The water worked its magic, and James felt his body being fueled with a strange, pulsing energy.
Rowan gazed at the ceiling, seemingly lost in thought as he let his frame soak.
"So… do we need soap?" James asked, looking around for a bottle or a bar.
Rowan didn't speak; he simply pointed down through the crystal-clear water.
James looked, his heart skipping a beat. There was a creature in the pool with them—almost entirely transparent, shimmering like liquid glass. It drifted toward him with a slow, purposeful grace.
Before he could recoil, the creature began to coat James's limbs in a thick, mucus-like substance.
"What is this?" James asked, his voice tight. He was caught between fascination and the sudden urge to bolt. He had no clue what the hell was touching him.
Rowan didn't even look down. He just let out a long, relaxed exhale as the steam curled around his head.
"It's a Vitreous Ooze," Rowan muttered. "Found them in the deep caves near the lake. They don't have teeth—they just eat dead skin and dirt.
Better than soap. Doesn't strip the natural oils from your fur when you shift."
James watched, paralyzed, as the transparent mass slid over his shoulder.
It was cool, almost tingly.
"Just let it work," Rowan added.
"The more you fight it, the longer it takes."
"So… a slime?" James blinked, mesmerized as the transparent mass glided down his forearm.
It was a bizarre sensation—simultaneously warm and cool, like a sentient current of water navigating the contours of his skin.
The "slimy" texture was undeniable, but it lacked the stickiness he expected; it felt more like a living, viscous liquid.
"A subspecies of one, yes," Rowan replied, his eyes closed as he allowed the creature to graze across his shoulders, lifting away the grime of travel.
"How many subspecies are there?" James asked, watching the blob ploop back into the pool before resurfacing near his knees.
"Depends on their diet," Rowan said, lifting an arm to grant the creature full access. "They are what they eat, literally.
Some consume raw ore; they develop a metallic hide and are prized for smithing. If you feed one the perfect ratio of minerals, it acts as a living crucible for creating alloys."
He stretched, his muscles rippling under the water. "It's more efficient than a forge. Slimes inherit one hundred percent of the traits they ingest. If you feed it equal parts iron and steel, the resulting creature is a perfect, uniform amalgamation of both."
James frowned, trying to wrap his head around the physics.
"What about the slime itself? If it becomes entirely metal, wouldn't it… stop being a slime?"
Rowan opened one eye, offering a small, knowing smirk.
"It inherits the properties, James. It's still a slime—still fluid, still alive—but with the durability and weight of the metal it consumed."
Rowan stood up abruptly, catching James off guard. Before James could avert his eyes, he was met with the blunt reality of Rowan's complete lack of modesty.
"Uh, man... your towel," James muttered, blinking rapidly and staring intensely at a spot on the stone wall.
Rowan looked down, seemingly only just noticing his state of undress. "Oh. Right." He reached for the cloth, completely unphased.
James kept his gaze fixed elsewhere, a flush of heat rising to his face. It was an instinctive human embarrassment—the kind that felt out of place here.
He was twenty-three, nearly twenty-four, and yet the casual exposure made him feel like a flustered kid again.
He thought briefly of his upcoming birthday in February, a mental retreat to the safety of the human calendar to distract himself from the awkwardness of the present.
"You should probably get used to this," Rowan said, tying the towel around his waist with practiced ease.
James raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Get used to… people just dropping everything?"
"When the pack throws a party, the inhibitions go first," Rowan replied dryly.
"Try not to make it weird. It's a matter of status, not sex."
James paused, absorbing that. "So you all just… parade around?"
Rowan stopped at the edge of the pool, looking back over his shoulder.
"Not exactly. Standing naked before another with no weapon in hand is the ultimate sign of trust—especially if you show them your back. In our world, you only do that for those you trust with your life, or for a cub."
The words hit James like a physical weight. Suddenly, a memory surfaced: Luna, standing in his house with nothing but a loosely tucked towel.
At the time, he'd been too stunned to feel anything but a vague, confused heat. But now, the realization stung.
It wasn't that she was comfortable with him. It was that she hadn't viewed him as a threat in the slightest.
He'd been so low on the food chain to her that she hadn't even bothered with the "honor" of being guarded.
"Hurry up and finish," Rowan added, breaking his train of thought.
"If Talia and Mira decide they're ready to wash, they won't wait for you to find your modesty. They tend to care even less about clothing than I do."
The creature went between James legs, James felt wet….okay that sounded so wrong, he did not have a feeling to describe it, he was already in water so he was already wet, like he was sitting right now and the water reach to his shoulders.
So he was wet already, but the slime moving around his body felt even wetter, yeah, he had no way to describe how he felt right now.
The creature feasted on the dirt on his skin, leaving his body natural oil intact, just feasting on the dirt and grim he had accumulated across all of his fights.
Once done, the creature would slide off his body and go back to the water, going back to being invisible under the water.
Though James did feel like there was a hole in the bottom of this sauna, and that was where the creature went, but oh well.
He grabbed his cloth, stood up and begin drying himself, he cleaned himself neatly, walking out of the water, watching as the water was being constantly drain and used.
If he were to guess, the used water will be used for something else, while fresh water come rushing back in.
Rowan was already done, he moved with the lazy efficiency that was expected of him, the second he was dry, he walked to a small wooden shelf and picked up a folded set of clothes.
Without hesitation, he tossed it at James.
"That the outfit that Caius wanted me to have?" James looked at it, it look like it could fit.
"Yes." Rowan started putting his shirt on, one hand first, then the head and finally the last hand went through.
Then with a light leather tunic over it, sleeveless.
James looked at his clothing, it was a tunic.
It look like it was rough spun fabric, that look durable but not stiff, the cut was clean, fitted with just enough to sit right on his frames without restricting movements.
The leather belt that came with it was thick, reinforced so much it look like it was meant to hold more than the outfit.
The pants were well flexible.
James slid the trousers on, and they fit with a precision that suggested they had been tailored specifically for his frame.
"Oh, nice. A perfect fit," he noted, running a hand over the fabric. As he did, his fingers brushed against the subtle, raised textures of the seals stitched into the lining.
He could feel them now. After being bombarded by runes all day, his senses were beginning to tune into their specific resonance—a low-humming magical frequency that sat just beneath the surface of the material.
"I'm guessing these are enchanted?" James asked.
Rowan nodded, his attention focused on strapping a wicked-looking wrist blade onto his forearm. "Caius's old work," he grunted.
He flicked his wrist, the blade snapping out with a mechanical shlack before retracting smoothly. Satisfied, Rowan reached into a pouch and pulled out a vibrant, neon-colored frog.
James recognized it instantly: a poison dart frog. He watched, fascinated and slightly repulsed, as Rowan carefully milked the toxins from the amphibian's back directly onto the edge of his blade.
Once the steel was coated in the lethal sheen, Rowan glanced at James.
"The first seal regulates your temperature. If the air drops below freezing, the fibers pull in heat. If the sun is beating down, it vents it."
James blinked, his "engineer-brain" immediately trying to map out the physics. In his world, heat was an abundance of kinetic energy, and cold was the absence of it.
To move heat against a gradient usually required a compressor and a refrigerant.
"So... what?" James asked. "In Earth science terms, it acts as an ambient heat exchanger? Absorbing thermal energy from the environment when it's cold and dumping it when it's hot?"
Rowan shrugged, the look on his face suggesting that James was overcomplicating a very simple "it just works" situation.
To Rowan, it was magic; to James, it was a thermodynamic impossibility that he was desperately trying to rationalize.
He realized he was overthinking again. He'd been a... what was it? A Mechanical Engineering major? Or was it Civil? Maybe Computer Science? He couldn't quite remember—he'd simply looked up which degree had the highest ROI on Google and signed his life away to the one with the biggest paycheck.
"And the final rune," Rowan added, snapping James out of his academic spiral, "ensures you aren't standing there in your birthday suit after you shift. The outfit adjusts to the wolf."
James's eyes widened. "Wait. No more being butt-naked in the woods?"
"No more being butt-naked," Rowan confirmed.
"Let's go," James thought, a grin spreading across his face. He could definitely get behind magical fashion if it saved his dignity.
Rowan watched James for a moment, noting the way the younger man's eyes glinted as he pieced the logic together.
He made a silent mental note of James's analytical nature before turning toward the door.
"Time to move," Rowan said, stepping out into the morning light. James followed close behind, feeling more like a Vanguard with every step.
—
They stepped back out into the light. The morning sun was climbing higher now, though barely fifteen minutes had passed since they'd first stirred.
The dawn chill had softened into a comfortable crispness, the air a rich tapestry of damp earth, woodsmoke, and the distant, savory scent of breakfast.
In the distance, James saw a group of children being ushered toward a large timber building. He tilted his head, intrigued. "Wait... they have actual school here?"
"They're learning the basics. Much like you," Rowan replied, his tone level.
"But you aren't joining them for two reasons: one, you're a grown man; and two, you have zero control over your pulse."
The subtext was clear: it was for the children's safety. There was likely a secret third reason, too—if James lost control, it was better to have him surrounded by elite scouts who could put him down quickly.
Rowan clearly had a decent read on him; as a novice, James hadn't yet learned to mask his scent or his heart rate.
To a skilled supernatural, he was an open book.
When they arrived back at the cabin, Caius was already waiting.
He stood with a short sword at one hip and a full-length blade at the other. James wondered if he was a dual-wielder, but Caius looked so relaxed he might as well have been unarmed.
He'd clearly sensed them approaching long before they came into view.
"Does the outfit feel restrictive?" Caius asked.
James shook his head, testing the tension of the fabric. "No, it fits perfectly." To prove it, he gave a light experimental bounce—forgetting, for a split second, that he was no longer human.
That "light" jump launched him thirty feet into the air.
"Whoaaaa!" James yelped, his stomach dropping as the ground fell away.
Caius and Rowan watched him soar, their expressions identical masks of practiced boredom.
It was the look of men who had seen a hundred "newborns" do the exact same thing.
James came down hard.
CRACK.
He slammed into the dirt, his boots carving a shallow crater into the earth.
"Ouch," James grunted, his ego bruised more than his legs. He felt a dull soreness, but the impact hadn't actually done much damage—it felt like falling off a low porch, a stinging reminder that he still didn't know his own strength.
"I assume the fit is to your liking, then," Caius said blankly.
"Yeah," James muttered, dusting off his new trousers. "Great fit."
"Now, we wait for the others."
Five minutes later, Mira and Talia emerged.
They'd clearly finished their own rotation through the bathhouse; while the boys smelled of the deep forest, the girls carried a sharp, refreshing scent of mint and citrus.
Talia looked nearly swallowed by the massive greatsword strapped to her back.
The blade was a monster—six feet of heavy, dark steel, a foot wide at the crossguard. It had to weigh well over a hundred pounds, yet she carried the slab of metal as if it were a kitchen knife.
Mira, by contrast, carried no steel. Instead, her hands were meticulously wrapped in layers of heavy linen and leather. She flexed her fingers, her knuckles popping like gunfire in the quiet morning air.
She looked less like a scout and more like someone looking for any excuse to throw a punch.
The group looked more than ready. As James and Rowan approached, Mira turned with a sharp, predatory grin.
"So, what's on the menu today?" she asked, her voice crackling with restless energy. "The last few scouting rotations have been agonizingly dull."
"We are scouts, Mira," Caius reminded her, his tone dry as bone. "Scouting is the job description."
Mira pouted, a look that sat strangely on her face. To James, she looked barely twenty, yet there was a hardness behind her eyes that didn't match the youthful gesture.
"Boring. It's much more satisfying to just break things."
Talia, who looked even younger—perhaps eighteen at most—beamed as she caught James's eye.
Mira rushed to James. "Oh, hey, Newbie! Remember your promise? You owe me a round in the ring."
James blinked, pointing a confused finger at his own chest. "I… did?"
"Yep," she chirped, looking far too giddy for someone talking about a fistfight. "So, when do we go?"
James was genuinely lost; he didn't recall agreeing to a sparring match, let alone a blood-feud.
"It was your aura," Caius interjected calmly.
The word triggered a sudden memory for James—a conversation they'd had back in the forest. Caius had been blunt, telling him he was "broadcasting like a wild animal.
" At the time, James hadn't understood, but now it clicked. While his mouth had remained shut, his subconscious wolf-instincts had been screaming a challenge to everyone in the room.
"Ah… I see," James muttered as the pieces fell into place. His embarrassment was quickly replaced by a spark of genuine curiosity. He wanted to know what he was capable of. "Maybe after the mission."
"You'd better not chicken out," Mira warned, her smile widening. She was clearly relishing the prospect of testing the newcomer.
"Enough," Caius commanded, his voice cutting through the banter like a blade. "We have an objective."
They began the trek toward the perimeter of the settlement, where the structured timber buildings gave way to the ancient, untamed wilderness.
As the shadows of the Great Forest swallowed them, Caius finally broke the silence.
"The mission is simple."
James winced internally. In every movie he'd ever seen, those words were the kiss of death.
"We've detected unusual activity near the lake," Caius continued. "A colony of Merfolk has turned aggressive."
Merfolk. James's mind flashed to fairytales and Disney movies, but the look on his companions' faces told him these weren't singing princesses.
"Their behavior is erratic—abnormal," Caius added. "They've started targeting surface dwellers without provocation."
Talia clicked her tongue, her annoyance palpable. "Great. Water. My mobility drops to zero and my speed becomes a joke."
Mira, however, looked ecstatic. She flexed her bandaged hands, her knuckles popping in a rhythmic sequence. "It's been ages since we've had to cull those things."
Rowan, walking with his usual silent grace, asked quietly, "Is Kaela joining the hunt?"
Caius didn't miss a step.
"No." He paused, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face. "She deemed them unworthy of her steel."
Mira huffed, though she didn't seem surprised. "Typical. She always was a snob about her kills."
Talia shrugged, adjusting the massive weight of the greatsword on her back. "Whatever. Less competition for us."
Rowan remained silent, but his eyes were fixed on the tree line ahead, his body coiling with a hidden tension.
A/N trying out a new style of writing of instead of having ai rewrite original draft fully, only do a portion at a time and keep original writing, tell me if it read better.
Next chapter probably out Wednesday.