“So you’re gonna drink that suppressant thing, like, all the time now, right?” Penelope asks.

  After showing off her own skills, Penelope naturally got curious about what Jojo was capable of, and that led into Jojo regaling her with the tales of her adventure so far—few though they are. As they talked, Penelope showed Jojo around the house, though it was mostly just empty rooms or servants’ quarters, until finally they found their way to the dining room and settled down at Penelope’s small table to talk.

  “Ehh, I don’t know,” Jojo responds. “I mean, it’s probably expensive, and also… It was really gross.”

  Penelope scoffs. “C’mon, seriously? It basically gives you superpowers! You can’t pass that up just because it’s gross.”

  “Sure I can.” Jojo grins.

  “Maybe I’ll just make you drink it!”

  Jojo rolls her eyes. “Drink it yourself if you’re so worried about me missing out.”

  “Oh, yeah, let me just go poison myself for months so I can improve the skills I don’t have. Because I don’t have the ‘take any skills’ job.”

  “Look, there’s more to life than being as strong as possible. I just don’t—Oh!”

  Jojo’s argument is cut off when a door opens and a girl in a maid outfit walks in. The girl looks young, probably sixteen at the oldest, and carries herself with a grace one might expect from a servant who’d been working for a noble for decades. Her face is soft and round, and her gentle eyes are somewhat magnified by large, round glasses pushed high on her nose.

  Jojo can hardly focus on those small details, though, because what she notices most of all is the soft brown fur that covers the girl’s body, leading up to two pointed ears at the top of her head.

  “Oh, hey Pips,” Penelope says. She gestures between Jojo and the catgirl. “This is Jojo. Jojo, this is Pips. She’s kinda the head maid or whatever.”

  “Oh, um… Nice to meet you, Pips,” Jojo says. “I’m going to be adventuring with Penelope, so I suppose we’ll probably see quite a bit of each other.”

  Pips curtseys elegantly. “Good evening, Madame, and it is my pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss Jojo.”

  “Just Jojo is fine, really,” Jojo tells her.

  “I am sorry to interrupt,” Pips continues, “but the evening is growing late. Are you and your guest dining here today, Madame Penelope?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Penelope says like she forgot all about the concept of food. “Tell the chef about Jojo, too, will ya? She’ll be living here, so he’ll have to cook a bit more for dinners.”

  “Wait,” Jojo says, “living here? I thought—”

  “Thought nothin’!” Penelope cuts her off. “We’re a party! Partners in crime! Er… Not-crime! Hero-dom! Of course you’re gonna live here!”

  As Penelope talks, Pips curtseys again and takes her leave.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Jojo frowns. “I mean, I appreciate the offer, it just… I’m basically a stranger to you. Should you really let me live in your house? I can’t even pay you anything.”

  “Pfft, you don’t gotta pay anything. And yeah, you’re a stranger, but if this is gonna work I gotta trust you some time! May as well be now, while I’ve got a few levels on you in case I’m wrong, right?”

  “I…” Jojo sighs. “If you’re sure, then I’m very grateful, thank you.”

  “Seriously, it’s no problem.”

  “If you say so. Anyway, I, um…” Jojo glances at the door Pips left from. “Can I ask you kind of an awkward question?”

  Penelope chuckles and leans back in her chair, putting her boots up on the table as she relaxes. “You curious about her level?”

  “Well, that too, I guess,” Jojo starts.

  Penelope keeps going before Jojo can continue. “Yeah, she used to be one of my Dad’s street toughs. He and I have kinda an agreement, ‘cuz he wants me taken care of up here, but I don’t want criminals skulking around ‘cuz I’m supposed to be a hero. So, if anyone wants out of that life, or they just can’t cut it, he sets ‘em up with a job working here on the condition that they give up the criminal stuff for good. I think he probably scares ‘em real good, ‘cuz not many take him up on it, but it’s worked out so far.”

  “Huh. Well, that sounds pretty… Beneficial,” Jojo says. “It’s actually not what I wanted to know, though. I actually… Ugh, it’s really awkward to ask about.”

  “Just spit it out.”

  “Okay, you know I’m a Traveler, right? Well, in my last world, all the people were just human. We didn’t have, like, elves, or giants, or beastkin. At least, not outside of fictional stories.”

  “Huh. Weird. What’s your question, though?”

  “I guess just… Can you try to, like, catch me up? It seems like there’s a lot I don’t know that could get me in trouble. I mean, I don’t even know how to describe the idea of there being different kinds of people! Are they called, like—”

  Jojo is cut off again when the door swings open and Pips walks back in carrying two heavy-looking plates loaded with food.

  Penelope lets out a boisterous laugh as she readjusts herself to make room for the food. “Yeah, I can be your teacher.” She catches Jojo glancing at Pips and waves a hand through the air. “Don’t worry about her, she ain’t gonna let any of your secrets out.” She takes a long sniff of the food, then grins at Pips. “Thanks, doll. Let Starlet know he did a good job, yeah?”

  “Of course, Madame.” Pips curtseys and leaves the two of them to eat.

  The food looks… Normal to Jojo. Some steaming vegetables, slices of a meat she doesn’t recognize that doesn’t look particularly juicy, and a starch that she’d easily call potatoes if she was back on Earth, all covered in a thin gravy. She tastes it, and it’s fairly bland, but certainly not the worst thing she’s ever eaten. It’s mostly just… Fine.

  “So.” Penelope shovels a forkfull of food into her mouth as she begins her lecture. “Humans, elves, beastkin, whatever, they’re all different races people can be. Around here you’re mostly gonna find humans, but this country is pretty open, so in the big cities you could find just about anyone if you wanted.”

  “How many different races are there?”

  “Lots. Honestly, I wouldn’t bet on me knowing all of ‘em.” Penelope shrugs. “It’s not a big deal if you run into, like, a gnoll or something and you didn’t know they were a thing. Just, like, don’t attack them or whatever, you know?”

  “That’s it?”

  “Like I said, around here. If we’re gonna go to different countries, we’ll want to look into things first. Like…” She thinks for a moment. “Oh, like Gartia. That’s a mountain-y country off to the west. Last I heard, they still consider a bunch of people like gnolls and goblins to be ‘monsters,’ so if we have a bigger party we’ll have to be careful who we take there, y’know?”

  Jojo frowns. “That sucks, but okay.”

  “Yeah, it’s the kinda thing I just file away as ‘Hero stuff.’ Like, I don’t like it, but I can’t do anything about it right now, you know? So, I just make sure I remember it, so when I’m a Hero I can go back to it and decide what I wanna do about it.”

  “That’s pretty ambitious.”

  “Which is why we’ve gotta be big players in the world!” Penelope grins wide and points her fork at Jojo excitedly. “Me, a Hero. You, a Traveler. Whoever else we might pick up. We’ve gotta get strong, and we’ve gotta be important. Starting… Well, it’s pretty late, so starting tomorrow! Got it?”

  Jojo chuckles. “Sure. Hearing you say it… Yeah, it doesn’t sound so bad. Let’s do it.”

  “Yeah!” Penelope pumps her fist in the air. Little bits of food fly off of her fork and splatter on the table. “Let’s do it!”