Isabelle braced herself for yet another fight. At least this time she'd be fighting the Loofah, which was not a sentient bath sponge but according to Tahsi Junior and Shiach instead a sinister rock monster. Its glowing red eyes got bigger and bigger as it lumbered out from the darkness. It was then that Isabelle realized that this beast resembled a gigantic, rocky cat.
"It's a cat?" Isabelle chuckled under her breath. "That's so... stupid." "Isabelle!" called Shiach. "Come on! Fight the loofah!"
"Oh, shut up," Isabelle shouted back. "I'm not going to waste my energy on some dumb cat. I'm going to save it for the real monsters ahead."
"Isabelle," said Tahsi Junior. "You're going to have to fight that thing." "How are you such an asshole, Tahsi Junior?" Isabelle asked.
"I am not an asshole," replied Tahsi Junior.
"No, you are," Isabelle argued. "Just admit it already."
"I am not," Tahsi Junior said.
"Yes, you are," Isabelle said. "So I'll see you later, okay?"
Tahi Junior gave Isabelle a sad look. "Okay, Isabelle. I hope everything works out for you."
"I hope you die in the next ten minutes!" Isabelle yelled before she turned and ran away.
"But you know I'm going to follow you, right?" purred the enormous rock-cat.
Isabelle did not respond. Instead, she continued running. But it was only a moment before the loofah leapt over and blocked her path.
"I do love a game of cat and mouse," hissed the giant, rocky feline.
"I think we should just call it loofah and human," Isabelle giggled nervously.
"Do you have no fear, Isabelle?" the creature snarled.
"A little," said Isabelle. "But not enough for you to eat me alive."
The loofah hissed and pounced forward. Isabelle dodged by rolling on the ground. She then jumped toward the loofah and landed a solid punch to the creature's nose.
[Critical hit]
[2156 damage dealt]
Nice! It looked like her system had finally stopped incorrectly describing all of Isabelle's hits as dealing sixty nine damage. That was a relief.
The impact sent the loofah flying backward, crashing through several huge rocks into a pool of water at the bottom of a ravine.
"Meee ouch," hacked the loofah pitifully.
Shiach came into view from behind Isabelle, her sword in sweaty hand. "Isabelle," she said. "Did you kill it?"
"Not yet," said Isabelle. "Let me give the loofah a kick in the nuts."
[Critical hit]
[6969 damage dealt]
Isabelle was concerned. Had her system started erroring again? There was only one way to find out. She kicked the loofah in its rocky cat-nuts once more.
[4201 damage dealt]
The loofah let loose a pitiful squeak as it collapsed in a heap.
['Loofah' is dead]
[Combat mode deactivated]
[Melee combat increased to level 5]
Surprisingly enough, the loofah's dead body then bounced in the air a few times as if it had become a rubber ball before settling on the cavern floor again like a limp ragdoll.
"Um, what the hell was that?" asked Isabelle.
"Must've been the dead cat bounce," said Shiach as she sniffed her own armpit and then recoiled in disgust. "I wouldn't read too much into it."
Isabelle shrugged and walked up to the Loofah.
[Loot 'Loofah'?]
Isabelle thought yes.
Inventory: Loofah
Item
Traits
Catnip (enchanted)
+1 carry weight
Gold (10)
n/a
Isabelle grimaced. "This thing's loot fucking sucks! Ten gold? Are you shitting me?”
Inventory: Loofah
Item
Traits
n/a
n/a
"You did kill it in, like, two hits," said Tahsi Junior. "You shouldn't be surprised it didn't have a lot of loot."
"Hmmm," said Isabelle. She looked again at the loot.
What was that catnip item? Enchanted catnip? Was it as mundane as it seemed, or was it something more? Isabelle focused on it and thought, 'Learn More.’
Item: Catnip (enchanted)
Traits: n/a
Description: The Loofah's enchanted catnip is a small, brown, leafy plant with a distinctive odor. When chewed on, it will produce a euphoric effect for approximately 30 minutes. The effects of the catnip will vary depending on the individual. Some individuals may feel drowsy, while others may experience an intense sense of euphoria. It can also cause some people to experience mild hallucinations, especially when inhaled directly from the plant. The effects of the catnip are temporary and cannot be prolonged. It can also be used as an ingredient in potions, though it would take a great deal of experimentation to find the exact combination.
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Isabelle thought, 'Catnip, huh?' Then she thought, 'But not the kind you smoke.' Isabelle grinned. She was on to something.
Isabelle had no idea how powerful catnip was, but it had to be strong enough to knock out a giant rock-feline thing. She had seen what happened to the loofah after Isabelle had kicked it in the nuts.
"Oh, yeah," said Isabelle. "I totally want this."
"What are you gonna do with the catnip, Isabelle?" asked Tahsi Junior. "Are you going to turn it into a potion?"
"No," said Isabelle. "I'm putting it in my inventory."
"Why?" asked Tahsi Junior. "It doesn't look like there's anything else on the corpse. No rings, no weapons, nothing."
"I need someone who's high on catnip to test my new potion recipe," said Isabelle. "Or, at least, I need to get someone high on catnip to give them a potion. I don't know, I'm still thinking over the plan, essentially I just wanna give someone a lot of catnip in order to manipulate them."
"I don't think that's a good idea, Isabelle," said Shiach. "Why's that?" asked Isabelle.
"Because it might go bad if it's too much, and then you'll get really sick," explained Shiach.
"And then you'll die," said Tahsi Junior.
Isabelle laughed. "You're right, I guess. Well, Shiach is right, at least. I'll just use the Loofah instead."
"Wait a minute," said Tahsi Junior. "You're not actually going to put catnip in a loofah, are you?"
Isabelle rolled her eyes. "Yes, Tahsi Junior. You heard me right. I'm going to brew up a Loofah potion that'll make someone really high on catnip."
"Hey, um, are you talking about a bath sponge or about the giant rock-cat?" asked Shiach.
"Yes," said Isabelle and Tahsi Junior in unison.
"Ack!" shouted Tahsi Junior. "I've got a question: why would anyone willingly take a bath in catnip?"
"Well, I haven't decided yet exactly what I'm gonna do with it," said Isabelle with a sigh. "I just think that it'd be a really hilarious prank, and I figured that since we've got the Loofah's dead corpse, it'd be good for practice. I mean, let's just say that I wanted to set up a prank that would make the person think they were taking a bath, but then I realized that it could also be--"
"I'm not dead!" rasped a felinic voice from afar.
"Who said that?" asked Shiach. She sniffed her armpits nervously, recoiling in disgust at her own stench.
"That's not important right now," said Isabelle. "We've gotta find the source of that sound. We need to figure out where that Loofah came from, and if he isn't dead then we need to kill him before he contacts reinforcements."
"Which loofah are you talking about again, Isabelle?" asked Tahsi Junior.
"The huge, evil cat monster," Isabelle replied with a roll of her eyes.
"I don't think I've ever been called an evil cat monster before," said a voice from behind them.
Isabelle, Shiach and Tahsi Junior turned around and gasped.
Standing before them was... not the loofah. No, standing behind them was a regular cat. Just a cat standing up on its hind legs. Well, the cat also seemed to be wearing the loofah's huge, rocky head as a helmet. So there was that, too.
"A talking cat?" said Isabelle incredulously. Then, she remembered her old ex-party member, Sir Jingles. She hoped to christ that this cat wasn't him, she couldn't stand that obnoxious cat, even if he had always contributed more in fights than Tahsi senior had with his endless bread addiction.
"Hello, hello," purred the cat.
"Um... hi," said Isabelle. "How did you get that big rock head to fit on your body? And, uh, what are you doing here exactly?"
"Well, it's a complicated story, but I'm a cat, so I don't really care about your questions. My name is Sir Tingles and I can talk."
"Did you just say Sir Jingles?" said Isabelle.
"No," said the cat. "I said Sir Tingles. I do have a cousin named Sir Jingles, though. I've heard he's quite a prick."
Isabelle rolled her eyes. "Anyway, where did you come from, and how did you get that rock helmet on your head?"
"Hm?" said Sir Tingles. "Oh, I just went into the loofa cave, found the Loofah's body, took it off, and then used its rock head as a helmet. It's super handy because it keeps all my enemies away from me. I'm a very stealthy cat. Anyway, if you're wondering where I'm from, well, I come from a place far, far away where there are cats that have heads made out of rocks like these."
"So you're saying that you're a rock cat," said Isabelle with a sigh.
"I guess you could call myself a rock cat," Sir Tingles said with a shrug. "But I suppose that's not very nice to call a cat that way, really. I'm not a rock cat. I'm a cat. Just a cat."
"I'm sure you're a cat," said Isabelle, "but I think it's more likely that you're a rock cat. Or a catrock. Or a... um..."
Tahsi Junior coughed loudly, cutting Isabelle off. "Look, Isabelle, if you want to waste your time chasing after some idiot cat with a rock head, then that's fine by me. But I'm staying here and waiting for the Loofah to wake up."
"Tahsi Junior, don't you get it?" Isabelle exclaimed. "No," said Tahsi Junior.
"This rock cat was the loofah all along," said Isabelle.
"Stop calling me a rock cat I'm not a fucking rock cat!" roared Sir Tingles.
"You are a rock cat," Isabelle said firmly. "A rock cat made from an evil rock. A rock of feline persuasion. A rockcat! ....You are a catrock."
"Yea, you're a rock cat," said Shiach.
"I'm not a catrock! I'm a cat!"
Isabelle sighed. "Fine. Whatever. Catrock."
Sir Tingles' face flushed red. Or, it probably would have, were it not an enormous boulder. "I'll show you a catrock!" he shouted. He leapt onto Isabelle and began beating her with some rocks he held in his paws.
[-0.5 hp]
[-0.5 hp]
Isabelle started laughing.
"What?! What the fuck is so funny?!" hissed the cat. "This should be very painful! You should be receiving blunt force trauma from me right now gods damnit!"
"You're literally doing so little damage to me that I can barely feel anything," said Isabelle smugly.
Sir Tingles stopped attacking her, dropped the rocks, and sighed. "My gods. You're a fucking player, aren't you?"
"You just figured that out?!" said Shiach. "Shut up," snapped Isabelle.
Shiach blushed. "You're so mean, Isabelle. I mean, I know you're joking, but still."
"I'm not fucking joking!" spat Isabelle. Shiach pouted like a spurned puppy.
"So, what's your deal?" said Isabelle as she turned to the cat. "Why are you trying to kill Isabelle, Sir Tingles?"
"Well," said Sir Tingles. "See, I was once a Loafah, but then I went crazy and tried to kill everyone. I became a Loofah-Cat and got my own rock head. But then, one day, a human came and killed me. Killed me right in front of my family. And when I died, I became a ghost."
"That's awful!" said Isabelle sardonically. It was obvious the cat was speaking in lies and fabrications, but she was also interested in how much bullshit it could cook up.
"Yes," said Sir Tingles. "It's true. The human was really bad. So I became a ghost. I became a ghost that wanted revenge. I didn't want to become a spirit that hated humans forever. I didn't want to go to the Afterlife and haunt people for eternity. I didn't want to be a ghost that had been wronged. Because, even though I was mad at humans for killing me, I still loved humans. And I always will."
"You're a fucking ghost!" Isabelle exclaimed, finding an obvious hole in the cat's logic. "Ghosts don't love stuff! They're dead people who hate the living!"
Sir Tingles shook his head. "I am no such thing. I'm a Loofah-Cat, remember? A Loofah-Cat that has been alive for thousands and thousands of years. I've seen everything. I've done everything. I've killed people, I've made children, I've killed children, I've watched the world change around me. I know this game. I know the rules, and I know exactly what I need to do to get revenge on the people that murdered me. And you and your friend here are in the way of that goal."
"You said you never met Tahsi Junior before," said Isabelle.
"And that's true," said the cat. "But I can see him, through the eyes of my spirit. I can see everything he's ever done. I know exactly where I need to go to find the person he hates most: you. You are, in essence, the last piece of the puzzle. You are the final insult to my dead body that needs to be avenged. And I will make you suffer for it."
"Godsdamn," muttered Shiach.
"Do you understand?" Sir Tingles asked Isabelle. "Do you get it now?"
"I don't think I do," said Isabelle sadly. "That didn't make a whole lot of sense."
"If I'm not the Loofah-Cat," said Sir Tingles, "and if I'm not the Loofah-Cat's ghost, then why am I trying to kill you?"
Isabelle blinked. "You want revenge, right? Well, why didn't you just say that in the first place?"
"Because," said Sir Tingles. "The Loofah-Cat is the best liar and the best storyteller in the world. I'm a ghost. I don't lie. I don't tell stories. I just kill people. I kill them until they die. That's all I do."
Isabelle sighed. "Obviously this is all bullshit. If you were a real killer you'd do more than half a hp of damage every time you try and hit me."
"I don't need to attack you to hurt you," said Sir Tingles. "I can just hurt you by getting in your head. I can just scare the shit out of you every chance I get. I can do a thousand things that you have no idea about. And you'll believe me because I'm a fucking Loofah-Cat and you don't know any better. I'll crawl into the deep, dark recesses of your psyche and fuck with your mind until you do whatever I say."
"Wow," said Isabelle, rolling her eyes. "I feel pretty stupid right now."
"You should," said Sir Tingles. "And you're going to learn a lesson from this. Never let anyone get inside your head. Never trust a person who talks in absolutes. Never believe anything that makes you feel bad about yourself. Always look for the holes in their story, because those are the places where you can find the truth. And always remember: if someone tells you they're a Loofah-Cat, you should automatically assume that they are lying. Because the only thing you can trust about a Loofah-Cat is that they're going to lie about their identity. It's the nature of the beast."
Isabelle smiled wryly. "I guess that's why you're here, isn't it?" "And that's why I'll never leave," said Sir Tingles.
"Well, okay then," said Isabelle. "Let's get this over with. How do I kill you?"
"You'll never kill me," said Sir Tingles. "Because I won't give up. I'll come back. I'll keep coming back. And eventually you will kill me. But you will not kill me until I have my revenge. And if you kill me before I have my revenge, heh, it won't even matter. Because I'm already a ghost. So if you kill me I'll just come back as a double ghost, and that will be twice as good for me."
"I don't think I follow you," said Isabelle.
"It's simple," said Sir Tingles. "You kill me, and I'll just come back again. And then I'll have two ghosts. And then I'll have three ghosts. And then I'll have four ghosts. And then I'll have five ghosts. And then I'll have six ghosts. And then I'll have seven ghosts. And then I'll have eight ghosts. Et cetera, ad infinitum."
"So what, like, you'll become a bunch of clones essentially?" asked Isabelle.
"Yes," said Tingles. "I'll be an army. An army of cloned loofah-cat warriors."
"Sounds tedious and confusing," said Isabelle with a sigh.
"And when all of us are dead, one by one, heh, we'll still stay around. We'll still haunt our enemies. We'll still be a threat to them, a constant reminder of their failure to kill us. We'll always be there to remind you that you failed. Heh. Even after I'm gone, the Loofah-Cat will still be there. He'll haunt your dreams. He'll whisper in your ear. He'll make you feel guilty for every single thing you've ever done in your life."
"Okay, are you going to just keep verbally jerking yourself off there mister cat or are you going to fuck off already?" interjected Tahsi Junior.
"Tahsi Junior!" said Shiach with a gasp. "You're way too young to be using that sort of language! It's so unbecoming of a child your age!"
"What?" said Tahsi Junior in a pout. "I'm a kid, but I'm also a man. I can talk about sex and other naughty things like grown-ups."
"I'm a grown-up," said Shiach, putting her hands on her hips. "And I don't use naughty words like that."
"Well why not?" said Tahsi Junior. "I'm a kid and I can still say all kinds of naughty things."
Shiach sighed. "Fine," she said. "I'll go along with it. You can talk about sex and other naughty things. That's fine. But please don't start calling people names or making fun of them. It's very rude."
"No problem," said Tahsi Junior, nodding his head enthusiastically. "Just don't bitch at me again."
Shiach sighed again and shook her head.
Then, there was a horrible rumbling.
"What the fuck?" said Isabelle.
"Ah shit," said the cat. "That sounds like the actual Loofah." "That actual Loofah?!" said Isabelle.
"Yea," said the cat. He took the large rock and popped it off his head, revealing a normal sized cat head.
"You didn't think I was really the Loofah, did you? The Loofah is way stronger than me."
Isabelle gasped as the cavern shook and a deep, rocky growling echoed through the area.
[Combat mode activated]
"Aw fuck," said Tahsi Junior. "Another asshole we have to fight."