Cat Core 2, Chapter 16.

Chapter 16.

The party started out with Larah in the lead, twin axes in her hands. Behind the warrior, Florence watched Tipp scrutinizing the hallway as he scanned for traps. This left the pair of mages at the rear, a perfect target for Florence’s kitties. Just as she suspected, the two hatches near the mages opened and out charged Buddy and Princess. The cats landed devastating slashes on the back of each mage’s leg, causing both to howl out in pain and blindly unleash their magic, blasts of frost and fire hitting nothing but the floor.

“Watch yourselves, they have more than one exit,” Tipp said, finding and opening one of the hatches that Florence’s cats used. The halfling shrieked like a little girl and fell back on his bottom as Princess chose that moment to shoot out of the hatch he was messing with. Florence had to hand it to the rogue, he was quick, getting both daggers up just in time for her precious baby to impale itself on the blades. Being level one with the less robust commando body meant the attack was fatal for poor Princess.

Buddy shot out from the opposite side to avenge his sister. The tabby furball led with a sharp claw swipe that managed to get under the shoulder armor of the rogue, digging a deep and painful-looking furrow in the flesh there. That one kid with the axes, Larah, wasted no time, swiping the pair down as Buddy flew past, the first axe missed but the second one was timed perfectly to chop Florence’s little baby down.

“Back to the other room,” Larah ordered, the bleeding party stumbled its way back to the living room where they broke out the magic bandages again. A few minutes later, everyone was patched up, and with the mages holding spells ready to cover her, Larah rushed out to gather the loot from the two fallen kitties. She found a silver coin and another handful of coppers, not a haul the party was pleased with.

“This stinks, the loot is horrible and we’re already out of action. I don’t want to go further, the wounds are making it hard to concentrate like I need to,” Tipp said.

The party agreed and moped their way out of her home, returning to where Shara waited for them just outside the entrance. A glow covered the older woman, healing energy pouring into the group. Tipp started to head back in, but Shara stopped him, warning if she had to heal them, it was the end of their run. Florence overheard Shara tell the party that she wasn’t going to have her charges running out of the dungeon each time they got hurt for her to patch them up, that would teach them nothing and might even result in decreased experience gain.

“What is it with these rogues always complaining about the loot?” Florence said.

“I think they were just unhappy they couldn’t proceed further,” Doug replied.

“Well, it’s not my fault they were too dumb to bring along a healer, and what do they expect for taking on only three normal defenders that were level one. They got some coin for their trouble and even got an Obi doily to drop,” Florence murmured angrily. She didn’t like ungrateful people but would reserve judgment on the group until after they made some more runs.

“If you’re done with your complaints, see how much cash we received from that little jaunt,” Doug said.

“Oh, don’t boss me around,” Florence replied, still a bit angry, but she did indeed pull up her interface to check on the results of the limited delve.

Florence Valentine

Cat Core, level 6.

Experience: 204/6000.

Funds: $28.77

Defender Expense:

1stFloor. Level range 1-3 (340/350).

2ndFloor. Level range 3-5 (120/250).

3rdFloor. Level range 5-6 (100/150).

She had enough to build a couple more defenders, and since building defenders meant making kitties, she jumped right into the process. The question was, where did she place them? The second floor was still lightly populated, and the final floor was only Mortimer but since Mortimer was like the final boss fight of her home, it was fine if he was on his own for now. Selecting the unoccupied second-floor bathroom, Florence made another brawler kitty. The cash flowed from her gem and turned into a rather sorry-looking fellow. Her new kitty was brown and mangy, not only that, he was as scrawny as could be and had a meow that made him sound like a three-pack-a-day smoker.

“Ah, I think I broke something,” Florence said.

“What do you mean, oh dear, that poor fellow. Hmm, no, it looks like he’s working as intended, and you’ve discovered a new defender type,” Doug said. Florence zoomed in on the new kitty, the system filling her in on the details.

A new defender class has been discovered, Undying. The undying beasts have the rather unique ability to come back to life after being dispatched by adventurers. Undying defenders have a lower-than-average health pool, damage rating, and possess no special attacks, but their ability can create quite a danger to distracted adventure parties when the dead defenders rise once more to attack.

“Now that’s not what I had in mind, but the little fella still needs a name, you’re up Doug,” Florence said. She really wanted to complain about her unwanted dungeon affinity kicking in again but didn’t want her newest kitty to feel bad about himself.

“Now, a new class deserves a special name. Let’s go with Acheron, named after the river of woe in the underworld of your Greek myths,” Doug said.

“Well, that’s not too weird, so on to the next kitty, let’s give Acheron a buddy,” Florence said, conjuring up the last kitty that her limited funds would allow. The ball of money pouring from her core turned into a bright light, revealing another sickly-looking kitty, just like poor Acheron.

“Oh, allow me, please, I have the perfect name for this one,” Doug said. Florence kind of felt sorry for the new kitty, it had white fur, but it was all matted and dirty looking even though she knew it was clean. Florence would not abide by a dirty cat in her home, and Spud didn’t count because that was his ability and he deserved to be the type of cat he wanted to be.

“Fine, you can have this one, but I get the next three,” Florence said. Doug looked excited over this, agreeing to her demands.

“This cat will be Styx, named after yet another river in Hades,” Doug said, very proud of himself.

“Sure, whatever, okay, Styx and Acheron, go meet everyone then be ready for duty,” Florence said.

“What now? Our funds are rather depleted,” Doug asked.

“I was fixing to start decorating the second floor,” Florence said.

“Before that, we should consider moving the core room,” Doug offered. He was right, she hated to admit. They had planned to do this, continually moving her core gem to the best-protected place in the home as they grew. For now, the most protected place was under the shed in Mortimer’s graveyard. Inside the shed, she would create a stairwell leading to the core room.

Any attackers that meant them harm would have to fight their way through all three floors to get at her. Later on, she’d have to think of something else, once the home became more than five levels in size, it was sort of mandatory to have a way for adventurers to choose which floor to start on. Higher-level folks didn’t want to waste their time fighting level one defenders that didn’t give them any experience, and very little loot. She needed to grow a lot in power before that could happen though, but with the town and the slew of adventurers milling around outside, Florence felt she would grow quickly.

It would have been slow going to physically move her core room, and instead, Florence dug out a new one underneath the gravedigger’s shack. Her old room would remain where it was, eventually, she planned to craft some kind of dummy core and lots of traps to catch anyone trying to sneak in and give her the business. She spent a bit of coin on the new core room, making several nice places for Doug and the other kitties to hang out if they wanted, lots of scratching posts and soft pillows to nap on. She also crafted hidden compartments to allow her defenders to ambush folks trying to kill her.

Once the new core room was complete, she had to make the move, something much harder than you would think when you’re a gem and all of your defenders are cats without opposable thumbs. She first tried to have her kitties drag the rocking chair through the home, but the stairs put a stop to that. Frustrated, she finally looked at her interface searching for a solution to her problem. It turns out Doug knew the answer the whole time and was having too much fun watching her flounder about to tell Florence the solution. She was so getting back at her little kitten advisor.

Core Gem Translocation. Once per week, your core gem can teleport to any location in your dungeon. This ability cannot be used when the dungeon is occupied by outsiders.

She could send herself anywhere she wanted once per week, but only if there weren’t any adventurers poking around. That was too bad, as blinking away at the right moment could save her life. Doug was finally forthcoming enough to let Florence know that her core housing and protective avatar would automatically be brought with her. With a thought, Florence activated the translocation thingy and found herself in the newly created core room. This one did feel a bit cozier than the last location, even if it was positioned under a graveyard.

“Well, that’s squared away, despite your lack of help,” Florence said once the process was complete. She was going to hold a grudge over this for a good long time.

“Excellent, I assume you’re going to continue the home decoration plan?” Doug asked. She most certainly was, tuning out her annoying assistant while she dug into the details of making her home just right.

The great room on the second floor was first, it ended up being a lot like the living room at the entrance, only bigger and without a fireplace. Two sofas and a pair of recliner chairs took up much of the space, their gleaming plastic slipcovers ready and waiting for guests to enjoy. Lots of hiding places for her kitties were built into the surrounding furniture, including false interiors on the end tables near each sofa. A round coffee table was placed between the two sofa’s and she would let Doug have a crack at some traps in here, but that would only happen after she finally was able to fully populate the place with kitties. Avocado-colored shag carpeting finished off the design, she could never figure out how such a nice flooring option had fallen out of favor.

The bathroom with Acheron and Styx was left dark and foreboding, a perfect place for her two strange new underworld-inspired kitties to operate. A commode and pair of sinks were placed in the room, with a glass-enclosed shower taking up the rest of the space. It would be tight quarters, giving her defenders their best chance at scoring some damaging blows. She hoped that the reanimating ability would have some delay, and the adventurers would have already moved on, tackling one of the bedrooms when her reanimating cats jumped in and joined the fight.

Two doors led off from the bathroom, each one randomly connecting to one of the two regular bedrooms. Her first bedroom was done up in a nautical theme, giving it a dark blue carpet with fish wallpaper. A waterbed was placed in the room, Doug insisting he had the perfect trap ready for it once they had enough funds. Pebbles and Cooper seemed to enjoy the new setup, both of them taking time to pounce on the waterbed and curl up on the thick bedding for a nap. She was a bit worried they would pop the bed and let water ruin everything, but her kitties were careful with their new furniture.

Her second bedroom was going to have a desert theme, with sand-colored carpet and a small bed crafted from desert rocks. The rocks weren’t going to be all that comfortable for her babies, so Florence added a thick pillow top mattress and bedding that matched the rest of the room. A large dresser stood opposite the bed and would scream “trap” to most adventurers. It wasn’t trapped, but the clothes-filled interior would be the perfect spot for a kitty to fight from. Sherbet and Archimedes settled in, with the mage kitty choosing to climb into the clothes stacked in the dresser. Florence added some decorative trim that hid openings in the dresser door, allowing Archimedes a firing port for his magic. A lock on the inside of the dresser would let the kitty lock himself in, delaying adventurers and letting him cast more spells.

The second-floor master bedroom was next. It had a fancy open floorplan with some bamboo flooring and modern-looking artwork everywhere. You could even see under the bed, no lovely, frilled dust ruffle would hide kitties from the adventurers, nope, all her kitties were hiding in the floor. Rugs were strewn about, covering several possible angles of approach. Hopefully, the adventurers would get plumb dizzy by the time they cleared the place.

After the master bedroom, a large walk-in closet would be the access point for adventurers that wanted to try out the champion Spud. A pull-down ladder was here and the closet was stuffed with clothes and junk that people accumulate and never seem to find the time to throw out. There wasn’t any plan for kitties in here, just a bunch of traps, including one of Florence’s own design. Lack of funds delayed trap construction for the time being, so there was nothing to delay adventurers from climbing on up into the attic.

Her attic was dimly lit and had a simple plywood floor. Boxes lined the place, and several dark nooks and crannies were there for Spud to hide in. The newest champion seemed to want to do some personal redecoration, pushing the boxes into long rows, leaving a single wide path that led to the window holding the ladder to the backyard. Spud was free to arrange things how he wanted, and there must have been a reason for his actions.

The second floor was decorated just how she wanted, and just in time as another party made its way toward her front lawn.