[[Posted after Christmas Goblins Chapter]]
Three cats traveled cheerfully east, and ever farther from goblin territory. The smallest one was black, one was a tabby, and the last was a large orange striped cat wearing a metal band around one foreleg.
The large orange cat complained, "We're totally out of coin now, why did you have to make such an extravagant promise?"
The little black cat flicked an ear in annoyance and replied, "That fairy dragon was a player, and still a novice like us, it seemed really unlikely that we'd really get turned into cats."
The tabby cat commented, "The thief she was with, that Chinchillamin, seemed pretty dangerous though, and was already proficient. You have to have at least 75 skill points to reach proficient, he must have been playing since the game went public."
The orange cat replied, "I had no idea there was such a thing as a Chinchillamin! He was soooo fluffy. I wish I could afford to reincarnate as one, but we've been killed twice since this event started, and I don't even have enough Karma left to revive."
"I definitely don't," agreed the tabby. "That's why being cats for a couple of weeks in the game is worth every coin we spent. No one will recognize us like this!"
The little black cat pointed out, "But, if they use their menu lens, they'll see that our character's race is still goblin instead of cat."
The three cats fell silent as they considered her words. After a moment the little black cat halted and sat down on the path. The other two stopped beside him. "What is it?" The tabby asked.
"I think," the black cat replied uncertainly, "that maybe we should avoid towns until the event is over?"
The big orange cat eyed the forest that bordered this section of the path and asked nervously, "Can we even fight anything bigger than a squirrel in this form? My character sheet says I have a new subpath skill called claw swipe, but I've only got one skill point in it, and my slingshot and sword skills are greyed out."
The tabby suggested, "Maybe we should head back toward the farmlands around Fogton? Farmers like cats right? And most of them should be NPCs I'd think?"
--
Awhile later the three cats, who had retraced their steps, and were now cautiously traveling west into the heart of the human kingdom stopped again when they spotted a little white mouse standing in the middle of the broad path. It gazed at them with incongruous bravery.
The little black cat hissed and arched her back. She looked just as shocked by her own action as the other two cats, who both stepped back with wide eyes. She swallowed and explained quickly, "I just told it to," she hissed and arched her back again.
The tabby flicked his tail and exclaimed, "It's a filter! I bet she said," he hissed and arched his back, "like she always does when she's ticked off." He laughed silently and then added, "Laughter is filtered too!"
The little white mouse commented, "Well, this isn't going as planned, but why don't the three of you just concede now?"
All three cats turned and hissed at it.
Hundreds of little white mice crept out of the hedges bordering the path, and the three cats dropped their poses and huddled together. The little black cat said, "Um, why don't we just log off now and play again tomorrow?"
The two cats who'd stood at her back vanished, and a moment later she followed them offline.
A fatter mouse said with disgust, "They escaped! I told you we should have attacked first and made our demands later!"
Another little mouse adjusted it's spectacles and suggested, "Let's try getting a cow instead, they are also welcome in dairies?"
--
The next day the large orange striped goblin cat logged in cautiously, only after the mobile version informed him that the two friends in "Living Jade Empire" that he'd formed a party with were already online. He appeared on the same path, in the same spot where the mice had appeared the day before, but he was alone.
He quickly pulled up his menus and checked, both members of his party were online. He sent a quick message to each asking: "Where are you?"
The girl's messenger animal arrived with a reply a moment later. The orange cat accepted the message from the large owl who normally appeared cute and fluffy to him, but right now looked like the predator that it had been modeled after. It read: "Follow the stone fence that's a little way back to the east, south until you see the pond. We picked up a quest to help a little girl catch fish."
The orange cat shrugged his shoulders and followed her instructions. At the stone wall that fenced a tilled field off from the pastures around it, he leapt gracefully onto the wall and trotted south until he spotted a pond in the pasture to the southwest.
When the orange cat arrived, his friends informed him that the human girl had accidently released a goldfish into the pond that was supposed to be seeded with only sunfish. It had multiplied into dozens of goldfish that were competing with the sunfish for food and space. The girl needed to remove all of the goldfish before the sunfish were ready to harvest in the fall, or she'd be punished, and she'd offered them cheese in addition to the Karma that every quest provided at least one point of.
The girl had brought a barrel out to the pond, and she tied a string to it and had the cats float out into the pond on it. It was fairly easy to target only goldfish, because they were so brilliantly colored compared to the pale sunfish, but once they'd each caught one, they didn't know what to do.
"Don't tell me she expects us to eat them raw?" the orange cat complained.
The little black cat shrugged, and hooked a claw into the string the girl was holding. She jerked on it until the girl reeled them in. The cats each laid their catch down a couple of meters from the pond and looked at her expectantly.
After a long moment the girl stepped forward and gingerly lifted one of the flopping goldfish by its tail. She slammed it's head against a large rock, and it went still. "Ok, good job. I'll bury them beneath the orchard trees like my father does with the mud flavored carp he catches for fun." She repeated the action with the other two fish and then set out the barrel and waited for the cats to board it again.
When they were back out on the water, the tabby goblin cat murmured, "I half expected one of those goldfish to beg for its life like in the fairytales."
The little black cat replied, "Yeah, but this is ok too." Her paw flicked into the water and came up with another goldfish and she said smugly, "So polite you two are, letting ladies go first, but catch faster?"
--
They caught the last goldfish on their last day as cats, and when the large orange cat lifted it out of the water, it begged, "Please spare me! I'm the last of my line!"
The three goblins who'd been turned into cats exchanged glances, and the tabby complained, "This game is too predictable sometimes!"