Chapter 146 - The Thunder God’s Temple

Taking on a much less centaurian form, Claire pressed a hand to her head, turned the corner, and collapsed face down atop the kitchen table. Her mind was numb and she had an odd taste in her mouth. The rancid, vomit-inducing sensation stuck to the bottom of her tongue and refused to leave her alone, even after she tried to wash it away with an excessive amount of stale water.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to kill her for you?” Sylvia stuck her head into the foyer and glanced at the catgirl, who was staring at the wall with a bisected rock in hand.

“I’ll do it myself. Later.”

“Uhmmm… are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Claire, firmly.

Eyebrows raised and face twisted into a dubious glare, the fox leapt onto the table and used her tail to prod at the other halfbreed’s cheek.

“What?” Slowly, the lyrkress turned and locked eyes with the critter. Her brows were creased and her lips folded into an annoyed pout.

“I’m trying to get a better look at your face so I can tell if you’re lying.”

The statement was met with a trio of rapid blinks. “Why would I be lying?”

“Because you always lie about killing people!” Sylvia stood up on her hind legs, put her paws on her hips, and huffed. “You do the exact opposite of what you say you’re gonna do every single time!”

“When has that ever happened?”

“How the heck did you manage to forget!” The fox brought her tail between them and split its tip in four. The first was lowered immediately, as she confronted the suspect with an irrefutable piece of evidence. “Remember Geoff? You kept talking about how you were gonna kill him, but you never did.”

“Not for lack of trying. He just wouldn’t die.”

“Okay, but what about Al? You kept threatening him, but you only ever made half-hearted attempts to hurt him!”

“I almost stabbed him in the face.” Claire crafted a pair of objects made of ice. One was the old mage’s face, and the other was a small knife. She thrusted the weapon straight at his nose, but it crumbled on contact; the thin blade too fragile to break through the tiny glacier.

“That doesn’t count! He’s a celestial! A face stab or two is nothing!”

“You never know.”

“I do know!” Sylvia stamped her front paws indignantly. “Trying to kill a celestial with a random knife is like trying to fight an army with just one soldier! It’s never gonna work!”

The rogue slowly sat up with a shrug. ”It might be possible. If the soldier is really strong.”

“Oh… right” Sylvia placed a paw against her chin and tilted her head. The motion was mirrored by her tail, which moved in the exact opposite direction. “Maybe if he’s lucky. It’d be really hard because he’ll just get tired, but I guess he could probably tough it out if he tried hard enough.”

“See? It’s not impossible.”

“Oh, shush! It was a bad example! And you don’t have any excuses for the last two! You said you weren’t gonna do Al’s quest, but then you went ahead and killed two of dad’s friends the very next day!”

“It wasn’t the next da—ow.”

The perfectly reasonable statement was answered with a nip. Sylvia puffed up her tail and chomped her teeth down on Claire’s wrist, just hard enough not to draw blood.

“You deserved that.” The hat huffed as she turned her face away from her two-eared chew toy.

“No, I didn’t.” Claire grabbed ahold of her four-legged friend and exacted vengeance with her fingers. Mercilessly, she wriggled them, leaving the fox with no choice but to giggle and cackle until she was completely out of breath.

While the two of them spent the evening as they would any other, the captive catgirl was in anything but high spirits. Overhearing the conversation left her trembling in terror with her tail tucked between her legs. She was not aware that the fox could speak. It was starting to sound like her captor had two personalities, and at least one was out to see her dead.

Claire, of course, was well aware that Lia was listening in and panicking, but did nothing to clear up the misunderstanding. It wasn’t her problem, and frankly, she had more important things to deal with. Like Alfred’s machinations.

Her fingers still holding the fox’s breath hostage, she glanced through her menu and settled her gaze on the skill that had suddenly jumped to its maximum level. Catgirl Detector was ready to evolve. She almost didn’t want to go through with it. Warning bells were already going off in the back of her mind, screaming that it was too dangerous, especially with one of the accursed horrors standing just outside the door. It could power up the curse if she was unlucky and shatter her mind with Alfred’s desires.

But her dumb pet was right there in her arms.

She was sure to stop her, even if the worst was to happen. And she was confident. That she could resist.

“Sylvia.” She spoke only after stopping her fingers and waiting for the half-elf to finally catch her breath.

“M-mhm?”

“I’m going to do something stupid.”

“Uhmmm… what do you mean?”

“I’m going to evolve one of the skills Alfred gave me.”

“Oh… is it one of the catgirl ones?”

The question was answered with a poker-faced nod.

“Okay! I think you should be fine, but I’ll put you in a bubble if you aren’t.” The fox rubbed her cheek against one of the scaly patches just under in the palm of her owner’s hand as she spoke. It was nice and cool, more comfortable than the warmer bits around it.

“Thanks.”

Taking one more breath, the lyrkress turned her eyes on her menu and initiated the process. A small blue box popped up right in front of her, asking her to confirm. The text vanished when she nodded, replacing itself with a ring made of six tiny circles. One seemed to come to life, lighting up briefly before passing its flame onto the next. The process repeated for what seemed like an eternity; it took a full thirty five revolutions for the box to finally go away.

Log Entry 5367

Catgirl Detector V. 0.47 has evolved into Catgirl Detector V. 1.00. Base functionality has been overhauled and several additional features have been added.

Log Entry 5368

Alfred Llarsse has attempted to whisper you, but this process has ended in failure. (Error Code: 46182. You are not connected to World Chat.)

Log Entry 5369

You have failed to connect to World Chat. (Error Code: 10047. Networked features are not available.)

Log Entry 5370

Your credentials have been reconfigured by a system administrator. Networked features have been enabled. Use of networked features requires the consumption of divine energy.

Log Entry 5371

You have been connected to World Chat.

Claire’s head started to spin. Flux’s voice read the entries not in tandem, but all at once. It was a muddled, unintelligible mess that she failed to understand. Reading barely helped. Half the words almost appeared to be used in the wrong context.

She was left confused until greeted by a large red box. The strange window, labeled World Chat, popped up in front of her without warning. At first, it was blank, but text started to appear within it before she could finish inspecting its details.

Dorr: Who’s that?

Alfred: Just someone I put in for fun, don’t worry too much about it :)

Severantus: Oh, no no no no no no! You added her?

Dorr: ???

Dorr: It sounds like I should be worried.

Alfred: Nah, he’s just overreacting :)

Rapidly, the often half composed sentences scrolled, with the older chunks moving upwards, like entries in a log.

Alfred: Don’t think too hard and there won’t be any problems.

Severantus: Fuck that, I’m out.

Dorr: Sev? Explain?

Severantus: I am not dealing with this again. Abso-fucking-lutely not.

Dorr: ???

Severantus has disconnected from World Chat.

Dorr: …

Dorr: What’s wrong with him?

Alfred: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(Whisper) Alfred: Hello, Claire. Excellent wo-

Log Entry 5372

You have been disconnected from World Chat. Incoming messages have been truncated. (Error Code: 18107. Insufficient Divinity.)

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Her jaws clenched and her hand against her face, Claire sat back in her chair and took a series of deep breaths. Only a few seconds had elapsed between her two most recent log entries. There was hardly enough time for her to read all the text, let alone grasp everything that had happened. It didn’t help that her head was throbbing. Everything between her shard and her brain felt like it was on fire.

“C-Claire?” Sylvia placed a paw on the lyrkress’ hand and tilted her head. “Are you supposed to be glowing?”

Looking down, she found that her magic circuits had come to life. They were flooded with an uncontrolled torrent of fading gold.

“Great. This again.” She heaved a small sigh as she turned into a lamia and curled up in one of the dining room’s corners. The world was already starting to spin and distort; the backlash was setting in.

“Can you put me to sleep? With magic.” She didn’t want to deal with the exhaustion. It was too much of a bother.

“Sure thing!” chirped the fairy. She crawled into the nook between Claire’s tail and stomach and started to hum a series of gentle tunes. A lullaby infused with a tiny hint of power. “Good night, Claire.”

“Good night.”

The spell was much more subdued and gentle compared to the last time the fox had used it; the onset of drowsiness was more gradual, relaxing. As her eyes started to droop, Claire directed them towards the box and glanced through her newest skill.

Catgirl Detector V. 1.00 - Level 1

The distinction between affection and carnal desire is one of the typical signs of intelligence present in those fluent in Marish. Your inability to express this otherwise universal constant is baffling and beyond the point of comprehension. Avoid donating your brain to science in the case that you reach your demise. The revelation of its structure is sure to baffle even the most brilliant minds and delay any notable progress in the field of neurology for another five decades.

Effects

- You are capable of seeing catgirls through walls.

- The tracks left by others are more clear to you, and you are able to associate them with an approximate point in time, accurate to a 25% (26% - 1% per level) margin of error.

- You are capable of seeing through items equipped by catgirls. Activating this effect allows the target to sense your gaze, but it cannot be blocked save by divine means.

- You are capable of discerning the precise extent to which anything is or is not a catgirl. This feature will activate automatically in the presence of any individual that is systematically related to or associated with catgirls.

- You are able to designate a creature as your target and track it if it is within 10.25km (10km + 0.25km/level) of your location. This range may be increased by a percentage correlating to the extent to which the target you are tracking is a catgirl.

“Sometimes, I think it’d be better if I never woke up.”

“H-huh!?” Sylvia snapped to attention and blinked at her lyrkrian pillow, but not another word was shared between them until the sun was back above the horizon.

___

When Claire got up the next morning, she wandered out of the kitchen and frowned at the intruder sitting in her living room. The chain that bound the catgirl to the door had long melted; there was no longer anything holding the pervert in place. And yet, she had remained, curled up right in front of the door. It wasn’t as if she had stayed to work through the night; the fort was still just as destroyed as it had been the previous evening, and any effort invested in manual repair was sure to prove futile. The materials had been too heavily damaged. They could only be fixed by an earth mage or replaced with a generous sum of gold.

What irked Claire most was not the cat’s lack of progress, nor her continued presence, but the extent of her comfort. While she was too stressed to sleep without any magical assistance, the feline had been able to lay back and relax, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She was even mumbling random things in her sleep.

The lyrkress was tempted to give the uninvited guest the good old hoof to the face, but pulled her leg back as she recalled the previous day’s events. Instead, she blasted the unsanitary feline with freezing cold air until she opened her eyes.

It took the catgirl a brief moment to stir, after which she immediately shot to her feet with her fingers sharply extended in a picture perfect military salute.

“Sergeant Natalya Vernelle reporting for dut—” She didn’t stop until she realised that her superior officer had not, in fact, woken her with a bucket of cold water. Again. “S-sorry. Force of habit.” She covered her face with her hands to hide her reddened cheeks as she looked around in an attempt to identify the source of all the cold.

“Why are you still here?” Ignoring the skit, Claire kept her face neutral and spoke in a perfectly flat tone, devoid enough of emotion to impress even her father.

“I didn’t want to get hit by lightning again. Once was bad enough.” She was more calm and collected than she was the previous night. Her eyes didn’t suddenly shift around, and she no longer started panting whenever she cast her gaze on her captor’s face.

“It was an empty threat. Now leave,” The force mage extended an arm and reeled in a rocky brick. “Or I’ll hit you until you do.”

Natalya flushed for just a moment before shaking her head and fixing her expression. “I was actually hoping to negotiate.”

“I refu—”

“Claaiiiire! Where’s breakfast?”

The bloodthief opened her mouth to reject the notion, but she was cut off by the fox that followed her into the foyer. Sylvia yawned aloud and stretched, her eyes only half open, as she wandered around the room and bumped into random pieces of rubble.

“I’ll summon it later.” She turned back to the catgirl so she could get on with her refusal, but Lia was not where she left her. It took following Catgirl Detector’s instructions and lowering her gaze to the floor, where she found the bipedal cat on all fours with her ears up and her tail half-raised.

“Is that a talking fox?” she asked, as she gave the air a sniff.

“Uhmmm… hi?” Sylvia yawned as she stumbled over to Claire, raised her front paws, and pushed against the ground with her hind legs. She repeated it a few times, stopping only after she was lifted up to her usual perch.

“Wow… She’s adorable,” said the catgirl. She slowly got back up, her eyes fixed on the fairy that shared her creator throughout. “Can I pet her?”

“No,” said Claire. “Leave.”

“Not until you point me to my target.” The catgirl put her hands on her hips and frowned. “I won’t get paid if I don’t have any proof that he isn’t here anymore.”

“I don’t care,” said the lyrkress.

“Okay, how about this?” Natalya looked around the half functional home, her eyes primarily focused on the missing ceiling. “I’ll give you a new place to stay if you help me prove he’s dead.”

“Do we even have anything that she can use as proof?” whispered Sylvia. “Didn’t you get rid of all their stuff already?”

“I don’t remember.” Responding just as quietly, the lyrkress narrowed her eyes, and glared at the catgirl until she reacted with an uncomfortable gulp. “And why would you do that?”

“Because I was hoping that you’d listen to some of my reque—”

“I refuse.”

“All I’d like is fo—”

“I. Refuse.”

Claire reached for the obnoxious intruder’s face, but the grab was evaded. Natalya ducked under her arm and smiled. Her brow was creased and her lips were curved as far as they would go. So annoyed was the lyrkress that she decided not to ignore it. She froze the pervert with a glare and smacked her in the face with her tail.

Log Entry 5373

Paralyzing Gaze has reached level 25.

“All I’d like is for us to work together,” said Natalya. She spoke as soon as she was unfrozen, before she even got up from the half crumbled wall with which her face had made contact.

The request was met with silence. Claire said nothing, opting only to pinch her nose and heave a small sigh. She made it clear that she was annoyed and unwilling to deal with any more, but the brunette failed to catch the memo. “I’ve been trying to put together a more permanent group, but finding competent allies is difficult, and you seem to fit the bill. It would mainly be for bounty hunting, treasure hunting and dungeon diving.”

“No.” Claire looked up at her hat. “If we do any of that, it’ll be by ourselves.”

“What if I told you that I have a permit that can get us into any dungeon in Vel’khan?” The declaration was made with the catgirl’s chest held high and her nose pointed in the air. She was clearly proud, but her arrogance was answered with nothing but another blank stare.

“So?”

“So? So!?” Natalya threw her arms up in the air as she shouted, loud enough to disturb a nearby flock of crows. “Do you know how hard it is to get these things? If you aren’t super lucky, it can take months to get your application in front of the right person, and most of the time, it’ll still just get rejected!”

Claire paused for a moment to consider the options presented. She wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the process. Cadria didn’t believe in the practice of restricting dungeons to the general public, but some of its neighbours did. If Vel’khan had a similar system in place, it would be impossible for them to enter without earning themselves a reputation. And that was not something that the half-moose was willing to do. She already had a target painted on her back. Attracting attention would be foolish.

“What’s a permit?” whispered Sylvia.

“It’s a magic key that lets you enter places that others can’t,” responded the lyrkress. Like the elf, she spoke under her breath, too quietly for the catgirl to hear.

“Can’t we just steal hers?”

“It’d stop working.”

“Oh… That sucks.”

“It does.” Claire lowered her hood over her eyes. She couldn’t deny that it was a lucrative offer, even if it meant that she would have to remain on guard for the curse’s effects. Despite the previous night’s events, she didn’t think it would prove too much of a problem. It wasn’t bothering her anymore. It was almost like it had weakened.

“So? What do you think?” asked Natalya.

Claire crossed her arms. “You’ll cover our lodgings?”

The catgirl nodded.

“Not good enough.” The half-moose narrowed her eyes and walked to the shortest wall. Because it was half collapsed, it stood at only half her lyrkrian height.

“I-it isn’t?”

“No.” She placed the rock in her hands on top of the once solid bulwark and rolled it, so it fell off the other side. “This building is worth more than a free room. And you destroyed it.”

“That’s because you were refusing to cooperate.” Natalya smiled awkwardly. She was clearly flustered, but tried not to let it show. “Well… I might be able to arrange for some equipment and introduce you to a few people, but that’s about as much as I can do.”

“Still not good enough.” Claire rolled her eyes. “You have to do all the housework.”

“Huh?”

The feline blinked before tilting her head and raising a brow.

“You’re going to cook and clean when I tell you to, and you’ll do whatever other chores I tell you to. For the duration of this partnership.”

“I… suppose I could. We’re going to be staying at an inn anyway, and there’s going to be room service, so there isn’t much to do.”

“And you can’t stay in the same room as me.”

“Why not?” The catgirl tilted her head and scratched it. “We’re both girls.”

Claire glared at her for a brief moment before answering with a sigh. “Because you’re a pervert.”

“Wha!?” Natalya’s face reddened as she raised her brow. “I-I know I was behaving a little strangely last night, but I’m not a pervert! I don’t know what came over me, but I’m not like that. I swear!”

“That’s impossible,” chirped Sylvia. “All catgirls are perverts.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Claire.

“No we’re not!” screamed the pervert.

“Believe what you want.” Her expression still perfectly neutral, Claire extended an ice-covered hand. “Claire. Frostblight Lyrkress. Mage, as you’ve guessed.”

“And I’m Sylvia Redleaf,” said the furball.

“Err… right. Call me Lia,” said the catgirl. She started to shiver as soon as she took the lyrkress’ hand, but she shook it nonetheless. “What race are you, Sylvia? I thought Redleaf was supposed to be an elven last name.”

“She’s a woodfox.” Claire pinched the half-elf’s nose and silenced her before she could blab.

The answer was still rather out of place. Most creatures only had biomes in their names if they were adapted to life outside their usual environments, but foxes lived more often in forests than not. Still, there was merit to the blatant lie. It was good enough an answer to shut the catgirl up, and as far as Claire was concerned, that was all that mattered.