Petey woke up with all the energy and excitement of a puppy, his eyes snapping open as he stood up.

He was inside of a small dome-shaped house with thatched walls and a round window. All around him, his hoomans and that one not-hooman were napping. There was a sizable distance between the group of hoomans and the not-hooman, almost as if they didn't want to be near him. Petey put it down to the not-hooman having rolled over and nudged him awake out of curiosity. The not-hooman (nooman?) woke up yawning, and when he saw Petey's face so close to his, he jumped back with a shout of happiness!

Okay, maybe it wasn't happiness, but Petey was paraphrasing. Why would anyone be unhappy to see him? Pushing forward, he gave the nooman (Newman!!!) a giant lick on the face. Newman's green face slowly split into a craggy grin, and he gave Petey a few good pets. He'd received better pets before, but even okay pets were always appreciated.

Looking around, he found Leula snoozing in a web on the ceiling, all eight of her eyes covered with a thin gauze of web. A sleep mask, maybe? He wasn't exactly familiar with spooder sleeping habits. Maybe... they couldn't close their eyes? Maybe they didn't have the little blinky part on Petey and on hoomans... so she had the web to let her sleep!

A blue board appeared in front of him, and as he squinted at it, the words gradually cleared up.

Solution obtained! INT raised by 1 point!

Petey blinked as his mind churned. So if he made decisions and figured things out all on his own, he got more points?

Well, now he was going to do it all the time!

He happily proceeded out the door, being extremely careful as he bit onto the handle to open it. It was a weird feeling, like playing tug-of-war with himself to try and not take the door off its hinges. He knew that if he knocked the door down, people would be upset and sad, and he didn't want that to happen at all.

Coming outside, he discovered that it was actually very early in the morning. The sun wasn't even visible, though the gigantic trees around the village would have made it hard to see the sun even if it was right above them. A bunch of anurans were walking around despite the early hour and were quietly chatting to each other as they made their way to whatever it is anuran did on their daily routine.

Shaking his fur and getting rid of the final vestiges of sleepiness, Petey examined the anuran closer. There were specific anuran he wanted to meet, but he couldn't see any of them. The only anurans he really wanted to see were Tarron and the children. He couldn't wait to give hugs and kisses to kids! It'd been so long!!! Well, it'd been yesterday, because he gave kisses to Alana, but it still felt like forever!

He padded down the wide wooden board serving as a lead-up to the dome he'd been sleeping in and splashed into the muddy water at the base. To his frustration, it turned clear, and he remembered what had happened yesterday with a sudden rush of memory. It was still annoying if he was honest, but he could drink from it now! So he could keep his hoomans away from thirst and keep them all nice and happy!

Having found a positive spin to the issue, Petey tripped and tilted and pinwheeled and generally just had a hard time staying upright. He kept getting wet, splashes of water getting all over his fur, but he was definitely having fun. He needed to find Tarron! The anuran could help him get some food, and maybe even try out some new foods!

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Sniffing around, he picked up Tarron's scent and promptly headed off in his direction. Smells were really interesting for Petey ever since he'd left the gray place with hard bars. Before, they had been like yummy tastes for his nose, extreme but in every direction, hard to tell apart. Now they were more like colored lines in the air. Not colors that he knew how to describe, though. It was difficult to think about, and it kind of hurt his brain to try and figure out the whole thing.

Whatever the case, it made finding Tarron really easy. He discovered the anuran snoozing behind a house, holding his thin... sword. It wasn't a chew toy, Petey realized, And neither was that thing he threw over the mountain on accident! They were both swords! Tarron's was pretty interesting, with a kind of metal ball around the handle and a whippy metal blade. It looked mostly decorative, if Petey was honest, but then again, who would actually use a sword on someone? That would be ridiculous.

Walking up to him, Petey sat down and patiently waited for him to wake up. When he didn't, Petey got a little bit more impatient and gave a very quiet woof.

Tarron yawned as he woke up, his froggy mouth opening farther than Petey had ever seen any mouth open. Looking down, he saw Petey and blinked in surprise, sheathing his sword. "Ah, Petey, I see you are awake. Are you perhaps enjoying a break?"

Petey nodded happily, then rolled his shoulders. He'd forgotten that he needed Leula to talk to people. It kind of made him wish that he could figure out some way to do it on his own. For now, though, he just panted at Tarron and thought really hard. Hello, Tarron! Do you want to play!?

Tarron didn't seem to hear it at all, and just patted Petey on the head with a faint grin. "Are you opting to stay in our village awhile? I'm sure that we'd all be glad to see your smile."

Petey gave him a good lick just for that one but decided that there really wasn't much he could do without Leula. Turning on his back paws, he bounded off in the direction of the dome-house he'd been staying in. He passed a few new anurans on the way, most of which seemed... confused? Concerned? It was hard to tell what froggy expressions meant, and he didn't have enough experience to figure out what they were. They mostly looked okay with him, so he went on past them without saying anything else.

Before he made it to the dome, he got a different smell. It was dimmer than all of the other ones and kept trying to go away from him. It was kind of like tree skin - no, it was called bark - BARKING! How fun was barking!? Wait, no, he wanted to know what that smell was. It was kind of like bark (no getting off-subject this time!!) and moss mixed together, an earthy smell hidden by muted... cloth. Yep, they were wearing clothes that made it harder to smell them.

Putting his nose in the air, Petey cast his head around until he got a lock on the position of the person, and then shot off in their direction. Using Floof Speed, he wandered around for a moment and found the tree that the person was hiding in. It only took him a second or two to find the right one, and that was wayyy faster with Floof Speed on. It took him some work to clamber up the branches to about halfway up the giant tree, but he finally found the person crouched on one of the thinner limbs, looking out over the village.

Pulling himself up onto the same branch as the person, his back paws supported him surprisingly well as he scrabbled to gain purchase on the thin branch. Shaking himself off, he gave himself a brief congratulations for climbing the tree and sat down behind the person, allowing Floof Speed to stop. It smelled more like a lady than a guy.

The moment everything went back to normal, the person leaned forward, craning to try and get a good look at whatever she was watching. Petey walked up next to her, balancing on the branch, and checked over her shoulder.

Startled, she jumped sideways, but there wasn't anything there. More out of instinct than anything, Petey reached out to grab her and pull her back on with his teeth.

As his mouth opened wide, she shouted, "NO!" and vanished with a loud bang and a flash of white. Blinking the spots out of his eyes, Petey realized she was nowhere to be seen.

Raising his sniffer, he took a deep breath through his nose and looked for her smell. He found it right next to him, but as his smell expanded, he felt it getting further and further away. Whatever she'd done, she'd moved a long way in a short time.

Petey shrugged inwardly. Friends could wait if they wanted to! After all, he was fine. They could take their time.

Ooh, good rhyme. Tarron would have liked that one.