Eduard Fergusson sat in the common room of the Drunken Pug, sipping from a mug of beer and looking at the stage, where the band had just finished setting up, and started to play a slow jazz tune.
The singer slinked onto the stage, swaying to the music with each slow, deliberate step. She was tall and lean, her athletic form covered by a shiny black dress. Black spotted white fur covered her exposed legs, from her clawed feet and up to mid-thigh, where it met the hem of the short dress, but Ed knew it continued unbroken until it reached her shoulders, where it was once again visible on her arms and down to her clawed, yet delicate looking hands. Sharp feline teeth sparkled at the crowded common room when she smiled, drawing attention to a slightly too sharp face, large furry ears and bright, slitted green eyes.
After what seemed like long minutes, but was probably no more than twenty seconds, she reached the center of the small stage, lifted the microphone from its stand, and started to sing. Her voice was almost a purr, low and throaty and intimate.
Her words were anything but.
“Everybody wants to be a cat,”
A spattering sound, accompanied by the flash of a small fire and the smell of burning alcohol, came from Ed’s right side, where Lucy Bradshaw, Ed’s party member, summoned minion and lover choked on her mead.
“Because a cat’s the only cat,
Who knows where it’s at”
Ed reached under Lucy’s golden scaled wing to thump her on the back with one hand, carefully removing everything flammable from in front of her with the other.
“How long do you think she’s been planning this?” Ed asked once the solar drake stopped coughing.
“Since before she joined us, I’m betting,” answered Ingrid Bjørnson, Ed’s other party member, patron and lover. The hobgoblin was sitting to his left, a glass of aquavit in her left hand, her right draped across his shoulders.
It had been two days since the three fought against their former party member Kevin outside of the Antarctology, the Bjørnson family’s research station-slash-fort inside the eleventh floor of the Labyrinth. The family’s armsmen were still searching for the beacon that allowed Kevin and his army of undead to find the station, and Ingrid’s mother, the acting head of the Bjørnson family had kept her in meeting after meeting for most of the intervening time, forcing the group to halt their delving. It was obvious that Kevin had the backing of a major player in the Labyrinth, but Ed’s group had only the undead archer’s word that his patron was House Hermes, another of the Five Families that controlled access to the Labyrinth, and Cathrine Bjørnson was leery of acting without more concrete evidence. In the end, the family decided to take a ‘wait and see’ approach, and Ingrid was released to return to her party and the Labyrinth.
“‘cause everybody digs a swinging cat!”
Yekaterina Gregorovna Petrova, newly-transformed cat-kin and Ed’s final party member and lover finished her song perched on the party’s table, and leaned forward to steal a kiss from each of her three companions, to the roaring applause of every other delver in the room. Applause which almost immediately became somehow muted, along with every other sound coming in from the rest of the room.
“Weren’t you all about avoiding attention, Miss Sneaky?” Lucy asked with a smile.
“Attention from monsters in Labyrinth is not at all same as attention from adoring crowds in pub,” Answered the Drab in a thick Russian accent. An accent that was most definitely missing during her performance. “I am Bard and cat now, and both of them are just loving applause.”
“Don’t believe a word she’s saying Luce,” Ed shook his head at Katya’s antics. “I had a nice long talk with babushka today. Our Katya has been like this long before she got her Bard Classshard.”
“Is rude to reveal poor kitty’s secrets like this,” Katya pouted. “How is mysterious sneaky person supposed to keep aura of mystery if people go talking to babushkas all the time?”
The arrival of a waiter carrying the party’s dinner order forced Katya to get off the table, though she chose to settle in Ingrid’s lap rather than take the chair waiting for her. The bemused hobgoblin, who wasn’t quite as comfortable with public displays of affection as the cat-kin, hesitantly raised a large hand to scratch behind the Drab’s ears, and was rewarded for her efforts by a very loud purr.
“Are we all ready to get back to delving tomorrow morning?” Ed asked, trying to steer the conversation into a more serious direction.
“I’m in Aura Breach from ranking up to Valkyrie,” Ingrid answered. “I don’t think I should spend our credits on free essence though. My Lancer Classshard is close enough to max that I can take the reduced gains until I get there.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“I’m good to go,” Lucy said, and Katya just nodded her head, eyes closed as she enjoyed her headrub.
“Then we just need to decide what to replace the cat-kin with. I’m thinking that since Katya is still going to be in a support and ranged role, we’ll probably want another melee, and since we have the rogue slot filled, we’ll want to go with a full melee combination this time.”
“Way ahead of you hun,” Ingrid smiled at him. “As soon as you told us you gave the cat-kin to Katya, I went to the quartermaster to look for Shards. I’ve got a snake-kin and a Swordsman for you, so we can plan for a naga once it’s ready to rank up.”
“I see those demonesses left quite an impression on you,” Ed leaned left to kiss the smiling hobgoblin. “Not that I’m complaining, of course. It’s certainly a good plan.”
That more or less ended the more serious part of the conversation, and the four turned to enjoying their dinner and each other’s company.
Yekaterina Gregorovna Petrova
Race
Cat-kin
Class
Daggerman
Drab
Shards
2/2 (9)
Strength
4
Dexterity
15
Wisdom
10
Constitution
6
Agility
11
Intelligence
6
HP
16/16
Mana
44/44
HP regen
0.6/hour
Mana regen
12/hour
Shard
Level
Essence
Living Phantasm
NA
Sealed
Cat-kin (0)
5
Locked
Bard (0)
Invisibility (1)
5
5
Sealed
Closed
Drab (1)
Manaflow (1)
5
5
Locked
Closed
Daggerman (0)
Sharpness (2)
5
2
Locked
5665/20000
Butcher (0)
5
Sealed
Toxin (0)
5
Locked
Trapper (1)
3
265/3000
Stealth (1)
4
900/4000
True Sight (1)
5
Locked
Haste (1)
5
Sealed
Pierce (0)
5
Sealed