Her form immediately shifted, becoming more… womanlike. _Hypernormal _Reader thought as she knelt in front of him, chirping from somewhere as her face extended a prehensile tongue and began stroking his rapidly engorging member.

That’s when karen landed, her blazing hammer splattering the sexy slime across Reader and much of the pavement. It reformed a few paces away, smaller, and began vibrating again. “I don’t think she’s a threat-“ Reader began, but Karen didn’t hear, following up with another blow that seemed to spread the creature horizontally all over the area. Reader grabbed the busty Paladin’s arm, casting Heal and shouting “Wait!” as she spun around.

“WHAT?” she shouted, wincing at her own volume with the sudden return of her hearing.

“I don’t think we have to kill it. It seems more like a scavenger than a predator. It could probably learn to coexist with humans given a chance”.

“It’s unnatural and a nuisance,” she countered, “Why do you care?”

Reader didn’t think “because I got a quest” would matter much to the fiery redhead, but he found himself answering automatically. “I feel kinship with it. I know what it’s like to want to be liked and accepted, but not knowing the rules and being hated for doing the wrong thing and no one telling you what the right thing is”

Karen blinked at him. “You-“

“Yesyes, symbiote!” interrupted a voice like birdsong. “make useful! Eat waste! Help think, smart!” The slime, now only a few feet tall, had reformed, looking much less sexual than when she’d been alone with Reader and was… one could only call it grovelling… before the two of them.

“This barrier can’t stay here and you can’t come into our world,” Karen said, a hint of regret in her voice, “We’re from Gaia 22. Seven billion sleepers and if only one sees you you’ll both be wiped from existence”

“Actually, I might be able to help with that” Reader ventured, thinking of his inventory.

Karen looked incredulous as the slimegirl chirped, “Yesyes, master help! ...How master help?”

“I have access to a kind of.. pocket dimension” he explained. “I think I could carry you in that discretely until we figure something else out. I don’t think I could put you in by yourself, but if you were in some kind of container – like, um, this…” he continued, producing the empty kombucha bottle from that morning.

The slimegirl approached the two humans, looking doubtfully at the empty bottle. “Master no betray?” she finally asked.

“Sometimes master make mistakes” Reader responded. “But no, master not betray”

Every movement indicating trepidation, the slimegirl flowed as far into the container as she could. The rest of her trembled for a second, then fell to the ground like a pile of syrup. Reader closed the bottle and stowed it in his inventory, trying not to betray any reaction to the multiple notifications that had just popped up. From the hard stare Karen was giving him, he had a sense that he was not out of danger yet.