Cat Core 2, Chapter 8.

Chapter 8.

“There, the hallway is done,” Florence said as they made the final touches on her latest room. The wallpaper had to be just right, and she hated when the patterns were placed wrong. Tabitha Long’s sitting room had that problem, her grandson had put up the paper and didn’t quite line things up correctly. Every time she visited; Florence found herself distracted by looking at all the errors. She didn’t know how long core gems lived for, but it was sure to be far too long for her to spend looking at crooked wallpaper.

“You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” Doug asked sarcastically.

“Just because you can hear my thoughts, doesn’t mean you need to eavesdrop on everything I think,” Florence said.

“And just how am I going to avoid hearing your internal prater when you insist on thinking out loud. Do you really believe I want to listen in on your musings about home improvement faux pas?” Doug retorted.

“It’s rude, and you should know better,” Florence said. She was annoyed with her kitten helper, but secretly kind of enjoyed bickering with him.

“Try to whisper your thoughts, if you do that, your internal musing will no longer be inflicted on those around you,” Doug said.

“Wait, I can do that? Why didn’t you tell me that when we first started?” Florence asked.

“I’m sure I did, well, maybe. Nevertheless, please give it whirl, if you don’t mind,” Doug said. Florence tried it out, and sure as shootin’, the little guy couldn’t hear her when she “whispered”.

“Well, you learn something every day, don’t you,” Florence said out loud.

“Hooray for you,” Doug replied. He was still all mopey and annoyed because she had taken away his ball of yarn. She’d remake one for him, but not just yet, Florence didn’t want him to think his antics had made her cave to his wishes.

“Oh, quit your yapping, looks like we’ve got our first legitimate adventurers heading in,” Florence said. Doug perked up and the pair watched as four elves left the dark confines of the tunnel and walked onto Florence’s perfectly manicured lawn.

“That does remind me, Florence, we do need to replace your welcome sign when you get a chance,” Doug said.

“I was waiting till we made it to the surface, I want my entrance to be open to the outside, not in the middle of some stupid cave. Now, be quiet, I want to watch our babies go to work,” Florence said as Obi and Shadow began to stalk their way through the tall grass.

The adventuring party consisted of a pair of elvish warriors armored in chainmail with wooden shields in one hand and curving scimitars in the other. Their skin was very pale, and Florence wondered if elves got sunburned easier than the paler humans. Neither of the pair wore a helm and from their movements, she could tell they nervous, heads continuously scanning for threats. They hadn’t spotted the kitties yet, and Florence felt her babies had a pretty good chance to make their first attack a surprise attack.

Next to step onto the lawn was an obvious mage type. The guy even had red robes on, come on, can’t these adventurers do something out of the ordinary once in a while? If the guy had been a human, Florence would have bet good money on him having a long white beard and a pointy hat. Since them elves didn’t seem to age like normal folks did, they all looked like they were twenty-year-old whippersnappers.

“Hey Doug, do them elves ever die of old age?” Florence asked.

“Yes, though their normal lifespan can reach six or seven hundred years,” the kitten advisor replied.

“Do they ever look old, or do they just keel over one day still looking like a college kid?” Florence asked.

“Well, I suppose they would just keel over still looking young. Seven hundred years is a long time to survive in this world, and I believe that very few make it to that age before suffering some life-ending event,” Doug said. She supposed it made sense, if she had lived that long back on earth, at some point she would be killed in a car wreck or something. Here on Aerkoth, with all the monsters and dungeons and whatnot, there were more than enough ways to meet an untimely end.

The final member of the group was armored in soft leather, but it wasn’t like the stuff the rogues usually wore, this looked more natural and bendy. She was either a rogue or some form of druid, Florence thought, given that she was dual-wielding clubs. These weren’t iron-studded and reinforced like some warriors preferred, nope, these were just a pair of plain, but stout-looking sticks. It was going to be fun to see how the stick lady fought.

“Teremai, this dungeon is unnatural, I sense the mind that controls it is not like any other,” the stick lady said to the mage.

“Oh, if she only knew how unnatural your mind truly was,” Doug chimed in. She let it slide since the kitties were just about to make their move.

“These here elves look like they know a little about what they’re doing, and their gear is pretty good,” Florence commented. While they weren’t sporting high-end and enchanted gear, they also weren’t wearing the hodgepodge of junk that new adventurers typically had to use at first.

“Yes, I’d estimate they are anywhere from level three to level six,” Doug replied.

“How come I can’t see their levels. It’s like sometimes they’re revealed and other times it’s locked,” Florence said.

“Unlike the mindless monsters that wander in, attracted to your core, or even semi-intelligent beings like our old group of goblins, adventurers and their ilk are masked from us. It’s something about universal balance and a way to prevent us from trying to target specific groups for destruction. Maybe someday the system will unlock more information for both of us, but for now, we’re forced to work within its bounds,” Doug replied. It was yet another thing she wasn’t all that happy about, but her attention was drawn back to the front lawn where the elves had stopped just outside of the range of Doug’s mailbox trap.

“Hold, I hear something approaching from behind,” the elf with the sticks said.

“Perhaps, Laranah, it’s some creature native to the tunnels and not a product of this dungeon?” Teremai replied.

“Possible, though the native denizens of this place should have already been exterminated by the dungeon. Nearby monsters and the like are typically thrown into a frenzy by the presence of a nearby dungeon core and killed off when they venture inside,” Stick lady, who was apparently called Laranah, said. She gestured toward the two elf warriors, calling them back from the lawn.

“Oh, man, just when we were finally going to get some income, they’re running away,” Florence said.

“I’m sure they’re competent enough to deal whit whatever’s coming, then they’ll resume their delve. Have no worries, dear Florence, these will be but the first of many to explore our lovely home,” Doug reassured her.

The elves moved further back into the tunnel, out of her line of sight, preventing them from getting a good look at how the party worked. Before long, the sounds of combat were heard, and flashes of light from spells being cast were seen. The war cries of the elves were easily heard, but of their foes, only the occasionally monstrous screech was heard.

“Well, whatever came down that tunnel must be taxing the party, I didn’t think they would take this long to finish off some of the simple creatures drawn to your core energy,” Doug said, a hint of concern in his tone.

“Great, the adventurers are going to leave and whatever they are fighting will be killed out in the tunnel instead of inside our home. We’re totally getting ripped off,” Florence grumbled. The sounds of fighting built to a crescendo as a final spell lit the entire tunnel.

Florence and Doug waited for the victors to show themselves. The worst-case scenario was that the elves won the fight but were too battered to continue with their delve. If the monsters somehow won, they would at least blindly continue into her home where the kitties could tear them up. A figure moved in the tunnel toward their home, as it approached, they could see it was Laranah, the stick lady.

“She looks a bit worse for wear, doesn’t she,” Doug commented. It was true, her armor was rent and torn in several spots, partially healed wounds showed where whatever magical healing she had received didn’t quite complete the task. One of her sticks was missing and the other was covered in the goopy spoiled milk-colored blood of the spiders that had attacked Florence’s home earlier.

“Must have been them spiders that attacked them, and the venom seems to be slowing the elf down,” Florence noted, the elf stumbled forward in a daze, walking across the threshold of her home. Laranah dropped to her knees on the long grass, chanting as she cast a spell, a glow forming around her hand. The glow spread to her body and while she still was torn up pretty good, the befuddled look on her face was gone, and she was moving a bit more normal.

“She must have druidic or nature magic of some type, which often includes a way to cure and prevent various poisons and venom,” Doug said. About that time, skittering noises could be heard in the tunnel. It looked like the elves weren’t the ones to survive this fight and the critters that attacked them were coming to finish the job.

One of the elvish warriors stumbled into sight, his shield was gone, and his chainmail was ripped open in several places. Laranah gathered mana for another spell, the familiar glow of healing magic infusing the injured warrior. The two readied their weapons and waited for the attackers to arrive. They had a look of determination on their faces, these were a pair that weren’t afraid to face death, meeting it with steel and spell.

“I’m going to set the cats to passive, for now, it doesn’t seem sporting to hit those elves from behind when they’re fighting monsters that were heading here to kill us,” Florence said. Obi and Shadow had started to stalk the elves once they had wandered back onto the lawn but now held their places, hunkered down low in the tall grass.

“I agree with that, and we may be glad for every blow they strike against the foe,” Doug said, as the pair watched the attackers charge from the darkness. Four more of the creepy giant black widow spiders were back, but this time, they were joined by a scorpion that was just as large as the spiders.

“Where are all these crazy insects coming from?” Florence said with frustration.

“They’re not insects, they’re both arachnids,” Doug corrected.

“Quit being a know-it-all showoff,” Florence replied.

They watched the arachnids, she hated to admit Doug was right, launch themselves at the surviving elves. With a roar, the warrior charged the nearest spider, his scimitar slashing multiple times as he activated a combat ability. Hard-shelled or not, the spider felt those hits, each one landing against the pair of sharpened legs that sought to impale the warrior.

Swinging with the club in her hand, the elf druid found her attack on the spider charging toward her interrupted as the scorpion snatched up her outstretched arm in one of its claws. A meaty snip was heard as the claw closed on her arm, causing the elf to shriek in pain as her arm was severed. The shriek was cut short when a spider landed on her and began to feast. The warrior was also down, he had hewn off the tip of one spider leg and damaged others, but couldn’t hold out on his own. They had fought well, but these elves had been overwhelmed by the more numerous foe. Florence could only wonder how many more of the bugs were dead out in the tunnel, the elves may have inadvertently saved her home this day.

“Go get 'em, kitties,” Florence said, kicking her defenders back into action. Obi and Shadow each picked a target, their slow stalk toward the feasting arachnids went unnoticed. The overgrown bugs were so intent on getting a piece of each victim, that they only noticed they were under attack when both kitties landed on their intended targets.

Obi landed on the abdomen of the spider with the damaged leg, his claws sinking deep into the thing’s armored shell, giving it a good grip as it started tearing chunks of the monster away with each ferocious bite. The spider let out an ear-piercing shriek of pain as it tried to roll over on the cat to dislodge it.

With a shriek to rival that of the spider, the scorpion tried to shake Shadow off its back. Shadow had landed just right, her teeth ripping into the joint where one of the scorpion’s claws was attached. With the damage bonus from a sneak attack, only a pair of bites was needed to sever the limb, and then Shadow went to work on one of the scorpion’s legs.

The remaining spiders closed in on the cats, one inadvertently wandering into the activation range for the crossbow trap inside the mailbox. A steel-tipped bolt flew into the spider’s abdomen, cracking through the armor and piercing deep. The spider ignored the damage and skewered poor Shadow on one of its legs, allowing the scorpion time to land its deadly sting. Obi drove his claws deep into the abdomen of the spider he was attacking, the monster shuddering a final time before collapsing.

“It’s time to bring on more kitties,” Florence said, activating her Summon ability while targeting the front porch. Three flashes of light revealed a copy of Bhargath, Tater, and the recently departed Shadow. The cats hissed at the attackers who were busy tearing apart poor Obi. The newly summoned trio jumped off the porch and into the fight.

The remaining claw on the scorpion sliced poor Obi in half as the invaders turned to face Florence’s babies. A second crossbow bolt launched from the mailbox trap, the missile slamming into the side of the scorpion. Like before, the attackers ignored the mailbox which began the process of reloading. This was one of the reasons Florence decided to summon reinforcements at the entrance, that trap was going to earn its keep today.

Bhargath slammed into the scorpion, which was off-balance after killing Obi. The brawler kitty slashed his claws at the stinger-tipped tail, taking a chunk out of it and causing more bug goop to pour out. Tater was less lucky, he began grappling with a spider, giving better than he received, but another spider joined in, making it an unfair fight. Once a couple of venomous bites were landed, poor Tater started slowing down, unable to defend himself against monster bugs.

The summoned Shadow tried to aid Tater, but she wasn’t built for brawling face to face like Florence’s other kitties, she clawed up one of the spiders real good, but with Tater out of the fight, three of the creeps were able to gang up on her. Bhargath was giving a shellacking to the scorpion, the monster having only one claw to try to defend itself with. The reinforced armor protecting the monster had been peeled away, letting every claw and bite from her kitty hit a vulnerable spot.

“Well, your trap did good today,” Florence said to Doug as the crossbow mounted in the mailbox got off a third shot, slamming into the face of one of the spiders.

“Yes, with the defenders keeping the enemy’s attention, it has proven a good value,” Doug said. Florence could see him puff up a bit at the compliment, the little guy sure thought he was something. With the scorpion down, the summoned Bhargath charged into the remaining spiders. He was fighting hard but was all alone out on the lawn. That was okay, Florence knew the real Bhargath, and his two buddies were waiting just inside the front door, ready to mop up any surviving creepy crawlies.