Everyone followed her back out, and Kit looked around the mountain that was already beginning to show fall colors and asked, "Doesn't it feel a bit like we've returned to our own territory when we come here? Even though we've only been here a handful of times?"
"Maybe," Shrubbery agreed. "Although I haven't been here nearly as often as you have, it's always nice to return to an area where I can say, oh yes, there's a village just over there, and navigate by the landmarks?"
"I like exploring areas I didn't expect to exist," Silvam spoke up.
"Right!" SaltySiamese exclaimed, "the best thing about this game is how much variety there is!"
Danika looked up the mountain and suggested, "It's fun adventuring everywhere, but I have the same feeling of return here as Kit. Maybe home is where your cat is?"
Everyone laughed and unanimously agreed as they climbed above the treeline. Silvam was the most startled when the snow leopard guardian appeared and grumbled, "You haven't visited to talk of other worlds recently, but now you appear with a full party?"
Danika zipped forward and admitted guiltily, "I am not here for that this time, but I'll come again soon. I came to ask your son to help my guild complete our new quest."
"Ha, good luck convincing that lazy brat to do anything," the guardian grumbled. "He has grown up to be the laziest creature in the world."
Silvam chuckled and murmured, "He has always been the laziest creature in the world."
The enormous snow leopard eyed him, but didn't comment further. "Wait here, and I will tell him to come down, you still may not roam the mountain freely," she instructed firmly.
"OK," Danika agreed cheerfully.
"Tell him he'll gain an ultimate move," Shrubbery added quickly, "if he is reluctant to come down."
"Only if he manages to complete the challenge," Danika argued after the guardian departed.
"What challenge could a cat give that the King could not complete?" Silvam asked wryly.
"What makes you think this lazy leopard is the King of Cats anyway?" SaltySiamese questioned.
"His backstory," Danika explained quickly without really explaining.
The snow leopard who was no longer a cub appeared beside her and looked smug when she jumped. "What's a backstory?" he asked and his voice growled beneath his words in a way that let her know that he'd asked in cat and not the common tongue.
Her companions gazed at the nearly full grown snow leopard with wide eyes, but Danika turned to him and said, "I'll explain if you come with us to complete the elder's challenge."
"There is no ultimate move that a mere housecat could teach me," the leopard objected.
"How do you know that the elder is a housecat?" Danika asked. He didn't answer, but Danika felt like his posture carried the same meaning as a teenager's eye roll. "How many of your skills have you already unlocked?" she asked instead.
"None of my skills are locked," the leopard huffed.
"Why do you think his skills are locked?" Kit asked.
"None of his skills are really locked," Silvam agreed with the leopard unknowingly. "He just doesn't remember that they are there to use, because in this lifetime he's never used them?"
The snow leopard turned and gazed at Silvam, but didn't immediately make a comment. Silvam gazed back with interest. "What has your god told you about my lifetimes?" the leopard asked clearly in the common tongue.
Silvam regarded him with wide eyes and then asked, "Are you already over a year old?"
SaltySiamese asked at the same time, "Hey, if you can talk why didn't you talk before?!"
The snow leopard turned his back on them and ignored the questions.
"I don't think he's quite a year old yet, but almost, and he was talking before, just in cat," Danika answered for the snow leopard. But then she asked him curiously, "But why don't you have a name like Sea Song Tione?"
"Most ordinary animals don't have individual names," Silvam pointed out.
"I am not ordinary," protested the leopard in cat.
"What's your name then?" Danika questioned.
"I forgot," the snow leopard growled.
"I think if you come with us, you might remember," Danika encouraged him.
"Your party is full," he argued.
"Oh," Danika replied uncertainly.
Shrubbery, whose tree let her understand all full blooded animals, had been listening to everything with interest and said quickly, "You can remove me from the party, I'm in the guild anyway, so I don't need to be in the party."
Silvam listened to that and pointed out, "The same is true for me."
"Yes," the snow leopard agreed suddenly, "remove the nosy elf."
"Hey," SaltySiamese objected as the leopard finally spoke in the common tongue again.
The snow leopard gave a huff and laughed a silent cat's laugh.
"I'm pretty sure he meant me," Magna Silvam told SaltySiamese reassuringly.
The party was rearranged and Danika kept her promise to explain what a backstory was to the snow leopard, who accompanied them without further protest.
--
When they arrived at the designated meeting place, the NPC elder did not reveal itself. Instead a young cat waited there. It stood and stretched casually, before it said in cat, "Most of you won't be able to enter. You're the wrong shape and you'll be seen."
Shrubbery translated for those who couldn't understand. They discussed it briefly, but the snow leopard was impatient and declared, "This is boring. Let's just go there."
The little cat looked him over and laughed a silent cat's laugh. "So ridiculously large," it mocked. "You're barely qualified to call yourself a cat."
The leopard huffed, "You're so small I could eat you in one bite."
The snow leopard was quite a bit bigger than the housecat, but he didn't really look big enough to eat it in one bite to Danika.
"Arrogant. Dare you to try it," the little housecat said with a smirk.
The leopard darted toward the housecat suddenly. Danika was unsurprised when the little cat casually retreated with an effortless air.
"I like this little cat," SaltySiamese said brightly after Shrubbery translated the exchange of taunts.
Danika covered her eyes for a moment as the leopard turned and glared at the elf. Even though she'd told SaltySiamese that the snow leopard was the King of Cats who might give her a cat form, she still said things that so blatantly annoyed him.
Danika suddenly sympathised with the game system that kept trying to subtly lead SaltySiamese into encounters where she might gain her wish.