“It all began with a prince, you know,” says a slim black cat, sitting on top of a roof in Hississippi. He talks to the bird beside him, who cocks its head while seeming to listen. If it realizes the danger it's in, it doesn’t show it. “A very noble prince indeed.” A chirp. “You see, the story doesn’t start here in Hississippi. It started in the capital a fair way from here, many moons ago.”
Below them both, they can both see the chaos unfurling through the small town as three small adventurers dart after a familiar cat with glowing magical paws, chasing after a speeding dart of a dragon cat as it flies through the streets.
“The Prince, you see, is the heir to the crown, but he’s not at all cultured. He’s definitely no storybook prince, and he’s no prince with any honor to particularly lose and regain. No, no, it’s not one of those journeys to find and earn your title like a storybook.” Two chirps and the black cat takes out his knife, twirling it around. “Instead, he was an incredibly foolish prince with a horribly twisted expectation of the world. He thought being a prince was easy. Worse, though, was that the King had zero idea how to teach him anything or how to get rid of him.”
The black cat seems to finally consider the bird for a moment, then leans over and quickly yanks a feather out from its wing. It trills in extreme offense, but cowers immediately when the cat leans back and begins picking at his teeth with the end. The bird eyes him warily and, somewhat realizing that this bladed cat is dangerous, hops to a different piece of the log. When the cat tosses the blade in the air and catches it, the bird decides that enough is enough, and silently flies away from the building.
“Of course, no one really knows why he actually is here,” the cat continues on as if the audience was never the bird to begin with. “In fact, his journey was about as good as a joke. Rumor has it the King stuck a bunch of tasks straight out of fairy tales into a hat and drew one. ‘Capture the dragon cat,’ his task said. If only it was so simple.”
The black cat picks himself up, and leaps from one roof to the next, until he perches on one wooden pole overlooking the town square. Below, there is one gray cat who has unsheathed his sword and a dragon cat eyeing him warily, sniffing the air with a speculative glance. It’s the Prince and the dragon cat.
“And now,” he says with a grand gesture, “the point of my story. To say that there will be a time that the Prince needs me.”
As he speaks, the Prince runs over and unlocks his carriage door, and the smell of catnip in the air goes from light to overbearingly offensive, and the dragon cat yowls, going from calm to immediately enraged in mere moments.
The Prince on the ground realizes he has made a mistake, and calls out to the gathered people, all of whom are covering their noses desperately. “You there. Friends. You look like adventurers. As the Prince, I command you to provide aid to the citizens against this perilous dragon cat.”
The black cat looks at his reflection in the knife and smirks. “Alas, what should Simon do?”
Vote above! Ahh! Okay, so I've been really excited to show how some of the plot points come together for a while. Did anyone guess this trope coming up when they heard about the dragon cat?
I'm glad you guys seem to like this narrative format. One thing I have gotten from people is that people would have wanted to see some of the unlocks earlier (as this will go up to the penultimate day). As things are already scheduled and paced out with updates, that's not something we can change for this campaign, but we're definitely noting it in feedback for any other campaigns that want to try similar models. We be guinea pigs, hah.
The next update will be on the 31st. :D Thanks for adventuring with us!!
