Month: January 2020

Muthuselan 8 Year 888 (New Imperial Calendar) Part 1

Cats have pretty sharp ears in case you didn’t know.  This enhanced hearing is responsible for me knowing that Josta and the half-elf bard, Rubast, hooked up last night.  At least that’s my interpretation of hearing her voice repeatedly saying “Harder damn you!” and his recurrent reply of “I’m doing the best that I can!”  It was amusing at first but quickly became irritating – kind of like life itself.  Humorous fornication aside, the thing cats are even better at that hearing is not being heard – which is why I was caught by surprise when I came down into the common room this morning to see a large ginger moggie with bright green eyes sitting by the bar.  I actually found being in the presence of another cat much more intimidating than being around people, despite my fear of being stepped on.  I guess I think that with a person I can slip away if they really try to hurt me but another cat?  They’re just as quick and slippery.

“How did you get in here?”

I suppose being a talking cat myself I shouldn’t have been shocked by a response but I was.  The difference being that his mouth was moving so he was actually talking with his actual cat mouth.  His voice was friendly and welcoming but also one that was full of mischief. 

“I turn up all kinds of places from time to time.”

“Are you a person that got turned into a cat like me or are you something else?  Are you a shapeshifting demon?  Because you have to tell me if you are.”

“What am I?  You can call me Tom.”

“That’s a little on the nose isn’t it?”

“Most people aren’t very clever, you have to make it easy for them.  There’s no time to explain the details of this visit my dear, I need your help is the long and short of it, are you in or are you out?”

“I’m out.”

“Okay, maybe there’s a little time to explain.  A necromancer by the name of Grivodon managed to get himself trapped in the body of a cat.”

“And how did he manage that?”

“As you’re aware magic is a fickle and tricky thing, say one wrong word, move one finger in the wrong way, use a carrion crawler tentacle for a focus instead of a chuul tentacle, and you’ve been turned inside out and then you explode.  Magic is a harsh taskmaster, he’s lucky that all that happened is he turned into a cat.”

“This seems pretty decisively in the category of things that are not my problem, what’s the pitch?”

“I’m getting to that.  Grivodon isn’t the type to let the lack of opposable thumbs stop him from being a wet blanket.  He started out simply, catching rats – it’s what we do best after all, besides looking fabulous.  Killing enough rats allowed him rekindle a spark of the insidious powers of undeath that once he commanded so effortlessly.  There’s not much life-force in a rat, but you take enough rats and you’re back in business – necromancers are a strange and determined bunch, by hook and by crook he’s managed to regain some of his dark arcanicity.”

“That’s not a word.”

“It is now.”

“Get to the point.”

“Some more time as a cat would do you a world of good, you’re far too impatient, you need to relax and let things come as they will.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

“The point is that Grivodon is building an army of zombie-rats and other more foul and dire things from the depths and you need to stop him.”

“Why?”

“Have you seen what happens when people think cats spread disease?  It’s a nightmare.  Can you imagine the slaughter that would result if they find out that a cat is really building a zombie army to kill them?  It would be a massacre.  I need you to nip this in the bud.  For all of cat kind, which I am sort of in charge of.”

“No, I mean why do I need to stop him.”

 “You’re the only talking cat in the area.  I don’t know if you know this but it’s actually pretty rare.”

“Why does it need to be a cat at all?  Stopping a little kitty dark wizard seems like something that could easily be accomplished by a person.  Or a dog.  Or even a well-trained badger.”

“You can’t train badgers.”

“Maybe you can’t.”

“Badgers notwithstanding you’re the one that needs to do this because Grivodon has gone underground – and I mean that literally.  He’s operating out of a series of passageways under an old church and there’s no way for anyone bigger than a cat to get down there and move around where you’re going to need to go.  Not without a lot of excavating anyway, which would tip him off, not to mention there’s no time.”

“Couldn’t you find a mighty warrior and give them a potion of shrinking? Or a piece of magic shrink cake?  Then send the tiny warrior on an adorable tiny quest to save the world.  It’s like my grandma always said, if you need a cyclops don’t waste your time looking for a guy with one eye – find someone you like with two eyes and then gouge one of them out.”

“Is a potion of shrinking a real thing?”

“I mean , I assume so, what with magic and all.”

 “I’ll consider that for the future but right this moment I don’t happen to have a shrinking potion.”

“What’s in it for me?  Can you turn me back into a person?”

“No but I can do something even better, that’s the best part, if you do this thing for me I’ll grant you what you desire most in all the world.  I’ll give you back your virginity.”

Have you ever heard the expression rolling with laughter?  Probably you have.  Have you ever seen anyone actually roll on the ground because they were laughing so hard?  No, you have not.  Or if you did they were doing it as a joke, they weren’t really laughing so hard they couldn’t help by roll on the ground.  I tell you now, honestly and true, I laughed so hard that I lost control of my cat-climbs and collapsed to the ground.  And I rolled from side to side I did, gales of helpless laughter crashing over me like waves crashing down on a tiny rowboat in an angry sea.  My little cat body shook so hard with laughter I was sincerely worried I was going to hurt myself. 

Have you ever seen the look on a cat’s face when it gets wet when it doesn’t want to get wet?  I think that’s where the expression sourpuss comes from.  That’s what Tom looked like as I uncontrollably chortled and tittered.  He got a mean look on his face at one point as the laughter stretched out and I was worried that he might attack me, but I literally could not help myself – I was helpless with laughter.  Eventually I managed to get control of myself and managed to sit up, cat style.  If cats could cry my eyes would be watering like you wouldn’t believe.

“Oh man, if you’re some kind of trickster spirit you just nailed the joke of the millennium.”

“Okay, obviously I miscalculated a little there, what is your heart’s desire?”

“My heart’s desire is revenge, but I wouldn’t want someone else to do it for me, that wouldn’t be right.  That one I need to do myself, no one can give me that.  And you say that you can’t turn me back into a person?”  He shook his head. “Those are pretty much my heart’s desires right now.  I tell you what Tom, how about I do this for you in return for a heart’s desire to be named later?”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hair regrowth progress :  NA 

Funds: None

XP: 348,051

Inventory:  Animal Totem Tattoo (Lion), Enchanted Tattoo (Storm)

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler, Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Heroes of the Lost Sword, Claire Conrad, Erist priest of Strider, Riselda owner of the Sage Mirror, Eedraxis,  Skin-Taker tribe, Kartak, Królewna & Bonifacja Trading Company, Hurmont Family, Androni Titus, Greasy dreadlocks woman, Lodestone Security, Kellgale Nickoslander, Beltian Kruin the Splithog Pauper, The King of Spiders, Auraluna Domiel, mother Hurk, Mazzmus Parmalee,  Helgan van Tankerstrum, Lightdancer, Bonder Greysmith, Pegwhistle Proudfoot, Lumbfoot Sheepskin, Lumber Consortium of Three Rivers, Hellerhad the Wizard, Forsaken Kin, Law Offices of Office of Glilcus and Stolo, Jey Rora, Colonel Tarl Ciarán, Mayor Baras Haldmeer, Rindol the Sage 

Behind the curtain: I stole this idea from Cats & Catacombs by Steamforged Games.  Check it out if you want.  Or don’t, I’m not the boss of you. 

Muthuselan 7 Year 888 (New Imperial Calendar)

One thing I don’t care for in literature is when the writer has their character talk about their dreams – or just writes the dream itself like it’s happening and then pulls the rug out from under you like a jerk.  It’s hard enough to care about a real dream let alone one removed a step back from actuality.  The point is that I had a dream last night wherein I woke up and was a person again without explanation.  I won’t bore you with details but the gist of it is that I kept asking questions about how I got returned to my true form and in doing so unraveled the whole thing and ended up as car again.  What’s the lesson there supposed to be?  Don’t question things?  Nice try subconscious. 

That mourning the booze deliveryman showed up with his booze wagon.  He was not that old but his hair was completely snow white.  On his wagon where there should have been a seat instead he had another barrel strapped and he was riding a third horse leading the other two.  Seems like an illogical and awkward set-up.  I got to observe first hand Josta stumble her way through the very simple transaction of taking in barrels of beer and handing over money.  I think she may have become a gravedigger because she doesn’t know how to interact with people at all.  I guess she’s going to learn.  Once that “excitement” was over Josta immediately cracked open one of the barrels and went to work.

“Do you think you might considering opening this place now?”

After a moment she shook her head “No, seems too soon, I’m still getting my feet wet.”

“Is that where all the beer goes?  I think you should consider my idea of hiring some folks to run this place – you got a decent amount of money from the stuff left behind here but you’ll drink it all away fast enough.  You should get some revenue coming in.”

“Actually I was thinking about selling the place.  Based on what you said before I should be able to get three grand, that should set me up for a good while.”

“It’s not a bad idea, but then you’d need someone to forge a deed for you.  Or find the real deed and have them make some alterations there.  And you’d need to find a buyer.  I still think your best move is to hire some staff and just sit back and let the money come in.”

“Seems like a lot of work?”

“How?  The staff does all the work.”

She just shrugged in that annoying way of hers.  With nothing much else to do we went up to Kichwa’s old room to see if we could find a deed anywhere.  If nothing else Josta needs to hire a maid to keep up the rooms – her standard of cleanliness is pretty low and this place has a magic washtub in the basement.  It literally couldn’t be easier.  Unless you hired a maid.  Is there a male version of a maid?  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  While we were searching I heard with my keen cat ears someone coming in the door downstairs.  Leaving Josta to her rooting around I cat-padded to the stairs and took a peek. 

Standing in the common area looking around purposefully was a no-nonsense looking woman with a narrow face, sharp eyes, and tousled shortish chestnut colored hair.   I guess she wasn’t all no-nonsense because he boots had pretty silly buckles on them, so maybe a little nonsense.  Hiding around the corner I threw my voice down to her.

“Sorry, but we’re closed at the moment.  Renovations you see.  There’s been a chance in ownership and we’re getting ready for the grand reopening.”

She glanced around, searching for the source of the disembodied voice I would assume.  “That’s okay, I’m not here to drink or rent a room.  Or whatever the trade of this place is now.  I’m looking for someone.”

“They’re not here.”

She smiled slightly “But I didn’t even say who I was looking for.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you want to tell me who you’re looking for and then I can tell you that there aren’t here?”

She gave up a tiny chuckle “I think I’ve found her.  Ela, my name is Stella Roseblack and Baron Juost sent me to help you.”

“Baron?  Not Baroness?”

“The man himself, back from his triumph over the barbarous tribesmen of the foothills.”

“So then Calastria must have gotten through with my message.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name.  A woman called Martialla was there explaining your situation and she had Duke Lodvocka’s boy in tow.  That’s why I’m here, I actually work for the Duke not Baron Juost – I’m on loan.”

“Well if this is a trap it’s a good one.”

I came to the top of the steps and curled my tail around my legs, her eyes flickered to me for a moment and they reasonably slid away assuming I was just the innkeeper’s pet.

“Nope, it’s me, I’m a cat now.”

She was slightly alarmed but only slightly “Your friend didn’t mention that as one of your problems.”

“It’s new.  Why isn’t Martialla here with you?”

“The Baron has her working on other matters.  How are you doing that with your voice?”

“I’m a woman of many talents.  Or I am when I’m a woman anyway, right now I’m just a cat of a few talents.”

She pursed her lips “And here I was expecting just a legal battle to fight.  No wonder if took me three days to find you.  This is going to be a little more complicated.”

“How did you find me?”

“In the end?  Magic.”

“Of fucking course.  What exactly are you commissioned to help me with?  Is there room on the list to ward me against magic findings?  People seem to track me using magic with startling regularity and generally they’re not coming to help me.”

I came downstairs to talk to my “savior” and after a while Josta came down as well – without comment she returned to her usual spot behind the bar and started in with her new job of lifting a tankard to her mouth.  Stella claimed to be a troubleshooter of sorts for Duke Lodvocka but she assured me that she was the problem solving kind not the problem disappearing kind. 

“I should be able to quash the bounty that Glilcus and Stolo have out for you, have the local authorities charged you with murder?”

“No, but I did piss off the mayor.”

“How’d you do that?”

“I captured a cell of Ulpine terrorists that were plotting against the Crown.”

“How did that piss him off?”

“He’s an asshole.  Will the Vultur people give up at this point even if the law office rescinds the bounty?  They seem like the tenacious sorts.  And by tenacious I mean obsessive to the point of self-destruction.”

“I’ll deal with them.  Assuming you didn’t anger the mayor enough to incentivize him to do something drastic I think we’re going to be in good shape.  If we can figure out a way to turn you back into a person.  That’s somewhat of a challenge.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“What . . .”

She was interrupted by the door flying open dramatically and who should breeze in but the Five Torches – and with them was Cladarielle Staelish, wearing a tattered shift and looking a little ragged but none the worse for wear. The dragonman threw his arms up in the air was if he were a triumphant gladiator standing before a crowd of thousands.

“Behold!  We have returned!”

“I can see that.”

“Barkeep some ale for me and my friends!  It’s a celebration!  I tell you plain my good ladycat it was a fearsome fight but the Five Torches were up to the task and Bywan Staelish’s wife is returned safe and sound!”

I looked to Cladarielle “Is that true?  Are you safe and sound?”

She nodded “I could use a shot and a bath but overall safe and sound is right.”

I told Cladarielle there happened to be a very nice magical bathtub downstairs and as she retired to cleanse herself Pesh (as I learned his name was) downed a baker’s dozen of stiff drinks and told the tale of he and his friend’s mighty battle against the Lucky Bones.  The half-elf and the dwarf chimed in with corrections and cutting remarks respectively but the elf and the Halfling just stood there looking surly and nervous correspondingly – those two aren’t much for celebrations I don’t think.  Pesh also managed to make some frisky remarks to Stella as he wove his story but he barely even allowed time for her to respond before continuing with his rambling and outlandish discourse – which is for the best because she didn’t seem to relish being hit on by a scaly braggart.

“You managed to save the maiden and none of you died?  What’s the catch?  Are you wanted by the guard now?”

He grinned, or at least showed his razor-teeth “Far from it madam, we worked with the city watch to effect this rescue.  They helped us find the malefactors and then we did the rough stuff – the city watch is well equipped for pick pockets and the like but they need the help pf specialists when dealing with more exotic threats like the Lucky Bones.  Their leader was in fact a bearded demon in disguise.  He gave us quite a run for our money but in the end Keif was able to send him back to the damnedable void that spawned him isn’t that right?”

The elf may have nodded slightly, his arm crossed in a surly manner.

“So what went wrong?  You’re adventurers, you must have create an even worse problem in solving this one.”

His laughter was truly booming, I almost cat-jumped straight into the air “Nay fair feline, you’ll find none of that malfeasance with the Five Torches.” He slammed his fist on the table. “We stand together and we deliver!  Isn’t that right Neddly?”

The Halfling nodded timidly and managed a smile.  Pesh laughed again and honestly some items behind the bar rattled.  I’m sure they did something that’s going to come back to bite me in the ass, but there’s no point in trying to suss that out now.  I had Josta pay them their “unwanted” reward and they turned that money right back round, enjoying their revels, mostly Pesh.  After a while Cladarielle came back up to sit down at the table with Stella and myself.

“Did you see any clothes down there?  You can borrow them if you want to get out of that shift.”

“I did but they all seemed a little whory.”

“That’s probably because they were left here by whores.”

“That would explain it.”

“So, I take it that the Lucky Bones won’t be helping me out.”

“No, I would imagine not since they’re all either dead, in jail, or banished back to the fiery pits of hell.  They didn’t seem like the helpful type anyway.”

“I’m sorry that this happened to you trying to help me out.”

“Think nothing of it, it’s the most excitement I’ve had in years.  I’ve gotten rusty, back in the day I wouldn’t have been overwhelmed by punks like that.  Honestly though I think they grabbed me on a whim and then panicked once they realized who I was.  For the group with disguised demon in charge they were we kind of milksops.  They didn’t even torture me.”

“Well regardless I am sorry.  This is Stella Roseblack, the Baron sent her to help me out so you’re off the hook – you’ve had enough trouble.”

She shook her head resolutely “Not by a half I haven’t.  I said I was going to help you and I meant it.  I’m sure if the three of us put our heads together we can come up with a plan.”

All this good fortune in one day?  Something bad is going to happen.  And soon.  It has to.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hair regrowth progress :  NA 

Funds: None

XP: 348,051

Inventory:  Animal Totem Tattoo (Lion), Enchanted Tattoo (Storm)

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler, Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Heroes of the Lost Sword, Claire Conrad, Erist priest of Strider, Riselda owner of the Sage Mirror, Eedraxis,  Skin-Taker tribe, Kartak, Królewna & Bonifacja Trading Company, Hurmont Family, Androni Titus, Greasy dreadlocks woman, Lodestone Security, Kellgale Nickoslander, Beltian Kruin the Splithog Pauper, The King of Spiders, Auraluna Domiel, mother Hurk, Mazzmus Parmalee,  Helgan van Tankerstrum, Lightdancer, Bonder Greysmith, Pegwhistle Proudfoot, Lumbfoot Sheepskin, Lumber Consortium of Three Rivers, Hellerhad the Wizard, Forsaken Kin, Law Offices of Office of Glilcus and Stolo, Jey Rora, Colonel Tarl Ciarán, Mayor Baras Haldmeer, Rindol the Sage 

Muthuselan 6 Year 888 (New Imperial Calendar)

The question has been asked since time immemorial – what do you do with a drunken sailor?  Less commonly asked but much more perplexing is what do you do with a cat that has the mind of a human lady?  And exceptionally fantastic human ladyat that ?  The fact is that there’s any number of time honored methods of dealing with a drunken sailor where so far as I know no one has weighed in on the other issue yet.  There’s probably a monk contemplating it somewhere because they’re like that but what good does some bald jerk sitting on a mountain peak do me?  Josta ran out of conversation early and I was so bored I started wondering where Fiestia was.  I knew that Scarlet and Bru had probably gotten themselves killed trying to help out the guy with the smashed genitals but I had no clue where Fiestia had gotten to. 

Probably she found a brothel to work in.  It’s a funny thing.  A pipehead going back to the pipe makes sense, they’re addicted.  A wife going back to her drunken abusive husbands makes sense, where else is she going to go?  But sometimes when someone gets free they go right back into their prison like a bird flying back into the cage.  Why?  Because freedom can be a terrifying thing.  The familiar, even when the familiar is awful, holds a certain amount of comfort – it’s known.  The unknown?  Well that could be even worse right?  The devil you know and all that.  Logically you’d think that Fiestia’s pimp getting killed (in a justified and righteous way by someone nice) and her getting a new chance at life would be a great thing.  But, and I don’t know her background, if hooking was the only life she’s ever known suddenly being left to decide for herself?  That can be a lot.  She probably wanted to get loose at a time, but once you have it the experience can be a lot of handle.

It’s like the old fable of the fox and the wolf.  The wolf is bigger and stronger than the fox and he makes the fox do all the work.  The fox doesn’t like that so he, being a crafty fox, engineers the wolf’s death at the hands of a farmer.  But then there’s no one to stop a badger from kicking the fox out of his den because he’s not strong enough to fight a badger.  And then he’s unprotected out in the world and a pack of dogs gets his scent and comes after him.  And as he’s running for his life the fox wonders – is freedom worth the danger?  People have been struggling with that one for a while now.  Everyone hates when the tax collector for the King, or Queen now I guess, comes around but they run to the guard when someone robs them.  They don’t want to deal with dangerous thieves, they want someone else to do it for them.  But you can’t have it both ways.  It’s a real pickle.

These are the kind of thoughts I have when I have nothing to do.  Josta wandered her way down in the mourning and took up her standard post behind the bar drinking what little was left.  Things livened up marginally when the Kostelos woman from before – you know the murder day – came calling.  She’s even more laconic than Josta though, so in order to move things along I felt I had to step in.

(translated from Kostelos)

“Is there something we can do for you?”

“Kichwa.”

“She’s gone and I don’t belief that she’s going to be coming back for a while.  My friend Josta and I are looking after the place for now.  You used to bring her food for the kitchen?” She looked like she was about to say something but then just nodded. “Well unfortunately until we hire a chef I don’t think we need your services.  Josta isn’t much of a cook, we’re still getting things settled here.  You’re welcome to stay in one of the rooms upstairs if you want, totally free of charge, I could use the company.”

She shook her head slowly “No.”

“I don’t blame you I suppose, I assume you don’t like to spend too much time in town unless you have to.  May I ask you something?  I know that your people have magic that we city folk don’t, do you know a wise woman or anything like that?  Are you still in touch with your tribe?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“I don’t mean to pry, I was just thinking that maybe you could help me.  I’m not normally a cat you see, I was turned into a cat by a witch.  I seem to run into witch-curses with startling regularity.   

“Uenabo.”

“Pardon me?  I don’t know that word.”

“A kind of dark luck, black magic flows to you like water down a hill.”

“That sounds accurate.  My friend said that there was a wolf shaman in the area, do you know anything about that?  I don’t know one hundred percent what a wolf shaman is but it sounds like a Kostelos thing.  I can’t imagine us cityfolk worshipping a wolf or whatever exactly goes on there.”

She thought about it for a long while before speaking “Maybe.”

“Maybe?  That’s all you got for me?  Look, I realize that you have a strong silent persona you’re working on here but either you know what I’m talking about or you don’t.  I grow weary of your prevarication.”

With that she turned on heel and left.  Some people.  Josta raised an eyebrow.

“What was all that about?”

“Since Scarlet and the girls have been hanging around here she thought you were turning this place into a brothel.  She was looking for a job.  I told her with her look she’d have to be willing to do some pretty disgusting things to make money and she asked that kind of things I meant.  Long story short she wasn’t into it.”

“Should I turn this place into a brothel?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“That’s all you have to say about it?  Usually you talk for ten minutes any time anyone asks you anything, or even if they don’t.”

“That’s not a fair assessment.  Your perception is warped because getting three words out of you is like getting an honest day’s work out of a rich man.  I talk exactly the right amount.  Anyway, do you really need me to explain why I don’t think exploiting women sexually for money isn’t the right thing to do?”

“I guess not, but I’m surprised to hear that from you.”

“Why?”

She shrugged “Just am.”

“Well, as long as you have a good reason.”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hair regrowth progress :  NA 

Funds: 800 gold (held in trust)

XP: 348,051

Inventory:  Animal Totem Tattoo (Lion), Enchanted Tattoo (Storm)

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler, Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Heroes of the Lost Sword, Claire Conrad, Erist priest of Strider, Riselda owner of the Sage Mirror, Eedraxis,  Skin-Taker tribe, Kartak, Królewna & Bonifacja Trading Company, Hurmont Family, Androni Titus, Greasy dreadlocks woman, Lodestone Security, Kellgale Nickoslander, Beltian Kruin the Splithog Pauper, The King of Spiders, Auraluna Domiel, mother Hurk, Mazzmus Parmalee,  Helgan van Tankerstrum, Lightdancer, Bonder Greysmith, Pegwhistle Proudfoot, Lumbfoot Sheepskin, Lumber Consortium of Three Rivers, Hellerhad the Wizard, Forsaken Kin, Law Offices of Office of Glilcus and Stolo, Jey Rora, Colonel Tarl Ciarán, Mayor Baras Haldmeer, Rindol the Sage 

Muthuselan 5 Year 888 (New Imperial Calendar) Part 2

Once the Five Torches had dramatically slouched away I was left with nothing much to do.  I could rail about how much I hate inaction but I’ve done that several times lately so I’ll spare you the repetition.  I decided to pass the time seeing what conversation I could pull out of Josta.  As per usual she was behind the bar, but sadly there was no beer left.  She was reduced to drinking mead.

“I don’t enjoy not having a task to work on myself.  Which is odd because my old job was ninety percent idle time.  Who knew that you could change so quickly?”

“What was your old job?”

“If you had to guess what would you say?”

She looked at me for a moment, which is funny because how could looking at me now tell her anything?

“If I had to guess I’d say you were a rich man’s kept woman.”

“That is shockingly accurate.  If you can guess how I arrived at my current predicament I think you might be a clairvoyant.”

“Hmm.  Well let’s see.  I would guess that the man you were carrying on with got pledged to marry the daughter of some other rich guy.  So he had to ditch you but he had feelings for you still and that made him want to let you down easy.  So he thought a good way to do that would be to bring some other guy around and he told you to start having sex with him instead.  Men are stupid like that, I know from experience.  You didn’t like that plan so you told the new dude, who really wanted to have sex with you on account of your beauty, that you’d only let him if he killed the first guy and brought you his fiancée’s ring as proof.  So he brings you the ring and you blab on him for murder because you want them both to go down, but it was a set up – the first guy gave him the ring and then they both blabbed on you.  And for your crimes you were stripped naked and horsewhipped in the town square.  Humiliated, you sought out the hag-witch of the woods for revenge magic but she turned you into a cat because you didn’t ask with the appropriate humility.  Probably you couldn’t help but sass her a little.”

“Nailed it, you have a gift my friend.  But to get back to my original point, you probably had a lot of downtime in your job – how many people can die each year in a town of this size?  What did you do when nobody died?”

“You’d be surprised, somebody dies about every week and digging a grave is almost an all day job.  And then the next day you have to fill it in.  And it’s not just digging graves, I also have to put the coffins together and maintain the grounds.  On top of that you act as a night watchman of sorts – looking out for graverobbers.  There wasn’t a lot of time for lollygagging.”

“I’ve never liked that expression, sounds like you’re choking on candy.  Did you ever see anything else out there besides graverobbers?”

“Sure, stray dogs from time to time digging around, sometimes if the hunting is real lean a wolf or two.  But there’s nothing much to do about them, no matter how hungry they are they aren’t going to dig down seven feet.  Ignore them and they wander off after a while.”

“I thought it was six feet for a grave.”

“I always go seven, just to make sure.”

“You ever see anything more exotic than wild dogs?  I think you know what I mean.  I watched a grave be dug up one time because her person in it wasn’t dead – or they were rather, but they kept moving anyway.  It was pretty awful.  You ever seen anything like that?”

“You need something stronger than mead for a conversation like that.”

“Come on, I’m bored, give me something.”

“They caught a murderer here in Beresfrod once.  He wasn’t from around here, he was a country boy – wandered the roads out amongst the fields – but he was in town for some reason and someone recognized him.  A family member of one of his victims.  They told the watch that when he was out a-wandering if some family was nice enough to invite him to do a few chores for some food and to stay in their barn for the night or such he’d repay them by sneaking into their house and slashing them apart with a slingblade.  He never asked anyone if he could stay with them or tried to get anyone to talk to him as the story goes, he’d just be out there and if anyone showed him some kindness all on their own that was the last thing they’d do.  The watch grabbed him and made him tell, like they do, about all the families he’d murdered. So then they strung him up by the neck until he was dead, execution you see.  For this many crimes. Some official from the city came to watch it happen and everything, I guess to make sure he was good and dead.  This murderin’ fella showed no regrets about what he done, offered no explanation, just said that it was good they got him because he’d do it more if they turned him loose, had no intention of stopping.”

“And?  After they killed him he came back?”

“If anyone had asked me I’d have told them to burn up the body.  And I don’t just say that because it’s less work for me.  The Gods can’t care too much about the shell, they only care about the soul – so why not burn the body?  Even if only one in a million comes back we know that it happens sometimes so why allow it at all?  No body, no undead menace.  But nobody asked me, why would they?  I’m just a woman with a shovel.”

“So he did come back?”

“Three days later the grave was all dug up and empty.  Folks said that some relatives of the victim came to get the body to destroy it, seems a paltry revenge to me if they did, but I don’t think they did.  I think he came back.  I know what a grave looks like when it’s been dug up proper from above and it didn’t look like that.  No it did not.”

“That was a decent story but it would have been better if the murderer turned out to be your brother or your husband or something.”

“If I had a husband I wouldn’t be digging graves, I’d be pregnant and shaking a wooden ladle at bunch of spoiled little kids.”

“Well you don’t dig graves anymore, you own your own inn.  And you didn’t even have to get married to get it.”

“Do I really own this inn?”

“If you want to.  I don’t see anyone coming around to say otherwise.  I believe the owner is long gone and never coming back.  If anyone asks just tell them that Kichwa sold you the place.  I don’t think those smugglers are coming back, and the watch guy who was harassing her is dead so there’s nothing to worry about there.  Although I read some of her papers and she may have been in debt.  That might be a problem but you can deal with that when it happens.  And if not, hey, at least you got to have fun until then.  Either way you should put aside whatever money you can.  Assuming you ever actually open the place up to the public.”

“I wouldn’t mind running a bar, but having people stay here don’t sound very appealing.”

“It’s your place, do whatever you want.  You can just live upstairs and sell booze down here.  It’s a small for a bar but you can make it an intimate place.”

“Stranger things have happened in the world besides a cat giving me a bar, but this is plenty strange.”

“It’s a funny old world Josta.  All you can do is laugh sometimes.” 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hair regrowth progress :  NA 

Funds: 800 gold (held in trust)

XP: 348,051

Inventory:  Animal Totem Tattoo (Lion), Enchanted Tattoo (Storm)

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler, Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Heroes of the Lost Sword, Claire Conrad, Erist priest of Strider, Riselda owner of the Sage Mirror, Eedraxis,  Skin-Taker tribe, Kartak, Królewna & Bonifacja Trading Company, Hurmont Family, Androni Titus, Greasy dreadlocks woman, Lodestone Security, Kellgale Nickoslander, Beltian Kruin the Splithog Pauper, The King of Spiders, Auraluna Domiel, mother Hurk, Mazzmus Parmalee,  Helgan van Tankerstrum, Lightdancer, Bonder Greysmith, Pegwhistle Proudfoot, Lumbfoot Sheepskin, Lumber Consortium of Three Rivers, Hellerhad the Wizard, Forsaken Kin, Law Offices of Office of Glilcus and Stolo, Jey Rora, Colonel Tarl Ciarán, Mayor Baras Haldmeer, Rindol the Sage 

Muthuselan 5 Year 888 (New Imperial Calendar) Part 1

I’ve been a cat for eleven days now.  Which seems impossible for a lot of reasons but it makes you think.  When I woke up in Graltontown at the time I would have bet pretty heavily that within six months I’d have taken care of Duke Eaglevane.  Or at least be pretty close to it.  And here I am no nearer to having revenge than I was then.  Farther away maybe.  All the hustling, all the lies, all the bloodshed, all the horrible things that have happened.  And for what?  It’s hard to see the path forward sometimes.  But what is there so do but keep walking it?  Nothing. 

Some poet or other said something along the lines of “Your footprints are the only road. There is no road; you make a path as you walk.”  Mostly it’s arty nonsense but the point is that there really is no clear path. You find the path by walking and making the path, by moving forward in spite of not knowing what’s going to happen. You can stand there and look for the path but you’ll never see it because you haven’t made it yet.  If you can see the path ahead of you you’re follow someone else’s path and that may or may not be a good idea but either way you need to realize that’s what it is. 

If you are trying to craft the perfect solution, life will remind you that there is no such thing with a swift kick in the ass.  Trial and error is all we have – move forward, don’t shillyshally and expect an answer to come by standing still. The answers come by taking action, often any action.  But enough philosophical claptrap.  Last night Josta and Fiestia agreed to make the rounds at some drinking-holes and bars to spread the word about “adventurers wanted”.  I wasn’t sure what impact this would really have and was shocked to find in the morning that there was a queue outside the inn.  A day spent interviewing prospective adventurers is pretty close to a living nightmare for me. Josta was looking out the window in awe/fear at the assembly outside “her” place.  She turned to me.

“What should I do?”

“Tell them that there’s a one silver piece cover charge, that should weed out the complete loons.  Then get ready serve some drinks at highly jacked up prices.”

“What if they drink all the booze?”

“That’s a good thing, you’re supposed to be running a business here remember?”

“But then what I am going to drink?”

“You take the money you earn and buy more.  This is pretty simple stuff.  I know your previous job didn’t involve selling anything but you must understand the concept.”

Charging a fee just to come in did get rid of a few people but it seemed to inflame the rest – a quest where you have to pay just to hear about it?  That must be one Hells of a quest!  I have no clue how to decide which insane murder is better than the next so I sat through a couple interviews with these “people” and listened to their ridiculous backstories.  Who knew there were so many people whose parents were killed by orcs that were raised by the church to be righteous warriors?  My next brainstorm really thinned out the herd – no singles, I was looking only for adventuring bands.  Not like music bands, you know what I mean.  One group of singles tried to get together real quick and fool me but their story fell apart pretty quickly.  Group lies are hard to pull off.  It’s interesting to me that all these folks with their wild tales of their origin didn’t seem interested at all why they were talking to a cat.  Not one person asked about that.  I guess interesting isn’t the right word, adventurers are rampaging narcissists so it’s actually completely expected behavior.

It’s well know that the more racially diverse a group of adventurers is the better they are, no one knows why that is but it’s true.  With that in mind I decided to talk to the group that was made up of an elf, a half-elf, a Halfling, a dwarf, and a dragonman.  Er, dragonperson.  Sure they broke the rule by having five members instead of four but they were diverse as fuck.  Plus the dragonguy was wearing real clothes.  I’ve only seen a couple dragonpeople in my life and they were usually running around almost nude – this guy was dressed normal.  Well, not normal, but normal for an adventurer. That’s something that bears further investigation.  The dragonman swept into the area with his companions trailing behind him and spoke in a rich honeyed voice.

“Good day to you talking cat, what manner of job do you have for the Five Torches this day?”

“Cladarielle Staelish has gone missing, it’s possible that she’s run afoul of the Lucky Bones.”

The half-elf made some kind of sissy noise of distress “Bywan’s Staelish’s wife has disappeared?”

“Yes, although I believe she has an identity outside of being married to Bywan.  I’ll have to check on that but I’ll get back to you.”

The dragonman frowned, I think, it’s hard to tell with a face like that. “Is Bywan looking for her also?”

“He’s out of town on another matter.”

The dwarf grunted “What’s the pay?”

Before I could answer the dragonman struck a dramatic pose “We need no payment to find the wife of a local hero!  Bywan Staelish has done much for Beresford, it would be churlish of the Five Torches indeed to expect gold for rescuing his ladywife.”

The Halfling was wringing his hands nervously “We’ve had run-ins with the Lucky Bones before, what makes you think Bywan Staelish’s wife fell into their hands?  I don’t think that he ever had any dealings with them.”

“She was last seen at the Blossom in the company of a fellow called Crentist, who I’ve told is an associate of the Lucky Bones.”

The half-elf nodded “He is indeed.”

The dragonman scratched his chin.  Or muzzle maybe.  Whatever dragonpeople have he scratched it.  “The Blossom you say?  Most curious.”

“What is that place?”

“It’s a tea room.  Of sorts.  It’s something of a neutral ground for the criminal element.  It’s an odd place because it’s not the kind of dive you expect to find low down dirty thieves, it’s a high class establishment.  Sort of.  It’s like a fancy brothel only it’s not a brothel.  If that makes any sense.”

 “None really, but you’re hired.  I like your price.”

The dwarf grumbled and the dragonman spoke again “We’ll do this a public service of course, but if we do find her of course we wouldn’t say no a monetary reward.  For the effort you know.  A reward for finding a missing person is pretty commonplace, I’m not asking for one mind you, I’m just saying that if one were to be offered . . .”

“Eight hundred gold.”

The elf scoffed and the dwarf looked dismayed, but the dragonman smiled – which is a curious site indeed.  “Excellent.  Then we shall be off!”

“I was debating whether I should come with you or not.”

For the first time the dragonman seemed off-balance “For what reason?”

“Just to make sure that everything goes smoothly.”

“Madam . . . cat, this is likely to be a dangerous expedition.  I’m not sure what use you . . . I mean to say, what I mean is that even the Five Torches might not be able to ensure your safety.  I mean . . . such as you are.  Ahem.”

“Yes, that’s my concern as well.  But don’t wizards go on quests with their stupid familiars?  Owls and ravens and lizards and shit?  How do they keep them alive?  Seems like it would be pretty easy for a gnoll to squish a fox.”

“I couldn’t say madam, we don’t have any arcane spellcasters in our band.”

“I knew I liked you guys for a reason.”

The half-elf held up his hand like he was in school “I’m an arcane spellcaster.”

The elf sneered at him “You’re a troubadour Gareth, shut up.”

The Halfling stepped forward “I could carry you in my backpack, but if we got in a fight it does seem like it would be pretty dangerous.”

“That sounds awful.  I guess I’m going to have to trust you.  You won’t let me down will you?”

The dragonman looked like he wanted to dramatically take off a big floppy hat but he wasn’t wearing one.  “Never madam!  For the Five Torches word is unbreakable bond.  When we say that we’ll do a thing that thing is as good as done.”

Gareth smiled “Would you like to know why we’re called the Five Torches?  It’s quite a tale.” 

“No.”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hair regrowth progress :  NA 

Funds: 800 gold (held in trust)

XP: 348,051

Inventory:  Animal Totem Tattoo (Lion), Enchanted Tattoo (Storm)

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler, Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Heroes of the Lost Sword, Claire Conrad, Erist priest of Strider, Riselda owner of the Sage Mirror, Eedraxis,  Skin-Taker tribe, Kartak, Królewna & Bonifacja Trading Company, Hurmont Family, Androni Titus, Greasy dreadlocks woman, Lodestone Security, Kellgale Nickoslander, Beltian Kruin the Splithog Pauper, The King of Spiders, Auraluna Domiel, mother Hurk, Mazzmus Parmalee,  Helgan van Tankerstrum, Lightdancer, Bonder Greysmith, Pegwhistle Proudfoot, Lumbfoot Sheepskin, Lumber Consortium of Three Rivers, Hellerhad the Wizard, Forsaken Kin, Law Offices of Office of Glilcus and Stolo, Jey Rora, Colonel Tarl Ciarán, Mayor Baras Haldmeer, Rindol the Sage 

Muthuselan 4 Year 888 (New Imperial Calendar) Part 2

When I was fourteen I was riding one day along the Orchard Trail, my horse got spooked by a snake and I was thrown.  When I hit the ground I broke my ankle.  My horse ran off so I had to walk three and a half miles back to the Duke’s estate.  It took me almost four hours and in the process I wandered into a patch of poison ivy and before I realized what had happened I rubbed it into my eye.  Did I cry like an infant almost the entire time?  Yes, yes I did.  But the point is that I did it.  Why I am bringing this up?  I understand that I can’t really understand the pain involved in getting slammed in the dick and I understand that Scrua got kicked so hard it lifted him off the ground and I understand that probably something in there is broken.  But even so that guy was a real baby walking back to the inn. It was only a couple blocks, in the city, on streets, and he still acted like it was a death march.  Get your shit together man.

Once we did finally get back to the inn Bru and Scarlet were doting on him instantly.  That’s another thing that I don’t understand – he’s a good looking man (despite his clothing) but seeing him “injured” doesn’t make him more attractive it makes him less so.  There’s nothing desirable about needing help – handle your own broken junk, that phrasing sounded weird but you know what I mean.  Helping a bird with a broken wing I understand, it’s a bird, it can’t help itself – but people?  If they can’t help themselves you’re not doing them a favor by coddling them.  If you can’t make it on your own you’re not going to make it and people trying to stall that just makes it worse when the end comes.  I jumped onto one of the chairs at the table where Bru and Scarlet were fawning over the sweating and pale Scrua. 

“Before we discuss a fee for finding this Velya character I believe there’s the matter of my five hundred.  Please give the money to the woman behind the counter and then we can talk.”

Bru scowled at me “He’s in no condition for that!”

“Nothing happened to his hands.  Or do you want to reach into his pocket for him?”

Scrau gasped like he was in tremendous pain but he was clearly faking it for sympathy “I don’t have the money on me, when I can I’ll have to go get it for you.”

“Pathetic.  You ladies fancy a card game while we wait?”

Have you heard the expression “withering gaze”?  I could almost literally feel my fur wilt as Bru and Scarlet turned their scornful gaze on me.  Never let it be said that I can’t take a hint.  I went over to the bar and leapt up on a stool to chat with Josta, who as usual was standing behind the bar drinking from a tankard.

“Where’s Fiestia?”

“She left, some errand or other.”

“To do what?”

She shrugged “Couldn’t say, I don’t feel it’s my business to keep track of their comings and goings.”

“You’re going to make a great boss.”

The afternoon passed slowly and boringly.  Bru and Scarlet took Scrua upstairs so they could wait on him more appropriately and Josta isn’t really much of a conversationalist.  It was late in the afternoon, I was dozing on the stairs in a sunny spot when Captain Maple finally returned.  Even though this is the most important thing in the world to me right now I was very tempted to just open one eye and then go back to sleep cat-style. I need to get back to being human as soon as possible, my mind is starting to slip.  I forced myself to get up.

“What’s the news?”

“I’m going to be quick, I don’t want to be seen here.”

“You could have been even quicker if you had bypassed saying that and just told me what you found out.”

“Was Cladarielle doing something with the Lucky Bones gang?”

“She mentioned them when she was telling me who might be able to help me, again you could just tell me what’s going on instead of asking me question if you really wanted to get out of here quickly.”

“I think they grabbed her.  I was able to follow her trail on the day she disappeared to a place called Blossom, she was last seen in the company of a man called Crentist who is a known associate of the Lucky Bones.  After that the trail disappears.”

“Alright, so what are you going to do about it?”

“Why would I do anything?”

“You see that badge on your chest?  I believe that means you’re a captain in the watch.  Captain is a rank in the hierarchy of a military or quasi-military organization.  The city watch is one such organization and is charged with . . .”

“Don’t sass me cat!”

“Do your fucking job then.  Last I knew a citizen disappearing is the kind of thing that the watch investigates.  And this is a prominent citizen not some gross poor person, the law actually applies to someone like her.”

“What am I supposed to put on the paperwork?  I was blackmailed by a whore and a talking cat?”

“Who cares, out whatever you want.  Say a snitch told you about it.  Say you witnessed it yourself.  Say some anonymous citizens filed a complaint.  That’s not a real obstacle, that’s something you’re leaning on because you don’t want to do your job.”

“I did my part, I gound out what there is to find out, if you or Bru ever contact me again I will not be happy.”

“You might be surprised to find out that your happiness means very little to me.  Or maybe you wouldn’t, you see like a sharp enough fellow to have figured that one out on your own.”

He left in a huff, just as Fiestia was coming back – he blundered into her and almost sent her sprawling to the floor.  She looked like she was about to make a sharp comment about him colliding with her but the look on his face disabused her of that notion quickly.  She held the door for him as he marched out angrily and then looked over to me.

“What was that about?”

“He came here looking for you, he said he wanted to marry you and take you away to live in his mansion and command his army of servants.  But since you weren’t here he got angry and then left.”

She scowled “Has anyone ever told you that you have a real sour personality?”

“Yes, frequently.”

Eventually Scrua came back down to the common room with Bru and Scarlet helping him and the three of them went and got my money.  He wanted me to help him find out who Velya was but he had no more money so I told him to take a hike.  Bru and Scarlet were outraged and swore that they would help him.  I wish them good luck.  After they were gone I was sitting at the bar lapping from a bowl of rum that Josta poured for me.

“You should probably slow down, you only weigh like eight pounds.”

“If you’re going to make a living serving alcohol you need to get used to letting people overindulge.”

“Why didn’t you tell the book guy that you’d help him in return for him selling all those books you have stashed everywhere?”

“Because I didn’t think of it!  Why didn’t you say that before?!”

She shrugged “I figured you knew what you were doing.”

“You shrug a lot you know that?  It’s very annoying.  Shrugs have always been poor manners, or at least that is what I was taught. When asked a question, you should give a proper verbal answer.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.  So what are you going to do now?”

“Something I don’t want to do.  A prominent citizen has been kidnapped by wicked men.  I’ve got some money and I’m a mysterious patron at an inn.  If I wasn’t a cat I’d get a mysterious cloak and sit in the shadowy corner drinking mysteriously and not talking to anyone.”

“Adventurers?”

I couldn’t stop myself from hissing “Adventurers.”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hair regrowth progress :  NA 

Funds: 800 gold (held in trust)

XP: 348,051

Inventory:  Animal Totem Tattoo (Lion), Enchanted Tattoo (Storm)

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler, Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Heroes of the Lost Sword, Claire Conrad, Erist priest of Strider, Riselda owner of the Sage Mirror, Eedraxis,  Skin-Taker tribe, Kartak, Królewna & Bonifacja Trading Company, Hurmont Family, Androni Titus, Greasy dreadlocks woman, Lodestone Security, Kellgale Nickoslander, Beltian Kruin the Splithog Pauper, The King of Spiders, Auraluna Domiel, mother Hurk, Mazzmus Parmalee,  Helgan van Tankerstrum, Lightdancer, Bonder Greysmith, Pegwhistle Proudfoot, Lumbfoot Sheepskin, Lumber Consortium of Three Rivers, Hellerhad the Wizard, Forsaken Kin, Law Offices of Office of Glilcus and Stolo, Jey Rora, Colonel Tarl Ciarán, Mayor Baras Haldmeer, Rindol the Sage 

Muthuselan 4 Year 888 (New Imperial Calendar) Part 1

After our visit from the smuggler last night my fellow inn-dwellers became very distressed.  Makes no sense to me, there weren’t even any threats of terrible violence.  I didn’t expect a gravedigger and three former streetwalkers to be so skittish.  The point is they were no fun after that, they just drank moodily for a while without saying anything and then went to bed.  I assured them that if anyone tried to come in during the night I would able to hear them with my keen feline ears but in all honestly I was pretty soundly asleep most of the night.  But no one got killed so it worked right?

Before the sun was even up I did hear someone knocking softly on the door.  I threw my voice to whoever this early riser was.

“Sorry, we’re closed.”

“I’m looking for a detective.”

“This is an inn, there’s no detectives here.  Is that right?  There are no detectives here I mean.”

“Can you let me in so we can talk?”

“We are talking.  And no I can’t, not just because we’re closed but also because I can’t reach the doorknob and I don’t have hands.”

“You must be the one I’m looking for then.”

“Pardon?”

“I was told there was a cat detective here that solved a murder.  I need your help.”

“Seriously?  You want to hire me? I can’t even open doors.  Also that just happened, word really gets around, it is pretty interesting I suppose.”

“Even without being able to open doors you solved a case, I need you to do it again.  A rare book seller was found dead in his bathtub and I can’t figure out what happened, the door was locked so no one could have gotten in to kill him.”

“The person locked the door afterwards, or the water was poisoned somehow, or magic, or a thousand other things.  I did solve one murder, sort of, but I’m not a detective.”

“I can give you five hundred gold.”

I sighed “Fine, hold on a second.”

I went upstairs into Bru’s room.  Why her room?  She was the only one whose door was open enough for me to push in.  Let that be a lesson I guess?  I jumped on the bed and pawed at her but she didn’t seem like she wanted to get up.

“Hey, hey, come downstairs and open the door for me.”

She rolled over sleepily “Why should I?”

“Because if you don’t I’ll scratch that pretty face of yours up real good.”

For the record she doesn’t have a pretty face, it’s just okay.  When she opened the door standing on the other side was a handsome fellow with wavy dark hair and a slightly shaggy goatee – he would have been somewhat more handsome if he hadn’t been dressed foppishly but what can you do.  He bowed slightly to Bru who was clearly smitten.

“Good morning ma’am, sorry to disturb you.”

She smiled shyly and all but fanned herself with her hand “It’s no trouble at all.”

“Calm down woman, thanks for opening the door, now beat it – we have business to discuss.”

His name, he claimed, as Ulin Scrua but if that isn’t a fake name I don’t know what is.  He said that he was a frequent patron of the dead bookseller Cweat Holloh and had become worried when Cweat didn’t show up for a meeting where he was going to buy some old book he droned on about for a while.  He went to Cweat’s house and upon finding the door locked and getting no response he broke it down – or so he said, he didn’t look study enough to kick down a door to me – where he found him dead in the tub.

“And so you came looking for a talking cat?  How does that make sense?  Why didn’t you report this murder to the watch?  That seems like the logical thing to do.”

“Well . . . Cweat was a seller of rare books . . . but he also made forgeries sometimes.”

“If he’s dead what does it matter?  He doesn’t have a reputation to maintain.”

“Well . . . I may have been involved . . . somewhat . . . as well.”

“Don’t you make books by copying them?  How is a forgery of a book different from the real thing?”

“Oh, there’s a number of reasons they’re very different.  You see . . .”

“Forget I asked.  Alright let’s go check out this dead guy.  He’s probably all bloated and gross from being in the water all this time.  Five hundred isn’t even enough really.”

“It’s all I have.”

“You’re spending all the money you have to hire a cat to solve the murder of a guy you don’t even really know?”

“Well when you say it like that it sounds weird.”

This early in the morning there weren’t a lot of people out on the streets which made me feel a lot better about walking around – I’m still convinced that I’m going to get stepped on out here.  What a moronic way to die.  There were a few people out and about though – specifically one who I saw come around a corner and point a crossbow at Scrua.  He was yammering on about some book and didn’t notice – I jumped up and dug my claws into his backside.

“Get down you idiot!”

He sort of lurched and ducked involuntarily and the crossbow bolt missed him by the hairs of his chinny chin chin.  The assailant reloaded his crossbow and Scrua was smart enough to duck behind a marble planter for cover.  The man with the crossbow had a green cloth over his face and an odd white tunic with lace up sleeves.  He started walking closer cautiously with his crossbow at the ready. 

“Poke your head up and then instantly drop back down – see if you can get him to fire and waste the shot then you can attack while he reloads.”

Scrua’s eyes went wide “What?!”

“Is that a real sword on your hip or some fancy pants bullshit?”

He looked at the hilt like it was a venomous snake “What?  This?  Yes . . . I mean it’s a real sword.  I’ve never used it, it’s just part of the outfit . . .”

“Wonderful.  Take it out, make sure you don’t poke yourself in the eye.  I’m going to distract the guy, when his back is turned you run out and stab him in the back.”

“Wh-what?  Like you want me to kill him?  Couldn’t I just hit him with the flat?”

“You can try I guess, it’s a court blade so the edge probably isn’t very sharp anyway, but it’s pretty hard to club someone with the wide part of the sword and I don’t think you had much chance of success anyway.”

I threw my voice behind the advancing assassin and he spun around, giving Scrua the chance to spring into action and attack from the rear.  Which he did, he hit the man in the back with the flat of the sword – he didn’t even go for the head – it sounded like giving someone a sharp slap with a leather glove and probably hurt about as much as well.  The man with the green mask swung back around and kicked Scrau so hard in the groin that he flew back half a foot and his legs went flying out from under him just form the force.  I hope he already has children or doesn’t want them.

The thug dropped the crossbow, which for the record really bugs me – take better care of your crossbow buddy, have a little pride – and took an ugly mace from his belt.  You may be thinking “aren’t all maces ugly” but no, they’re not, I’ve seen some maces in my day that were akin to works of art.  I scampered around behind him to the discarded crossbow as he made ready to cave in Scrua’s head.  I managed to nudge the crossbow into position and hit the trigger with my nose.  Amazingly it was a hit – going through Mr. Green’s knee from behind and poking out the front.  It was somewhat nauseating to see. Both men were down and in extreme pain, but the killer pulled out a knife and started crawling towards Scrua – this is one determined murderer.  I ran back over to Scrua.

“I know you just took a hard one to the bags but you need to rally right now man because you’re about to get stabbed.”

Scrua’s groping hand managed to find his slim blade and with a great effort he managed to poke it towards the slowly crawling assassin.  His second poke hit the man in the cheek and glanced off to slice off part of his ear.  His third poke went through the back of the man’s hand and caused him to drop his dagger.  I threw my voice in his direction again.

“Who hired you?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m invisible.  I’m standing over you right now with a vial of acid – if you don’t tell me what I want to know I’m going to empty the whole thing on you.”

“Velya, Velya hired me, don’t burn me!”

“Well there you go Scrua, Velya killed your business associate.”

“How do you know that?”

“She probably hired this guy to stake out the house and see if anyone came snooping around and if they did to take them out too.  Is there another reason Veyla would want you dead?”

“I don’t even know who that is.  Oh, I think I’m going to be sick.”

And he was.  Its odd how being in extreme pain can make you feel nauseated.  I’m not sure how that makes any sense.  What does that help?  The human body has some real issues.  I sat and watched while the hired killer slowly crawled away and Scrua slowly managed to get to his feet.  Even then it was a good fifteen minutes before he could walk.   

“We can still go to the crime scene if you want but Velya did it so I don’t see the point.”

“Who’s Veyla?”

“I don’t know.  How about we go back to the inn and you can pay me my money and we can talk about that?”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hair regrowth progress :  NA 

Funds: 300 gold (held in trust)

XP: 348,051

Inventory:  Animal Totem Tattoo (Lion), Enchanted Tattoo (Storm)

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler, Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Heroes of the Lost Sword, Claire Conrad, Erist priest of Strider, Riselda owner of the Sage Mirror, Eedraxis,  Skin-Taker tribe, Kartak, Królewna & Bonifacja Trading Company, Hurmont Family, Androni Titus, Greasy dreadlocks woman, Lodestone Security, Kellgale Nickoslander, Beltian Kruin the Splithog Pauper, The King of Spiders, Auraluna Domiel, mother Hurk, Mazzmus Parmalee,  Helgan van Tankerstrum, Lightdancer, Bonder Greysmith, Pegwhistle Proudfoot, Lumbfoot Sheepskin, Lumber Consortium of Three Rivers, Hellerhad the Wizard, Forsaken Kin, Law Offices of Office of Glilcus and Stolo, Jey Rora, Colonel Tarl Ciarán, Mayor Baras Haldmeer, Rindol the Sage 

Muthuselan 3 Year 888 (New Imperial Calendar)

You might have thought since I had a magic ring for many months that took away my need to sleep that I would be used to a chaotic sleep schedule but you’d be wrong about that.  Even though that ring was very helpful I never really got used to not needing to sleep.  Even with magic involved I’m not sure that the human mind is supposed to operate all the time.  Last night I slept a bit here and there but mostly I wandered around the inn turning things over and over in my mind.  One good thing about being a cat, they’re pretty good at nighttime wandering.  Shortly before dawn I decided to do something that I hardly ever do.  Pray. 

I remember one of the few times I got in trouble as a kid at the Duke’s court.  It was my turn to say the dinner prayer and I started with “Please, everyone brow your heads and pretend to be serious.”  I did learn a valuable lesson that day about not rocking the boat.  For some strange reason people don’t like it when you mock their beliefs – it’s weird.  Being a cat and all I couldn’t achieve the traditional praying stance on account of I don’t have hands and I can’t really kneel but I doubt that matters.  How could it?  Pray this way and you get saved from the gorgon, pray with one knee out of place though and you die.  That can’t be the way it works.

“Dear guardian angel, I don’t know your name because you never introduced yourself – which is pretty rude now that I think about it.  Anyway, dear bear-angel, you know who you are, I’m given to understand that you watch over me all the time and help me in some vague unspecified way.  It would really be swell if you appeared before me now and turned me back into person.  Things aren’t really going great and this thing where I have to rely on other people is seriously for the birds.  I know you were worried about me going down a bad path when last we talked, I can assure you that this is not helping.

I’m pretty sure that I just got turned into a cat by a magic person and it didn’t have anything to do with you, but on the other hand this seems like the kind of thing that might happen in a religious story.  The strong, independent, charismatic, beautiful woman with a winning attitude and a smile that could melt an iceberg gets turned into a beast so she can learn a lesson about needing help from others.  If that’s what’s going on please knock it off.  I don’t want to tell you how to do your job but this isn’t the way to go because you see bear-angel I have no problem letting people help me, that’s fine, I love for people to do my work for me – my problem is trust. 

I don’t trust many people, or rather I trust them to do whatever is in their best interest but you know what I mean.  Forcing me to count other people doesn’t make me trust them, it does the opposite – it makes me resent them.  Which isn’t fair, but if things were fair you wouldn’t have turned me into a cat by witch-proxy in the first place, which I am not saying that you did but if you did then I am saying that.  Trust is about making informed decisions.  Despite what people like to think trust can’t be given or earned, it exists or it doesn’t and nothing can change that.

You see bear-angel I don’t know how things work in . . . wherever you are, but down here you need to protect yourself because no one else is looking out for you, they have their own problems – and if they can solve those problems by stomping on you why wouldn’t they?  Actually now that I think about it, if this is some kind of lesson learning transmogification I throw a challenge out to you – turn yourself into a human and see how you do down here.  Put yourself in an alley in a dirt-town like I found myself on Montalan 29th last year with nothing but the clothes on your back and see how that goes.  If you can sail through that without doing any of the things that I did that worried you then I really will have something to think about.  That would really be a reason for me to rethink my entire approach to life.  But I think what’s going to happen is that you’re going to see . . .”

“Who are you talking to?”

I was startled to see Josta the gravedigger coming down the stairs – somehow it looked like she still had dirt in her hair.  I’d hate to see what the sheets in that bed look like.

“You know there’s a bathtub downstairs don’t you?”

“I don’t like being overly clean, its unhealthsome.  Who were you talking to?”

“I was using my cat powers to communicate with my fellow witches.”

She went behind the counter to draw herself a beer “You are a witch?  I thought that witches had cats as familiars to bargain with the wicked spirits of the Thirteen Hells on their behalf for magic powers.”

“No, that’s a common mistake though so I won’t hold it against you.  Witches do have cats that teach them magic, but those cats are actually more experienced witches who have turned themselves into cats so they can pass on their knowledge to the next generation of witches.  It’s a mentorship thing.  There’s no school for witches you know.”

“How does someone bargain with the demons of Hell for power then?”

“Visit a bank.  How’s the innkeeping going?”

She took a long drink of her beer “I’m taking it slowly, I’m going to ease into this, there’s nothing more dangerous than rushing into a new business venture before you’re ready.  I’m thinking maybe a soft opening sometime next month.”

“You’re going to run out of booze eventually.”

“Maybe, at some point a guy should show up to deliver more booze right?  Then I’ll learn how that works.”

“Can I trust you?”

“To do what?”

“Hold some money for me and not steal it all.  I can’t trust Scarlet and her lot of obvious reasons.”

“For obvious reasons.  Yeah, you can trust me not to steal all your money, I always keep my theft within reason – there’s nothing I hate more than a greedy thief.  I’m a simple woman really, I don’t need anything fancy, what would I do with a pile of gold anyway?”

“Pay someone to clean the dirt out from under your fingernails?”

“Nah, you need that there to protect against papercuts.  Where’s this money going to come from and what do you need it for.”

“If and when I find out where Cladarielle is I’m going to need to hire some muscle I figure, or someone to act on my behalf.  As for where it’s going to come from I just have a talent for turning up funds for these kind of things.”

Eventually Scarlet, Bru, and Fiestia wandered down as well and tried to make themselves some breakfast.  Turns out that none of them can cook with a damn.  Josta was content to watch them with amusement – I don’t think I’ve seen her eat anything, she must live on beer alone.  After they were done burning and wasting a bunch of food they didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves, which is understandable, career changes can be hard.  I asked them if they wanted to help me out with a few errands they were only too happy to have someone throw them a lifeline. 

First we went to Gorum’s house and cleared the place out – books may take some time to sell but we can store them at the inn while we work on that and there’s no reason to let a good shack go to waste.  Next I taught them the subtle art of renting a place you don’t own to someone and pocketing the cash.  Afterwards we repeated the process at Gorum’s bookstore/depository.  It took much longer to clear out but as we were digging through the piles to get it ready for its new “owner” we came across an ornamental silver sword.  I’m no expert on these things but it didn’t look dwarfen made to me.  I wonder what the story behind that is.  After that it was a quick trip to see Egg the fence to liquidate the sword and discuss the best way to move the books.

After that it was back to the inn where Josta was still standing behind the bar looking like maybe she hadn’t moved much at all.

“Scarlet would you please give my portion of the day’s proceeds to Josta?”

“Why don’t I just hold onto them for you?”

“Because if you do that Josta will take you by the hair and punch you in the armpit until your tit explodes.”

Scarlet looked to the thin woman behind the bar “Will you?”

She shrugged “I guess, I told the cat I would hold the money for her.”

Scarlet looked her over “You don’t seem so dangerous.”

Josta set her mug down “Looks can be deceiving.  Have you ever dug a grave?  It takes a lot of work.  It may not look like it but I’m strong.  I’m pretty sure I could snatch the life out of you if I had a mind to do so.  I don’t think your line of work is one that results in a high degree of physical fitness.”

When Scarlet handed over the money Josta couldn’t help but be impressed.

“This is more money than I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I told you I have a knack for these things.”

“There’s probably enough here that I could buy another tavern.”

“This is an inn not a tavern and that’s not even close, that’s maybe a tenth of what you’d need – unless you wanted to buy a real shithole.  You could maybe get a crummy tavern for five times that amount if the buyer really wanted to sell and you’re good at negotiation, which you are not.”

She whistled “That’s a load of money.  If that’s how expensive things are why is everyone so poor?”

“I don’t even know how to start to answer that.”

I was really hoping that Captain Maple would show up this morning with some information but as usual my hopes were dashed.  I guess he has to work his shift and then go out looking for details about Cladarielle?  In which case it won’t be until late when he comes by.  With nothing else to do I taught Scarlet and her friends how to play Red Queen.  I couldn’t play myself of course because I can’t hold the cards but it was actually somewhat interesting just to observe and teach/watch.  After a few practice hands Josta joined in as well which surprised me – she didn’t seem like they type.  They picked it up pretty quickly and we were such a good time several hours went by without us really noticing. 

Bru when out to buy and bring back some aurochs pie with garden greens and we sat around the table eating and swapping tales.  If we’re being honest most stories told by ladies of that sort are basically the same but they each had a few laughers.  After that we got back to the cards and inevitably they started wagering but no one really lost much and they were all good natured about it.  It was dark when the door started to open but it was not our friend the watch captain, it was a broad-faced woman with straw-hair wearing ornate riding boots and what looked to be a diamond pendant. Flanking here were two large hairy-knuckle types each holding a crate on their shoulder like it was no big thing.

She looked at us at our table playing cards for a moment before speaking “Who the Hells are you?  Where’s Kichwa?”

“Kichwa had to leave town unexpectedly, we’re watching the place for her.  We’re happy to keep whatever kind of agreement you had with Kichwa.”

She quickly accepted that a cat was talking to her “The agreement is that she keeps her mouth shut and does what I say.”

“Easy enough, we can do that.  I feel I would be remiss though if I didn’t mention that there was a murder here a few days ago and the course of investigating that murder two members of the city watch found a secret storage area downstairs and the name Imma Shadowrun was mentioned as being involved with it.”

Without another word the woman and her two goons turned and left. 

“I forgot to mention this place was part of some smuggling ring.  Whose turn is it to deal?”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hair regrowth progress :  NA 

Funds: 300 gold (held in trust)

XP: 348,051

Inventory:  Animal Totem Tattoo (Lion), Enchanted Tattoo (Storm)

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler, Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Heroes of the Lost Sword, Claire Conrad, Erist priest of Strider, Riselda owner of the Sage Mirror, Eedraxis,  Skin-Taker tribe, Kartak, Królewna & Bonifacja Trading Company, Hurmont Family, Androni Titus, Greasy dreadlocks woman, Lodestone Security, Kellgale Nickoslander, Beltian Kruin the Splithog Pauper, The King of Spiders, Auraluna Domiel, mother Hurk, Mazzmus Parmalee,  Helgan van Tankerstrum, Lightdancer, Bonder Greysmith, Pegwhistle Proudfoot, Lumbfoot Sheepskin, Lumber Consortium of Three Rivers, Hellerhad the Wizard, Forsaken Kin, Law Offices of Office of Glilcus and Stolo, Jey Rora, Colonel Tarl Ciarán, Mayor Baras Haldmeer, Rindol the Sage 

Muthuselan 2 Year 888 (New Imperial Calendar) Part 2

Here’s a philosophical question for you – if a pimp gets electrocuted and no one cares did it make a sound?  There’s a part of me that thinks out of all the murders I’ve committed (justifiably in self-defense obviously) I should feel the best about this one.  One less pimp ion the world right?  I could feel like this was for a purpose. I could feel good about myself for what I did. Like I did something constructive with my life or like I accomplished something.  But in the end what does it really matter?  You can’t kill your way to a better world, unless you kill everyone, and that’s more a draw than a win really.  Pimps are just the pustule, they’re not the disease. 

Anyway, enough pimp talk, Scarlet and her pals Fiestia (ugly corset) and Bru (washerwoman) after they got over their initial shock of witnessing a horrible death and then the more perverse shock of actually experiencing freedom (of a sort, I mean only rich people are truly free and lot of them choose not to be) got to work helping me out.  Cladarielle isn’t as famous as her husband, of course, but she’s known around town so they didn’t think it would be hard to track her down.  They tossed around a couple ideas but the one that was by a wide margin the most promising was contacting a watch captain by the name of Sharn Maple.  He was a regular of Bru’s but she was worried that he would be angry if they approached him to ask for them. 

“Yeah, that’s why he’s going to help us.”

She frowned “How’s that?”

“He’d be angry because he doesn’t want people to know that you know him, and the best way to get rid of you is to help you as soon as possible.  Well or kill you, but that seems like an overreaction.”

“But if I do that I might lose him as a customer!”

“So what, you guys work at an inn now.  Although might I suggest that you now have a pretty solid basis for a blackmailing business as well.”

Scarlet raised an eyebrow “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Yes, but nothing ventured eh? Okay Bru, here’s what you do – send the guy a note saying you’re knocked up and you need money to get out of town.  You don’t say outright that if you don’t get the money people will find out about the whole sordid mess but you hint at it.”

“I can’t write.”

“No worries, I’ll write for you.”

Scarlet looked dubious “Can you hold a pen in your paw?”

“What?  Oh right.  Sorry I forgot I was a cat for a moment.  Can any of you write?” They shook their head. “Alright then, I know a place we can go to figure this out.”

We headed over to Gorum’s shop.  I expected that he might be there but apparently he loves Kichwa even more than his books because there was no sign of him – they must have run from the inn and just kept running.  It’s good to know that true love exists.  Granted it’s easier when you don’t really know the person you’re in love with, let’s see how they’re doing in six months.  For that matter as long as dwarves live do they even believe in monogamy?  I’m not sure I even want to know. 

Fiestia was able to tease open the lock but for some reason she did a whole innocent act before admitting that she could.  Who was she trying to fool?  Once inside I found a book that was one tutors use to teach kids that had a couple pages with big block letters and I was able to point out the letters for Scarlet to copy with the plentiful ink and paper in the place to write out the message.  It was tedious and took a long time but she actually did pretty well considering.  The writing was somewhat childish looking, but what can do you?

“Next we find a courier and the trap is set.”

Scarlet spoke for the group “What are we going to pay him with?  We don’t have any money.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay, we don’t have any money we’re going to spend on this.”

“That I can accept.  Let’s go over to Gorum’s house and see how much of a hurry he left in.”

“Isn’t that robbery?”

“Yes.  You lot are awfully uptight for prostitutes, crime is crime don’t get bogged down in the details.”

“Ex-prostitutes you mean, we work at an inn now.”

“Of course that’s what I meant.”

Gorum’s shack was untouched as far as I could tell.  He and Kichwa must have literally left town together as soon as they were out of the inn.  Or maybe a bugbear ate them.  Doesn’t matter which I suppose.  There were a lot more books, which probably can be sold but that’s not really quick cash.  More promisingly we found a leather cutlery case with steel knives inside, a silver decanter, and a brass jar.  Scarlet “happened” to know a fence called Egg who we went to see next in his basement lair at 83 Grimalkin Lane.  I was expecting him to be bald because of the name but he had a full hair of hair – he wasn’t a bad looking fellow for a weasely asshole fence – so I have no idea why they call him Egg.

Scarlet bargained with the guy for what seemed like a year over these simple items and I wanted to get angry about it, but I remember what it’s like to live or die on every coin – because I was doing it less than a year ago.  You should bargain as long as you can – words cost nothing and they can get you gold.  It’s like magic only anyone can do it.  Eventually the goods and coin were exchanged and as a bonus Egg had a short guy with a horse-face (not literally, although I saw a guy once that was cursed by a witch to have a horse head) that was willing to carrying the message for us.  It was getting on to the dinner hour so we went to a restaurant nearby to await the reply.  I had to hide under the table and eat off a plate on the floor.  I didn’t care for that.  Egg’s messenger returned with instructions to meet the Captain by the Statue of the Maker in an hour.

“Hells no, send the guy back a note saying we’ll meet him at the inn.”

“Why?”

“When you’re putting the squeeze on someone you don’t want to let them dictate the location of the meet.  If this guy does want to slit your throat and toss your body in an alley for the dogs you don’t want to let him set up an ambush.  We’ll meet him on our home territory.”

“We only moved to the inn yesterday, how much of an advantage could it be?”

“Sure but you know what I mean.”

Rather than messing about with a another note we just had the courier take him the message verbally.  When we got back to the inn Josta was puttering around not doing much of anything with a mug of beer in her hand. 

“I was wondering where you girls had gotten to.  I see the magic cat is back.”

“With a vengeance.  We’re going to use your place to meet with a watch captain we’re blackmailing.  Do you have a crossbow?”

“No, but it he gets out of line I’ll bash him with my shovel.”

“Good enough.”

The watch captain was a tall fellow that had one of those weird baby faces – not that he looked young exactly, he looked like a middle aged man with a baby face.  I found it unsettling.  He had clearly been quite the physical presence in years gone by but he was putting on a little weight and was at the point where he was either going to realize that he can’t live like he used to or begin the long slow slide into slovenly portliness.  He was equal parts shocked by a talking cat and relieved that he hadn’t impregnated a sex worker.

“Don’t get too excited though, because we’re still extorting you – I need to know where Cladarielle Staelish is and/or what happened to her.  She didn’t come home last night and I don’t think that’s her usually shtick.”

His eyes widened “Bywan Staelish’s wife is missing?”

“Yes, and you’re going to find her – aren’t you lucky?!  Think how impressed and happy he’ll be that you saved his wife.  I mean he’s this hero right and you saved his wife, what does that make you?”

His eyes gleamed “A big damn hero.”

“You can say that again, twice if you like.”

“What am I saving her from?”

“That’s what you need to find out my friend.”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hair regrowth progress :  NA 

Funds: None

XP: 348,051

Inventory:  Animal Totem Tattoo (Lion), Enchanted Tattoo (Storm)

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler, Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Heroes of the Lost Sword, Claire Conrad, Erist priest of Strider, Riselda owner of the Sage Mirror, Eedraxis,  Skin-Taker tribe, Kartak, Królewna & Bonifacja Trading Company, Hurmont Family, Androni Titus, Greasy dreadlocks woman, Lodestone Security, Kellgale Nickoslander, Beltian Kruin the Splithog Pauper, The King of Spiders, Auraluna Domiel, mother Hurk, Mazzmus Parmalee,  Helgan van Tankerstrum, Lightdancer, Bonder Greysmith, Pegwhistle Proudfoot, Lumbfoot Sheepskin, Lumber Consortium of Three Rivers, Hellerhad the Wizard, Forsaken Kin, Law Offices of Office of Glilcus and Stolo, Jey Rora, Colonel Tarl Ciarán, Mayor Baras Haldmeer, Rindol the Sage 

Muthuselan 2 Year 888 (New Imperial Calendar) Part 1

The night came and went and come morning Cladarielle still hadn’t returned home.  As someone who regularly goes out on a basic errand and ends up “missing” for several days that maybe shouldn’t alarm me but I have a bad feeling about this.  You may be thinking to yourself “Ela, you have a bad feeling about everything”.  Yeah, I do, and when’s the last time I was wrong?  I spent the night wandering around the house looking for a way that I could get out.  I should have told Cladarielle to leave a window cracked just in case.  From now on the first thing I’ve going to do when I end up in a new place is find how I can get out of there on my own and if theirs is no way something needs to be done about it. 

I know that I’m starting to repeat myself, but this feeling of helplessness is really starting to wear on me.  I can endure a lot mentally, Gods know that I have, but this pervasive sense of being powerless could grind me down over a long enough timeline.  I had found no way out of the house when the sun came up and I contemplated blasting a way out with my Storm tattoo, but then I would be defenseless for the rest of the day.  And of course there’s the possibility that everything is fine and I would be wrecking the house of the one person helping me for no reason.  In the end I decided to do what cats do best – sit in the window sill and watch the world outside. I even managed to doze off for a while.

When I woke up there was a little girl on the other side of the glass looking in at me in that way little girls do when they see something fluffy and adorable.  Well, some little girls anyway.  Doing my best to be as cute as possible I threw my voice to her.

“Well hello there.”

I’ve seen some truly astonished looks in my day but adults can’t hold a candle to children when it comes to facial expressions of surprise and joy.  Or any other ones really.  I guess they haven’t learned to hide their emotions yet.  She held up her rag doll and looked at it in wonder.  I suppose that’s maybe more plausible than a talking cat or equally as plausible at the very least.  I’ve always hated those things, the button eyes really creep me out.  Can you prove those buttons didn’t come from the trousers of a psychotic killer?  No, you cannot. 

“Yes, it’s me, your doll, I’ve come to life because I need your help.”

I could barely hear her through the window glass “If you came to life why aren’t you moving?”

“I can’t move, I can only speak to you – and only you can hear me because you’re so special.  You are the greatest, most interesting, most important person of all times.”

“I am?”

“Yes, and I need you to do something for me. That door to your right, see it?  I need you to open that door.”

She scowled “That doesn’t sound very important.”

“I assure you that it is.  You see that door is a magic door and you’re the only one who can open it because you’re the prettiest and the smartest and horses that don’t like anyone else will let you pet them.”

“Why is it magic?”

“A witch cast a spell on it.”

“Why?”

“To trap a beautiful princess who is actually your big sister and will show you how to put on make-up and seem more gown up.”

“Really?’

“Yes.”

“Wow.  Why did the witch do that?”

“Jealously.  She didn’t like that the princess was prettier and better liked than her.  And also she’s really good at jacks.  The witch hated how good she was.”

“How good?”

“She never forgets to go queens before kings.”

“Whoa.  Can she teach me too?”

“Absolutely, she’d love nothing more than to do that, and also to do your chores for you.”

“Really?”

“Yes really, can we move this along a little, the princess has places to be.”

The girl eagerly ran over to the door of the Staelish house but she stopped herself from reaching for the knob.  I saw she saying something to the doll but now that she was away from the window even with cat ears I couldn’t make it out.  I threw my voice in her direction again.

“You have to speak up, these doll ears don’t hear so good.”

She shouted her little lungs out “Isn’t it wrong to go into someone’s house without asking?”

“You’re not going in, you’re just opening the door, besides that rule doesn’t apply when witches and spells are involved.”

“Okay!”

I had a moment of true panic when she struggled with the knob, thinking that maybe the door was locked, but she was able to get it open.  Who doesn’t lock their doors?  I guess it’s a good thing this is a nice neighborhood.  She tried to grab me as I ran out but she’d have better luck jumping to the moon.

“Hey kitty you’re supposed to be out here!”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about the cat.  Now the last thing you need to do is shut the door very gently, not all the way, just enough so that it looks closed but that a very small creature could push it open still.”

“Like a rabbit?”

“Sure.”

With exaggerated care she closed the door – the kind of exaggeration that you can only find in children.  Or drunk morons. 

“Thanks kid, the magic is over now so I won’t be talking to you anymore but you’re the best, remember that.”

“Wait, where’s my sister princess?”

“She had some errands to run, she’ll swing by tonight to see you.  Bye now.”

I hate walking through the streets like this.  I absolutely hate it.  It’s hard to see where you’re going when you’re this low to the ground – everything and everyone blocks your line of sight.  I’m not super tall but tall enough that I’m used to having a good eyeline.  Plus one person steps on you and your dead.  And don’t even get me started on dogs.  I wouldn’t have thought that any experience could sour me on pooches, but this has opened a tiny crack.  Why must dogs bark their heads off at me one hundred percent of the time?  Do you know how fucking loud a dog bark is to cat ears?

It took me hours to get back to the tavern, the scene of the crime if you will.  There was no longer a dead merchant hanging out the top window, which I saw as a welcome development.  The door was closed but I was able to make my way on the roof of the building nearby and window jump into the room where Lieutenant Ferros had met his maker.  Or maybe not his maker but some God or other probably.  His body was gone as well and I could see my friend the gravedigger sleeping in the large bed.  I would have woken her up but I heard voices coming from downstairs and decided to investigate that first.  Cat peeking down the stairs I saw Scarlet two other women of a similar mien sitting around a table in their underclothes. I padded down to the common room.

“What are you doing?”

The two other women were as startled as you’d expect by a talking cat but Scarlet was nonplussed “Well if it isn’t the cat detective.  Did you crack the case?”

“Of course, the butler did it.  Why are you sitting around in your smallclothes?”

“We’re doing laundry.”

“Looks like you’re just sitting around.”

“There’s a magic tub downstairs that does all the work, you just have to toss the clothes in.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that, without menial tasks to keep them busy what’s going to become of the lower classes?”

“I shudder to think.  Did you come here for a reason or just to visit the scene of your detectiving triumph.”

“I came looking for help actually.  I thought that the gravedigger might lend me a hand because I gave her this inn, but maybe you lot can help me.”

“Why would we do that?”

“When you bailed the law dogs wanted to go after you, I told them not to bother.”

“Because of you I got my sweetdream confiscated.”

“Not because of me, that was the law dogs.  But there’s plenty of money to be had here – the dwarf had some weapons and armor in her room and the merchant had all kinds of good stuff.  I doubt the digger knows how to liquidate that stuff but I’m sure that you ladies do, or know someone that can.  Er, does.  Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“What do you need help with?”

“I need to find a friend of mine.  She was out last night and she never came back.  I’m concerned that something may have befallen her.”

“How sweet, I wish someone cared that much about me – something befalls me regularly.”

“I know the feeling.  Are you going to help me?”

Scarlet thought about it for a moment “That’s pretty thin.  I’m sure Josta was going to have us help her sell that stuff anyway. What else do you have to offer?” 

“Let me ask you a question, what do you girls plan to do?”

One of other women, in a hideous black and red corset spoke up “Do?  Do about what?”

“About this place.  Josta is going to need help running it, this is your chance to earn a living on your feet.”

Scarlet shook her head “Roche would never allow it.”

“Your pimp?” She nodded “What if he wasn’t in the picture anymore?”

Scarlet laughed “You get rid of Roche and we’ll find you the crown price Himself!”

“Done.  Take me to wherever he is.”

The third one, who looked more like a washerwoman than a pleasure girl snorted “What are you going to do?  Cat magic?”

“Yeah.”

They clearly thought I was joking but they carried me (humiliating) a few blocks over to the kind of waterbug infested taproom where you’d expect to find a low quality panderer.  They didn’t think it was a joke anymore when I annihilated him with a stroke of lightening.  Interestingly enough I would say the smell of burning pimp actually improved the ambiance there.    

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hair regrowth progress :  NA 

Funds: None

XP: 348,051

Inventory:  Animal Totem Tattoo (Lion), Enchanted Tattoo (Storm)

Revenge List: Duke Eaglevane, Piltis Swine, Rince Electrum, watchman Gridley, White-Muzzle the worg, Percy Ringle the butler, Alice Kinsey , “Patch”, Heroes of the Lost Sword, Claire Conrad, Erist priest of Strider, Riselda owner of the Sage Mirror, Eedraxis,  Skin-Taker tribe, Kartak, Królewna & Bonifacja Trading Company, Hurmont Family, Androni Titus, Greasy dreadlocks woman, Lodestone Security, Kellgale Nickoslander, Beltian Kruin the Splithog Pauper, The King of Spiders, Auraluna Domiel, mother Hurk, Mazzmus Parmalee,  Helgan van Tankerstrum, Lightdancer, Bonder Greysmith, Pegwhistle Proudfoot, Lumbfoot Sheepskin, Lumber Consortium of Three Rivers, Hellerhad the Wizard, Forsaken Kin, Law Offices of Office of Glilcus and Stolo, Jey Rora, Colonel Tarl Ciarán, Mayor Baras Haldmeer, Rindol the Sage