Lucky Rabbit

This classroom was one of the smaller ones, with only a few tables and chairs scattered around. There was no teacher’s desk, leading Pandy to wonder if this might be a club room or quiet study space. Bookshelves lined the wall to her left, crammed with books from floor to ceiling. Large windows graced the walls straight ahead and to the right. A thick blue-gray carpet lay in the perfect spot to gather the warm sunlight coming from the right, and for a moment, Pandy thought she might simply have found Miss Cupcakes’ favorite afternoon napping spot.

The kitten barely glanced at the carpet, however, instead heading straight for the windows above low shelves lined with neatly-labelled boxes. With a graceful leap, Miss Cupcakes landed on the top of a shelf, padding across to a window, which was open halfway, letting in fresh air. She stepped up to the windowsill, then stopped, staring straight back at Pandy, yellow eyes clearly impatient.

Oh, yes, that was right. Pandy wasn’t sneaky. The cat had obviously been aware she was being followed, and allowed it because she wanted Pandy to come along. Giving up her failed attempt at skulking, Pandy hopped across the room, jumping up beside Miss Cupcakes without the use of a skill. Having increased Strength alone really was very handy. Paw-dy?

With a small, satisfied meow, Miss Cupcakes slid through the gap in the window, and Pandy followed, though far less elegantly. Hot air hit her face as she did so, breaching some sort of spell that kept the school slightly cooler than the warm summer days outside. Fortunately, the undead didn’t really care about heat, and cats seemed relatively impervious as well, so both Pandy and Miss Cupcakes advanced across the narrow wooden ledge with nothing more than an increase in speed.

The ledge ended when the window did, and Pandy eyed the next ledge with some trepidation. The gap was at least ten feet wide, and while she could probably make it, that ledge looked much narrower than the probably-actually-identical one on which she stood. Miss Cupcakes didn’t even try it, though, instead digging her claws into the window frame and clambering straight upwards until she could hook a paw over the edge of the roof. A moment later, she vanished, leaving Pandy behind with a final smug flick of her tail.

Pandy – not being endowed with needle toes – found herself in a bit of a pickle. She could try to copy the kitten’s actions, but she very much doubted she would succeed, at least not without using her Strength to dig in, which would tear up the wood. This would, in turn, anger the chancellor, who probably already saw her as little more than a momentarily-convenient annoyance. After everything else she’d done, it would be just her luck to be ejected from school because she’d shredded a window frame.

So, rather than risk destroying something, she glanced at her Corruption Points – which were quite healthy after spending several hours in Suzanne’s company – and thought, before jumping off the ledge.

Casting of Wings of Glory successful. Wings of Glory is now level 2.

-20 LF

A burst of pain was followed by a Minor Heal, and then her wings snapped out, catching the wind. Pandy wobbled, spinning back toward the wall. Instinctively, she put out her paws to push off again, and very abruptly began plummeting toward the ground.

No no no no no! Wings of Glory was cancelled by touching the ground, and apparently in real life, any similar surface counted. Or was it because she used her feet? If she had pushed off with her elbow or bumped the wall with her behind, would she still be flying? Questions for another time, because flying had become falling, and the real, actual ground was coming up to say hello in a most unpleasant way.

she thought, but didn’t quite manage to finish before the wings tore out of her back again, this time flinging crimson droplets into the air around her.

Casting of Wings of Glory successful. Two more uses remain before next level.

-20 LF

She was going to need another bath after this, but as her wings flapped desperately, lifting her away from the unforgiving earth, she was more concerned with the fact that she hadn’t had to specify using Corruption Points. This was the second time the System had been unexpectedly helpful, and she half-wondered if Keros had recovered enough from being chained to a rock that he had upgraded it as a way of saying thank you.

With a final beat of her wings, Pandy lifted up over the roof, only to wobble again as a blast of hot air carried her upwards. That was all right, though, because the additional height allowed her to see Miss Cupcakes, hastening along the roof, pausing in the thin, rectangular shadows cast by multiple chimneys that dotted the sloped surface. Pandy stretched out her wings, gliding along until she was above the cat, at which point she attempted to circle in place. Unfortunately, it turned out that this wasn’t nearly as easy as birds and bees made it look, and she dropped sharply, paws once again touching a surface. Her wings vanished, and she fell directly onto Miss Cupcakes.

The kitten gave a yowl, then hissed, rolling over to deploy her Extremely Sharp claws. But Pandy was already leaping away, all too familiar with Attack Cat Tactics. As much as she wanted to snuggle with the adorable feline, Pandy knew which end of the cat was most likely to greet her.

she tried, as she backed away from the spitting ball of teeth and claws. And, to her complete surprise, Miss Cupcakes jerked away, then tilted her head, the ridge of fur down her back lowering slightly.

The cat gave Pandy a slow, considering look, then lifted a paw and shook it. Pandy nodded in agreement. The roof was, indeed, very hot. Though, wasn’t Miss Cupcakes supposed to be a Fire elemental? Shouldn’t she be immune to – or at least comfortable with – even this level of heat? It seemed not, however, because the kitten stood and trotted over to lean against the next chimney.

This was the final chimney on this section of roof, which ended some ten or fifteen feet ahead of them. Which, if Pandy’s mental picture of what lay below them was correct, meant that they were directly above the library. Unless, of course, the library wasn’t actually there, because according to Professor Beeswick, the door to the library was actually a portal that went somewhere else. Which begged the question, what was in that space?

The sound of something clattering on the roof tiles drew her attention, and Pandy looked up in time to see Miss Cupcakes climb up the chimney, digging those sharp claws into the mortar between the bricks. She teetered on the top, where a hollow metal pyramid was perched over the opening like a tiny ziggurat for any bats or birds who managed to make their way past it. The kitten leaned into this, and it tilted, revealing the fact that three of the four metal straps that were supposed to hold it in place had been neatly sliced through. Miss Cupcakes vanished head first into the sooty hole.

Pandy leaped up after her, able to get a good enough angle on the jump that she didn’t need any extra help from Hop. She landed, splayed out, atop the blazingly hot metal, and a pang shot through her shoulders, reminding her that she hadn’t healed after using Wings of Glory. Quickly, she did so, then crawled over until she could poke her head down into the darkness below, her fluffy bum sticking straight up in the air.

Not surprisingly, the chimney shaft was pitch black, but Pandy could hear scratching coming from below her. she called, but there was no response. Pandy stretched out her neck, and then two things happened very quickly. First, the single remaining metal strap bent sharply, dropping the whole pyramid forward. Second, Pandy, who had been clinging to the downward edge, suddenly found herself falling through the air again, though this time, she bounced off the sides of the chimney as she dropped. At least, she did until she came up against something that was wonderfully soft until it became full of Daggers and Pain.

Pandy released an anguished bunny scream as a flood of red numbers filled her vision. Automatically, she cast Minor Heal, even as she began to fall once again, now joined by the soft but painful thing. Together, they bounced from side to side, ricocheting off each other, until they both came to rest in a heap, with ash billowing up around them.

Everything hurt, in spite of at least three Minor Heals. Pained mews came from on top of her, and she said, Again, the spell went off before she finished, and she thought, without adding payment information. A faint, flickering light appeared a short distance in front of her eyes, revealing a very unhappy-looking and bedraggled Miss Cupcakes. The cat’s yellow eyes caught the flame and threw it back at Pandy with a ferocity that almost hurt in and of itself.

With a hiss, Miss Cupcakes hauled herself off of Pandy, who also tried to move, only to find that she couldn’t. Something Unfortunate seemed to have happened somewhere around her abdomen, and she was stuck. Wiggling around – which inflicted another two points of damage – revealed that she’d fallen onto a rusty metal object, which was, perhaps, meant to hold logs while they were burning? Right now, one of its prongs held Pandy.

The kitten had moved away, out of the fireplace, and begun licking her paws clean. Silently, she watched Pandy’s struggles, until Pandy was all but convinced she would have to Hop in order to get herself free. That would probably result in even more injuries, especially in such a confined space, but what else was she supposed to do? Then, just as Pandy was gathering her courage for a final attempt, Miss Cupcakes came forward and buried her teeth into the back of Pandy’s neck. For an instant, Pandy felt terribly betrayed, but the kitten only pulled as hard as she could, bracing her paws until Pandy slid free.

With the spike gone, Pandy was able to heal herself twice more, bringing her health up to full before turning to look at the kitten again. she thought, wondering if the System was now smart enough to recognize the spell even if she didn’t use its full name. There was a short hesitation, and then…

Minor Heal successful. One hundred thirty-four uses remain before next level.

Healed Miss Cupcakes for 4 HP. 

Pandy checked her stats. Thanks to Suzanne, she still had two hundred and seventy Corruption Points remaining, but Wings of Glory had used up a lot, and the repeated uses of Minor Heal were adding up. She’d need more Sparks, too, since each one only illuminated a short distance, and they didn’t move. She could try Radiant Presence, but while that diffuse glow had been enough to keep back the things lurking in the Emberwrought Dungeon, it wasn’t enough to actually illuminate more than a whisker-length from her face.

Miss Cupcakes, apparently satisfied with her cleaning efforts, stood and stretched in that sinuous way all cats had. Tail arched, entirely nonchalant, she stalked off into the darkness, and once again, Pandy followed, though this time it was more by sound than sight. Each step sent up fresh clouds of dust, which made the kitten sneeze, but not stop.

This dark, abandoned place held nothing. Not a single piece of old, broken furniture, no lopsided shelves, no moldering books. Pandy and the cat moved through a graveyard of forgetfulness, and it took far too long for Pandy to realize that she was walking in someone else’s footsteps. She was distracted by the muffled thickness of the air, and it took stumbling over her own paws to realize that not every step felt the same. Most came down on a cushion of powdered time, but every now and then, her claws scratched through a much thinner coating, clicking against the wooden floor.

she thought, watching as her Corruption Points ticked down by two.

Spark successful. Forty-eight uses remain before next level.

A light appeared in the darkness, revealing Miss Cupcakes, who sat beside the next footprint. There was no doubt it belonged to a man, and one much larger than Professor Beeswick – not that he wore shoes. She could also see a faint hint of the shape of the foot within the rounder outline, which indicated that the person had either been wearing socks, or a foot-covering with an extremely thin sole. Perhaps a shoe meant specifically for sneaking?

The two continued onward, following the footsteps – with the help of three more Sparks, and six more Corruption Points – until they came at last to a door. It was a plain, simple door, just brown-stained wood with hinges made of some gray metal. The frame around it was equally plain, but someone had driven several spikes beneath it, lifting it away from the wall to which it had once been attached. And there, tucked under the raised edges, were sheets of what looked like paper, carefully placed to create a new, far more intricate, doorframe.