Ink cap mushroom monster with a human he hired to professionally clean his home every other day? The monster hates his appearance and the messes he makes, leading him to become a touch starved recluse! I saw a picture of the actually thing and it looks so cool!
I knew about ink-caps but I genuinely didn't know much about them until now. And it's so fun learning new things! What do you mean they melt? What do you mean they do all these things to you if you drink alcohol after consuming these mushrooms??
Thank you for your request! I learnt something new and also got to play with a new character!
Themes: just light heart-hearted monster stuff, fantasy/medieval world, human x monster slow burn because we love that here, loosely edited forgive my laziness
He was a touch dubious about posting the job offer in the local town. It's just asking for trouble. But he was at his wits end keeping his lair clean.
And you needed money. So, here you were at the mouth of a cave deep within the dark forest. The ink soaked job listing in your hand and a duffle bag full of cleaning supplies.
The offer had been simple: clean a monster's lair and you won't be eaten. Ten gold a week. Lodgings available if needed.
Ten gold a week was a luxury; it was more than what you could earn in six months working the fields. And lodging would save your coin in renting a room at the inn.
Not being eaten by the local cryptid was a bonus.
The InkCap Monster barely listened to your stumbling words. He just pointed at the black sludge that covered the floor and told you to clean it.
You found yourself unprepared for the first day. There hadn't been any information on what you needed to clean. So you arrived expecting blood, gore and bones... not sludge from a fungal monster.
InkCap was impressed you didn't immediately flee. But wasn't surprised by your quick departure from his lair.
He was after all, a monster of nature. Humans hunted his kind for sport and glory. A beast from the subterranean depths, his appearance giving the illusion of a corpse twisted with vines and fungi instilled fear in even the most courageous adventurers.
InkCap suspected he'd have a band of mercenaries in his lair by sunrise tomorrow.
But then he awoke to the sound of you marching through the cave the next morning with a determined look on your face.
You had brought a cart with you. A donkey pulling through the lush forest and into the cave. You had shovels and buckets, barrels of substances that smelled like lemon and piles upon piles of cloth.
You greeted him with a sparkly smile and a warm 'good morning' - before disappearing deeper into his lair to begin your work.
It took you three full days to clean the cave tunnels. InkCap's lair now smelled of lemon and fresh moss. Your hands were stained with dots of black and many of your clothes had been replaced with cheaper alternatives.
But his lair was clean.
Save for the large footprints that he left behind wherever he wandered. Some part of InkCap felt bad for walking his own lair now it was clean. You had worked so hard.
The black sludge from his mushroom anatomy continuously dripped and splattered the cave in thick gelatinous trails.
You cleaned up after him with a smile. Sometimes you'd crack jokes. But mostly your demeanor around him was professional. Quiet and obedient. And so full of sunshine InkCap wasn't sure how to handle talking to you.
He shied away from you like you were blessed by the star itself.
He kept to himself for the first week. Hissing or growling whenever he wanted you to leave the room. And you'd give him a smile and gather your things with a nod.
And most conversations were very one sided. Some part of him felt bad that you'd practically talk to yourself some days.
But he didn't know how to talk to Humans that weren't trying to kill him. And you were never deterred from yapping to him about mundane things.
You scrubbed the lair without complaint. Your lodgings, a separated tunnel and cavern he emptied out to allow a human to reside there, began to fill with knick-knacks and personal belongings.
It wasn't until the eighth month that InkCap realized he had a human living with him full time. This wasn't just a short term thing. He needed you around... wanted you around.
"You know, I heard about you when I first moved to the local settlement. They said you drowned people in black blood and dragged livestock into the ground. Is that true?" You asked him once and he wasn't sure how to respond.
He had a reputation for a reason. Some rumors got out of hand for sure, but he had to eat somehow. Would you run if he told you the truth?
InkCap towered over you whenever you approached him. The skeletal like body, knotted with fungi and roots, could barely pass as humanoid. He looked grotesque. A monster. There was no way to sugar-coat his horrible character - so he nodded.
"Huh, I just haven't seen you eat anything. I wasn't sure if you were vegetarian or not." And that was the end of that. You didn't ask anymore questions, seemingly sated your curiosity.
A routine evolved and soon you were as much apart of the lair as InkCap. You cleaned the messes he made dutifully, without complaint. And he kept the forest predators from consuming you.
"You know... I've been thinking..." InkCap had tried to slink through the caves quietly, but you had an uncanny ability at sensing when he was nearby. "What if I clean the fungal parts of you that are oozing? It might help keep things clean around here."
.... surely you didn't just suggest that. Maybe you didn't understand what he was? That he was oozing the black sludge, not just parts of him.
"You'd... be comfortable doing that?" He found himself asking. Bright yellow eyes glowing in the dim light of the cave. Watching you carefully as you approached his side, cotton rags in hand - ready to wipe away the fat drops of black that slipped between the ridges of his arms.
"I don't see the harm in trying. You seem to secrete it more when you're agitated. So, while you're in the lair, there isn't much to clean on you. I think I could help minimize the mess you make."
InkCap was too caught up in thought to catch your hands before they made contact with his clawed fingers. The sudden contact startled him - but your hands were already on him. If he moved, InkCap could potentially hurt you.
So he stayed very, very still as you wiped the sludge from his body.
The warmth from your hand felt like acid against his skin. Too warm... too soft... but he didn't pull away.
InkCap watched your fingers intently as you washed sections of his arm with the lemony substance. Soaking up the darkened secretions with the cloths before moving onto the next section of his limb.
"Hmm, can you crouch? I can't reach your shoulder." You asked and his body obeyed before his mind did.
InkCap kneeled beside you. Head tilted so the fungal cap circling his face didn't touch your head. It wasn't uncommon for you to be splattered by black but he refused to let your bright eyes be darkened by an accidental smudge.
Your face was lit up by the other-worldly glow of his gaze. Wrinkled in concentration while you picked bugs and hardened chunks of secretion out of the nooks of his twisted body.
You moved around him confidently. While he remained a statue in the center of the cave, locked in concentration so he didn't accidentally move and knock you over when you asked him to shift this way or that way.
His gaze became hooded. Head rolling forward like he was falling asleep. Lulled into a trance-like state by the gentle caress of your hands.
He felt your fingers trace along his jaw. Drawing lines along his skull like face. A ghostly sigh echoed from deep within him - content. Your lips stretched into a smile he didn't see.
Hours passed and InkCap jerked into awareness when you cleared your throat. Standing in front of him, beneath his face, looking up at him.
"Finished!" You declared triumphantly.
InkCap didn't want to be finished. But he didn't voice it. Instead inspected his body. Finding the secretions had slowed a little and certain stains on the ivory white bones of his ribcage had been removed.
Somehow you had made the skeletal part of him so clean it glowed in the dim light.
"You look much better." You told him as he stood. "Honestly, I didn't know parts of you were actual bones. I thought it was my imagination. So, you're a fungal beast that's using the bones as armor, right?"
You were spot on. Different parts of him had been taken from difference monsters. InkCap, the living fungal part of him, had burrowed into every inch of the suit he carved from corpses and foliage. Like veins and nerves in your body.
It was how he could feel every touch from you. And why he felt like he craved that warmth from your hands.
"Let's see how that holds up." You said, unaware of the battle InkCap was currently raging within himself. "If you don't mind it, I can keep doing that to help minimize how much muck stains the lair. But it's entirely up to you."
Oh yes, he was going to have you do that again and again. Regardless of the mess he did or did not make.
