“Hey Stormy, am I going to turn inside out?” I asked my future-seeing kitten, worrying how witchery would affect me.

“Brrrrrrr,” the kitten hopped off my shoulder and rolled her violet-tinted eyes at me as if I was an idiot who was listening to big dumb blonde cats.

“Welp,” I said, turning back to the merchant. “The kitten committee verdict is in. I’m not turning inside out.”

“You’re talking to a cat as if it can see the future,” Cali pointed out. “I don’t think that sane people do that.”

I walked to my pile of books and pulled out the book of monsters. Opening a page with the catgirl I presented it to Cali.

“What’s this?”

“A Felix Arcanicx,” she said. “A human slightly changed by living at the edge of the comet’s impact radius. My kin, basically.”

“And this?” I flipped the page to the snake-girl.

“Medusa Laima,” she said. “A human drastically changed by living even closer to cometfall. Apparently they’re magical enough to gradually crystallize a person with a mere look, turning their enemies into statues.”

“And this?” I flipped to the last page.

“A Nordstaii Volva-Yaga,” Cali read the words under the illustration. “A witch from the North. I’ve heard of them from the Nordstaii tribes, but never met one on the account of how secretive they are.”

“So you don’t know everything,” I said, snapping the book of monsters shut.

“I never claimed that I know everything,” the merchant crossed her arms. “I just know that male Sorcerers end up insane and turn into inverted flesh-walker abominations that are very hard to kill.”

Stormy growled, her head snapping in the direction of something.

I followed her gaze and noticed that magical, silver-blue spider-like threads were emerging from the necklace again. They gripped the floor as the lavalier attempted to crawl towards Callista.

I brought the hammer down on the jewellery piece, cracking another blue gem stilling the damn thing.

“That’s enough out of you,” I said, grabbing the lavalier with the pliers.

I walked to the circle of chalk-marked floor, liquefied it, tied a strand of rope around the lavalier without touching it and kicked it into the liquefied floor patch, watching it sink and vanish under the dark ripples.

Then I turned to Callista as I resolidified the floor.

“Goldara’s tits,” the merchant stuttered, retreating away from the rippling floor with a horrified expression. “I’m never getting used to that.”

“Arm or foot?” I asked.

“W-what?” She blinked.

“It’s getting pretty late,” I said. “Are you planning on sleeping soon? If you are, I want you to put an arm or a foot into the circle so that I can keep you in place.”

“B-but the blood pact,” she stammered. “You can just order me not to hurt you and not to run away and…”

“I don’t trust your questionable blood magic,” I said. “For all I know, a Felix Arcanicx might have a way to break a magic contract given enough time or even lie while being on one.”

“Mbrbrbrrrr,” Stormy nodded.

“I… I’ll stay awake then,” Cali shook her head. “I’m way too freaked out by whatever you two are to sleep anyway.”

“Great,” I said as I lit a few more candles and sat down on the pile of earth next to her and opened the book of monsters in front of her face. “Teach me to read then.”

----------------------------------------

As the night wore on, Cali and I pored over the book of monsters. Her knowledge of languages proved invaluable as she patiently taught me to decipher the unfamiliar script letter by letter. The flickering candlelight cast long shadows across the pub as we huddled over the texts, animosity gradually giving way to a tentative collaboration.

As we worked our way through the book, I found myself increasingly intrigued by the complex ecosystem of magical beings that populated this world. Each page revealed new wonders and terrors, expanding my understanding of the realm I now called home.

Cali explained to me that the biggest and worst sorts of monsters came from the Isles of the Castian sea where the magic of the Wormwood Star permeating the water and air birthed all sorts of abominations and warped people into impossible things.

An illustration featuring a grotesque blob-like thing with twenty human heads and impossibly long limbs was called the Ammalggam, a beast that added its victims to its body mass.

A Thorn-o-heart was a fusion between a rosebush and a human in a hollow cavity in its chest filled with poisonous thorn-like teeth.

The Kerrigoff was a dangerous beast capable of augmenting its looks, reforming its flesh to resemble whomever its victim loved the most, pulling information straight out of people’s heads.

A Mettarust was a snow-flake like thing made from iron blades, an Earth Elemental, each of its limbs as sharp as swords as Cali described it.

Stolen novel; please report.

The Murdorx was a monster made from a colony of red-eyed crows that came together forming a human shape that could even project a female human face and human hands from its innards to communicate with people and kill for them in exchange for shiny trinkets.

When we were done with the book of monsters, we moved onto reading the ledgers of Svalbard and other books from my precious pile.

Within one of the record books, Cali had discovered a record of my birth in Svalbard which marked me as a child of Yorrik and Ionna Starfall, born 17 years ago, a boy from a family of a free peasant commoner and a craftsman. According to the same book, Ioan had failed his ritual of manhood twice due to being malnourished.

When dawn finally broke, casting its pale light through the pub's windows, we turned our attention to a different kind of work.

According to her own words, Cali's ability to smell gold, even without her lavaliere, was still functional, if somewhat diminished.

“I… I could be of more use to you if you let me put my lavalier back on,” she began, wrapping herself in her white, furry coat against the early morning wind as we stepped out of the pub. Her previously perfectly alluring face now looked tired and gaunt.

“Nu-huh,” I said, readjusting my backpack. “Who the hell do you take me for? An idiot? That thing amplifies your mind-control magic. The blue jewellery’s staying underground where it can’t crawl around like some sort of a shiny centipede.”

Cali yawned and huddled deeper into her white fur coat, her minute, silver whiskers twitching against the cold. I felt perfectly peachy in my witch-bone and crystal armor, the cold and lack of sleep barely touching me.

"We'll need torches," she said. "The gold's underground."

"No problem," I replied. "I've pilfered a bunch from town already, let me go grab them."

----------------------------------------

[Day 44]

"Alright," I said, gesturing to the husks of buildings around us. "Do your thing. Where's the gold?"

Cali closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. Her nose twitched, reminding me of a rabbit. After a moment, she lead us out of town center, until we ended at an edge of the wood, closer to the rocky cliffside.

“There’s stale air emerging from here,” she pointed at the snow covered ground. “There must be an old tunnel down here going to the catacombs beneath.

“Catacombs?” I blinked. “I didn’t know that this town had such.”

“Svalbard is… an old town,” Cali said, glancing at the distant glaciers. "One from before Starfall."

“How old?” I asked.

“Old enough for people to refuse to leave this place even as things got worse and worse. Your village was dying slowly and painfully, Ioan” she explained. “There was a big town here long ago. It shrunk over the centuries due to the cold and the White Blight. From what I was told by the Jarl of Bernt… the locals survive solely through barbarous ritual magics.”

“Barbarous magics like what?” I asked as I tried to pry the old stones beneath our feet with my witch-glade reinforced shovel.

“Eating enemy hearts,” Cali shuddered. “The act of eating an enemy’s heart is an incredibly basic reinforcement blood pact. It keeps a man warmer during the 9 months of winter, makes them eat less than normal. Alas, it does not produce a true Champion like eating a Star-Shard.”

“I see,” I said, finally pulling one of the big stones aside to reveal a dark hollow.

"There," Cali inhaled as she concentrated on the scent. "It's faint, but there's definitely something valuable down there.”

I tied a rope to a large dead tree nearby and we descended into the depths of the old catacombs of Svalbard. Lots of stones had dropped from the ceiling, making the floor uneven.

We picked our way through the rubble, careful of loose debris. We lit a pair of torches to chase the darkness away and went down a series of winding, ancient tunnels, heading closer to the oldest section of houses in town.

As we went across another tunnel, following Cali’s nose, she suddenly froze, her eyes widening.

"Wait," she whispered, "there's... there's a lot more than I thought.”

I raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "How much are we talking about?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure. Without the lavaliere, it's harder to pinpoint. But it's... definitely a big stash… buried somewhere through here."

She pointed at a wall of stones.

“Well, be useful and help me dig,” I handed her a shovel, swinging my own.

We spent the next few hours carefully breaking through a brick wall and then excavating the area within. Eventually, Cali's Arcanicx nose led us to an iron case inside a hidden compartment with an iron lock on it, hidden beneath more old stones, cleverly concealed deep underground and untouched by the dragon’s tail and claws like the houses above.

Destroying the lock with witch-augmented pliers, got us into a compartment with an old iron case sitting within. Prying the case open and smashing the lock revealed a small fortune in gold coins, precious gems, and intricate jewellery.

“Svalbard’s gold,” Cali uttered. “So it was real.”

“You knew about this, then?” I turned to her.

“Jarl Sunder must have been hoarding this for himself,” Cali explained.

“Uh-huh,” I nodded as I picked up the case. “Onwards, kitten. We have more gold to upend.”

“I don’t understand,” Cali whined, panting as she followed me. “How in Goldara’s name are you doing that?”

“Hrmm?” I turned back to her.

“You’re barely wearing anything and I haven’t seen you shiver from the cold once. Your body doesn’t smell of sweat even though you’ve been shoveling rocks for hours! You’re wearing a massive backpack as if it weighs nothing at all,” she listed. “You haven’t slept all night reading books with me and you somehow look as fresh as a springapple! That freaky cat perched on your shoulder is way too calm. You’re exhibiting the base traits of a male cultivator without the usual horrid smell of burned ozone… and you’re also somehow doing freaking magic!”

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “I’m a walking, talking enigma. Get used to it.”

“Mewrrrr?” Stormy commented sleepily from my shoulder as Cali mentioned her.

The merchant looked at the fuzzball.

“I think she’s expecting compliments too,” I translated.

“What?” Cali sputtered, clearly not expecting to complement a kitten.

"Stormy's a pretty special gal too, you know. She can see the future,” I said, rubbing Stormy’s head. “Who’s a good girl? Yes you are, you adorable kitten, you.”

Cali's eyes darted between me and the small black kitten. "Cats can't see the future. They're just dumb animals, not Seers!"

"Mrrrow," Stormy said, sounding distinctly offended.

"I think… she says you're just a big, dumb cat yourself," I translated, grinning.

Cali bristled, her cat ears flattening against her head. "I am not! I hail from the noble Felix Arcanicx lineage of Star-Seekers of a most illustrious pedigree. I received my arcane education at the esteemed Iridium Istria Maggelanum!"

"And yet here you are, in a damp tunnel, digging through piles of dirt and rocks like a commoner for gold you’ll never get to spend," I quipped. "Funny how life works out, isn't it? Were you going to make me dig all of Svalbard’s gold out from the catacombs after you’ve collared me with the contract?”

“Yes,” Cali huffed. “I was. I was absolutely certain that you were going to be an idiot cultivator, damn it!”

“Mrmrmr,” Stormy commented.

“Huh?” the merchant asked.

“I think that she’s making fun of your lack of foresight,” I said with a grin.