>>5406515>>5405569>>5405570>>5405584>>5405598>>5405651>>5405666>>5405736>>5406139>>5406143The thought of your first meeting with the queen of the outcast elves being one in which you are held aloft by your allies for the failure of your own strength is… Unappealing. The injuries inflicted by the shoggoth are severe, too severe to entirely remedy in the time you have left, but you are determined to lessen them. As such, you dedicate every scrap of your remaining downtime to repairing the damage dealt by your duel with the deadly depth-dweller.
“On the subject of the shoggoth,” the Novice says, “I have made some progress with the sample you collected.”
You and she are in relative privacy, inasmuch as you can get any when you are traveling in a group and dare not separate too great a distance. The Novice Fleshweaver is massaging and alchemical solution into your bruised muscles and surface lacerations, and weaving spells to seep deeper into deeper tissues and cracked bones. It’s a testament to the degree to which you two have become comfortable with one another—or perhaps the sheer frequency with which you are injured—that the experience is no longer an embarrassing one for her, nor even especially arousing for you… Though the pain is certainly a factor in the latter, as well.
“You whine like an infant,” the Novice chides you, though you sense some sadistic mirth in your reaction. “I should know: I heard enough of that mewling when we were young.”
“You were saying, about the sample?” you ask, to change the subject.
The Novice rattles with laughter, but obliges you.
