Katie pondered as she listened to Katie regaling her adventures, as Katie squirmed on the floor, twitching and moaning occasionally for reasons Katie wasn't planning to inquire about. Instead, she asked something else that had been bothering her.

"I was wondering, given your description of the human kingdom; how is there a human kingdom?"

"Huh? One guy gets delusions of grandeur, sticks something shiny on his head, tells everyone he's in charge, then kills anyone who disagrees," answered Katie.

"Mmmpf!" agreed Katie, who had her mouth full.

"No, I didn't mean the 'kingdom' part of 'human kingdom'. I meant the 'human' part."

Katie blinked. "Uh... I've never thought about that before. I don't actually know."

"Aren't you omniscient?"

"I'm... supposed to be. At least with regards to the worlds I'm in charge of."

All three Katies shared a moment of confusion.

"Mmmpf?" questioned Katie.

"An interesting theory, but you'd think evolution wouldn't make mistakes like external testicles twice."

"Why do you always automatically gravitate towards sex organs?! At least go for something like the dangerous way our trachea is connected to our throat. And how did you get all that from an mmmpf, anyway?"

"Omniscient," answered Katie, as if that was a perfectly reasonable explanation. "Or at least, I should be. I can't see the history of this planet past a few thousand years ago. It was just... there, humans and demons already fighting each other. And I've somehow never noticed, until you mentioned it."

"Mmmpf?" suggested Katie.

"Could be. She set things up so that I would be created to clean up the mess she left behind, after all."

"Look, if zombie-Katie wants to be a part of this conversation, please can you take her gag out? You might be able to understand her, but I can't!"

"She suggested that the previous goddess might have just built this place for her own entertainment, and so didn't want to wait a few billion years for evolution to kick in and make something interesting. Seems plausible enough, given the state of the planet."

"So, what, 'human' is just a standard thing? They get them from a catalogue, perhaps? Ready-made components for your new world; buy ten humans, get one free?"

Katie shrugged.

"Mmmpf," said Katie.

"Great idea; we can just ask," replied Katie, looking around in more dimensions than the usual three. "Sheesh, there are humans all over the place. Maybe they really do come as standard."

Katie sighed and stooped down to pull about a foot of phallic rubber out of Katie's mouth, eyebrows raising as the material kept coming.

"How the heck do you breathe with that in?" she asked.

"I don't. Zombie, remember?" replied Katie from the floor, still unable to stand up on account of all the rope.

"Then how were you making any noise at all?! I swear, this place needs a sign up warning visitors to leave their common sense at the front door."

"There is, but you missed it because you were teleported in."

Katie squinted suspiciously, then left the room. A few seconds later came the sound of the front door opening, followed by a scream.

"Well, this is certainly an interesting mystery," opined Katie, still peering out across the multiverse. "Humans are worse than cockroaches. They're everywhere. No way can we blame this on convergent evolution."

The front door sounded again, and Katie returned, looking slightly pale.

"Oops," giggled Katie insincerely. "I should probably have warned you about the Void."

"Right," said Katie, clapping her hands. "We're going to get to the bottom of this. I can see at least eight nearby worlds that have both humans and active gods, so let's go ask them."

"Uh..." said Katie, who was the only one of the three still a hundred percent mortal and was clinging tightly to her last vestiges of her common sense, whatever the sign might request. "Do you think you can do that on your own and get back to me? Meeting one goddess was enough, and I'd rather not meet more."

"Yeah... Fair. Anya was saying some of them can be complete jerks, so I don't really want to meet them either. Tell you what, I can see a tiny world, less than a hundred thousand people on it, and it's got... half a goddess? A visit should be completely safe, even if she acts up. She won't be able to do anything to me. Or you, if you're near me."

"How can it have half a goddess?" asked Katie, not putting voice to her thoughts that it wasn't her physical safety she'd been concerned about.

"Okay, it would be more accurate to say it has no gods or goddesses at all. But it does have... well... the entire planet. The whole surface is alive somehow. That's pretty close, right? The planet should remember how she got populated."

"Okay, first question; how can a planet be a she? Second question; if you take us there, are we going to find ourselves up to our necks in blood and meat? I don't like the sound of a living planet."

Katie paused her wriggling on the floor to consider that thought. "Ooo, that sounds fun!" she decided.

"No, it's not a flesh planet. It's normal rock and stuff. It's just alive," Katie answered, neglecting to answer the question of the planet's gender.

"Aww."

"Fine. Because rock can be alive now. I can see I'm not going to win this, so let's just get it over with."

Katie nodded and the trio of girls were suddenly elsewhere.

"Shouldn't you have untied your pet zombie before we went out?" asked Katie.

"Nah."

Katie considered that, but decided to ignore it for sanity's sake. "So, how do we get in contact with this planet? Rock isn't known for its communication skills."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Katie tilted her head, as if listening to some silent voice.

"... Or are you already talking?"

"No, it's just that something tried to parasitise our souls the moment we arrived. Well, mine and yours. The degenerate down there doesn't have one."

"Hey! I'm no more of a degenerate than you are! Either of you!"

"And that's the bit you're going to complain about? Not the bit about having no soul?"

"I already knew about that," shrugged the hog-tied zombie. "Hasn't caused me any problems so far."

The human Katie once again filed that under things to ignore, then turned back to her fluffy-goddess version. "Well, thanks for protecting me, I suppose."

"Actually, I didn't."

Katie raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"Don't give me the eyebrow! I didn't need to; there wasn't anything to protect you from. Whatever it was failed miserably. I think it was built to infect a slightly different soul structure. It's trying to adapt, but at this rate, it'll take a hundred years."

"Okay, fine. Planet?"

Katie closed her eyes, perceiving the world through inhuman senses.

"There's... two entities, I think? The soul thing came from one, but the one I picked up from home is different. I think the soul one is artificial?"

"I suggest we try to talk to the one that isn't mucking around with souls," suggested Katie. "Worse than mind control."

Katie nodded, looking around again. "She's that way," she said, pointing.

"I thought she was the entire planet. How can she be 'that way'?"

"Well, where are you?"

"Uh... Here?"

"Yes, but where exactly? If you needed to point to a single place, where would it be?"

Katie frowned, failing to understand the question.

"I mean, are you there?" asked Katie, pointing at Katie's feet. "Or there?" she added, pointing at her face.

"Oh, so we're going to find the planet's brain?"

"Yeah, sure. Let's go with that," answered Katie, picking up Katie by a rope and adjusting space slightly so they didn't have to walk so far. As small as the planet was, it was still a bit large for a casual stroll from one side to the other, but she wanted to see at least some scenery while they were visiting, so she refrained from teleporting.

"They have a really weird vandalism problem here," commented Katie as a herd of horses galloped past a couple of minutes later.

"I don't think that can be explained by vandalism," disagreed Katie as she spotted a flock of hexauyo grazing in the distance.

"I'm not sure that can be explained by anything."

"Maybe a page of that catalogue they order humans from got creased, and they ended up with two things glued together?"

"Makes as much sense as anything else."

The trio continued walking in silence for a while, the landscape blurring away behind them. Or rather, two of them continued walking while the third dangled.

"That's an oak tree," commented Katie.

"Yes? So?"

"Well, since this world has... whatever the heck those green, feathered things were, why does it have normal oak trees? Just like the way it supposedly has normal humans, even if we haven't seen one yet. I'm really starting to like that catalogue theory."

"Point taken."

The walk continued for a few more uneventful minutes, and then Synklisi came into view.

"That's a city," observed Katie.

"More of a town," disagreed Katie.

"Either way, it's a settlement. Did we find the humans?"

"I did say the population was under a hundred thousand. It's not a surprise we didn't bump into any on our way. Interestingly, the one we want to speak to is apparently right in the middle of the place. I somehow doubt that's a coincidence. Keep your eyes out for a big temple, or... I dunno. A giant gold statue that the natives are all bowing to? Something suitably ostentatious."

They continued walking for a few seconds more.

"Okay, now you need to untie her. You can't walk around like that in public."

"Why not?"

"Because... Well... You just can't."

"It's not as if anyone's being immodest. Besides, maybe they don't care about that sort of thing here."

They turned out not to care about that sort of thing there. The trio of Katies attracted some strange looks, but no-one said anything.

"This is weird..." said Katie.

"Yeah. I actually agree with you," said Katie as she swung, greatly surprising Katie. "I'd expect the kids to point and laugh, if nothing else."

"Or clamp themselves to my tails," added the final Katie, before frowning. "Dammit. We picked the wrong entity to talk to," she muttered.

"Huh? How so?"

"Looks like both the world-spanning presences are mucking around with souls. This one is just not so proactive about it; she's not trying to adapt to you or respond in any way to her failure, so I didn't notice it at first, but now that I can see some natives, it turns out she's got her hooks in everyone. They aren't pointing and laughing because she's mucking around with their behaviour via soul manipulation. It's the bloody demons all over again."

"Should we pick a different world?"

"Maybe, but now that we're here, I do kinda want to find out what's going on. And maybe kick her butt. I know this isn't my world, but still... If she's anything like the demon lord's brother, I'm gonna get cross."

"Where's the butt of a planet?" asked Katie, somehow radiating bogus innocent curiosity despite still swinging around in a hog-tie.

Katie and Katie ignored her, continuing their walk while the local brainwashed population completely failed to see any problem with Katie's situation.

"Their behaviour aside, either people are very into cosplay around here, or there are some variations on the theme of human going on," observed Katie as they passed a gossiping group of beastkin.

"Our world has the fox-kin. But yeah, there's blatantly dwarfs and elves around too. And I'd swear the dude that just walked into that house had four arms."

"Beastkin certainly aren't something that should evolve naturally."

"They certainly didn't on my world. Harder to tell here, but I don't think they're natural. Their biology is slightly different from the regular humans, but they're all the same internally, despite the massive differences in their animal characteristics. I don't see how that could happen via regular evolution."

"Didn't Anya mention she made a tribe of beastkin once?" chimed in the zombie.

"Yeah, she did. I guess sticking animal bits on humans is a common thing?"

"Well, yes; it's cute," agreed Katie. "Besides, you're not allowed to express surprise. Have you looked in a mirror recently?"

Katie swished her collection of self-inflicted tails, fox ears twitching atop her head.

"Point," admitted Katie. "Or heck, maybe these are the ones Anya was talking about."

Before getting the chance to follow that train of thought any further, she paused her stride down the street. "Well, that's not a temple," she commented.

Katie followed her gaze to the tall wall and wide gate that crossed the end of the street. "Could be hiding behind those walls?" she suggested.

"No way. Look at the people going in and out. All heavily armed."

"Oh no," opined the zombie. "Please don't tell me it's a dungeon. I never want to set foot in another one of them again."

The tails of the goddess froze up, along with her ears. One eye twitched. Then she handed the zombie Katie to the human Katie—who immediately dropped her on account of being human and not having quite the upper body strength of the goddess Katie—and started marching off towards the gate, elbows and knees hardly bending.

"Wow, she's angry," said Katie from the floor. "Also; ouch."

"Sorry."

"No problem."

"Look, I know you're heavily into this whole bondage thing, but I'm not carrying you. It's not practical. Get up and walk," said Katie, reaching for a silk rope and unknotting it.

"Aww. But fine. We should probably go after her."

The pair of Katies chased after the third, who was having an argument with a guard at the gate.

"Oh? You're all going in together?" asked the guard, clicking his tongue in annoyance. "Why didn't you just say you were here for the slime instead of all that... that..."

His face blanked briefly as the fact that he couldn't remember any of the conversation—which had involved a lot about Katie shouting about souls and mind control—was papered over by Erryn's Law.

"Anyway, just head on in. And next time, be honest. Some days I swear half the foot traffic through here is for her, so there's no call to be ashamed about it."

Katie blinked, trying to imagine either of the other two Katies displaying any shame whatsoever. The picture simply didn't fit into her head. It was like trying to picture an ice cube floating in lava, or a cloud on fire.

"Why did he think we were here to see a slime?" she asked instead.

"No idea."

"Okay. Next question, then; where's the way in?" she tried, looking around and seeing nothing but a ring of crystals floating in the air.

"Don't know, don't care," she answered, looking through the floor with more than eyes, scanning for souls that weren't parasitised by any external entity, and finding one on the sixth floor of the dungeon. Alas that she stopped on the first one she saw, rather than continuing to look, or the human Katie may have escaped the world with a greater proportion of her sanity intact. "I wasn't intending to waste more time," she added, teleporting the trio into a room of sultry pink.

"What the hell?!" exclaimed the slime who was most emphatically not called Blobby, looking up from where she'd been carefully painting the nails of an equally surprised delver.