# 007
"Hey, Jen, can you help me with these buttons?" I walk into the library with my shirt undone and the replacement bandages in one hand. "I forgot I needed Katie's help just to get my pajamas buttoned last night." All three girls stare at my bare front and start blushing.
"Seriously, Cole?" Jen huffs and rushes over to help me cover up, spinning me away from our guests in the process.
"Blame Mom." I roll my eyes. "She was too busy laughing at the twins tormenting Kaitlyn to help."
"I think she knew exactly what she was doing sending you in here like that." Jen breathes back. "That woman is pregnant herself but I swear she already wants grandchildren." I start laughing at that.
"Now that I'm decent." I turn around to face our guests only see them blush again at my words. "Shall we get this bandage replaced so we can focus on Queenie?" The slime bobs up and down when I say her name.
"Oh, yes." Maria jumps when I bring up her purported reason for the visit. "Sit here and I'll take care of it." She blushes again when I raise an eyebrow at her ambiguous phrasing. "The bandages." I just smirk when she sees the need to add that, but her friend starts cracking up.
"Yes, the bandages." I nod and sit down, placing the salve and replacement wrapping in front of her. "What else is there for you to take care of?" Maria looks like she's about to burst into flames and Selene is now laughing so hard that she can't breathe.
"Would you just let her treat your arm already?" Jen huffs. "I want to play with Queenie."
The healer finally gets herself under enough control to work on my arm. It's still red, but looks a lot better than before, that salve is worth every silver.
"Uhm." Maria sounds afraid to even speak now. "We need to wash this off before applying fresh ointment."
"No problem." I hold my towards the slime. "Queenie, Clean." All three of them pale when engulfs my arm with a slurping sound. "Thanks, girl." She wiggles in pleasure at the praise I sent over the bond.
"I hate you, Cole." Jenny's voice comes out a little shaky.
"Sorry, Jen." I duck my head. "But, you know that she can't hurt me now. And, I know the arm still looks bad, but the salve is doing its job."
"It really is." Maria nods but then frowns. "It's doing better than what it should be, actually. We use the same stuff, or at least I thought we did, but now I'm wondering if it's not being swapped for something else before it reaches us."
"Dad was thinking about importing some stuff from the city." I state. "You may want to bring this matter up with your master and have her talk to Mom. I can guarantee that she'll get better prices and undoctored goods through him." She just nods and finishes wrapping up my arm with a fierce look on her face.
"Jenny, Cole!" Mom shouts from downstairs. "Your father is about to leave, come see him off."
"Coming!" I call back. "You girls can stay here to hide from Mason; we'll be back in a Moment."
...
Is the pest really gone? Selene asks when we return a few minutes later.
"Yes, idiot boy went bye-bye." I reply with a laugh. "And, if he doesn't fuck up too badly, he'll be on the road more often than not from here on."
"Not as good as him leaving for good." She sighs. "But, it's better than nothing."
"Oh, forget about him." Maria waves all though of the pest away. "I want to play with this cutie." She places her hands on either side of Queenie and makes her jiggle. "What kind of training or tests do you have to do with her."
"Oh, dad gave me a huge list." I can't help but roll my eyes at all the stuff he wants me to do. "But, I'm going to focus on her shapeshifting and spoken commands today. She can already recognize her name, so I'm hoping I can get her to follow simple commands. Maybe even commands from other people." Her eyes light up at that.
"Really? Oh, I always wanted to be a tamer." She leans forward and hugs the slime. "I didn't want to fight or anything, just collect all the cutest monsters as pets. But, all my aptitude is for healing magic instead."
"Well, the world always needs more healers." I smile at her and get up to go collect one of the loose wands sitting near the door. "Why is it in my room? Why do they always find their way in there?" I ask the air while calling the slime connected to the wand over.
"They like you." Jenny laughs. "And, get one for Selene too; no fair to only give one of them a present."
"Really?" Their eyes go wide. "You're giving them to us?"
"Yeah, the wands don't cost much to make." I set them in front of the girls. "No one will notice if two go missing and if they do, I'll just say that the twins broke them. Wouldn't be the first time."
"What does happen when a wand breaks?" Maria asks while marveling over the trinket.
"Same thing as when a tamer dies." No one wants a bunch of monsters to go out of control when their owner dies, so all of them die with him. "Can't have people getting hurt just because they sat on their wand. And, yes, that happens more often than you'd think."
"Hehehehe." She starts giggling until the slimes hop into the room, then her entire focus is devoted to them.
"Up on the table, guys." I order and they hop up next to their new owners.
"But, you weren't touching the wand." Selene says while Maria is already squishing her new pet to her chest.
"You don't need to." Jenny answers and points her finger at Selene's slime, making it follow the motion of her finger around the table. "All you have to do to use any magical focus is encompass it with your aura, and we've both trained in aura control since forever ago.
"I could've controlled the wands from where they were." I add. "I only got up so I could give them to you. Though, I suppose that one rightfully comes from Jenny." Both Selene and Jen blush when I say that last bit.
"How do I make it do stuff?" Maria tries waving her wand about to no effect.
"Just send your magic into the wand." I instruct. "Now, close your eyes and you should have a vague feeling of connection." I pick up her slime and move it about, smiling as her head tracks it. "That's it. Now open your eyes and send a clear thought through that connection. a clear thought that isn't to jump on my head." They start giggling as I sit there with a new hat.
"It's best to stick with simple stuff like go here, clean this, stuff like that." Jenny adds. "And, don't worry about them hurting anyone, either. Dad built a section into his spell that prevents them from harming anything with an aura."
"But, we recommend that you practice their cleaning on stuff you don't care about." I say before they accidentally melt something. "The store has a little training area just for this, but you'll have to improvise. Just focus on getting rid of the grime while leaving everything else and you should be fine."
"Yeah." Jen nods. "These guys should already know what stuff not to eat, so it should be pretty easy for you."
"Thank you so much." Maria pulls me into a quick hug before blushing furiously.
"You're welcome." I grin back at her. "Now, how about we get started on Queenie's training? Queenie, sphere." I start with the simplest shape she could take, and find that I have a little work ahead of me.
"Well, she's almost round." Maria offers encouragingly.
"Queenie, Sphere!" I push the very concept of roundness down the bond to her, and it works. for a Moment. "Alright, you can do it, you just need to practice. Queenie, Sphere! Good Girl." She lasted that much longer this time and quivers in joy at the praise sent her way.
...
"Queenie, tree... that is not what a tree looks like." Maria says with a funny smile a bit later.
Queenie's transformation skills proved to be damned impressive, within limits. Hard edges are nearly impossible, and the more she has to stretch out the worse her control gets. And, anything with a lot of small details tends to turn out poorly, but the biggest problem is with my visualizations.
"That's my fault." I admit. "When you said tree I couldn't pick just one and the image got muddled. We should probably take a break though; both Queenie and I are starting to get tired. And, from the smell coming up the stairs, it's almost lunchtime anyways."
"Yeah, now we just need to peel those two away from their book." Maria smiles at the cute couple of bookworms.
Selene picked out one of Jen's favorite books, so she decided to read it with her. Right now, they're sitting pressed against each other, while sharing the same book.
"Easy enough." I smirk and then speak up for my sister's benefit. "Is that paper tearing? I hope the twins didn't get in here again."
"No!" She slams the book closed and jumps up off the couch.
""Heheheheh."" Maria and I break into giggles at the looks on their faces right now.
"Dammit, Cole!" Jen almost hit me with the book before thinking better of it and just using her fist. "That is not funny!"
"Cole, quit tormenting your sister and come down for lunch!" Mom shouts up the stairs.
...
"Hey, Mom." I speak up as soon as we reach the kitchen. "Maria thinks that the salve they've been buying might not be the real thing."
"No? Damned shady merchants." Mom shakes her head. "I'm guessing you already told her about our idea for a side business." I nod.
"Uh." Selene interjects. "If we could borrow some of yours then my master should be able to compare the two."
"You're an alchemist?" Jen perks up, she loves all that nerdy stuff.
"Yeah, I was actually really lucky that my master took me on." She admits. "This was supposed to be something of a retirement posting for her. She mostly just collects the slime cores from the adventurers and passes them on to the guild. And, I can say that they will not be happy if someone has been messing with their product."
"Of course." Mom nods right away. "You can take what is left of the jar Cole has been using, we still have plenty more."
...
After lunch, the two bookworms went back to their book while Maria and I played with Queenie. No strenuous tests this time, just goofing around while chatting about nothing to get to know each other.
"Are you girls staying for dinner?" Mom walks into the library just when the sky starts to change colors. "I'm used to cooking for a horde, so two more mouths is no trouble."
"It's that late already?" Selene comes out of the book with a start. "Oh, thank you for the offer, but my Master will be waiting for me."
"Yeah, mine too." Maria nods.
"Alright." Mom smiles at them. "You're welcome to come back again any time. Oh, and don't forget that salve or the slimes that Cole and Jenny gave you." She laughs at the guilty looks that cross all of our faces.
"Mom. You could at least pretend not to notice." I grump.
"Hard not to when they made a bee-line right past me earlier." She laughs again. "Don't worry, I don't mind. And, it's not like we're going to run out of them."
"Th-thank you, Ma'am." - "Thanks." The girls bob their heads at Mom.
...