--- Kat ---
After watching Hunter interact adorably with Stephny for a while, the group was shown to their rooms. A meal was offered, but Kat and the others shrugged it off by explaining they already had more than enough food. The lady who ran the inn didn't seem to mind and simply left them too it.
With separate rooms, and their ability to practice somewhat limited because they were inside everyone decided to turn in early... well except Kamiko, who snuck back out to give her horse a proper brushing and ensure he was fed but she went to bed once that was complete.
Kat was up early as per usual and decided to take the chance to practice a bit more with her water form. In this case, she wanted to use it to sneak in and out of the closed door to her room without getting any water on the wood. It was harder then Kat thought.
Fitting under the door as a watery mass was no issue, but the old dry timber sucked in nearby moisture greedily and even the slightest brush from Kat's form would cause it to absorb a chunk.
It was nothing Kat couldn't deal with, in fact, she barely noticed the extra demonic energy drain when switching back. The thing was... that was never the point. Kat didn't care if she lost a bit of water here and there for safety reasons, she cared about it for sneaking reasons.
Sure the line of water she left wasn't a huge hint in regards to what was going on, but a keen eyed watcher might be able to notice something was wrong so Kat got back to practicing.
This eventually came to an end when Lily sat up and bed and started to sniff the air a moment before transforming to speak. "Hey... are we the only guests here?"
"Yes?" said Kat unsure. "At the least I didn't hear or see anyone else,"
"Well I think the innkeeper took offense the fact we skipped dinner. I can smell a LOT of food being cooked downstairs. It's not ready just yet, but... we might want to head down for that if we want to be polite," suggested Lily.
Kat shrugged and wondered over to Lily to scratch her ears. Lily collapsed onto Kat's lap and started to purr. "How was your sleep? I'm honestly a bit surprised with the quality of the beds. I mean, they weren't the best I've slept in but compared to the technology level I'd guess them to be at these are fantastic,"
"Prrr, I think that... rrrrr, that either the enchantment for bedding... prrrrr. I'm trying to make a pprrroint..." Kat, ignored Lily's pitiful attempts to escape. If she really had a problem with her current treatment Lily had plenty of ways to escape Kat's reach. As it stood, Lily was just moving her legs around and complaining. "Mrrr, fine. Enchantment widespread, or bedding material easy to farrmmmrrr..."
Kat nodded, "Yeah that makes sense. I wonder what it is? I could see something cotton like being easy to harvest if it's grown in a more convenient way or there's a tool to say... magnetise the cotton? Just open a bag and let it all fly in? As for the enchantment, well you'd probably know better then me about that,"
"You seem... a lot less rested then I'd thought you'd be," said Kat diplomatically.
"No, no, I just relax a lot better when I'm inside a town so I know to set an alarm and it only just went off. I was going to knock on one of your doors... but then I stumbled downstairs instead and saw you guys were here already... so I guess it worked out anyway?" offered Kamiko.
*Odd. I mean, I guess I can see it... but I wouldn't have thought she'd be so tired regardless of any alarms.*
[I guess some people just aren't morning people even when we're completely different species.]
Lily I'm not even sure if you're an afternoon person these days.
[Exactly, I'm the expert on sleeping here, and I say it just makes sense.] Find your next adventure on m_v l|e-NovelFire
Kat smiled a bit at that as she heard the door open. A bunch of people all started to wonder in. "If you want any of the best stuff you might want to go in now," added the innkeeper. Kat just shared a look with the rest of her table and gave a shrug that was returned. They knew they had plenty of food, and if there was nothing good left they'd just have some of that.
As they were thinking that, Slvr stepped out of the line with a plate full of food and headed their way. "Hello you three...? Four?"
"She was the cat," added the inkeep.
"Ah, I see..." said Slvr despite not really seeing. "Anyway, I was talking with the captain earlier and it turns out that the worm nest actually DOES have a bounty on it. So we've already got the funds set aside if you want to take that off my hands. If not... well is there anything else we could offer you? I know we worked out the deal with the end, but that's hardly anything,"
"Do you know where Forest Village is?" asked Hunter. "We were meant to venture out from there... but we were not given proper directions. We picked up a map along the way but we couldn't find it anywhere so we're heading for Forestown instead, if that helps,"
Slvr nodded, "Oh yeah I can help with that. It's probably because Forest Village is actually inside the forest itself. Um... shit. Where was the turn off for it? It's one of the smaller paths but it was really well maintained last I heard. Something about an earth mage that lives nearby.
Forest Village's mayor is a Rank 2 mage himself actually, so people visit for magical advice on the regular. Probably how the roads stay in shape... just let me think for a bit. I know it's not too far off..."