Catgirl System

During a brief tour of the whole research camp, DeGalle explained the whole affair as she saw it.

Some entity—unknown but presumed dangerous—had created these magic, time-slowing stones. They were already harming wildlife and had the potential to cause harm on a nigh-unimaginable scale.

(Someone frozen in time is effectively dead. A heart can be time-frozen without the body.)

“Now, you don’t reveal that kind of information willy-nilly,” DeGalle said, waggling a finger backward at Reed. “Doing that before we know what’s going on would risk a mass panic.” Man, every time something else came out of DeGalle’s mouth, Reed screwed up her face like she wanted to argue back…but she never did. She just hadn’t found an opening. Other than the obvious openings related to DeGalle being rude, but that was Vencian common knowledge.

But this time, she found a way. “You…you usually never learn what’s going on—”

“My successes count more than my failures,” DeGalle blurted. “Geez, how many times do I have to tell you people—MY SUCCESSES COUNT MORE THAN MY FAILURES!”

The shout shook the whole camp. It was followed by scattered applause and whoops from the rest of the camp.

“B-but that’s, what, only three successes?!”

“Four!” shouted some dude.

“And I can name them all by heart,” DeGalle huffed. “I do nothing about anything and the alternative might be mass death.”

Reed kneeled next to me and whispered, “It always is to her.”

But DeGalle continued. They weren’t just pointlessly destroying the environment here in the Kaugs—they were pulling out rock samples, testing to see if they carried any trace of magic.

At a glance, the people working on the samples looked pretty reckless. Their gear looked like souped-up high-octane hundred-piece-set versions of the poledust-drilling kit Bayce had given us, with chrome so shiny it sent glare into my face from a distance. As for the mountains, they were becoming Swiss cheese. Right now I could see what appeared to be the highest of all the Kaugs at the camp’s far edge, and scanning it up and down, my mind was on anything but its mountainous majesty. Dozens and dozens of pinprick holes studded the thing, rising higher and higher until they broke the misty cloud cover and disappeared from view.

I knew the sight had to devastate Reed.

But…am I weird for saying I didn’t care much about it? Maybe it was just because I didn’t have a long view of history like humans, and because I hadn’t grown up in the Vencian Wood—I was a glorified tourist, so it wasn’t like I’d been attached to these mountains besides seeing them as a cool curiosity.

Or, on the contrary, maybe I felt this impassive because I’d seen too much. My past life had been spent on the streets of a city. I had lived and died in smog. Maybe drilling holes in a mountain would harm a few worms, and change a few publicity photos, but…yeah. It was not mass death.

Reed and I paused our walking tour to get two different angles on a rock driller closer to us. Using a very thin handheld drill that made a shrill, dental whine, they traced a circle in the rock. Then a portion of rock shaped like a box popped out in their hand.

It was as luminous and dazzling as a rainbow-patterned oil slick.

“Alright,” Reed said bashfully, “I’m starting to get less polarizing questions. I hope you wouldn’t mind answering them?”

“Young lady, I wish you hadn’t’ve said that. I live for polarizing questions.”

“…Alright, but—”

“Shoot.”

Reed shook off her nerves. “Why would drilling over here give you answers about…you know…the other places in the woods where you found the time stones?”

“A good question from the totally untutored. You live here?”

Reed glared at her. “Not relevant?”

“Well, you should know that the Kaugs are made of highly reactive magical material. The most reactive material, in fact, of all these woods. The durn things pick up odd currents of energy like the magnets they kind of sort of are.” DeGalle pressed a gauntlet against a Kaug and casually leaned. I feared the rock face might break open. “More importantly, though, the magic leaves aftereffects.”

“Yes, I know all of that,” Reed said with a strategic eye roll, “but I don’t see why you’d have to take chunks out of the mountain just to do that. At this point, don’t we have devices that can record magical residue perfectly fine?”

“Of course…” DeGalle gnawed on her toothpick. “But that way you can’t photograph it.”

Reed let out a heavy sigh. “Alright, fine. I have to admit, you are beginning to win me over. Despite your evil soul.”

“Only as evil as I need to be for investors to bite.”

“…Right.” She looked away. “And it was very kind of you to invite us in, and clear up all these ambiguities. Us both, as in, me and the person right next to me, my good friend who’s been with us all along.”

Oh yeah! I truly had been there the whole time, next to Reed’s foot, and had received not one direct glance from DeGalle. But it’d stopped fazing me. By now I had a good grip on her character. She just liked to get people’s goats. Lots of people were like that.

“Would you do one last favor for me?” Reed said, yanking on the last major affront DeGalle had made, “and acknowledge my dear friend?”

DeGalle smirked for the briefest moment. “God, of course not. I hate cats. I’ve had bad run-ins with cats. I’d’ve had yours killed if she’d been alone. Just nasty, hopeless creatures.”

U-um?!

At the word “cats,” I froze, and every human in the campsite who’d been listening in either gasped, hushed, or broke out clubs and maces because they were armed guards. The same wonder that’d washed over Reed when she first found out—now over them. But DeGalle went on talking without interruption.

“If you’ve ever read my fifth published adventure DeGalle dmAge in the Land of Canines and Felines, you would know that there are some very powerful and very testy cat spirits out there. Cats are without conscience, and the one you’ve got is probably only bound to you because you give it food.”

With every word she added, my shoulders stiffened and went up higher, my tail rose in alarm, and I started daggers even more…daggerly at her. What was I feeling? Not as much fright or fury as you might imagine. I was a little scared, sure, but mostly I was putting on a show. Just like she’d put on a show. Somehow I wanted to look like the devil she thought I was.

Besides, she wouldn’t be the first human to unilaterally hate cats…and it was about time I met one of those fabled types in what had, up to this point, been a fairly friendly fantasy world.

Reed was indignant, of course. But before she could put in a verbal jab, DeGalle continued.

“Alright, alright, we’re all hangry now, I understand,” she said in her most pedantic voice. “See, this is why I invited you to lunch. And while we’re digging in, we can take in a one-of-a-kind panoramic view of durn near the whole durn forest. Even the cat can attend. That sound good?”

Suddenly the only thing on my mind was the thought of a new adventure. A panoramic view! Deep down I really was a simple, hopeless creature. Just maybe not nasty.

“Meow!!” I bellowed.

This horrified Reed. “She hates you!” she told me in a hissed whisper.

“Meow!” I repeated.

She sighed. “I guess it could be nice.”

“You will,” DeGalle said reassuringly. “Stand down, guards.”

All the guards were still standing. None of the guards moved.

“They’ll stand down.”

“I guess we’ll have a story for Bayce when we get back,” Reed said, giving in so hard her shoulders untensed and her arms flopped.

Then began the preparations for lunch, which were an adventure in themselves.

If DeGalle hadn’t shouldered most of the burden of this prep, I would’ve been as upset as Reed—instead of painfully, overwhelmingly curious. We got to watch as DeGalle’s research forces were mobilized into a catering service, parading way too many food options past us as Reed insisted she really, sincerely wanted to eat nothing. They had a lot of puddings and jellies, and a marmot pâté that actually looked decent. I requested it with a raise of my paw. Reed relented but ordered only a glass of berry juice.

These were set in a box and hoisted into a caterer’s arms. Then another team came in carrying a…really long plank of wood. It seemed heavy, way heavier than wood of that size should be, and they had to walk slowly and weave through a lumpy crowd.

Then they set the plank…at the base of one of the mountains. Huh?

“Do you have any preexisting conditions which would make it hard for you to breathe at high altitudes?” DeGalle rattled off an index card.

Reed just gave her a squinchy look.

“Alright, then.”

The mountain before us, untouched by the drills, towered up through the mist that covered us all. For the first time I studied a Kaug’s lead-colored streaks, and the arcoiritic sparkles thrown about, I guessed, by the magic latent in the magnet rock.

Somebody shouted out, “Stairs!”

And the plank of wood unfolded.

A paper fan unfurls its rectangular parts in a spiral. Thes stairs moved the exact same way, only they curled upward and used the mountain as their pivot. As they went, they were smaller, too. At the end of a long and surprisingly beautiful minute, the stairs had shrunken their way up past the cloud cover, bringing every wood piece to a halt.

DeGalle clapped her hands. More employees, with boxed food in their hands and packs on their backs, went jogging up the stairs. They held completely firm! That was a relief.

But not for Reed. She said a rote “thank you for your kindness” before trudging her way to the first step.

Ah, whatever. I was enjoying the journey, or at least the novelty of it. Still, I glued myself to Reed’s side and vowed not to let my excitement show. Reed was so much less excited to be here than I was, and I felt I understood why. She’s not eating alone, I told myself, so don’t make her feel like she is.

Meanwhile: woah, we weren’t just chiseling today, we were hiking!

***

There had been times, on the heights of buildings and on the top of a certain extremely tall tree by Mirror Pond, when I’d felt the air start to thin. The urge to yawn would overtake me, but never quite be satisfied. The urge to jump, too, with wings or a parachute, and just feel the breeze throughout my being.

But even just standing there, I’d feel the change in the air profoundly, through my whole body. Air quality, humidity, thinness, and all of that were small changes, maybe, and yet fundamental. If I breathe a certain kind of air my whole life, one bit of difference might as well be sweeping.

Here at the higher heights of the Kaugs, where I actually stayed and sustained that altitude, the difference was dramatic.

The odder thing about it, though—besides the spiral staircase, though that was pretty out-there—was the way the temperature stayed about the same. Given the more humid air up here, it was like going from a cool bath to a cool day: neither pleasant nor unpleasant in the changing.

The animals who’d built their nests and burrows in the rock seemed barely fazed by our passage. I knew that none of their nests were as deep as the drillings, and that some, if not all, must have been used and reused through generations. The stairs had conveniently locked into place just above or just below these homes—or was that an intentional function? Once I saw a curious bird peeking out and attempting to poke at my feet. It looked like a woodpecker, except it, or some ancestor, must’ve had a titanium-strength beak (or titanium-level Traits and Skills) to allow it to bust through the mountain.

Reed, DeGalle and I were walking side by side, far behind DeGalle and the food-carrying employees. While I wanted to be rubbing Reed’s shoulder with a calming hand through all this, I wasn’t sure about the idea. It felt too weird, too…forward? I contented myself with walking close and turning my gaze to her more often than elsewhere.

But in the center of my mind…

Hey, Sierra?

Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata
Invalid request. Get specific.

What’s more specific than that?! Clearly I need to talk to you!

BEEP. No. Try again. You did so well last time.

Ahem…

Oh, great goddess of the cats and…reincarnations…please inform me of DeGalle’s past and her true intentions, and do not lead me astray, but only…lead me…rightly. Yeah.

Is this all your Creativity Stat is good for? *sigh* Maybe next Evolution you’ll do better, huh?

Shut up! I make progress!!

Ignoring that insult (for your own good)…

Okay, so I’ve never met DeGalle personally, but she certainly has met at least one cat personally on the transexistential planes, and, uh, the encounter didn’t go well.

For wh—

For the cat. But don’t worry, you’re doing admirably well with her. It’s the Quest Item you should be worried about. Correction: it’s the Quest Item I’m angry that you aren’t worried about.

You’re the one who made it super-obscure.

To make it enticing!

It’s not my fault I keep getting distracted—well, not entirely. A-and you should’ve put a time limit on it!

I overestimated you again…

I was done with this conversation. The taste it left in my mouth was bitter enough that I wished I hadn’t gone in thinking Sierra might be in one of her friendlier moods. Any disappointment or anger she felt, it was her fault—she’d tried to make me punch above my weight.

I would not focus on this Quest again until I’d had my meal.

That’d show her. Slightly.

After several minutes of swirling up the stairs that looked straight out of a whimsical children’s book written and illustrated by a doctor, we did it. We broke through the cloud cover.

Just in time, too, since the steps had been getting shorter and shorter until, now, they were practically reduced to twigs. A human and a cat, maybe two, were all that could fit on one.

So it was with relief that we stepped off onto the pointy peak of the…

Oh, the makeshift waiters had definitely done something fancy with this.

A platform had been built around the peak. You know how a treehouse sometimes has that big tree stabbing up through the floor, like the side or the center of it, but the tree also supports that platform? Exactly that, except add a table laden with plates and boxes, and put the platform in the exact middle so the point comes jabbing out.

And that point was exactly as sharp as I’d dreamed it might be from a distance. Close to earth, the colors of the stones and mountains had seemed darker and a little dimmer. What made them look like silver sewing needles at the top? Was it the air, the sunlight, or my imagination? Either way, staring at for too long burned an afterimage into my corneas. Hard to resist, though.

As we began to take our seats with the already-seated DeGalle, we found that the round table was perfectly sized for three people. Three human people, though—sitting in mine gave me a non-ideal height and barely raised my chin above the edge. And no pillows or anything to add height?! But I decided I’d take what I could get.

Then we attended to our meals. DeGalle’s wordless eating instituted on all of us a code of silence. For a strange hour, our troubled party was as profoundly hushed as the high air around us.

***

Here is the gist of the world of Vencia:

There’s the mortal world, mostly populated by animals and humans and normal things, yet also suffused with magic and monsters.

And there’s the immortal world, also known as the world of spirits, the transexistential planes, the alternate dimensions, and stuff like that. Way too many names, and possibly way too many worlds.

Some of the spirits are legendary creatures worshipped or feared by locals. Some are dead people. Some are gods. Others are the ghostly equivalent of serial killers.

That, largely, is where Rare Hunters like DeGalle come in. But since spirits can be so esoteric, coming from limitless moral systems and, well, literal Systems, there are many, many ways that interfering with their messes can go wrong.

But people have to try, right? People on Earth would try!

After our meal, Reed got to work on the big reason we’d come this way anyway, with DeGalle looming over us and occasionally strutting in a pensive circle on the platform. Having me extract the poledust was out of the question, since it’d be difficult for me to scrape it out without major frustration and cramps.

Once the compass was set on the rock, and the miniature plunger was set inside the span of the compass, and the compass was stabilized, and the surface was pre-scratched and pre-poked, Reed kneeled next to that gleaming needle, scratched, and then it was done.

“Here,” she said, passing me the dust in a tiny drawstring pouch. “Try holding it in your h—paws. Front paws. Press down on it. Just take them off if it gets to be too much.”

I awkwardly plopped the dust bag on the ground and placed my paws on top. Hopefully that would be oka—

Yes it was. After a few seconds of nothing special, I began to feel a magnetic force in my paws that spread throughout my body. I felt it as a pulsing wave coaxing me in a single direction: south, south, south.

The longer I touched it, the stronger it became. And the more I focused, the more incessant!

I was happy to step off.

Reed chuckled. “Sorry if that made you feel sick or dizzy. But that’s what poledust does! If humans keep it strapped to their belts or safe in their Inventory, it won’t do anything…” She bent close and whispered, “It should be the same for yours.”

I meowed in quiet agreement.

Just as we planned to walk down to camp—whether or not DeGalle permitted us to—we heard a shout from below, and frantic footsteps from far beneath the cloud cover.

DeGalle spun on her heel, shades down, expression unchanging. She knew, like us, that something in the camp had gone seriously wrong.