“What is it??” Kai asked impatiently, fed up with Kapt’ns stuttering. She wanted to know what’s so incredible about this tree.

It’s the fruit of vitality. Some have called the tree Yggdrasil, but we have simply called it Vruit. It is extremely hard to find as most creatures that come across it cannot help themselves and bewitchingly eat all the vruit. They cannot seem to stop and end up eating all the leave and bark, leaving nothing left. Eventually, the vruit tree dies as it is stripped clean. It is said to be so delicious and everything is edible. Due to this tree being addictively delicious, it cannot be taken lightly. It has almost been driven to extinction. Be careful with it as you will lose all reason and simply become obsessed if eaten fresh.

Kai had to take a mental pause as she gazed at the tree. She could have bitten into the fruit and lost all her reason and drive, coming to this place. It felt as it was almost a trap, set by the land itself. She did gain some knowledge from this interaction, and that was from the warnings that Kapt’n gave her. She found something precious and she felt the need to research into it further.

This ignited her inner artiste sous-chef to explore and examine this exotic specimen and utilize it safely in dishes. Her curiosity of this unknown beautiful foodstuff mentally tickled her fancy, causing her to picture a slew of dishes that could potentially a new type of trend from this ingredient.

“If my hunch is correct, this type of fruit called vruit could be very valuable and must be handled carefully. I should try to attempt to research it further, so let’s harvest a bunch and try to see if its possible to grow more.” Kai said out loud to Kapt’n as she gazed at the short tree.

I do not know the properties on this plant as I barely had a chance to see it when I was alive. I will be curious to see what you will do with it. He confirmed her sentiment as the pair both agreed to move forward with this unknown rare entity.

Kai steeled her resolve and decided to continue the questioning to finish the immediate quest that she originally set out to do. This vruit has been confirmed as another mission in the future. She turned heel and continued to walk towards the perimeter of the surrounding forest, starting from the visual cue of the outer edge of the bamboo grove. The entirety of this area spanned eight acres, with the body of water being the centralized, reaching an acre of land equally at each side. The waterfall originated upriver several meters, flowing out of a natural cave-like formation from underground, bubbling out abruptly as if it was being pushed out of a cave-like exit.

This mysterious subterranean river flowed from an inconspicuous and unobtrusive secondary cave exit upriver from above and seamlessly flowed until it reached the edge of the rock formation, causing the water to cascade in a beautiful spectacle. Kai was curious about the origin of the water however she felt that the venture to investigate that avenue of curiosity would be met at a later time. For now, surveying the perimeter and gathering intel was the task at hand.

Kai did not have to go far in her investigation as the waterfall’s rock cliff decline on the other side of the river had something that she was hoping to find. She located a discreet hollow in amongst the rocky precipice. This was because the two opposite sides in the rock formations seemed to create a visual illusion, parallel against each other to hide the entrance to a cavity. She only stumbled upon this as the sun’s direction created an obvious shadow that was cast against the rocky wall, alerting her gut instinct to investigate this interesting phenomenon.

It was perfect. The parallel rock entrance was wide and tall enough for a body of her stature and the width of the sled to enter the cave.

She immediately held up the medallion in an attempt to utilize Kapt’n as her safety device as she slowly entered the cave. She rooted in her lower pocket to find the tiny emergency pen light she had hidden for such occasions as these. Armed with a medallion and tiny source of light in each hand, she entered the cave to see if there were critters present or any other lifeforms that were either potentially life-threatening or evict-able. She entered the premise like a main character in a Cops movie, both arms stretched out, jittery and alert for any signs of danger.

The cave entrance floor had an upper layer of sand with hints of a possible rock-hard surface underneath, visible with each penetrating step she took. Amongst the sandy ground was dead leaves and woodland debris from years of neglect, blown in and scattered about in different areas where the wind may have briefly touched during the interchanging seasons. The sand was an indication that water may have flooded in at some point, washing the floor with a possibility of a summer overflow from the melting of winter.

It was an ideal place to stay. It held a slight musty fragrance that wasn’t completely obnoxious to the senses and one could tell that bats dwelled deeper in the space based on the evidence on the floor and the whiff of guano every now and then from the slight breeze originating from the depths of the interior.

The entirety of the space wasn’t large, yet it wasn’t so small that she would be unable to sleep, store and collect an abundance of materials. In a sense, it was an ideal and manageable size of roughly 12’x20’ oblong floorspace that seemed cozy and safe. The only thing she was wary of was the opening at the opposite end that implied another day for exploring to uncover the secrets of the interior’s depths. Her next priority for the day was to secure a sense of security and build around this reliable environment to properly utilize the shelter by nightfall and temporally furnish it appropriately in the next few days.

She wasn’t in a hurry and she knew that if she met Kapt’ns clan Vida, she needed to have useful materials and offerings appropriate from a stranger who may suddenly try to politely trespass, greet, and socialize with their clan on their turf. She had no idea if she would be received warmly with welcoming arms or treated with hostility and avoidance. Kapt’n was not able to shine a light into this hypothetical quandary as she was the first of her kind that he has met akin to his own cat-kind.

Kai did pack a pair of false cat ears just in case and devised a comedic scene where the ears fall off later, claiming it would be due to a sickness. She held on to that thought and pushed it into the back of her mind, reminding herself that it was a plan B for situations that may require it. She would then follow up and inform them to consider it like a glass eye or false ear caused by some fight or some-shit else that required a false appendage if the sickness route wasn’t bought.

Shaking her head briefly to clear her head, her arms finally relaxed from the tension and she made up her mind on the process required at this stage to get this little cozy cave up to her standards.

First off, she needed materials like lumber or bamboo to form a type of platform bed. She also wanted to fashion a type of broom to sweep the floor and make it tidier to live in. She did not want sand up in all the wrong places, especially in her meals. She also needed foliage to build a soft base for the bed she was devising. From there, she wanted to build a temporary gate to block out any potential threats that might lurk after dark from the depths of the cave. A fence type gateway would also be needed to keep out any unwanted critters or creatures that would prey on sleeping individuals. A meal also needed to be prepped and made ahead of time to make use of the inconvenient method of fire cooking. Putting the bug worries aside, she figured that with her limited tools, she would still be able to make do and get half of those goals done by nightfall.

She did not completely come across any annoying bugs besides worms, however she could not completely rule out encountering pesky insects such as mosquitos or parasitic-like bugs. Kapt’n wasn’t any help yet again because all he said about bugs when she asked before embarking on the trip was if they existed and he simply said yes and called them big crawlies. He did not go into detail and actually tell her any more information like the size or characteristics, but simply shivered like a housewife remembering a bout with a cockroach. Big Crawlies, huh? I hope I don’t come across any, she thought as she left the cave and continued back to her original goal of walking the perimeter of the grove until she got back to camp.

The rest of the walk was uneventful compared to her big cave discovery as she wasn’t completely focused on the variety and abundance of edible plants and instead dwelled on the tasks that she was mentally prepping for. She knew that she would be back later to thoroughly analyze the flora and harvest more when the timing was right.

What she did do on her walk was to gaze at the multitude of lush bamboo growths and devise a crude method of harvesting and transporting the oversized lumber to suit her needs later in the day. She knew that she would not affect the ecosystem as the grove was in desperate need of thinning to assist in new growths to flourish in this wonderous space. Considering of the accelerated growth speed of bamboo and its wonderful various properties of uses, she had no qualms with taking advantage of this grove. She would do a stylized method of gardening and major cleanup as a lot of dead debris littered the landscape that was in dire need of attention. She knew that deep down, she would wholeheartedly need to utilize everything effectively. Every second counted and it meant a greater chance at survival.

With these thoughts circulating her mind, she finally got back to the campsite and found that the embers were still alive due to Mao’s effort of tossing a few medium sized sticks periodically into the fire to keep it from completely going out. She felt a little stirring of pride tickling her heart while gazing at the kitty briefly, especially at his somewhat lightly singed whiskers. She could tell he did the best he could given he was by himself and she felt pleased at the fact that he took on the task to keep the life-saving fire alive. Right then and there, she decided to scoop the warm kitty up and offer him some good news in exchange for his wounded prideful whiskers.

“Hey Maooo guess what? We found a new secret hideout.” She purred into his ear the great news. Kai couldn’t help but nuzzle his cute furry head and neck after spilling the info. This action was mandatory in accordance to the unspoken rule of the crazy cat owners’ manifesto.

She could feel him relax in her arms and hear a sigh in annoyance to cover up his content purring that soon came subsequently in the affectionate snuggle-fest.