Interlude: Felinology

“As of , staff capable of conversing in Feline are required to be stationed on-site at all time,” - One of the few legible passages recovered from Shadesmar, great deals of the original record are corrupted into meaninglessness.

Zoe jumped down the roof, landing smoothly on the cobblestone ground. Today was an odd day for sure, her whiskers kept telling her that there was something weird happening with the big glowy crystal, even the dumb mages from capital noticed!

Though Zoe had to restrain herself from going down there and giving those mages a good clawing. They were using divination spells! Don’t they know that interacting with the stringy things is as good as cutting them? Next thing you know they’ll call a priest to ask their god about why their shoes were on backward or why the sky was blue.

In fact, Zoe did give them a piece of her mind, but some mage with a big hat just shooed her off!

Zoe stuck her tongue at them and pounced off. ‘Hmmph’, Zoe bet they couldn’t even recognise a good spell if she vomited one into their face.

She paused as her whiskers caught a new tune. Leaves rustling, birds chirping, the sound of earth’s breath. A druid!

Zoe quickly began following the sound. Druids were the best magic casters! (Excluding herself of course.) They knew how to speak cat after all! Zoe wondered why one was so close to the city though, they almost never did that. Zoe hoped it was here to turn the city into a litter box, or maybe make some more scratching posts!

‘Or both!’ she thought as she caught sight of the druid.

It was one of the tree people, but not like the big sis dryads, it was a he! ‘An Elderwood,’ she pinned down.

But something about him tasted even weirder. He wasn’t a real Elderwood, his sound was too glurdled, and his relation to the Last Scritcher was too distant, but it was familiar…

‘A Traveler,’ she realised, remembering the taste she felt during her fourth life.

He was just gawking around at the marketplace. Most people were giving him odd glances but walking trees weren’t a rare sight.

Zoe scurried and dodged legs, arriving quickly in front of the druid.

“Hullo!” She cheerfully meowed.

The tall tree turned to her, eyes glinting with odd wonder, “Why, hi there,” he replied as he knelt down and scratched Zoe’s chin.

“Oooh that's the spot!” Zoe purred.

The druid simply smiled, “Do you know your way around here? I seem to be lost at the moment.”

“I do know!” Zoe happily chirped back, “But more scratches first!”

The druid chuckled, “Sure,” he replied as he sat down cross-legged in the middle of the street, gently placing Zoe on his lap, he even began grooming her!

Zoe purred contently as the druid ran deft fingers through her fur. Smoothing and plucking loose furs.

After a while, Zoe perked up. Bad Zoe! She spent too long enjoying herself, she needed to help nice Mister! “Where do you need to go Mister!?”

The druid put a finger on his chin, thinking about it for a moment, “I think they are called way stones?”

Zoe's ears perked up, “Big crystal!”

The druid's eyes lit up in affirmation as he furiously nodded, “Yes! The crystal things!”

“I’ll get you there!” Zoe yelled as she disappeared the floor.

Mister druid yelped as he fell onto the new floor, one of the roofs near the big crystal. Teleportation became weird when around those things, and Zoe didn’t want to get stuck in the Fire Plane again, the magma fishies were too overcooked.

With a paw Zoe grabbed Mister druids hand, easily dragging along the tall tree person as she jumped from the roof.

Mister druid started yelling in fright as he saw the approaching floor, how rude! Zoe was perfectly capable of keeping them both alive and chummy!

With a flick of her tail, Zoe made the ground's draggy power less than what it was before, then had Mister Wind push them toward the crystal.

The dumb mages stood there dumbly, before the mage with a big hat yelled, “Hey, its that cat from before!”

Zoe stuck her tongue at that mage, then in a smooth motion, vomited a hairball, the thing flying with absurd speed and striking the mage squarely in the face. He barely had the chance to yell in disgust as his dumb hat fell down on top of him. It’s inside space suddenly a few dozen times more than before.

‘That’ll teach him!’ Zoe thought as she raced to the crystal, mister druid screaming in fright behind her.

The other mages finally started acting, but they were no match for Zoe! With another flick of her tail, she gave a few mages a taste of purple, another flick and she turned the remaining mages left into her left.

The ones who tasted purple tried to yell out spells, but only burps came out of their mouths. Those who had their lefts swapped started tripping on themselves as they could no longer figure out how their own bodies went.

“Yippee!” Zoe yelled as they raced past all the mages, coming to an abrupt yet smooth stop in front of the crystal.

She deposited Mister druid in front of the crystal, “I got you to big crystal!” Zoe yelled excitedly.

Mister druid opened the eyes he had firmly shut, before glancing around, “Will they be fine?” He pointed at the mages tripping on themselves and trying to burp out spells.

‘Ehh, probably,’ Zoe thought. “They’ll be fine!” she cheerfully and innocently replied.

The druid nodded, not quite believing Zoe but wisely knowing when not to pry into others business.

“Well thanks for the ride I suppose,” he rubbed Zoe’s head, how nice! “I don’t have much to give you but-”

“A belly rub is fine!” Zoe interrupted, hopping onto her back, if Mister druid gave such good head scratches then how good would his belly rubs be!?

The druid nodded quizzically, before giving Zoe an absolutely heavenly belly rub. Zoe purring loudly throughout the entire thing.

“By the tomes- Get them!” the mage from before yelled as he finally escaped his hat. Mister druid jerked back.

‘Noooo! My belly rub!’ Zoe protested.

“Will you be fine?” He asked worriedly, gesturing to the mage yelling out profanities in between spell casts.

Zoe tilted her head questioningly, “What do you mean? I’m always fine!”

“I’ll take that as a yes then,” mister druid smiled, before placing his hand on the crystal, “Thanks again!” He yelled as he disappeared into a flash of light.

Zoe waved a paw at the disappearing flash, before turning to the dumb mage who dared interrupt her bellyrub.