As they followed after the leader of the cat girls, Manipule leaned closer to Bel.

  “She seems physically strong. Is that why you regard her with such respect?”

  Bel grimaced, unsure if she should talk about the cats strange habits when they were listening. Flann answered before she could make up her mind.

  “This here valley is the most dangerous place in all of the Golden Plains, worse even than the living mud of the Lip and the burning sands of the Southern Fringe. These creatures can shoot beams of light from their mouths that destroy anything they touch.”

  Flann waved his arms dramatically as they passed out of the cave and into the light.

  “You can see it all around us!”

  Bel grinned as Manipule’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Bel looked around too, inspecting the familiar hole-riddled hills and mountains that surrounded the cat girls’ home. She saw that the rest of the area was still a paradise, with lush vegetation and a peacefully flowing river that meandered past, although now Bel found herself trudging through more mud than she remembered.

  “I’m glad I decided to wear my fighting clothes,” she muttered. She was walking barefoot and wore only her armor and a thick lizard-hide overcoat that Manipule had insisted upon to preserve her modesty. She had a short sword strapped to her waist and had the forethought to carry a few throwing knives that would work well with her ability to destabilize bonds. Everything she carried was easily replaced, and she couldn’t help feel a sense of satisfaction when she thought of everyone else ruining their regular travelling clothes. Flann and Jan were wearing their well-worn desert cloaks, but Manipule was wearing some very clean leather armor. Orseis had a new hide jacket and pants, and some kind of hat with a brim the covered the eyes. Orseis continually adjusted it as they walked.

  “This is why I like to have some disposable clothes with me,” she said to Manipule.

  Manipule smiled and tapped the ground with her foot. It made a hard thump rather than squishing, and Bel realized that the other gorgon was freezing the ground around herself to avoid walking in the mud. Everyone else was walking in her path rather than trudging through the mud like Bel.

  “Oh, that’s not a bad idea,” the cat girl said enthusiastically. She fluttered over to Manipule and stood on the frozen ground for a moment. Then she flicked her tail with dissatisfaction.

  “No, too cold.”

  The rest of her group remained in wary silence, so Bel decided to ask the obvious question.

  “Does our task have to do with all of this mud?”

  Bel’s feet squished into the soaked soil. “I can see why you wouldn’t like it, but all the new rain is because Technis took down his Barrier. We can’t fix that.”

  “Of course we know that, stupid.” The cat girl rolled her eyes. “The mud is only temporary. Eventually we’ll get some thick grasses or whatever.”

  “Yeah,” another cat girl added. “Don’t you know that we’ve been guarding the old king’s inheritance since waaaaay before Technis decided to play ruler?”

  Another cat girl laughed. “Yeah, he’s such a loser. Our boss made the right call, rejecting his bid for the king’s stuff.”

  “Yeah, he’s gross!”

  Manipule leaned close to Bel and whispered, “could they have important information about Technis?”

  Bel winced at the thought, but she couldn’t reject Manipule’s suggestion. Flann and Jan didn’t feel the same restraint, and shook their heads energetically when Bel opened her mouth.

  “Hey, uh, boss, could you–”

  The cat girl cut her off.

  “No. We don’t care about Technis. We’re just here because we owed King Narisgood a favor.”

  She vigorously scratched an itch on her flank, ignoring Bel until she was satisfied.

  “Anyway, the king asked us to guard his stuff before he ascended, so we’re guarding it. We’re not here to play tour guide.”

  Bel shrugged helplessly at Manipule.

  “There,” the boss said. She pointed her paw at a modest lake that sat at the edge of the valley. “That’s where we get our most tasty fish, but there’s some gross stuff in the water.”

  “It’s ruining everything,” wailed one of the boss’ followers.

  “I haven’t had a good fish in days!”

  “They’re gross!”

  Bel ignored the whining and inspected the lake. It wasn’t anything special, at least from what she could see. It was large enough that she couldn’t throw a stone over it, but not so wide that someone couldn’t swim across. She doubted that it was very deep either.

  “So why can’t you find whatever is causing the problem yourself?”

  “Ugh, water!”

  “It’s wet!”

  “Gross!”

  “Do you know anything about the cause?”

  “It’s wet!”

  “And gross!”

  The boss turned her baleful stare upon Bel. “We don’t do diving. We’re cats. We sit in the sun. Now get in there and take care of whatever is ruining our food.”

  Then, fast as a striking serpent, she turned her head to Orseis. “And don’t you dare eat any of our fish,” she hissed. “We know how the followers of Gigampas like to stuff themselves.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I–I would never think of it,” Orseis stammered.

  “Good. Come find us once you’ve cleaned out our lake.”

  With that, the cat girl flicked her tail and launched herself into the air. She circled once before gliding back to the cool, sheltered cave.

  Bel flapped her heavy overcoat, moving air over her sweaty body. “So, do you think we should just dive right in, or what?”

  “I think they’re trying to kill us,” Orseis said. “Even if there isn’t something crazy powerful in the water, how do they expect us to swim around the most tasty fish and not sample one?”

  Bel looked at Orseis. “I agree. You should stay on the shore.”

  Flann and Jan nodded in agreement, and Manipule patted Orseis on the head. The cuttle girl turned an embarrassed shade of red.

  “Hey, I feel like you guys are thinking bad things about me!”

  Manipule hugged Orseis close. “No, no, we are just worried about your safety.”

  Orseis pushed against Manipule’s arms. “I’m not a child.”

  “I could lift up the ground in the lake and divide it into small sections that would be easier to search,” Jan suggested.

  “Could work,” Flann replied. “Better than me boilin’ it.”

  Jan wagged his tail. “Well then, shall I get to it? Or do we have other options?”

  “I could freeze it,” Manipule offered. “That usually puts fish to sleep.”

  Jan nodded enthusiastically. “Why not both? I’ll break it into smaller pools, you freeze them one by one. Maybe you can even make walls of ice so we can look inside!”

  Bel shook her head. “So complicated. How about I turn into my Bex form and just swim through it? I’ll murder anything that looks weird.”

  She brushed imaginary dirt from her hands. “Easy.”

  Her companions warily eyed Bel’s murderous plague snake.

  “You sure that’s not Vex’s idea?” Flann asked.

  Bel tilted her head and thought about it. “Maybe. But it makes sense to me.”

  The old fox turned to Manipule. “Do all your snakes put ideas into your heads? Or is it just Bel?”

  Manipule shook her head. “Just Bel. She is special.”

  Jan had been ignoring their discussion, turning his bad and forth instead of listening to them. His whiskers quivered as he slapped his paws together. “Ah! I have another idea!”

  He raked his paw through the air.

  “I’ll just raise fingers of dirt to comb through the water. Anything small, like the fishes, will pass through, but I’ll catch anything big and dangerous.”

  “That’s great,” Flann agreed.

  “I could just kill–”

  Jan ignored Bel and waved his arms towards the water. The soil on the far shore lifted into six widely spaced fingers. The crept towards Bel and her group, combing through the water.

  When they were halfway across the lake, the water’s surface frothed and roiled as something fled ahead of Jan’s search.

  “Is that the fish?” Orseis asked with interest.

  Then a head popped out of the water, followed by a dozen more. They were humanoid, but in the place of ears they had large fins surrounding empty holes in the sides of their heads, and their lips were thick and glistening with slime. Combined with their puffy faces and bulging eyes, Bel found their looks at least as ugly as anything that she’d encountered.

  Jan paused his stony comb as the lead creature stood up on human legs and strode from the water. It opened its mouth, revealing uneven rows of jagged teeth, and spoke to them in an unfamiliar language.

  “It is warning us to get out of the way,” Manipule translated. “It says that Technis is gone and they have come to claim the old king’s inheritance.”

  The gorgon’s lips curled in disgust. “It is also being very rude.”

  She looked at Bel and flushed. “Very rude. I won’t translate that part.”

  Bel inspected the rude creature, looking between it and its companions. They were muscular and green, with a slimy coating over their skin and large rocks and shells strapped to their backs. They didn’t carry any weapons, but they looked strong.

  They watched her as well, standing still except for the motion of the gills on their necks, which rose and fell as they breathed. The motion pulled on strands of mucus between their gill slits, making Bel’s stomach clench. As a gentle breeze blew through the valley, Bel realized that the cat girls hadn’t been exaggerating: not only did they look disgusting, the watery things also stank like bad farts. The smell grew worse as more of them clambered up from the water below.

  “No thank you,” she said.

  The lead creature must have picked up on Bel’s tone, because it immediately screeched in anger. It opened its mouth wide enough to swallow its own head, bent forward, and, to Bel’s surprise, spat a head sized ball of fire at her.

  Bel formed some of her armor into a wide shield, but Flann stepped forward with a confident bounce in his steps. He batted the fireball aside with his staff, and then batted ten more down as half of the creatures followed their leader’s example. The other half of them began waving their webbed hands through the air and chanting.

  “Stop ’em!” Jan yelled.

  The half-height meerkat twitched his hands and his stone fingers dove at the stinky water people, but one of them swept their arm over the water in response. Jets of water burst from the surface of the pond and blasted through the stone fingers, breaking them apart.

  Orseis threw her spear at the creatures, but a couple stopped spitting fire long enough to summon a wall of water to intercept the projectile.

  Meanwhile, Bel’s snakes were arguing over which of them was best-suited for the situation, and it was making it difficult for her to concentrate. Sparky was outraged by their pitiful flames, but Bel didn’t trust her magma form near all the water. Flora was also outraged that they had tried to burn her, but Bel didn’t trust her tree form near all the fire. Vex was outraged and wanted to kill everything, but Bel didn’t trust her near all of her friends.

  Before she could shake off their muddling influences, the stinky fish creatures in the back completed their hand waving ritual. Bel watched with fascination as a rainbow of colors and shapes leaped into the air above them, visible thanks to her new eye. The patterns danced and twisted together before pulling apart, opening a portal to another place.

  A giant sea creature with a mouth large enough to swallow Bel whole dropped from the open portal and into the water below.

  It curled its long neck through the air and roared with fury before leaning towards them with murderous intent. Then it froze in place, mouth open and bulbous eyes wide.

  Bel glanced to the side to see that Manipule was glaring at it: the two of them were locked in a contest of essence. The fish creatures coughed a swarm of fireballs at the defenseless gorgon, but Jan summoned a rock wall high enough to block their attacks and low enough that it didn’t block Manipule’s view of the large creature.

  Bel decided that was a good enough distraction for her to go on the attack.

  A quick wind step took her in the middle of the fish people, where Bel quickly struck in multiple directions with her liquid shockwaves. They were caught completely off-guard, and multiple of them were cut to pieces.

  To Bel’s shock though, the fish people didn’t just burst into pieces when struck – they exploded. She used her thermal regulation to shift most of the heat from the sudden burst of flames into Sparky, but the force of the blasts thrust her beneath the water’s surface and into the thick mud below.

  Bel kicked and thrashed as she struggled to find up and down. As her head cleared, she pushed against the mud and kicked towards the surface. She swiped the mud from her face and prepared herself to resume her attack, eager to confront the rest of her enemies before they recovered from her surprise attack.

  She was disappointed to find them calm and organized when the burst out of the water. Even worse, the survivors were on fire – and they seemed pleased about it.

  Bel had killed five of them with her sudden shockwaves, but remaining dozen grinned at her with their jagged teeth. Their skin had turned from green to red, and their slimy coatings burned with an angry, red glow. She paused, surprised, and waited to see if the water would put out their flames.

  They’re water creatures, right? Orseis would be in trouble if she dried out.

  She quickly learned that her understanding of their anatomy was flawed. Their skin did crack as it dried out, sinking inwards as it lost its wet puffiness. Their faces became lean and hungry, their bulbous eyes became angry slits and their fat lips skimmed back to expose long, vicious fangs. The flabby skin on their heads shrank onto their skulls, revealing short, thick horns. As the webbing on their hands shriveled, it revealed more of their long, sharp fingers. In just a few seconds, they had turned from awkward fish people into lean, muscular fighters – from the waist up. Below that, where they were submerged in the water, they were still slimy and soft.

  Their fires didn’t go out when their transformations completed, and their odor only grew worse. Bel struggled with the urge to vomit as all of nearest creatures turned to her with their angry, smoldering eyes.