Curiosity: A Trial of the Nine-Lived One

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The early bird gets the worm. Slow and steady wins the race. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and
wise . . .

Yet, one feline creature was none of these things. Schatzi, on a quest to put down a pretender and false god, fell asleep in the crow's nest aboard the magical ship summoned by Shiki Senri. A long cat nap it was. The creature, however, would be disturbed by strange visions and dreams. Upon waking, only fragments and bits and pieces would remain, but these were they:

A strange god-like creature towered above a crowd of people, standing on a tall, sandstone structure. The creature bore the head of a cat, and raised its arms, and the people below began to let out a chant . .  .

The same catlike creature was lurking in some underground lair, commanding a guild of skilled masons to construct statues and defenses and burial chambers. All the while, the feline face of the deity glowered and smirked . . .

Some strange, colorful creature, perhaps a bird or a snake of some sort, attended the strange god, coiled up at its feet, striking at those who opposed, and rising with the aid of divine magic . . .

However, the cat would find its nesting place beginning to fade. The ship that the armorer had summoned was beginning to fade away, slowly turning insubstantial. Hopefully the cat would find a way to the ground, lest the fall take one of nine lives.

[The Bearer of Bad News]

/Entering from here

Retaining stated and gained possessions with GM permission.

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Her perch vanishing out from under her, the napping cat plummeted to the waiting ground headfirst, wind whistling past her ears. Impact was neither pleasant nor graceful, but it certainly woke her to horrific pain.

Her skull was crushed and several bones were fractured. She should be bleeding, both internally and externally, but any lacerations were closed almost as soon as they were opened. It took a few minutes while her automatic regeneration did its work, but eventually Schatzi was able to rise in perfect condition and dust off her nude form, staring down at the small crater she'd made. Not very impressive. Just a slight vaguely humanoid depression with a spiderweb of cracks.

She twisted her neck and rolled her shoulders, stretching out with a yawn. Weird dream. What that monk had said...it had gotten to her, apparently more than she realized. She fiddled with the ring on her finger, the divine gift that was supposed to help protect her as she and her companions of the moment killed a pretender who would call himself a god. An idiot with delusions of grandeur who had obtained more power than he knew how to properly wield, more like.

Speaking of her companions though..."Uh...hello? Meine freunde? Anyone?"

She crossed her arms under her bust, holding her chin in one hand and tapping her foot impatiently. "Huh. Where did everybody go, I wonder?"

She twisted the ring again absently. She could worry about the dream later. Probably go interrogate one of those monks. For now she had to figure out where she even was. With barely a thought, she floated up a hundred feet, and scanned the horizon for any other people or landmarks of interest. Maybe a lone traveler or small town where she could get someone to eat. It had been a while, and her energy was starting to flag, especially after expending so much biomass on recovering from that fall.

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The ship had been parked outside of a walled city when it disappeared. Accordingly, the feline fell a sizeable distance into a forest just a short distance outside of the walls of the city. Perhaps the cat during its fall - as it moved to land on its feet, of course - would have noticed the city off in the distance, that formidable citadel at its heart, or at the very least, the tall walls of civilization. Either way, she was close enough to civilization to smell all the smells of human beings - wood smoke, meat, sweat, and mud. Those hallmarks of refined living.

As the cat looked down at her ring, twisting it idly as her body recovered from the wounds of a less-than-graceful fall, she would catch a glint in it. Could there be some small gemstone hidden in that ring she had not seen thus far? Perhaps. Someone with expertise in these matters would have to look at the ring. For now, its composition remained somewhat mysterious.

She was, however, not particularly close to any trail - flying ships rarely follow footpaths - and as a result, there were no convenient lone travelers or passing merchants to see her situation. 

[The Bearer of Bad News]

A city...Plenty of people there. There were benefits and drawbacks to a large population though. Victims would be less likely to be missed, but it would be easier for someone to stumble upon the changeling as she fed.

With a click of her fingers, her elaborate dress shimmered and flowed, transforming into the image of the scruffy "Adventurer's Garb" she tended to wear abroad. A moment later, her tail shrank into her body as her spine compressed, eventually leaving no hint to the appendage's former presence. Likewise the large feline ears slid down the sides of her head, shrinking and reforming into the shape of normal Human ears, if very slightly more pointed than typical. Not that it mattered, since the large sweeps of her blonde mane concealed them. Unlike the illusion of her clothing, this was a true physical transformation, and exacerbated her hunger. She'd need to risk it.

With this, she appeared as a normal Human girl, albeit one fairly well equipped to handle the dangers of the road, and bearing a Takigakure plate around her waist. She briefly considered leaving it behind, but her pride wouldn't allow that. As for entering the city...As an openly identifying member of Takigakure, odds were good any gate guards would demand to know her business here, and she didn't actually have any. Too awkward, she'd skip it. Instead, another click of her fingers caused her body to shimmer and blur...and then vanish. She was invisible now, making her far more difficult to detect by any mundane means, though obviously she was still able to see herself just fine - the illusion was tuned to function against anyone who observed her, but her own capabilities allowed her to see the world as it TRULY existed with just a little focus.

With another thought, she willed her body into a state of excitement on an elemental level, the base components that made up herself and her components moving so fast as to scatter into a barely-constrained form, reducing her body's density to nearly nothing. Swooping around to a remote corner of the town's outer limits, she may as well not even have existed, the wind itself blowing through her rather than around.

From this vantage, she could study the area, determine the best point of entry, and perhaps even identify any potential meals. This would just be a stopping off point however, a place to feed and ask directions, perhaps see if there were any local experts on jewelry. What she really needed was to find those monks again. Anyone learned on theistic matters might be able to help in that regard, as well. Luckily, Humans had a tendency to make their churches stand out and be much easier to identify from afar than most other structures. Well, barring the local landowner's residency of course. They liked to compete with religious orders to see who could devise the most opulent settings, in her experience. She did like fancy places, but saw that mostly as a waste - it was more focused on pomp and circumstance than comfort and leisure.

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Drifting over the wall, the cat girl would come into one of the poorer parts of the city. Old shacks, thatched rooftops, dirt, and mud everywhere. The houses were packed tight together, and smoke drifted up from the chimneys along with the smell of smoking meat. Of course, it was not the meat which had been ripped from the bone and put in smokers that intrigued this feline, it was the meat that did the butchering and smoking that she was looking for.

In the part of the city which she first overlooked she would not see very many people hanging around. No, just one young man, perhaps eighteen, with tawny hair and fairish complexion, stood outside of his house chopping away at wood. Every few logs he stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow. He did not appear particularly strong in build, no this manual labor did not particularly suit his physique.

Three streets over, from her high place, she would also see a girl. The girl was a bit younger, maybe sixteen years old. She had blondish hair, down to her shoulders, and a practical but somewhat pretty light blue dress. She was carrying a bag, perhaps coming home from the market, and heading towards a building. In a few moments, she would step onto a porch and enter a house, disappearing from sight. 

[The Bearer of Bad News]

Schatzi was in. That wasn't too hard really. She shook her head, invisible and incorporeal locks shaking with the motion. Maybe she was just being paranoid. She'd been in the wild far too long. It was getting harder to let herself relax and have fun.

But...more importantly there were two people out currently. Just two. Humans by the look of them. Far enough apart from her vantage that they might as well be alone. A woodcutter, and a weak one at that. Not a very large meal, but she wondered what manner of profession he might ACTUALLY specialize in with such a lackluster physique.

And a woman, laden with food. Humans offered the best biomass conversion rate, but the rest wasn't without value either. Definitely the better meal there. With a thought, her soul ripped itself in two, not a painless process, and drew the energy needed to shape itself a physical body from the environment and herself. Mostly herself, as there was little else to use while in the air. They both nearly passed out, dipping several meters in altitude as their vision wavered. Maybe not the best idea just this moment, even if it was the most efficient use of time.

They both knew the plan, from when they were a single entity. One would follow the woman. After assessing the situation, that Schatzi would kill her if possible. Most likely, all it would take would be one solid bite from the wicked fangs she could develop in an instant. She would gorge on the woman's blood, absorb her flesh, and then cook a nice dessert with her groceries. Waste not, want not. The thought made both of their stomachs twist in anticipation.

As for the male...well, the other Schatzi would probably end up eating him too. But not before indulging her curiosity. As one Schatzi swooped down to follow the female, the other took a different path, landing to hide among the shadows. After ensuring nobody was around to witness her sudden appearance from nothing, she ended the invisibility and incorporeal effects on herself, but made sure she was still "dressed". She could always cancel her clothing later too for a quick laugh.

She turned a corner, and approached. She was open about it, obvious. Non-threatening. But that in itself was a form of stalking her prey. With every step she was watching, evaluating. Did he have any hidden weaponry? Did he know how to fight? If so, what could she reasonably expect? How bright did his soul burn with the fires of life? What was his reaction speed? Answers to these questions and more she would be searching for during her approach, angled so that it looked like she intended to walk right past him but walking slowly enough to give herself time to scan properly while still fast enough not to arouse suspicion.