Cat Core 2, Chapter 22.

Chapter 22.

“Doug, what did you come up with for traps?” Florence asked. He was still moping around a bit since she named the last kitty but talking about traps seemed to perk the little guy right up.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were done creating new defenders, did you run out of names?” Doug whined.

“No, just show me what you done and stop being passive aggro or whatever it’s called,” Florence said.

“The phrase is passive-aggressive, and I’ve only had time to work on something for the mailbox trap,” Doug said, showing her the upgrades he’d made. The old mailbox trap was the same five-dollar version he had upgraded to before, but now the mailbox was situated inside the middle of a ten-foot-deep pit trap. Wooden spikes waited at the bottom for anyone unfortunate enough to fall in.

“That should help counter the constant annoyance of rogues disarming the mailbox,” Doug said, proud of his work.

“Hmm, I like the new trap, but won’t rogues just disarm the durned thing like they do the mailbox?” Florence asked.

“Yes, they can, but it will take them time to find the trap and then to disarm it. That whole time, the mailbox will be chugging out crossbow bolts at the adventurers,” Doug advised.

“Nice work, what are you going to work on next?” Florence asked. The pit trap was a nice addition, but she could see parties sending their rogues over to disarm it and the mailbox before they ever stepped into range. That was fine, the front lawn was the first test a party took on and it wouldn’t be fair to overload it with traps and defenders.

“If you’re not going to add additional defenders in the hallway, I was going to add a couple of traps in there next, as well as update the fireplace trap,” Doug advised.

“Sounds good, I’ll call you over when I make some new kitties. You’ll get to name the next one, I promise. I’m going to finally finish populating the third floor next, Mortimer could use some kitties to raise from the dead if the adventurers aren’t nice enough to bring him any corpses to work with,” Florence said. It was a bit gruesome to think of it that way, but her home champion really did need bodies to use, and having a few kitties there in the side yard should work perfectly.

Florence focused on the side yard, creating another kitty. This one turned out to be a big old orange tabby, a true brawler kitty if she ever saw one. She wanted to name the newest addition but had agreed to let Doug do it and he was still tied up with working on a trap in the first-floor hallway. Fine, she’d let him finish up before naming this guy.

“Sorry big orange guy, you’ll have to wait on Doug to give you a name, but don’t worry, I won’t let him give you something weird,” Florence promised her newest baby. The kitty looked up at her and gave a small mew, she could tell he was disappointed, so she better give him a friend as soon as possible.

Her next kitty was a bit odd but in a cute, not creepy way. Sitting there next to the unnamed orange cat was a strange long-haired black and brown calico kitty. This one was odd, its eyes would occasionally flash with white light and the whole kitty’s body would sort of fade out of existence. She had never seen anything like and Florence Valentine was a woman who had seen a lot of things in her time.

“Oh, that’s a lovely new cat type you’ve discovered, Florence. Since it’s my turn to name a cat, I shall call this one…” Doug started to say.

“Nope, I’m naming this one, it’s Spooky,” Florence started before Doug interrupted.

“…White Eyes of the Hunter,” Doug shouted, having the nerve to try and shout out a name for the cat, both of their voices blending as they tried to speak over each other.

“Now, listen here, Doug. You’re not going to try and talk over me, especially not when I’m trying to name our kitties,” Florence said, chastising the white kitten advisor.

“Well, though the method may be deemed rude, I felt I had to expend the effort if I didn’t want to be the victim of your negligent behavior. How dare you skip over my naming turn multiple times. It was my turn, and just look what your unfair shenanigans have done to our latest defender,” Doug said.

Florence was constantly surprised over the range of emotions a kitten could have, right now, Doug had both fury and disdain plastered over his white fluffy face. Looking at her latest baby, Florence had to admit their argument had spun the naming process for a loop.

Spooky White Eyes the Hunter, Ethereal Assassin.

“Fine, that didn’t go well, and if I cut in line, I apologize. Now, to make things up, you can name this jolly kitty here,” Florence said, pointing toward the orange kitty still waiting for a name. Doug was obviously in the wrong here, but she was going to be the bigger person, like she always was, and let Doug have a go at naming.

“Very well, since you admit your culpability in the matter, I’ll come up with an appropriate name for this fellow, Doug replied, placing a paw up to his chin in contemplation.

“Don’t take all day, I know you have a whole list of dopey names floating around in your head, we talked about this back on earth,” Florence said, irritated about the little guy for wasting their time.

“Fine, this brave defender shall be named Sun Wukong!” Doug pronounced loudly. The orange brawler kitty seemed to like the name, even if it was ridiculous.

“What kind of name is that? Calling a cat Sun King Kong isn’t right,” Florence replied.

“It’s Sun Wukong. The name is from Chinese mythology, it’s the Monkey King,” Doug argued.

“The fact that you have to explain it means it’s not a very good name. Imagine, naming a poor kitty Some Kind of Donkey Kong and having the nerve to also call him a monkey,” Florence said.

“Nowhere did I mention anything close to Some Kind of Donkey Kong, it’s Sun Wukong,” Doug argued.

“Okay, you're done here, for now, go back to your traps, I’ll handle the naming for a while,” Florence ordered, ignoring Doug’s further protestations. She turned her attention back to the third floor, she had two more cats to create here.

The next cat looked almost like of twin of Spud. It was, thankfully less stinky looking but he was a bit scuffed up, like he was a guy that got into a lot of fights. She named him Scamp, which seemed to fit him perfectly. For her final kitty on the floor, Florence watched as yet another fluffy Maine Coon cat appeared, already meowing and greeting Scamp.

“What gives? We’ve been getting far more Maine Coon cats than I thought we would. It’s a good thing they’re fluffy and cute, or I’d be mad about the whole situation,” Florence said to herself. She loved that breed of cat, but her home needed some variety, of course, as long as that variety didn’t include any dead zombie cats.

“You’re going to be, Lizzy, you look like a Lizzy, say hi to your friends, and let’s see what classes you and Scamp here have become. It turned out Lizzy was a mage with a conjuration magic affinity. Scamp was something different, she thought he was going to be a brawler, but his class was showing as bully instead. She wanted to ask about it but was still irritated with Doug.

With the four new defenders on the third floor, Florence was using up 140 out of her 150 defender expense limit. The remaining ten dollars would be used for some traps to bolster Mortimer. Annoyed with him or not, Doug was good at figuring out the perfect trap for the situation. The third floor was done, but with the expanded defender expense she received for reaching level seven, she took a look at the second floor. They didn’t have any traps yet, so most of her funds would be required for that.

The rest of the floor had good coverage, maybe she could add some defenders into the walk-in closet. She had planned to do traps in there, but perhaps one kitty to distract adventurers from the possibility of traps. She summoned one more defender, but this time, she got something different. Instead of a normal-sized level six kitty, she had what looked like a kitten. She was as adorable as you could make a cat, but why a kitten? She couldn’t force a kitten to fight, could she?

Vala, Puppet Master, Level 6.

What in the heck was a puppet master? Was her kitty going to put on some kind of kid’s show or something? Things were getting weird, but as long as the little cutie contributed to her home’s defense, Florence was glad to have her. The second floor now needed a minor champion. She thought about promoting one of her babies, but it might be nice to create something new.

Twenty-five dollars were pulled from Florence’s core and when the process was done, Florence had her second-floor minor champion. It was another short-haired tabby, but she was rather, well, chubby. To top things off, the poor cat had an unnaturally small head. What in tarnation was going on with this cat?

“Doug, what’s with this new minor champion. Its got a weird small head and I haven’t heard of this class before,” Florence said, pulling up the cat’s information.

Tachi, Level 5, Chronomancer.

“Chronomancer is a rare and powerful mage sub-class. Our newest defender will be able to control time itself, though, at her power level, I suspect she will do something simple like slowing enemies and speeding up allies. When combined with our other defenders, Tachi here could really help to push our forces to victory. As far as the diminutive cranium, that is an unfortunate side effect of this class,” Doug said. Florence watched as Tachi made the rounds. Never settling into a room of her own, Tachi was content to wander the second floor. By the time the day was out, her newest minor champion should figure out the best places for naps across the whole floor.

“Are you still working on the first-floor traps, we need to finish things up on the second and third floor,” Florence said.

“Yes, the work here is complete, I was just doing some additional testing,” Doug said. Florence could see her defender expense for the first floor was now maxed at 400, so Doug must have been pretty busy.

“Run me through the changes,” Florence asked. She could detect where new traps were placed but wanted to hear Doug’s reasoning behind what he did.

“Very well, the first change is in the hallway. With Mortimer gone from the room, the place needed a bit more danger. Some of the adventurers have discovered that they can hear the defenders moving around in the walls as they prepare for their next attack. I’ve placed two random spear traps, along with some noisemakers to simulate a cat attack. When adventurers move to cover an opening, it might be a cat or it might be a spear to the face,” Doug said, obviously proud of his work.

“That’s good, but I notice you’ve not placed any traps in the sewing room and the bath,” Florence said.

“True, those rooms are optional and as we discussed before, I don’t want to waste defender expense on them. In the laundry room, however, I’ve added a second clothesline trap. Now the adventurers can’t just duck under the first line, or they’ll run into the second one that is placed a bit lower. While they’re trying to disarm things, our summoners will be busy throwing creatures at them,” Doug said.

“What about the garage? It’s optional but you have four traps in there if I’m seeing things correctly,” Florence asked.

“Yes, it is an optional chamber, but I propose we place a reward chest inside for the first few runs, that way, adventurers will be drawn inside and have to run the gauntlet I’ve created. Just inside the room, I have a pair of large litter box traps. They’ll have to find some way to cross over them safely, and when they finally do cross over, the second pair of traps will activate. For those I’ve added several drills that will shoot up from the sand,” Doug told her.

“Nice work, Doug, what’s left down here?” Florence asked.

“I added the second magic missile trap in the library, and inside the dining room, we now have a silverware catapult. This is a command-activated trap and the kitties inside can trigger it when they like or you and I can trigger it remotely if we so desire,” Doug said. The trapped tray was filled with sharp knives and forks, all ready to be flung into an adventurer’s face. With the manual trigger near the dish Cookie liked to sleep in, the cats defending the room should have a pretty good chance at firing off the trap before the adventurers got to them.

“I like it, and I’ve left you thirty-five dollars of defender expense for the second floor and ten dollars for the third,” Florence told him. Before Doug could get back to work, a strange figure arrived at the front of the lawn.

“Hello there! It’s me, Bartleby! I’ve got my bountiful bag of baubles for your dungeon, may I come in?” The man asked.

“Florence, it’s that man that sold us the cat mech, we should see if he has any more of those,” Doug said. Florence could remember how much Doug loved that thing, but she also remembered this guy never mentioned anything about her losing her memory if that soulbond liquid activated.

“Why, of course, come right in, Bartleby,” Florence said. The man looked confused as he approached.

“Florence Valentine, is that you?” The man asked as he walked into the front door.

“Yes, it is, and you’ve got some explaining to do mister!” She growled, Bartleby starting to look a bit concerned as the cats in the living room bristled their fur at him.

“Oh, boy,” Bartleby mumbled as the front door closed behind him.