Cornutopia Topaz #3 One of three enchanting shiny rocks originally housed in three beacon towers across the Cornutopia amusement park. Two of those towers have collapsed, but the gemstones live on in the private collections of looters. They enhance light beams shone through them, making them brighter and vaguely magical, fostering plant growth.
I thought back on the big gem I’d just shamelessly looted with surprising disinterest. Surely someone back at the cabin would love it, but to me, it was a little ho-hum.
Then again, maybe that wasn’t apathy talking, but the fact that an irritating little fairy was kicking around on my back as I stepped out of the lighthouse. My eyes were practically glued to the upper-right corners of my skull-brows.
Just a minute ago, she would not stop crying, and it was super uncanny to see an adult-looking-yet-small creature sobbing with the voice of a fieldmouse. And she was squirming around like a strangled worm! Didn’t she find it kind of embarrassing?
Well, given how gleeful she was now, cheering and thumping her fists and ankles on my back as if that would get me to speed up…fairies couldn’t be embarrassed by anything.
I was half a second away from bucking and throwing her off my back.
Then half a second passed, and another half a second…
I am so soft, I realized, not without wonder.
On the outside, I slowed my pace and kept to the dark, making my way towards the crime scene and the carousel. On the inside, I pondered. Maybe this was another good change…maybe it was something I’d gotten from Reed.
She had threatened me on our first meeting, but after that, it had all been unconditional…hugs.
The fairy kicked out, and her ankle hit my shoulder blade wrong.
I decided, I will not hug her.
Y’know, this fairy was slightly incompatible with the idea of stealth. Even if throwing her off my back was out—for mushy sentimental reasons—I could still scrape her off on something.
Okay, no I couldn’t. But…
There was a playground area, with steeds on springs. Sure, what had once been a sandbox was now absolutely disgusting by any human standard, but---but the steeds were here!
Instead of scraping her off on a proper saddle, I brought myself so close that she could not possibly miss my meaning. Infuriatingly, the fairy only gripped me harder.
I gave her a low growl. Lest she forget I beat her up earlier.
At that, she crawled like a bug onto the saddle. Then she began to rock the toy cow. Even with what little Strength she had unarmed, the cow quivered ever so slightly forward and backward.
Then I clambered onto a springy ox and did the same, only so vigorously that in two rocks the spring screeched in half and I fell to the ground.
This time I ascribed my failure to being too talented.
***
image [https://jmassat.com/wp-content/Catgirl%20System/Map/Map105-1.png]
Current Location: Festive Field (S.F3)
Sub-Location: Cornutopia
Sub-Sub-Location: Murder Scene
While there was nothing new to see once I got closer to that suspicious, blood-flecked ruin, just standing there felt uncanny. A combination of the story, the shimmer traces, the blood and webbing, and any lingering powers Murder might have left on it made no part of me want to stay here long.
I peeked past the long, stiff feathers fencing off the portal. Then I moved a paw forward between the feathers—and felt pressure.
The air there distorted and darkened. Ah, I could guess this was a barrier. That made me feel a little more at ease. Some authority figure, creepy as he was, had to be working on this.
I turned away and my thoughts were an arrow, streaking towards the carousel, my goals. Out of my burlap sack came a sword.
I paused.
Grabbing and un-grabbing this sword until the Stats it gave me were up to par was still my killer strategy. It’d never really worked…but it was about to.
It would destroy all semblance of stealth, which stung—but what was stealth in the face of an absolute steamroller? Besides, running around like a horsey with a glowing rider, not to mention flashing the whole park, had damaged that enough.
No more waiting and no more hiding. Time to get in some actual practice reps with the golden blade.
First I used a Meditate…then another. I knew it was just procrastination, but at least it was productive procrastination. Not for the Stat gains that might instantly be nullified. For the calm it gave my mind, and the way it evened out my breathing.
A tension left my back, one I hadn’t even known had lingered there. (Darn fairy.)
Then I Morphed, and sat crisscrossed on the unhallowed ground. I centered my intentions in my mind: to grab on and let go really really fast until I saw the big numbers in the right places.
It was going to hurt, but it was going to hurt the raccoons more.
On the inbreath, I grabbed it.
WIS -1176 (+100%) (x-7)
LET GO LET GO LET GO!
WIS 168 (+100%)
GRAB IT GRAB IT GRAB IT!
WIS 336 (+100%) (x2)
LET GO LET—SHOOT, WAIT, DON’T LET IT GO, THAT WAS FINE!
WIS 168 (+100%)
Ugh, okay, GRAB IT AGAIN!
WIS -840 (+100%) (x-5)
My head is swimming—u-uh, I mean, LET IT GO!
WIS 168 (+100%)
The cycle continued for longer than I’d meant for it to. Either I missed my own “let go” cue or I forgot to note how workably high my Stats were. Sometimes the Blade was dangerous not because of the wonky Stat loss, but because I wanted to hold it forever and ever, brain damage or no brain damage.
A drug I would need to stop a monster several orders more powerful than me.
There came a moment when I just knew I should hold the blade. I don’t think it had jacked my Stats as high as they’d gone just seconds earlier, but I had to stay on the ride this time.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
HP 99% (680/685) SP 15% (583/3960)
ATK 512 (+x4)
INT 0 (x0)
DEF 89
WIS 504 (+100%) (x3)
SPD 107
Feeling like a co-pilot in my own mind, I found myself…smiling.
Now I was acting on a mix of intuition and raw emotion. Things suppressed, things that had been weaker in me, now bubbled up to the fore.
I had hated losing the tree I had called my own. I had hated it, and to have forgotten that pain and felt that it was minor now seemed like a cruel injustice, self-inflicted though it was.
The blade felt right in my hand, and would sing with blood! Anger resolved itself into a kind of chipperness, satisfied that it would get me what I really wanted. I actually hop-skipped away. This sent me blundering into more than one tree, but I kept on because I must’ve decided that practice makes perfect—eventually.
I should’ve guessed that almost every willow close to that carousel would be hiding rascally raccoons. Either they were serving as dedicated nighttime guards or annoyed that I’d woken them up. They could be annoyed while they howled from the pain of a slice to the bone! With mere whips of my blade as I skipped past, any tree with the faintest whisper of a raccoon was slashed. In my path rained branches, squeals, and a few louder whumps.
EXP: 76% (2725/3600)
Before I knew it, I was standing in the valley before the carousel. The rusted yet majestic machine of yesterday was—
Oh, no time to take it in? Okay.
My body was too busy rampaging ahead, slashing one-handed and yet with a power I could not conceive.
As soon as my sandals hit that valley, half the raccoons swarming that carousel—half the shadow-lumps resting on the roof, on the unmoving cattle, in the grooves—had lunged to get me. Not that they would!
A cluster of raccoons latched onto my body. They were heavy, but my legs were stronger, anchoring me. I would never fall. Nor would I ever pay attention to my HP as the raccoons began immediately to glow and bite. And I wouldn’t balk at the worst of the wounds in my side.
A whipping motion with my head and my blade killed many and scattered more.
Level Up!
Lv. 24 → Lv. 25
My damage was instantly nullified. Why had any part of me even worried?
A heel stomped a muzzle, kicking through the teeth even without the gold blade.
Level Up!
Lv. 25 → Lv. 26
New Skill!
I stopped for nothing and no one. In the middle of the rocking tides (rocked, of course, by my churning blade and ever-spinning body) was a raccoon with a furious glow, maybe a boss raccoon, surrounded by an aura of deep, unmixed red and blue.
If this gave me fear, it was drowned out and overwhelmed. Sheer thrill was the part that mattered. It fed on my anger and the bones of the beaten and dead.
Poke! I thought as I backhanded the blade softly into the raccoon’s gut. It broke the skin even through what had to be an advanced Guard.
Poke!! I thought a moment later. Undeterred by the fact that this hadn’t been another one-shot kill, I simply performed the same move again. This one hit the vitals!
The raccoon screamed and rolled over, revealing its belly. How nice of them to surrender! I continued stabbing the weak point until I got the tingles of a Level Up. Then I stabbed more.
This wasn’t the last of the raccoons, but it seemed to be the last of them that mattered. After the big red-blue one fell, whatever raccoons weren’t too weak to stand had started backing off. The scarediest ones had even run off!
All around, I smelled the urine and hormones of defeat. This made me happier. I could always be more happy, though.
So I charged at the raccoons still haunting the carousel, never afraid to use a Leap to catch one darting off, more than willing to use a single strong arm to hoist myself up to the roof. This game of hide-and-seek wasn’t as adrenaline-pumping, but it did give me some jolts now and then to keep me moving.
Level Up!
Lv. 28 → Lv. 29
Sierra’s Tip: If you “go Beast Mode” like this, you’re basically shirking all the Stat bonuses that comes from real, dedicated training. That deficit makes a difference, so you might be sorry once you wake up with that hangover.
Whuh? I thought, hazily, as I shattered a porcelain lizard with a misplaced kick.
Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata Wow, I didn’t even realize how hilarious this would be! Hi, Taipha! Don’t you have any burning questions for me?
Can’t see, I thought. It was a bare statement, not even meant for her.
Well, you’re doing great out there. Or are you? Man, that’s the fun of life. You never really know until you know.
Can’t see, I thought, misplacing another kick. At least the head of the medusa-slug had crushed a raccoon, so in that way it was a success. Heh heh.
Wait, did you just say “huh huh”?
In another blank statement, I thought, No no.
Well, a “carousel” is an amusement device created by humans that transcends universes. Here, I’ll provide you with more information:
My vision was flooded with carousel information: photos, technical drawings, the different paint schemes of the roofs of iconic carousels from across at least three galaxies.
Ordinarily, I would’ve thought something like an infuriated NO NO! Instead, I only thought whuh whuh? and wondered at my sudden lack of relevant vision. I crashed again into part of the carousel, but this time it was my aching head.
Which ached all the harder, but now that I was knocked out, at least I wouldn’t be awake to feel it. Yet.