The king slime's location was not in the middle of an empty plain or a handy arena where the fight would be easy. Instead, according to the guild map's latest update, the monster was roaming in a patch of woods not too far away from where we had found the Skitterpede hole.
"Good, so we can check up on it after the fight!" Vespera exclaimed. "I kinda want to see trash panda Elyra digging through the dirt again."
The angel glared at her but said nothing. Her thoughts percolating through the bond were more than enough, but Vespera simply responded by sending back an image of her own personal interpretation of a sweaty angel covered in mud and moss lifting comically large logs and boulders like some sort of superhero.
It made me wonder. If we kept pushing the limits of the stats transfer feature of the bond, then perhaps one day it might even be possible.
"That's it," Vespera declared as she sensed my thoughts. "We are training the stats transference after the king slime fight."
The angel laughed. "Did you not want to check out the Skitterpede hole?"
Again, there was much more than mere words being exchanged between us.
"Yes," the demon said. "And while you dig, Sol and I will experiment."
"And why would I be the one digging, pray tell?" Elyra asked.
"To check if everything's alright in the hole?"
"Yes, but why me? And for what? You mean to go inside?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Then why?"
They bickered for a while, and it was some rather wholesome entertainment while we walked towards the slime king's location. After a while, however, I gently brought their attention to the guild map again. Thankfully, the base package also included some very basic information about the various monsters, with the more common monsters having more detailed descriptions.
"According to this, the king slime's core isn't very coveted. Sorry Vespera. No fame and glory."
"I knew that," the demon said.
Elyra and I doubted it. She felt it, of course, and rolled her eyes.
"I really did! Sol, we are about to level up, right? The king slime fight should push us over the edge."
"Almost certainly," I said.
"Then guess what. We will need to use a powerful core to get a skill, and it just so happens that the king slime—" she manipulated the guild token using me as an intermediary, and began to read—"has a particularly magic-dense core."
I was impressed by her ability to access the token without touching it, only using the bond. She was skilled.
"It also says," Elyra said, also manipulating the map, "that it is a long fight that offers little in the way of rewards. And the core is not coveted because, let's see, ah, it shatters easily and it is useless once shattered."
The demon eyed her, almost annoyed that the angel had figured out the guild token trick. "Well, cat-angel, it also says that the slime goo being impossible to transport before it spoils. Guess what?"
Elyra ooh'd at Vespera. It was enough to stun the demon into silence, before she broke into laughter.
"Look, Sol, I made her break character."
The angel recoverd quickly, and crossed her arms. "Well, what about the core? We cannot use the matter skill on it."
Vespera shrugged. "We'll come up with something."
Elyra looked at her. She looked at Elyra. She as the first who began to laugh, after which the angel also began to giggle. "Silly," she said, but did not stop.
I joined in and soon we were all laughing together. "So, the plan is to kill the slime using our 'vast experience' fighting slimes, use the core to power the skill selection—"
"—we also have a couple wolf cores in case it's not enough, just to keep the skill window alive until the rest of the wolves respawn tomorrow—"
"—which means that we will have to wake up early—"
"—guh—"
"Girls?" I said. When they both stared at me, bewildered, I threw my hands up in surrender. "No, no, do go on."
"Too late, say your piece, spacer boy. What might be oh so important that you interrupted two women having a little tiny itty bitty argument?"
There was no winning, was there? I decided the best course of action was to simply power through. "Alright," I said. "After we level up—"
"—and we pick the healing."
"And we pick the healing," I repeated with an exasperated nod. "We turn the goo into congealed slime—"
"—which is stable and can be stored."
Okay, this time the interruption didn't feel too bad. I just needed to pay attention to the bond and not just myself while I spoke. Let's try. Without speaking out loud, I thought about what came after. So, we gather the stable congealed slime and then—
Vespera picked up my stream of thought and said: "—then we check out the Skitterpede hole to see—"
"—If anyone was snooping around," Elyra took the lead. "If everything is as we left it, we head back to Calyx and—"
"—chill for a bit," I said. Ha! Got them. "Good plan. I like it."
They looked at me, and I smiled triumphantly. See? I too could interrupt them. Before I could open my mouth to speak, however, I felt something strange and familiar at the same time.
◈◈◈
Of course it is familiar, I think, but they are not my thoughts! Oh. I realize that they are Vespera's.
She rummages around, and I get the image of someone handling a thick binder and leafing through the labels. She finds what she was looking for.
It's my memories.
Another presence. She wonders: memories?
Hello Elyra.
Hello Vespera. What memories are you talking about?
Now the two talk with each other, but there are no words, no telepathy. Just… shared consciousness. Outside, I see their bodies walking as if in a trance.
Look… back? Up? I don't know how to explain it. It just comes naturally to me. Try to 'remember' things but using Sol's mind.
Let's see. Trying…
"The king slime's location was not in the middle of an empty plain or a handy arena where the fight would be easy. Instead, according to the guild map's latest update, the monster was roaming in a patch of woods not too far away from where we had found the Skitterpede hole."
Joy comes from the angelic presence. Hey, I did it!
Good girl, Elyra.
Mm. Say it again.
Hopeless angel. Anyway, you can go further back?
No worries. I will. I want to know all about our adventure together as seen from Sol's perspective. It is almost like reading a book.
That's right.
Having three consciousnesses in one mind is rather distracting. Elyra's and Vespera's bodies are moving on autopilot; their gazes are empty and they don't respond to stimuli beyond just walking forward without falling.
We should be safe here, according to the guild map. The last ping we got as part of our starter package was half an hour ago, but I doubt monsters have moved much since then. So, we keep walking in silence. My thoughts are mostly mine, but that's because the girls are busy going down memory lane. My memory lane.
It takes little effort to shift my perspective to theirs. To them, it feels like reading a book narrated in first person. Strangely enough, it begins with me coming to this world, and their attempts at looking further back into my past are stopped in much the same way they get stopped when they try to think about their past.
When they are finally all caught up with their 'reading', I sigh in relief. I was trying to keep watch for all of us, but I was beginning to grow anxious. Since they both are here with me and back to the present, they know I'm thinking this. Realizing that perhaps now isn't the best time, they retreat back to themselves.
Thoughts become blurry for a few seconds, and then I blink and realize I am alone.
◈◈◈
I wasn't truly alone, of course. They were still here, but in their own mind and with only the bond acting as a bridge between us.
Regardless, I could sense them mulling over what they read in the book of my life.
"Our life," Elyra corrected me. "As seen through your eyes."
Her cheeks were flushed. Meanwhile, Vespera had a distant look on her face. "You know, watching all the things we did together from your perspective?" she leaned in. "Makes me want to tease you right here and now."
The way she said it made me shiver a bit. I could feel her warmth near my face, and through the bond I felt Elyra respond to the echo of the teasing that managed to trickle through to her.
"Later," I said.
She pouted, but moved away. "I knowww. Let a girl have some fun, spoilsport!"
Elyra was feeling the excitement, but her thoughts drifted elsewhere. It was enough distraction to let her calm down, before a new kind of excitement took over. "We can… transfer our minds between bodies! Do you realize what this means?"
"Well, we can go into Sol, but can Sol go into—" Vespera begins. She stops when I hop over to her.
The sensation is strange. It does not feel like another person's body. It feels like I'm still in my body, except when I focus on it I realize that I have… boobs and the space between my legs is hot, wet, sticky and—
I return to my body before I lose control of myself.
By then, however, I had a raging boner in my pants. I had no idea Vespera was this horny all the time.
"Oh, that would be your fault, Sol. You make me this horny."
"Stop flirting, you two," Elyra said. She wasn't very credible with the way she panted and rubbed her thighs together, but whatever. Knowing that I knew, her face hardened. "Do not comment on it," she warned. "Now we have proven that we can all transfer between each other. Oh. Wait. There is more. Vespera, can you check your memories?"
The demon did, and her eyes widened. "Oh, it's like there's a new paragraph of Sol's story in there!"
"It corresponds to the time we spent separated," the angel said with a pensive look. "It like a book that keeps on writing itself."
As an experiment, she asked if she could hop over.
I feel her here with me. She looks around, and detects a sort of connection. It is as she said, the book is being written in real time. When she is here, her perception of it is in the present tense. When she hops off, she carries with her the new memories she was missing, narrated in the past.
Vespera tries as well.
"Neat," she said after hopping off.
Then, looking at Elyra…
"Yip!" the angel girl exclaims as the demon hops to her mind. Strangely, even though I am excluded from their shenanigans, it feels as if I'm part of them.
Then she was out, and the book was again only mine. There was a promise we made there, without the need to speak it out loud. We would share minds to update this book, so that all three would be able to read each other's life through our memories.
It went beyond the simple fun we could have. This was deeper. This was the true meaning of what it meant to be us, together.
Vespera hops into my mind again. I sigh and mutter: "It's over. We have opened Pandora's box."
"Oh yes," Vespera says. "We are gonna have sooo much fun. But not like you think."
Of course, knowing her thoughts, there is no surprising me. Still, "you surprise me," I say and it is true. "You don't want to try the new tricks just yet?"
"One thing at a time," she says teasingly, running a finger on my neck, pushing lightly with her long nail. Only I discover that it is my own finger, and not hers, and the nail is not long at all. I just thought it was and my mind believed it.
She continues. "Anticipation builds pleasure, spacer boy. We have a lot of firsts we can enjoy, and I want to savor each one of them to the fullest. No spending all the tickets for a single ride, you hear me? Forbidden!"
I swallow.
"That only applies to the bedroom, of course," she giggles, beckoning Elyra to join us.
I hear her thoughts. For normal day-to-day life, everything is allowed.
The angel hops over. They really like my mind, don't they?
"I only came to make sure you agreed that everything is allowed from the get-go," she says. "As you said, the box of Pandora has been opened. I do not think I could keep on living without experiencing this… strange state. Not now that I know how sweet it tastes to be joined together so intimately."
Three people sharing a single body means that three different minds all affect a single body's physical reactions. My eyes water, my chest tightens, my cheeks flush, and my groin feels like it's on fire.
"I don't think I could either," I say in my mind.
Satisfied with this, at least for now, they each hop back into their bodies and they stop looking like uncanny disturbing zombies.
"Hey!" Vespera cried with a pout. "No thinking bad thoughts about your girls, Sol."
"Not gonna apologize," I shot back.
"Anyway, this should count as the bond deepening again, shouldn't it?" she asked.
A pause.
"System?" she said, out loud this time.
Still nothing.
Elyra laughed. "I suppose it does not. Besides, I do not think the bond can get any deeper than this, Vespera. What else do you desire? Your greed truly is insatiable."
Vespera glared at her. "Wanna throw hands, raccoon?"
She pretended to think about it, and then I hear a sudden yelp of pain from the demon.
"You!" she roars. "You made me punch myself???"
Thus begins a new round of hops between bodies, with the intent to cause as much trouble as possible. One of these days, I think to myself, some monster is going to jump at us while we don't pay attention, and then it's going to be a lot of pain for everyone.
The forest rumbles. The trees begin to shake, their leaves falling down in a swirl around us. It is not the autumn breeze, though. There's a snap, and a gigantic blob of blue gelatin, easily three meters tall and at least five wide, lands right in front of us. It's so heavy it makes the ground crack and shake. It wobbles twice, and then jumps up in the air again.
I look up and see the hazy sky turn to a solid deep blue color. We are still three people in one mind. The girls return to their bodies, but the action takes some time.
Not to mention the fact that when they snapped back, there was a moment of disorientation from having their senses suddenly shifted.
"Shit!" Vespera screamed as the blob fell upon us.