I woke up in a panic and a heap of dress. The flock of sheep and their drifting wool particles had long since disappeared, but my fears had not.

Flailing to life, I swished myself out from the head of a silky, cream-colored dress and saw the light of day. A hard burst of wind slapped the branches, and shimmering sun, too bright, hit my eyes. Wiping them clear, I came back to my senses.

Or tried to.

Forget drifting asleep without meaning to. Why had I ever decided to leave a friend’s dear dirty heirloom quilt with a stranger?! D’ugh! And that stranger was probably mad at me for scuffing up their dress…which I didn’t even have Inventory room for!

But when I looked out in front of me, I calmed down. There was the quilt, immaculately folded. Its many holes had been sewn up, and while the tears were still noticeable under tan and white stitches, clearly this was the best that shepherd could have done. It had been mended with care and even love.

On top of the quilt were two little baggies, tied up with string, and a folded note.

Well, in case that shepherd had telepathy, I mentally offered two question-marked thank-yous and a “sorry I can’t read.”

I stepped out of the dress and pawed the note open anyway. To my swimming eyes, it read:

…a…a…a…a…ac…a…ta…t…a…, t…ta…, t…at…t…t…ac… …a…t…a…a…a…a.

- …..c… …

Gee whiz. Yeah. This stunk on ice. But if I held onto the note, no doubt I could read it one of these days.

Then I turned to the baggies. Deciding to go all-in with my trust, I chewed the strings apart and revealed:

A bag full of gold pieces?! After I stared at them intensely, wondering what-all was engraved on them and whether they were any use, I…accidentally Inventorized them. As in, I involuntarily stashed them into whatever vault was holding my winnings from the Quest at the Beacon-chapel-place.

Gold?

Error: Invalid request.

Sigh… It was probably sitting in Sierra’s heavenly vault, collecting heavenly interest. Perhaps someday I could ask my heavenly mom for my heavenly allowance.

At least I wouldn’t have to worry about it taking up a storage slot.

The baggie full of cookies, though… They looked and smelled like a spicy kind of pecan shortbread. Temporarily booting out the Lady Canny statuette, I dunked one cookie in my Inventory.

Food: Pecan Zinger With a base of hollownut flour and flavorings of pecan, rosemary, lysom zest, and pepperdot, this cookie is sure to be a hit with humans everywhere, even those with common dietary sensitivities. Cats will hate it.

Eh, they could come in handy, particularly if I was starving out of my mind. I just wasn’t ready to expend the SP necessary to eat them. I doubted whether I ever would be. The delight humans got from these floury rocks of sweetness had yet to make sense to me.

M-maybe they could be repurposed as a gift to Reed, too, along with the mended quilt. It’d be a regift, but she didn’t have to know that!

With no animals of a higher threat level than crawling, neon-green caterpillars out and about, I dealt with my Inventory. It was a long, tedious brainteaser of shuffling pieces around, mulling furiously over which things I wanted and why, and taking in-between nibbles from my old rabbit corpse. Yeah, my Inventory didn’t preserve anything…this meat was starting to get a little rotty.

With the rabbit gone, that meant I could hold everything I wanted!!

Except the pink lotus flower.

Wait, why did I still…

Poof. A flower—the perfect size to fit on my head, a decent color to resemble Reed’s head if you squinted—drifted to earth. It was delightful and quaint, the way it spun as it swayed through the air, landing with a flouncing curtsey…

Stolen novel; please report.

I didn’t have to tap too hard into my Wisdom to divine the reasons I’d kept this. It wasn’t just the flower I’d used to get the blue witch lady to point me toward Reed. It was a nice little object, in and of itself. It was a comforting object, like a certain Vencian someone’s quilt.

I didn’t really need it. In fact, my old self on Earth would’ve ditched it by now…though maybe with a heavy heart.

Briefly I scooped up the dress. I felt bad for it, as if it was a living being I was about to leave behind.

Peasant Costume Dress Though Vencian peasants didn’t actually wear silk, the V patterns wrapped around the sleeves and hemline of this dress combined with the sandy color make this an acceptably faithful recreation of a Resolution-Era South Vencian dress.

Wait, never mind. After receiving this history lesson devoid of any useful-sounding info, I stopped feeling guilty about it.

Furthermore, as a cat who had never called that kindly shepherd my “friend,” and without a single pencil to my name, I couldn’t be relied upon to politely hand this dress back, assuming they even wanted it.

I scanned it all again. The satchel of Pecan Zingers on the ground, and the five things in my official possession.

Inventory: 5/5 Koi Corpse

Nourishing, but won’t heal HP or SP.

Reed’s Quilt

Lady Canny Statuette

Heidschi’s Letter

A handwritten letter of salutation and parting signed by Heidschi Opus.

Pink Lotus Flower

…Grrrgh! I could find more koi later! I would find more koi later!

Ejecting a floppy, nearly fresh fish body from thin air, I took the Zingers. Reed was going to appreciate them so hard.

Then I ate that well-earned fish and…ugh, too much meat too fast. Now I felt like vomiting.

I stood motionless, hoping that the queasiness would pass. As I did so, I watched a few caterpillars crawl across roots, seemingly happy as caterpillars could be.

Should I…slap them off? Even if I was saving my Experience for when I needed a big charge?

Yeah—yeah, no question. Boff.

EXP: 98% (1613/1650)

Cool. Okay, soon my stomach would feel more settl—

I heard something that made me freeze up. That fateful sound, more out-of-place than a goose honk or a car horn or even a drum.

It was a conversation between two humans, just behind this thicket, just one Leap away.

Proceed with caution, Taipha.

Due south, between me and the next leg of the Vencian Woods, were a couple of chatty humans. Either I could do this the easy way and avoid them, or do the more interesting thing and sit in the shade of bushes, taking their conversation in. And who knew, maybe that second option would lead to strokes of kindness. I took the second option.

After putting an ear close to the bush I was about to stand behind, making sure that no clumps of vicious ladybugs or anything was waiting inside to stab me, I hunkered down. Then I listened, squinting through the brambles.

I could see legs and feet, one pair a lot shorter than the other. The voices confirmed they were an adult and child.

“…more minutes,” said the woman.

“But I don’t wanna,” said the kid.

The woman was frustrated, but kept her attitude soft. “What part of ‘amazing giant mansion haunted for untold centuries’ don’t you understand?” she said. “Is that not cool to you?”

“Not for a whole week,” the kid grumbled. Their leg jerked and kicked up dirt.

Ooh. Okay.

That didn’t necessarily sound like it’d be on my Map, but it did promise adventure.

It also made me wonder how this woman (guessing she was a mom) had endured the kid’s complaints for the whole trip so far. That car trip must’ve been…oh yeah, they probably didn’t have cars here…their foot trip? Teleporting?

The legs trotted away. I almost wanted to follow right behind, but I mostly wanted to remain unseen. Sure, maybe they’d be nice to me…but did I really want a bratty kid and a put-upon parent to even notice me? It sounded like a two-star family movie waiting to happen.

Plus, I had Stealth. The boost from it was so small it had never ended up mattering to date, but the reassurance of my hiddenness was good. I wobbled a paw before my eyes for a moment, testing my Speed. Yep, Stealth was active—nobody was watching me right now. I tiptoed out of the bush and, carefully monitoring my pace and making sure not to rouse the plants around me, walked at around the same speed as the mother and child, always staying half a meter away.

I started to walk beside them. Quick glances told me they were dressed in flowing robes edged with silver—great clothes for wizards, but not for traveling, since they’d get caught on everything. Which did happen a few times, on pointy bushes. Maybe these two were like the blue-haired witch with the really tall shoes: homebodies who preserved their fashion by never leaving long or walking far.

If that was true, would they have a cabin nearby? Between Donovan the ranger, Heidschi the shepherd, and now these losers, the Vencian Wood was getting more human-populated than I’d initially assumed it was.

Suddenly—

“Stop,” the mother whispered. And she sniffed, and I stopped in my tracks.

This wasn’t ordinary human sniffing either. She was really, intently smelling something. I angled my face upward, gently and quietly, to try and see how she was doing it…and she sniffed like a totally different animal, head back and nostrils up.

It didn’t matter if her foes were camouflaged or distant. She could smell them, smell me.