As I sat in the higher boughs of a tree and took a mental break, I pulled out the Book of Sister’s Shadow, kind of just to browse. I know how weird it sounds to be pulling out a book of ambiguous destiny “just to browse,” but my mind wanted something familiar to chew over, and rereading old passages provided that kind of exercise. Like the emery board of the brain?
I was surprised to see a new entry on a once-blank page. This diary didn’t seem to “release” its entries on the same timetable as they’d been created. Going forward, I decided I’d pull it out whenever I had some quiet time and a bit of rest. I could use all the hints I could get, and yanking on the Sierra Hotline only to get the blandest possible “Sierra is unavailable” message was getting old.
So I immersed myself in what I had…or tried to immerse myself. It was still tough to know what to make of it.
And…apparently the author felt the same?
Maybe to follow the command of my Maker, I need to find the other animals like me. Nobody else in this wood seems able to shift forms. I have seen krigries exit cocoons, and I feel certain that there are caterpillars and butterflies. None can shift willfully to a butterfly and back.
But at least I can look like the humans. That is a start. Maybe the humans have some power they aren’t sharing and maybe I need to wise up and quit shifting.
Today I stayed like I was and toured the wood. Far east, I found a place reminiscent of Earth: what I always thought were human nests or the parts of a human mass migration spot. My Maker has left a note for me saying that this was a place for “vacations.” Semantics. It’s migration for the purpose of having fun and losing money.
I see there is a vacationer here, but I don’t know how best to make contact. The krigries are no help and their buzzing instantly scares them off.
I see the human stopping and writing. I have this book. Maybe there’s something there.
If Sapphire here was thinking that sharing this book with the human would get them to understand one another, then I had bad news for her.
Rrrgh! If she’d just give up the ghost and say what “her Maker” told her to do, I’d feel less like I was running in circles with this! There was a chance that she was misunderstood, or a murderer.
Not much to do but put the book away for now, just like the blade—
Ah, but she wrote something else…
On the back of this page was a map, which seemed to have been drawn with a light, deft hand. One that could make pretty precise squares and circles, unlike me. Then again, was anything in this book “written”? If the text was generated before my eyes, and looked just as uniform as printed text, then…probably not. The whole thing was confusing.
Either way…exactly where in Vencia the stuff on this minimap was, I didn’t know, but maybe when I got there, this would help me.
Thanks?
image [https://jmassat.com/wp-content/Catgirl%20System/Map/Map96-1.png]
This was halfway helpful. Whatever this “vacation spot” was, the Queen’s map only showed its contents as squares and circles. Arrows marked, in order from least-useful-to-Taipha to most-useful-to-Taipha, where the human vacationer was spotted, the square containing a “powerful stone,” and a couple of shapes where “lots of quadrupedal mammals” like to hang out.
Alright, maybe the Queen was a trooper. Lots of quadrupedal mammals meant lots of opportunities to beat animals up. I could use this info to make a few icons on the far-left side of my Map, and could transpose them once I knew precisely where this was.
A bit of fussing around with Map commands and…
image [https://jmassat.com/wp-content/Catgirl%20System/Map/Map96-2.png]
Perfect! Ish. Having the minimap bob around in space didn’t look right at all, but whatever, that’d just make me go faster in my rush to make it righter!
On that note, I put the Book back in my Inventory and jumped down to earth.
Wind whistled through the trees of a thickening forest, joining the birdsong. I trudged through the grass, which was lower and spottier now that the floral field had ended.
image [https://jmassat.com/wp-content/Catgirl%20System/Map/Map96-3.png]
Current Location: ??? (S.E2)
I was making a little progress, but nothing amazing ye—
Treasure Detected! Check your Map (again) for the location!
Oh?
I stopped my walk. Didn’t want to bump into a monster or a rock or anything like that just because I was walking with a mental piece of paper hanging in front of my face.
The snarkiness of that System prompt was…something. I suspected Sierra had something to do with it?
Huh???
Error: Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata is unavailable. Please leave a message.
I must’ve left ten messages on this thing by now, ranging from “uh, hi” to momentary rage. But I had nothing new to say, so it didn’t really seem worth it to leave another “why why why?!?!”
But my hypothesis could still stand! Sierra could be masterminding the System while she kept her phone in the other room—metaphorically! Or maybe literally. Nobody knew how this worked!
Well, the broader point of this was, I had a new Treasure? In the tumult of all that’d been happening, I almost forgot I could get those.
Just as I was about to open it, some strange commotion caught my attention.
Ahead of me, a squirrel went flying. A non-flying squirrel. They catapulted across my vision and went running in abject fear. I turned and saw what I guessed was the source of the fear: a hole in a tree.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Ordinarily, that hole would be dark enough that a human—or squirrel, I bet—peeking inside at daytime from a few meters off would see nothing. I could see more. There were the glints of eyes in that hollow, and several of them. My ears picked up a low burble.
Okay, I was sixty-five percent sure that was exactly the hollow I was looking for: an owl’s nest.
But how could I get the eggshells out without disturbing any other part of the scene?
I slinked back into the bushes and gave it some thought. Well, to start with, I didn’t know for sure if they were owls. If I had the wrong birds, any planning would be moot. Trying to scare them out would probably be pointless—they could very well be too young to fly.
Yeah, I could stick my head in, but that might be rude. I’d been rude to tons of animals before, but come on, these were babies! Plus, what if I stuck my head in and still didn’t get a clear view? If they were pecking and shouting everywhere, I’d just see a haze of feathers, and getting their eggshells would be extremely tough.
Wait…I had a technique for hiding myself. Couldn’t I use Cloak?
Um, that only made me undetectable to one creature at a time. Ugh, and it would’ve been perfect! I was certain I’d seen five or six glinting eyes in that hollow.
Well, I hadn’t exhausted my options yet. What’d I have? Air Cutter? No… Meat? Uh, the delicious smell of a hell marmot or a gackern could lure them out…and make them fall to their doom.
I did have a few Spells that could be useful. Aside from Lightning, Ice, Earth, Water, and Attraction, I had the contents of the burlap sack. I just didn’t have an easy way of accessing them!
Easy enough to remember, though. I had two Nature Spells, five High Gravities, five Low Gravities…oh, and I had the spirit board just in case I found any humans out here, plus a little camera I had scavenged from Bayce’s room.
Yeah, uh…don’t tell her about that.
Look, it was just lying on the floor, and it had a dent in its side. I didn’t think it was the same one she’d used to take pictures of frogs that one time, so she’d have more, right? And besides, she clearly wasn’t taking care of it!
Come to think of it, someone—or someones—might appreciate a photo of a few baby birds. No, I didn’t know of any particular bird appreciators (except Donovan?), but no matter. It was still conducive to the plan now cooking in my head.
Okay, so for this to work, first I had to face the nest. In humanoid form, I could stand and face it, maybe use a boulder, but the hole was a little high for that—I could get a picture if I stood extraordinarily close and held the camera high above my head, but that’d only get about half of the hollow. Not being confident in my hands-and-sandals climbing techniques, I stayed in cat form.
Quickly scanning the area, I found a good tree to position myself on, one standing less than a meter away from the hollow. Its trunk wasn’t right in front of the suspected owl tree, but the position was workable. Swatting the air a couple times to remind myself that my claws were safe and secure, I then hooked them in and got to climbing. Soon I had my back roughly facing the hollow…
…with a camera strapped around my neck.
Just earlier I had tossed the sack from my Inventory, rummaged through, pulled out the camera, and slotted it back in. A bit tedious, but at least I hadn’t done it directly in any annoyingly loud bushes. Now I was moving the camera into my mouth, very slowly, by pulling the strap along my neck with my teeth.
Times like these made me recall the time I wondered if Morph would do stuff like give my cat form human hands. While I still hated that idea and it made my flesh want to vomit, right now it sounded downright practical. Give me three paws and one hand already, Sierra!
Eventually (and a little painfully), I worked my jaws around the camera. Only then did I remember the existence of shutters.
Welp, I thought, hope Bayce was lazy enough to leave off the shutter.
And I had to trust that one of my teeth was squarely on top of the clicky button.
Then I turned around. Not one-eighty owl-style, but y’know, as much as I could. It absolutely hurt, but it wouldn’t be like this for long.
I peeped into the hole’s darkness just long enough to know that all those sets of eyes were locked on me, and all those gullets were burbling.
Now was the time. No way this Vencian box of a camera had flash, but I had come prepared. With a burst of aether and asphodel, a Lightning Spell blared through the forest, passing the tree but lighting it brilliantly! At the same time, I bit down with great gusto.
K-THOOOOOM.
Click!
The burbles escalated and shifted into harsh peeps, and the little black eyes flew every which way in their hollow. As I dropped off the tree, I heard their wings fluttering against each other. Man were they scared.
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, I thought as I set the camera down, waited for the insta-photo to develop, and then studied the result.
I’m sorry I’m still sorry! I thought as I raced up the owls’ tree, anchored my hind legs to the bark, and swatted like the dickens. Dirt, leavings, and maybe a couple of eggshell pieces were hurled out into the air and into my face. The owlets kept peeping.
Smarting from the minor scratch damage, I jumped off the tree and flailed back to earth. Just in time for the little birds to start glowing with Skills! I was still sorry.
Ooh, okay, there were more eggshell-looking things scattered across the ground than I’d thought. After I got myself back in cover, just for fun’s sake, I shuffled my Inventory and Burlap Sack around so I could read some descriptions.
Color Cookie Camera This wildly popular brand of tiny, convenient consumer cameras took the world of Vencia by storm in the early 6700s. The color model is the only upgrade the timeless device has received in a century. (Flash sold separately.)
Bibble Owl Photo A charming family photo of three owlets just days away from leaving the nest. They seem terrified.
Bibble Owl Eggshell x6 The egg of this majestic and musical owl is off-white and lightly spotted, as if dusted with powdered sugar.
Considering what’s in a nest and how much it smells, “powdered sugar” wasn’t the simile I would’ve come up with, but sure!
Victory!
That’s right, babies, fear your elders!
EXP: 33% (1099/3300)
EXP: 33% (1099/3300)
Did I only get like 100 EXP from that? Probably. I guessed it really didn’t pay to scare children. Well, that was alright. It went to a good cause: my hands.
I shuffled everything back into its rightful place, with one exception: I swapped Chora’s Crystal with the High Gravity Spell. Sorry, Chora, but it was about time this happened, sentimental and theoretically-emergency useful though the crystal might be.
Everything would need a test drive soon, but High Gravity was coming out now because it seemed pretty easy and obvious to use. Getting Treasure could take some pretty tricky maneuvers, and I wanted things that were both tricky and not impossible to wrap my head around. Plus, the vines of the Nature Spell sounded kinda dull to me. Unless they actively snared enemies by the ankles or something, that was last on my list of cool things to try.
For now, I checked the Map. What kind of Treasure were we talking here?
image [https://jmassat.com/wp-content/Catgirl%20System/Map/Map96-4.png]
Current Location: Bibbly Bark (S.E2)
Okay, it wasn’t actually in my path if I wanted to keep on going east, but that was kind of a good thing. It encouraged me to search around more! I wasn’t just gonna leave this square half-searched!
I power-walked on, humming with contentment somewhere deep in my brain. Now to explore, and fight.