Curiosity Endures (Open to BadLuckKitty and 1 Other)

[Fuzzball]

(This post is open to Bad Luck Kitty, and 1 Other Person. Please do NOT post in this thread, unless you are an active member and can make posts in a timely manner. If you fail to make posts in a timely manner, you will be skipped, and we will make up what happened to you, and continue on without you. The other person is first come, first serve. Bad Lucky Kitty has the next post after mine, so please wait for her to post)



Large yellow eyes stared around curiously at the world it had never seen before, as a small ball of fur happily bounced along a gravel path between an expanse of green pine trees. The creature very small in stature, stood at only a little over a foot, very nearly perfectly round, and with a mass of light golden brown fur covering it and sticking out in all directions as though it had an unfortunate meeting with a light socket. Wrapped around the mid section of the small ball like creature, was a two foot cord of leather that held several iron throwing darts in place, and a small leather pouch, buttoned closed and making a slight jangling sound as coins inside it met each other from the constant bouncing.

The creature had never seen anything like what it was looking upon; it was used to oddities that moved with little metal wheels, and that made loud clanging and sparking noises while they did so, yet this new world was quiet and peaceful, and the air around was clean and didn't choke the creature like the previous world. There was none of the dark skinned, pointy eared bi-pedal creatures around overlooking things either, and in fact there wasn't any creatures around other than itself, which the creature found highly odd. There had been plenty of other creatures along with it in the previous world, although most were kept in large shiny clear cylinders, or the larger ones kept in small rooms with shiny metal bars all around. The creature recalled the dark skin pointy ears calling that last world a "laboratory", as they poked and prodded all the varying creatures of the world in their homes, which seemed to make some of the creatures rather angry. There had been many times where one of the dark skin pointy ears would lose one of the appendages on their upper twig, and would make a horrible noise; while other dark skin pointy ears would come in with weird long shiny tubes with a strange blue light that made a crackling sound at the end of it, and then put it against the creature, only to have the creature go silent and stop moving. This confused the creature immensely why the other creature had stopped moving when touched by the blue crackly light, and why the other creatures of it's kind would snarl in rage and attempt to attack the dark skin pointy ears.

Shaking the thoughts from it's head, the creature continued bouncing down the gravel path between the large pine trees overhead, while making a high pitched humming sound that continually varied in pitch up and down and was similar to that of singing. The creature stopped and realized the sound was coming from itself, and thought that rather odd as it had no previous knowledge of making this noise before. Finding that it rather enjoyed the noise, it returned to bouncing along the gravel path, it's large yellow eyes sweeping back and forth as it traveled.

Suddenly and without even noticing, the world changed again in front of the creatures eyes. Instead of the gravel path and large pine trees towering above it, the new world was dark, with what looked like black clouds above. The ground itself was charred and barren of any trees, and the air caused the creatures to cough uncomfortably. Looking around frantically, the creature turned around, only to find that the world it had been in previously with clean air, pine trees and the nice gravel path, was nowhere to be seen. The creature rolled slightly to it's right as though cocking it's head to the side in confusion. "Where did it all go?" the creature thought to itself, while suddenly feeling slightly disappointed. The creature liked that world, and wanted to stay in it, but found that obviously there must be a purpose as to why the worlds kept changing, and that this must be it's first goal; to find out why the world around it kept changing....or maybe it's second goal, after it found out why it was the dark skin pointy ears always ate their food in small pieces with weird shiny tools.

Turning once again and continuing in the direction it had come, and across the new worlds charred ground, the creature suddenly heard something approaching from over the nearby hill, and spotted more of the strange black cloud billowing up and into the darkness far above. The dark cloud was coming out of some strange contraption that the creature had never seen before, but recognized portions of. The thing coming over the hill was made up of all sorts of parts that the creature had seen in the "laboratory" world; cogs and wheels, and other metal things to which the creature had no names. Oddly there was four round black things on each corner of it moving in a circular rapid pace, and there atop the machine was a dark skin pointy ear, wearing some weird contraption around his eyes made of two round piece of glass and held together with what looked like leather. The dark skin pointy eared pointed right at the creature and yelled at him. "Hey Fuzzball, get out of the road before you get run over", and then the contraption continued past him quickly, and just barely missing running him over and then disappeared from existence all together.

The creature once again stopped as it's eyes went wide with wonder at the contraption simply vanishing into nothing. "It must have gone to the other world, but how did it do so? Why did the dark skin pointy ear call me Fuzzball, and what is a road?" the creature contemplated, once again rolled slightly to the right in deep thought. It's eyes suddenly going even wider as a realization occurred. "The dark skin pointy ear must know me! It called me Fuzzball, and that must be my word! They called the other dark skin pointy ears by certain words, and they responded to them. That must be the word for me!". Content with it's sudden realization, the creature began humming and continued on it's way across the charred world.

[Bad Luck Kitty]

*Tap! Tap*

The door opened. It was a heavy oaks door with rays of light beaming through like it streets of Heaven... yet the dark elf who had opened the looked quite the opposite...

A fat elf with pointy ears and long, jet black hair looked left and right for his visitor. For several seconds, he thought that he was just hearing things, but then...

"Meow."

A sickly sound caused the dark elf to look down on a cat. This cat was scrawny and looked darker than the night, like a shadow. At first, the only thing that seemed to be active at all within an instant staring contest were the chirping of hundreds of crickets around them. Then, the man screamed and threw a pan at his visiting feline.


"Beat it, stupid cat!"

Fur up and ears back, the cat instantly fled. After racing across the dirty and industrial streets of Aleror for a while now, the black cat skidded to a halt. There, panting for breathe, the kitten found himself next to a restaurant. The sweet aromas of various treats and foods hit the cat's pink nose and sent him to dream land. The feline wrapped himself up in a small crate right next to the inn and waited for his next chance to cute someone else into giving him some food to spare.

[Breaker]

The place seemed middle class based on the cut of coat and boot worn by its patronage, and yet the level of sophistication matched any of Corone's finest taverns. Suppose that's why they call it a restaurant, Joshua 'Breaker' Cronen reasoned as he sipped fiery scotch and slid the weighted round glass back to the barkeep.

The Alerian nodded courteously and refilled the tumbler, amber liquid gurgling. The mirror behind the bar's display shelves showed a room full of elves, dark skin and slim bodies and a dozen different shades of hair. The label on the bottle called the scotch The Spirit of Kachuk in Alerian scrawl.

Josh brought the brew to his lip and inhaled deeply to savor the scent while he scanned the crowd in the mirror. The liquor hid hints of woodberry - that was the missing ingredient he hadn't nailed down from the flavor. Cronen's hazel eyes found his quarry and he emptied the vessel as a swift reward. Yes, he could taste the woodberries now. Hidden behind the fire that was the The Spirit of Kachuk.

"The rest is yours," Josh told the bartender, using one of the few Alerian phrases he knew. The elf's blue face split into a broad grin as he pocketed a decent sum in silver broken from the Coronian crown his client had paid with.

The wizened elf Breaker sought wore a dark sifan eyepatch but otherwise nondescript clothing. Josh had only spotted him as he stepped into a clear aisle and strode toward the exit, and the one eyed Alerian had made it to the door by the time Josh stood. Not wanting to draw attention in case the elf checked for followers, Breaker bent and said the first thing that came to mind to the beautiful young elf lady seated at the bar.

"Is this safe to eat?" He tried not to cringe, regretting his lack of schooling in the Alerian language. He'd intended to appear as if flirting but couldn't come up with an appropriate piece of dialog.

She had dark hair with the tips dyed the same purple as her skin, which darkened in the dark elven form of a blush. Taken aback by the odd advance, she said something he couldn't understand and cut off a sizable piece of the poultry on her plate. One elegant mauve hand made a funnel of her paper napkin, and the other pressed the freshly roasted chicken inside. She laughed as she handed it to him and said something which Breaker chose to believe meant "please join me you handsome scoundrel.

Josh shrugged and glanced over his shoulder, confirming that his quarry had departed. He gave the elven woman a final bemused smile and hustled out into the midsummer air.

There was no sign of the one eyed elf, but a tiny kitten brushed up against his leg, mewing piteously.

"Damn it," Josh muttered, craning his neck but not seeing his quarry, "don't suppose you saw which way the one eyed elf wenteh kitty? Here," he unwrapped the napkin and placed it on the ground with the generous piece of poultry in the center, "you may as well have this. I'm not hungry."

He scratched the day-old stubble on his chin and continued scanning the streets, running through a mental checklist of the one-eyed elf's known haunts.

Let me know if that's okay, I should be able to keep up with the posting.

[Fuzzball]

(Yeah, that's perfect. Welcome to the adventure Breaker! ^.^, do me a favor and describe what your character looks like in your next post if you don't mind)


"What is this dark stuff all over me?" Fuzzball thought to itself as it continued to roll and bounce down the charred roadway of world it had found itself in, passing by withered old trees dying from the landscapes lack of water and lack of light. The sky above was a mass of dark clouds that may or may not have been smoke, but let only spare rays of sun hit the charred earth below. The soot and ash was getting deeper and deeper as Fuzzball progressed forward, and found that it had to struggle to even make the smallest amount of progression. Fuzzball's fur was covered in a fine black coating of who knew what all, and it brought his humming to a halt as it realized whatever was on his fur tasted awful as it slowly extended a tongue and took a lick. Shaking rapidly and sending a small cloud of ash into the nearby air around it, Fuzzball continued on, not giving an inch to the ashen enemy that lay under it. Fuzzball would get through this, and it would find the answer to the question it sought, and perhaps it would locate more of it's kind. There had been dozens of other Fuzzballs in the "laboratory" world, and Fuzzball longed to come across them and know if they need the answers to the things he sought, maybe some of them would know where Fuzzball should go from here as well.

After what seemed like hours of pushing through the ashen landscape, and pounds of ash having been shook from his fur, Fuzzball spotted what looked like a giant metal tower reaching toward the sky in the distance. Hurrying it's pace, Fuzzball inhaled a large amount of air, doubling it's size and began bouncing and rolling at a rapid pace, sending large clouds of ash into the air around it every time it landed into the blackness under it. Slowly what appeared to be large metal walls and buildings made of varying steel, iron and other metals poked up in vision, and Fuzzball could clearly tell that it had found the next world that it was meant to investigate. There was even dark skin pointy eats that it could clearly see at the opening to the walls leading to the large buildings, they were holding what appeared to be long tubes with a glass circle above it up to one of their eyes, while one of their fingers were on what looked like a crescent moon lever of some sort. "I hope those aren't the blue light tubes from the previous world. I don't want to stop moving at the moment, I have much to do!" Fuzzball thought to itself as it approached the gate leading into the town. The guards looked at the small creature with curiosity of their own, slinging the barrel of their guns to rest up on their shoulders and eyeballing the creature suspiciously, while ready to draw the flintlock pistols at their side should the creature prove to be a problem.

Hurrying forward and past the guards, and into the noisy mechanical city that lay before it; Fuzzball looked around, eyes going wide in amazement at all the contraptions that lay around it. There was a giant metal tower in the middle of town, with large cogwheels attached to the side of it that spun, while what looked like a black cloud billowed from the opening at the top and extended out into the sky above. There were dark skin pointy ears all around, some with what looked like wooden tables with wheels set up in the streets, with varying objects scattered about the top of them. They were calling for people to come and take a look at the objects, promising theirs were better than others, and theirs were what the people were seeking. Fuzzball was not sure their things were what he was seeking, but perhaps one of them would be able to tell it the answer to the question of why they ate their food in smaller pieces with the weird metal tools. Extending it's tongue, it wrapped them around the bottom of the nearest salesman cart and pulled itself up onto the top, where a Dark Elf with a dark purple tone and gray hair was selling little glass jars filled with strange liquids. Upon spotting Fuzzball, the Dark Elf took a rather quick step back in surprise and yelled at it "Go on, get out of here you little...whatever you are! Your bad for business. Go on, get away from here!", to which he quickly took a step forward and with the back of his hand, brushed Fuzzball right off the cart and onto the street below.

Dazed and confused again, Fuzzball sadly continued on it's way down the street in the opposite direction. It's eyes slowly becoming large again at all the new things it was seeing, suddenly stopping as it spotted another creature; this time black with what looked like a long appendage coming out of it's backside, and two triangle tufts of fur on top of it's head. Cautiously Fuzball hopped toward the creature, longing to know what it was, and perhaps if it was something to eat, but decided it was something that might harm it if it tried to consume the creature. Closer and closer Fuzzball bounced until it was hiding right behind a crate less than twenty yards behind it. Suddenly a wooden door opened on a nearby building and another bi-pedal unlike the Dark Elfs stepped out, and after muttering some things, put something down in front of the black creature. Even at this range, Fuzball could smell the thing, and it made Fuzzball's mouth salivate with hunger, and the drool to begin to leak out the side of it's mouth, while it's eyes darted back and forth down the street to make sure no one was coming. This was Fuzzball's chance, it knew whatever it was that was on the ground was something tasty, and it was going to take it, and no one was going to stop it from getting it. Hopping up onto the crate and then up onto the ledge of the building above it, Fuzzball slowly worked his way up onto the top of the one story building, and then slowly rolled across it's roof until it was directly above the man and the black creature. Taking a deep breath, Fuzzball dove off the rooftop with it's mouth wide open, it's body double it's normal size, ready to consume the chicken whole, tongues extending from it's mouth to the chicken in an attempt to snatch the food and pull it into it's eager mouth.

[Bad Luck Kitty]

Your post is okay, Breaker. It's gonna be awesome RPing with 'ya! Also, Fuzzball, tell me if this post is okay too.

Chicken! Yes! That oh so sweet, juicy, meaty, tasty, godly chicken! Almost immediately, the black cat was chowing down the chicken as the wonderful looking man above him spoke to him soothingly.

As the kit dined, he suddenly felt the hairs on his back come up. He could sense trouble. Just then, a weird... ball... fuzzy... thingy... jumped down and snatched the end of the chicken. Being a cat, the black beast witnessing it would not allow his well earned food (from being cute apparently) to be snatched from him. Suddenly, it was a tug-a-war between the two small, furry creatures for a bit before the chicken split into another half and the skin-and-bones feline was sent flying back. Quickly, the cat munched his remaining meat down then looked up to his opponent with his ears back. He was about to hiss then mark his own territory when he noticed... how cute it was.

This... whatever it was... looked as starved as himself! And... it looked fun. Well, it seemed a bit like an extremely fat mouse with the cutest face imaginable. Suddenly, the cat's mood changed. His fur stood down, and the sat sat. He then began to groom himself as he allowed the last of his delicious chicken to be devoured by the furry ball of weird cuteness...

... Only so he could have fun bouncing it around later. Even toys had to live on a full stomach to work correctly. The black cat could only hope that the living ball was also squeaky.

[Breaker]

Breaker paused on the brink of scaling the restaurant's wall to search for the one-eyed elf from on high. With the powerful enchantments woven into his patented black boots he could sprint straight up the cobbled grey brick. But this was not Corone, where people knew him as a champion and Chief of the Ixian Knights' Investigations division. He peered at his reflection in the long sheet-glass window. He had covered the infamous Y-shaped scars under his eyes with makeup borrowed from a Coronian mistress and wore a drooping conical Alerian hat. His black trenchcoat was the same as always, but it blended well with the locals, who wore mostly drab shades of dark grey.

He heard a series of odd noises in rapid succession and looked down in time to see the cute little cat had coughed up a furball three times its size.

No, that can't be right.

The kitten appeared completely mundane, but to Breaker's finely tuned eyes the ball of fuzz shone with arcane energies. Nothing overly elaborate, but it appeared to have some level of consciousness... Josh shook his head, wondering which haphazard alchemist had produced the poor creature. A younger Joshua Cronen might have crushed the thing with a hundred-pound boot to put it out of its misery, but the more mature man saw opportunities in the oddest places.

"Hey Fuzzball," he said, keeping his voice low so as not to attract attention, "not you, kitty. You're more fur than fuzz. Look fuzzie... did you see an Elf with an Eye-Patch come out of this bar?" He mimed pointed ears and then covered one eye in hopes the thing could understand him. Otherwise it would be back to trudging from one address to the next, looking for the bastard who had ruined Phyr Sa'resh.

Perhaps I should be thanking him. Without him Phyr would never have come my way. Or spent a Coronian lifetime in a Salvic prison, or lost an arm. Whatever his feelings for his quarry, he knew only the elf's military rank, name, and a few of his favored venues. The clever commander never slept in the same place two nights running.

"Listen Fuzzy," Josh whispered urgently, "if you can lead me to that one-eyed elf, I'll buy you a whole chicken. Three times as big as your head-- well, your self. What do you think about that?" He almost did a chicken impersonation, but thought better of it. If the thing knew any language it all, it would surely know the word chicken.

[Fuzzball]

(Update: My Apologies, real life got rough for a bit, sorry it took so long to post this)

Fuzzball's eyes widened in surprise as the tasty treat was suddenly torn in half in front of it, sending Fuzzball rolling backward with half of a chicken inside of it's mouth. Quickly gathering it's bearings, Fuzzball looked around and spotted the black furry thing that was already devouring the other half of the treat that Fuzzball had hoped to devour whole, and once again had to wonder to itself why even this beast was only eating part of the tasty treat at a time. "This mystery is bigger than I thought. Even other things than the bi-pedals eat things in pieces. Have I been eating things wrong all along?" Fuzzball thought to itself, while a giant chicken bone protruded against the side of his cheek and made it seem malformed. Suddenly the flavor hit Fuzzball's taste buds and it's eyes dilated rapidly to large yellow discs causing Fuzzball to shake rapidly with joy. It was the best thing Fuzzball had ever tasted, although now that Fuzzball thought about it, it had also been the only thing Fuzzball had tasted, but Fuzzball was sure that it wouldn't be the last time it ever enjoyed such a thing.

Eyeballs slowly narrowing back to their original size while the chicken inside it's mouth was slowly melting due to Fuzzball's acidic anatomy, Fuzzball finally became more aware of it's surroundings, noticing the black furry thing had finished off it's share of the tasty treat and was now intently looking at Fuzzball. It was as if Fuzzball could read it's mind, and was immediately aware that the black furry thing saw Fuzzball as some sort of play thing. Fuzzball was not aware in any way how the sudden realization had occurred, and Fuzzball blinked a few times in reaction to the sudden thought that entered it's mind. Rolling slightly to the side in it's usual confused state, Fuzzball stared at the furry black creature wondering if it might taste as good as the tasty treat Fuzzball had eaten a moment ago. Obviously the thing had eaten what Fuzzball had just tasted, and must obviously still have the tasty treat inside it, and therefore must taste exactly like...

Fuzzballs thought process was suddenly interrupted as another bi-pedal creature suddenly addressed Fuzzball, putting it's appendages up in mimic of the dark skin pointy ears and asking Fuzzball if it had seen one without whatever an eye patch was. Fuzzball could understand that the bi-pedal was looking for one of the dark skin pointy ears, though it could not quite comprehend the visually impaired portion of the description. Blinking a few times, Fuzzball suddenly came to the realization that the bi-pedal was offering it more of the tasty treat and had referred to it as "chicken", to which Fuzzball committed to memory. Suddenly bouncing up and down with enthusiasm, Fuzzball extended one of it's tongues pointing in the direction it had rolled from, having indeed seen a dark skin pointy ear come out the building moments before. Perhaps that was what Fuzzball's purpose was, to help this bi-pedal that was unable to locate the dark skin pointy ear, and in return Fuzzball would be rewarded with many new tasty things, and finally obtain the answer to why everything was eating the tasty treat in pieces. Making up it's mind, Fuzzball decided it was going to help this new creature find what it was looking for, and then perhaps it would eat the black furry thing.

[Bad Luck Kitty]

Black Jack looked up the the man and lifted his tail, purring. He would come along on this grand adventure... only to play with the fuzzy thingy later.

The cat sat down and licked himself, giving himself a proper grooming. In this grooming, it was well know that he was satisfied with his meal. He then looked up at the man and proceeded to rub against his muddy boot before meowing hoarsely. The kit sat down again and observed the fuzzy thing.

Ears twitching, he noticed a look of one wanting to devour its prey. In the that moment, the black beauty spat a hairball in discomfort... maybe he shouldn't have grabbed a majority of the chicken away from him... The Black Jack's ears went back, but as he looked up up the man before them, he purred. Maybe, this guy would protect a skinny kitten like himself.

[Fuzzball]

(Breaker you have my permission to bunny Fuzzball to whatever setting you need to, since technically you are the story setter at this point. Your inbox is full so can't send you a response, so hopefully you see it on here)