A horrible sound woke me up, a sound entirely localized in my own head.
Treasure Re-Detected! Check your Map for the location.
Wha?!
Wait, not “wha.” Again I remembered the night, oh so long ago, when I received a weird notification about a Treasure that hadn’t been marked anywhere familiar on my Map. But now it was officially close by.
But wait…unless I’d rolled about fifty meters west in the night, why did it only notify me that the thing was closer now, huh?
Error: Invalid request.
But of course, a request for info tended to be an invalid request. And I was a little too groggy to head for the Help Desk right now. I chose to assume the System was just faulty so I could pin this on sysadmin error.
My eyes blinked open, and I struggled to rub away all the gooey eye-grit. At my curled back were Reed’s arm and side. She was still sleeping deeply, untroubled.
The sky was brightening, but a few stars remained clustered in the center, the very top, of the sky. Our fire was still up, but dying out, pretty much on schedule. The smell of the bull bones was beginning to rankle.
Hm. I checked my Map.
image [https://jmassat.com/wp-content/Catgirl%20System/Map/Map74-1.png]
Yeah, that’s where I thought I remembered it being.
The Treasure was in the heart of the mountains, so far in that we’d inevitably be wandering longer than it’d take to scrape off some poledust.
This really fired me up. While I hadn’t paid close attention to this Treasure or my Mapping Quest in a while, that was because so many other distractions had shown up. But this was immediate and it would be fast! Comparatively.
Don’t get me wrong, the other activities had all been welcome distractions—like friends and feeling at home and stuff—but still technically off-track, as far as Sierra’s System was concerned.
Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata Are you forgetting the fact that I’m the one who encouraged you to make friends with those distracting human girls?
Um, yes I am, because you never gave me an actual Quest for that! Even though you said you would if I was good and you admitted recently that I was QUITE good!
But you see, you did fulfill a sort of Quest. Because you got stuff out of the experience. Like magic. And life satisfaction, which supersedes all.
Does it, Sierra? Does it really?
My own independent life satisfaction was one thing, but Sierra and her custom catgirl System giving me my due, that was another.
I yawned, and as I yawned I hoped my failing tongue might swish the System notification away. It didn’t.
A second, very loud yawn followed. The living pillow that’d served me so well was now threatening to crush me.
I yanked myself out of Reed’s way. Not completely. In the process of rolling fully over, her rib cage landed on my tail.
Ow.
Was she awake yet?
…No, she wasn’t awake.
If Trial One had been pulling my arm out from her comatose form, Trial Two would be freeing my tail. The difficulty ramp was steep. My tail was technically more mobile, but at the cost of being physically weak, both offensively and defensively. A numb leg returning to feeling, with that pins-and-needles sensation, could be pretty painful. A numb tail hurt at least fifty percent worse.
To the point that I found it necessary to check my HP and make sure it wasn’t dripping out from under me.
HP 100% (443/443) SP 100% (378/378)
Okay, good.
So! I’d decided! This time I wouldn’t try nudging it out little by little. The pain was too urgent! I’d tug it out all at once, in a single move.
I got in position to take off running, although I knew I’d only be running for a second at most.
…Threetwoone go!
Skripp!
Agh! Ow! I’d managed to free just under half of my tail, but the part still trapped under Reed felt rugburned and badly prickled by the grass.
Ow…let’s go again.
Threetwoone g—
G-ghh! Gg-geuuurgh, my Speed just lurched! Some animal was watching me!
Right on the top of the boulder, no less—the boulder that Reed had picked out so proudly.
What was that? Some kind of…lemmingy…gophery…marmoty thing with a single horn on their head. A long, black, ratlike tail dripped down beside them. And their beady little eyes were pointed at me.
Y’know, on Earth I did have moments of profound embarrassment. (In fact, this situation mirrored a time many years ago when, somehow, I got the tip of my tail caught in the bottom of a car door, and, peeking out from the edge of a trash bag, an entire family of mice watched me.)
But apparently in the Vencian Wood, I was guaranteed to bump into that kind of weird kerfuffle at least once every sixteen hours.
I contemplated launching a Fire Spell at the horned marmot, but…then I realized I didn’t really have unlimited Fire Spells. Three out of five felt comfortable, but if I got down to two out of five, not even halfway through the journey—and burned that number-three fireball on some random marmot that might not even turn out to be dangerous—then I’d be kicking myself.
Agh, but my tail was the main thing! Get away, marmot, but mostly get away Reed’s sleeping torso and painful rib cage!
Threetwoone go!
Shriff!
It worked! It w—oh you’ve gotta be kidding me, the very tip was still caught. Only after I’d danced a dance of preemptive triumph did I find that out.
Ow.
The marmot didn’t cackle. They didn’t squeal. They only snorted uncomfortably loudly.
Go find something better to do…
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Tapping into my prodigious Intelligence, I realized I needed much less force than earlier to pull out the remainder of my tail. (See? I can use words like “remainder.”)
Three, two…gently pull…
And I was free.
And I chased after the marmot already.
The boulder, you see, wasn’t totally vertical. Nor was it comfortably angled for anyone but mountain dwellers to scale—but hey, if snow leopards could do it, why not me? At any rate, this would be brief.
(Hopefully.)
I scrambled up the side of the boulder, and I am legitimately proud to say that I was halfway up when the marmot turned tail, spread the bat wings they suddenly had, and took off flying.
Sigh, I thought. Also, Yes! I know that’s a contradiction, but convincing your foes that you are a valid enough threat that escape is necessary is a kind of victory. Apparently one that you get no Experience Points for, though.
The critter did a few marvelous rings in the air before disappearing into the distance. Meanwhile, with the help of gravity and many scanty footholds, I gently stepped backward and downward, off the slope.
“That’s a hell marmot,” said a familiar voice. Reed must have awakened mere moments ago, because her words were a wibbly yawn.
I trotted down to meet her. And meat her, as in, join her with meat, the same meat we’d enjoyed last night.
That’s not innuendo.
***
Though the mist in the fields had passed, the clouds around the Kaugs’ base looked no calmer than they had the day before. Now that we were inching closer, though, the full array of colors they held was getting clearer. Most of it did look like ordinary clouds, but at the outermost border of all that seemed to be the deep sea. And I mean sand as well as water, swishing tails, jets of muted green and yellow, and those rare coral explosions. All dressed up in puffy silk gowns.
We also got the opportunity to see a strange exchange of clouds. More than once, clouds descended from the sky and slid down into the Kaugs’ cauldron. Clouds from the cauldron likewise joined the sky, scooting off toward the swamp we’d just been through.
Many cows and bulls were out grazing, each one standing off on their own. Occasionally they groaned or mooed to each other. I was unprepared for how loud—but docile—their calls could be.
After we ate some of the beef rations and swigged some of our water, Reed asked, “Do you have any morning exercises?”
Uh? Well, I knew Chora had a bunch, but aside from some simple stretching in the morning and playing throughout the day, most animals didn’t have what you’d call exercise routines, so…I shook my head.
She looked disappointed. “Oh… I’ll just make this quick.”
A minute later, she had un-compacted a whole entire home gym set and was bench-pressing for her life. Even before the sun had risen, she was sweating rain.
“Nnnnnyeuuurgh!”
I watched her steadily, even though she’d told me that I could go off and do “something more exciting.”
“Haaaaaurgh!!”
She lifted it for the fifth and most excruciating time. I would’ve expected her body to end up shivering—not from temperature, of course, but from sheer strain and exertion—but besides her arms, every part of her was locked in place. Discipline!
She suddenly sat upright and flung the weight onto the ground two meters away, where it clanked and pulverized the ring of rocks.
“Yay!” Reed said with a sad, sweaty smile. “I made it, although I might’ve lost some HP in the process, heh heh…” She frowned. “Ha…”
Don’t worry, Reed! We’re so close to the mountains now, and the bigger threats seem to be avoiding us.
I walked over and jumped onto the bench, beside her leg. I offered my back: rubbies.
She was hesitant. “But my hands are so sweaty.”
I only stretched more.
Cringingly, she rubbed my back.
She was right. It did feel gross.
And yet I didn’t regret it one bit. Partly because the sun, with its evaporative powers, was beginning to heat up. In fact, I predicted that today would become the hottest, sunniest day I’d lived through in these woods to date.
Well, it would right before becoming the coldest one once we entered the Kaugs, so, uh, hopefully I wouldn’t catch a fever.
Soon Reed gathered up the debris of the campsite and the workout. The dying fire puffed itself out for good and the fuel self-condensed.
Reed kicked at the flattened grass, looking a bit ashamed—maybe remembering dmAge’s crew and the way they trampled and scattered. We weren’t that different, but, um, we were cooler. I dunno, I’m a glorified cat. Your “morally gray” is my “meow” as I do something else that’s less complicated and more related to my immediate existence and happiness.
Just kidding, I was sickened by my own loose morals more and more every day!
…Just kidding again, but the very fact I could joke about that by now was pretty telling.
Anywho, we’d find out more about what DeGalle was really all about when we bumped into her crew in a few hours.
We continued our trek down the beaten path. It was easier than ever to observe how the smaller animals tended to consciously stay out of a human’s way. Rats who’d gathered in the middle of the road around a dead squirrel would scatter, and strolling doves flapped away. The only one that didn’t rush off after the first glance was a tortoise, and probably because that was impossible.
“Wow,” Reed said softly as our walk brought us closer. “Can you see those lines of red and blue on their back? Such a nice pattern.”
Ah, now the tortoise was running off. Sort of. With a big, waddling turn, they turned decidedly toward the tall grass.
“Uh…” Reed coughed uncomfortably. “This may sound uninformed, like a rich girl saying she wants to be ‘one of the peasants,’ but sometimes I just want to walk around without any of the baggage that humans still take with them everywhere. Like any other animal. Or even like a spirit, to be honest.”
My response was surprisingly coherent. (And impossible to share right now.)
It wasn’t possible to walk around without bringing along baggage, no matter the creatures you’d encounter, no matter your species.
Even I, a cat in a world where there seemed to be about five cats at most, and all dead or kept as pets by werewolves, was perceived some kind of way. Small animals perceived me as a threat or a competitor. The ones who ignored me weren’t really ignoring me, not the way Reed wanted. It was conscious ignorance for a toothless threat, treating me with disdain.
To get what Reed was after, you’d have to be totally unobserved. A spirit with no form or substance or magic aura. A camera without any physical casing.
“I don’t know if you know—what am I saying, you have to know—that now and then throughout history, humans have done so much damage to the natural world that…whole habitats were basically razed. We try to guard against it. But we’re not that good at it. Other animals have trouble trusting us.”
True, and true enough of the humans I’d known on Earth. But until very recently, no other animal had trusted me either.
And I was inclined to think that the individual acts made by individual creatures—rather than a wave-motion welcome by the whole of the animal kingdom—was not only the best that Reed and me both could expect, but much more valuable, somehow, and precious.
Thank you boosted Intelligence and Wisdom.
Oh, and speaking of this from a more practical standpoint, Reed and I still kinda smelled like blood. Her sword and stained pants still looked like blood. Bull meat smells don’t just come out of your skin and fur after a good night’s rest, and while Reed had changed her shirt at some point after dressing that bull, she’d seemingly changed nothing else. Being a cat, I was, aside from habitually licking myself, “a total slob” in human terms. So all this didn’t bother me.
Nor did it bother the animals around us, really. Which seemed weird, looking back? I mean, wolves had to be on their way…we heard a howl last night…
Evidently, Reed had the same idea. Minutes after her last musings, she said, “Hmm. If wild dogs aren’t on our trail, I’d be extremely surprised.”
“Meow.”
“But we’re ready for them, right?”
“Meow!”
“And we have more than enough Spells on us t—”
I literally stopped in my tracks, because maybe we didn’t. At least, maybe I didn’t.
Inventory: 5/5
Chora’s Crystal Ring
Debug Blade
Fire Spell x3
Minor Heal x4
Attack Up x3
Alright, this wasn’t bad. Especially the Minor Heals.
But by the tone of Reed’s voice, she was somewhat more worried.
“That’s okay!” Reed said hastily, starting to power-walk ahead. “We’ll make this quick enough that we won’t need that many!”
No! No way! I wasn’t going to tiptoe into the Kaugs just long enough to grab poledust! Not only was there DeGalle’s crew to meet, but there was Treasure to be had! And clearly this one was more important than any my System had detected so far, since it’d been on the Map for so long!
I stopped in place right there on the path, then shook my head with a fury! “M-mrao-o-ow!” I grumbled.
“No?” Reed frowned. “No to what?”
I kept grumbling as I darted forward and back. Then I lowered my voice to a purr as I made the same circuit, only at a quarter of the speed.
“You want us to go slowly?”
I nodded.
She nodded back. “Alright. We can…manage that.”
Problem solved…ish? I galloped up to Reed and together we kept walking.
Right until the group of grazing bovines coming up on our left side froze mid-chew.
I was very adept at reading this kind of sign, Reed less so. But the moment she noticed me freezing this time, she followed suit. We kept our eyes locked on the small herd, wondering what they would do.
Answer: they closed ranks. The cattle shuffled closer together, making sure that the skinniest among them—probably old or sick—were caught in the middle.
Then they stood their ground, keeping their eyes turned toward the deeper grassland. As Reed and I did too.
Now we could all hear them. Distinct shuffling sounds in the grass. Ever so quiet, but suddenly ever so plain.
We heard a telltale pant.
Reed’s words echoed in my mind: “This time, we’ll be ready!”
Now or never, baby!
Four pointy gray heads poked out of the grass. Oh, come on, four of them? Heck no, we couldn’t fight that.
They came springing out of the green, straight for the bulls. Four young, short wolves, with darkness around their eyes and odd tails that streaked behind them like striped flags—okay wait, these were raccoons.
About fourteen more followed right behind them.
Within a moment, raccoons had swarmed the cattle’s feet and hides, and were swarming so ferociously that the bulls not only backed off, but did so at full speed while baying to the heavens. Their formation shattered as they ran off panicked.
Yeah, we couldn’t fight these either, but it seemed like we were far enough away that they had no interest inoh my gosh, they WERE coming after us!
“Aah!” Reed cried, taking off.
“Maah!” I cried, taking off.
We heard a snarl, all too close. A raccoon was hanging off the bloodstreaked edge of Reed’s sword! Their body was flopping in the air, but their teeth were practically stapling their body to the weapon!
“Aah!” Reed cried, shaking the raccoon around.
“Heeeeegh!” they hissed.
“Guh!” With a smack of her sword against the ground, Reed banged off the raccoon. On the verge of weeping, she moaned, “Why do they hate me? Why do they hate me?!”
I dunno, Reed.
Raccoons are just that way sometimes.