Season 3: Catpurr 13: Tower of Insight
“Damn you get out of my tent! Stop trying to take my blanket!” The final words Adam screamed before giving up as the blankets were ripped away from him and Junith turned over with her feet in his face.
“Tch…” Adam grunted, crossing his arms with annoyance while he lay naked on the cold leather floor. “Whatever.”
He closed his eyes, eventually allowing himself to fall into a lull until he was asleep.
Meat?
Adam woke to the smell of cooking, his nose twitching to lure himself upright to the open slit of his tent.
[00:27:12]
Exiting the tent, Adam eyed the counter before he spotted the source of the smokey scent.
Junith was cooking, the girl clad in pelts from some furry animal and large bulbous leaves no doubt taken from the carnivorous plants.
“Well, isn't this a change of pace,” Adam said, noticing the paladin was using what remained of her metal armor to cook meat over a flame.
“I'm not useless, Adam.”
“Well you certainly haven't been useful,” Adam countered.
“Fair. There's clothes for you to put on,” Junith said, gesturing to a bundle of furs hanging nearby only for Adam to eye the woman skeptically.
“What? Did you lace the them with bugs, poison the food?” Adam asked.
“Who said this food was for you?”
“Fair. Still… it's suspiciously generous,” Adam said, inching towards the furs before carefully lifting them to inspect the item.
Satisfied that it wasn't poisonous, he decided to don the itchy material that wasn't comfortable but was at least warm before turning back to Junith handing him a shoulder plate with cooked meat on it.
“Uh…”
“Here.”
“Uh…”
“If you keep staring at me with your damn mouth opened you'll catch a fly,” Junith hissed, snapping Adam from his stupor.
“Right,” Adam said, furrowing his brow as Junith took a seat nearby and began eating.
“So, what do you think the trial will be?” Junith asked, stuffing a piece of meat into her mouth.
Adam furrowed his brow, staring at the cat girl who looked like Junith, talked like Junith, and even felt like her from their bond but…
“Me?” Adam blinked, “You're asking me?”
“Yeah? Who the hel else would I be talking to? You're the only-”
Adam took a step back, raising his hand and calling forth a large big-tooth skellie cat.
“Adam?”
Then it leapt towards Junith who went wide-eyed and screamed.
“WHAT?! ADAM! WHAT IS THIS?!” Junith demanded as the cat pinned her down with its massive skull opening its maw above her head. “What are you doing?!”
“Where is Junith?!” Adam said, his face coming into view with a dagger at Junith's throat. “Who are you and what did you do to that mouth breathing idiot?!”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“What?”
“Are you a mimic? A doppelganger? A missingtango?”
“What?”
“Answer me!”
“You idiot! It's me! I'm Junith!”
“Liar! Don't lie to me! You keep doing so and my cat here will turn you into a chew toy!” Adam snapped his fingers, the monster’s maw closing around Junith's head as her arms struggled to move beneath the skeleton’s weight.
“Adam! Adam wait! Wait! You stupid idiot! It's me! Stop! Stop!”
“Oh yeah? Prove it!”
“What?! How!?” Juntih shouted.
Huh…
“I…errrrr…huh,” Adam paused. It was actually a good point now that he thought about it. He didn't know anything about Junith. Where she was from, what she did before becoming a paladin, or even what her favorite color was or what she liked to eat.
Not that he thought any of that was ever relevant, which was probably why he was stumped as Junith continued to cry out from the skeleton about to eat her.
“Adam! Adam! STO-”
[0:00:00]
[You May Now Enter the trial]
“Hm?” Adam looked up as he began to glow, his view vanishing only to be replaced by the decrepit tower from the trial entrance. “Junith?”
She was gone, his eyes darting around only to lock onto the wooden entrance of the tower creaking open with a chill in the air.
Adam frowned, he could feel it beckoning him, a scent that lingered in the space that he was all too familiar with.
“M-master?” Adam muttered, his voice cracking as his face twisted into a stern scowl.
A trick? Another plot of the gods? Adam clenched his jaw, his feet moving forward despite his body wanting to turn around and flee.
Still the scent enraptured him, the smell of familiarity pulling him into the tower that closed its wooden door behind him despite his reluctance to enter.
Scanning the innards of the sanctum, Adam furrowed his brow, the only tangible object in the room being a black silhouette of humanoid shape that stood in the shadows.
“I take it you're the manager?” Adam muttered, taking a step forward only to freeze as the silhouette finally moved.
“What would you do if you obtained eternity?” The woman in skimpy black robes asked as the purple iris of her right eye flared up to illuminate the shadows that clung to every corner..
She was tall, six-one, wearing a mechanical gold eye-patch over her left eye that matched the bracelets, belt, and wide brim hat that was black dotted with flakes of gold.
Rezalia Des’heart.
Expert Thief.
Renown Scholar.
High Necromancer.
And Adam's former master who had given him Schroedinger, the only true friend he had in the universe before she disappeared after teaching him everything he knew.
“What is this? What kind of trial is this?” Adam hissed, preparing to strike the apparition as his shaking hand flexed. “ANSWER ME!”
“What would you do if you obtained Eternity?” The doppelganger asked again as she raised her boney hands, her voice so akin to Adam's memories he merely stood in place as the cobblestone beneath their feet began to crack and shift, revealing the hands of the undead who clawed their way to the surface.
“What?” Adam replied, finally snapping from his stupor as he retreated to the edge of the room to avoid the ghastly beings who did not answer to him. “Crapbaskets!”
Ghouls, dullahains, flesh golems, high-tier undead rose from the floor, the creatures surrounding Adam as Rezalia glared at her former pupil.
“I told you a day would come when I asked you this again,” Rezalia said, her face marred with the look of disapproval he'd come to be so acquainted with in his childhood, “Now… give me your answer Adam.”
“Tch,” Adam let out as he summoned skeletons of his own, his small bodies of skellie-cats meager-looking in the face of the ivory swarm that surrounded him. “I don't know what this is, but I promise you whoever is responsible for this trial will definitely pay.”
***
“Adam! Adam! STOP!” Junith shouted as she blinked, realizing she was no longer pinned beneath the large paws of Adam's skellie-cat. Instead, she stood on soft green grass, her eyes focused on the opulent tower before her whose golden double doors swung open to reveal a brilliant radiance.
“Junith.”
A voice, one that made her heart skip a beat as every hair on her skin stood on end and her body tensed.
N-no!
The tower beckoned her, she could feel it, a pull so akin to Voltrain’s warmth that if she didn't know any better she would have rushed into its arms in search of redemption.
But she knew the truth and only fear took her as a being clad in gold and silver knelt in prayer at the entrance of the tower.
“Extol the Lord of Light, praise him. Worship him. Love him. For he is the light that grants us, the unworthy of sight to conqueror the world.”
Junith froze in place, her eyes reflecting a woman with gold hair, purple eyes, and sharp, stern features that exuded an air of command as she floated out from the entrance of the tower.
The woman’s metal sabatons touched the ground with a weighty oomph, her left hand holding a spear of brilliant opulence that Junith remembered far too keenly.
“Show me your faith, little pup.”
“L-lady Des’heart…” Junith muttered as the Greatest Paladin of Voltrain brandished her spear.
