Art/Writing and OC Stuffs \o/

There's a moment of hesitation, and the speaker resumes.

"Which is... really weird, if I can be honest. Like- it brought those feelings back, but now when I think about Kid, it's like... It's different now. I mean, I got excited to see 'em again, after the last mission. But then that same feeling started to come up again when Mask got upset, like- that same danger feeling, an' it put me back in that part of the forest again, with Kid starin' at me, just waitin' for me to move. It's almost like... two- different Kids? I-I dunno, it's just- weird. B'cause I like Kid now, y'know, an'-"

Another moment of silence, but it's broken by a soft laugh.

"I do, huh. Yeah, I-" The voice softens. "I do like 'em now, I think."

...

“Anyway, what um…” The voice peters off, like the speaker is lost in thought. “What did we… Right. Yeah, so we got some dabloons from a cat that was in the forest, because that’s that world’s currency an’ we didn’t have any, an’ promptly went shopping. I got a nice silver dagger b’cause it was different, an’ it turned out I got the one most useful thing there, because the store keeper turned out to be a vampire! Which I didn’t even know what those were ‘til now. But yeah, they’re apparently weak to silver, like to suck blood, and can pass on being a vampire to someone else by biting them. Also…” The voice drops down to a murmur. “Lemme check my notes…”

“Yeah,” the voice kicks back in at full volume. “They’re also weak to garlic. An’ it was interesting, so I had my headband workin’ again, right, an’ it was interesting to see like. The moment the change happened? Like it happened with Haco first, because the guy bit him before we got away, but I saw the moment his species changed to include vampire. He- also grew cat ears and a tail, which was kinda funny. But we got away from the store keeper and into the woods an’ that’s where we met Kesh, as well as another cat that called itself a mercat and led us to this underwater cat city. We had to eat these tuna balls to be able to breathe underwater long enough to swim to it, but it was really neat!”

“The place looked really cool- and there was a like. Big communal sleep area that they let us stay in for the night? But then we got woken up by a ruckus from Haco, who bit Voltage- an’ not only like. It didn’t spread bein’ a vampire, like the shopkeep did, but it entirely passed it on. Haco quit being one right around when Voltage’s kicked in.”

“There was an older cat lady that helped us out in all the chaos and got us all some hot chocolate an’ calm, an’ she told us about this relic that some Fey took from the mercats a long time ago an’ hid in a volcano, an’ since we didn’t really know what we were being sent in to do that seemed good enough, so we had our mission! That’s also when everything about the headband came out to everyone b’cause I talked about bein’ able to see when folks turned into vampires, an’ I had the first of two… Not Great conversations with Mask about it. After that, Kesh ran off to go buy stuff- I think to make potions? An’ the rest of us followed to stock up before heading out.”

“Which! Heading out, the mercat lady sang an’ the waterfall we followed on the way in reversed its direction?? So it was flowing upwards, which was super cool, and we got to swim up it!”

“Um- ok, day two, what all happened day two…” There’s a sniff, and a moment of silence. “Oh, cat-jitsu! So we got to this desert an’ ran into this merchant who gave us starter packs for this card game called cat-jitsu, it’s like you’re pulling out cards that are element-themed, but also have numbers, an’ the trumping element between the two people playing wins- an’ if they pull the same one, the highest number wins! It’s pretty fun, I really liked it. Granted, I did beat Voltage at it first go, so, heh. May’ve been kinda biased on that one.”

“The card guy gave us a ride in his wagon to the town closest to the volcano, where I got another knife, but this one looks really nice an’ fancy! I did sell a scale thing I’d gotten back in the water town for it, but it’s never a bad idea to have more weapons, ‘specially with all my usual stuff gone.”

“So with all’a that, we finally make it to the volcano. There’s this big temple up top, or close to it, an’ lava everywhere an’ it’s real hot- so maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t have my usual on me- an’ we get up to it an’ this big voice booms throughout the whole area welcoming us an’ sayin’ there’s like a trial or somethin’ we’ve gotta pass. There’s a ton of doors inside, which all open at once- Kesh immediately runs off into one an’ it closes behind him, so the rest of us go off in pairs. I dunno what everyone else did, but Voltage an’ I ended up with a buncha different puzzles to solve, like one had us just figure out that we had to knock on a door an’ ask nicely to go through, another had us pop giant popcorn to climb to the top, there was another one where we had to put in how many coals were in a basket, and…. there was one more… Yeah, it was the reflections thing, where we had to make the room match its reflection. We were able to meet up with everyone else after that in this huge arena.”

“And the huge arena was apparently an arena for a giant card-jitsu game! Er, n- cat-jitsu. The floor filled up with lava except for these elemental themed platforms we were standing on, an’ we had to keep moving around the platforms in a circle while playin’ the game. Any time we lost a hand, the platform underneath us got real hot- like, it hurt hot. And the thing we were playin’ against was this golden creature thing that popped up right beforehand- so every time it lost a hand, it melted a little more b’cause of the heat, an’ eventually, it melted down completely.”

There’s a very brief pause, wherein it sounds like the speaker shifts again.

“The lava went away and this pedestal thing popped up in the middle, and the big voice told us to go up an’ touch it, something along the lines of ‘add your knowledge and ask a question’. Well, Kesh- I’ll get to Kesh in a minute. I went up an’ asked about the relic the Fey stole, turns out it was embedded in a tree right by the mercats’ home, so we came all the way out to the volcano for nothing, sorta.”

“Also turned out that when you touch the pedestal, the temple like… makes a copy of you? So when I went up, I saw myself appear in front of me, but kinda see-through, an’ the copy went off and joined the crowd in the arena. Right- yeah, there was this whole big crowd around, an’ they were all made of these afterimages of a buncha catfolk that had come through before an’ I’m assuming did the same thing.”

“Also turned out it hadn’t meant like. One question for the party, it meant one question per person, so the others got to go ask questions as well. So Voltage got to find out how to cure bein’ a vampire, Iiiii don’t remember what Mask asked- Haco- well. Haco can’t really remember much of his past? So he asked how he used to be. And Kesh… so. Kesh got a couple of magic gems attached to him? I think they came from the melted gold creature. But he asked about those, an’ he was not happy, which. Fair, really, because they apparently keep him immortal as long as he’s pursuing knowledge? An’ he started getting real big an’ mad at the temple, yelling about how he wouldn’t outlive his family or give up knowledge, an’ threw some… kinda nasty-sounding threats around, but the temple couldn’t help him.”

“With uh… with all’a that, we started to head back, ‘n that’s when I had the other conversation with Mask, because the first one, she’d asked me to take the headband off, something about she didn’t want me knowing stuff about her, but… I’d- y’know the way it works, I’d already seen it? But I didn’t tell her that the first time, an’ it really started eating at me, so I told her on our way out and uh… It didn’t go well.”

“But we were able to get back to the mercats an’ tell ‘em where their relic was, an’ Voltage got his flower tea that cured him, an’ Death says we’re all good to go, so we pop back to the Library. Death is able to bring Kesh with us, so he goes to meet Lorekeeper an’ gets it all worked out where he’ll join our party for two years an’ then Lorekeeper’ll get the gems off.”

“We all split after that, I went and people-watched for a bit, and… did some thinking, too.”

“Because Haco was able to ask that temple about something he’d forgotten, right? So… maybe I can get back what I’d lost last mission, if I go back and ask later. I’d tried while we were there, but you only get one question per visit, so. I gotta spend some time away from it and learn something new, I think. When I go home tonight, I’m gonna… figure out something to do that I can learn, unless maybe just having spent time existing counts as new knowledge? I mean, it’s knowledge of how a day was spent, and how time passed, an’ what folks did in that time, so maybe that’ll count. I dunno, I’ll see. But I’m gonna give it a try, definitely. If I can get it back, I’ll… I’ll log it, maybe.”

“Anyway, that’s all for this mission. Hopefully I’ll have some good news next time!”