When I woke up, I saw many things.

  I saw the glorious light-blue sky, the luminous trailing clouds, and the wings of gulls arcing overhead.

  I glimpsed, in the corner of my eye, a human silhouette standing in the water, as far out as the depth of the shallows would allow. Perhaps it was Chora.

  But it was hard to judge, for the biggest thing of all I saw was the big gray browser window that was my System notification. Unminimized, it stared me in the face, brighter than any morning glare.

  My sigh was audible.

  It wasn’t that any of these were bad options. As usual, my problem with Evolving was not a problem. I had too much of a good thing. And this time, I couldn’t resolve it by asking which one was “more me” or was best for the party. All of these would be good and they’d all suit our party! I mean, one would let me go all-out, one would…here, just read them:

  As I rolled off Reed’s lap and splatted onto the sand, I remembered the biggest things that stuck out to me here.

  One: I had used lightning and loved it.

  Two: I had just done frantic boost-stacking and loved it.

  Three: the System had tried and failed to get me to love guard-centric Evolutions. I hadn’t become a Cream Persian and I’d given no chance to the Fawn Paladin, amazing as that name was. This time, though…it was a little tempting. As it turns out, if you want to make guarding cool, you make it aggro.

  The fact that this was an elemental trio—three flavors that meshed so well together—made the choice ache all the more. I just wanted to be all three of these at once! I’d rather have lightning, ice, and fire in equal measure!

  Okay, I thought, minimizing the window, but Reed already has fire covered, and Bayce has…um…she mostly has ice, I guess? Though she kind of used a flamethrower last time. Just choose Spark Panther!

  I lay there in silence.

  Just choose it, you coward!!

  I couldn’t get it over with.

  Ugh, I said to my own darn self. Have it your way! Keep debating.

  I let the options hover in my mind as I took an early stroll along the coast. Oh, hey, a couple of brittle stars had washed up here, and there were orange-cream-colored shells newly nestled in the damper sand.

  Hey, if I used Piercing Sabers, would it stack with my sword?

  …Okay, I couldn’t focus on the beauties of the world, nor could I focus—even now—on deciding which Future Me to become. I needed something more powerful to distract myself, something like…

  Training with Chora! She was the silhouette out in the water. I turned, expecting to see her standing in the very deepest shallows now. Instead, I panicked. She was gone!

  A wave came crashing up…wait, no, that was only Chora’s kicking feet using martial artistry to kick up a tide as she paddled through the water. Man, she wasn’t in danger at all. She sure had me fooled.

  I decided to paddle over and join her. Today was not the day to shun water. It could well become the day I embraced water, shivered mightily, then shunned it anew, and this time never to return. You just don’t know until you try!

  The moment I stepped in, a great fwoosh and an overpowering wave knocked me over. Saltwater entered my ears, my mouth, my pores—

  I lunged out, flopping like a fish. A fish preserved in disgusting salt! Ew, and how was there so much kelp in that one wave?!

  After rattling myself around, shaking and plucking off the strands, I turned behind me, to the campsite. Alongside the tents, there were a few pool apparati that yesterday Bayce had tried, in vain, to operate while drowsy and low on Health. There were a few knotted, slightly flattened pool noodles and a perfectly preserved flame-print boogieboard.

  Perfect! I changed into nekomata form and snagged the board. The swimsuit wasn’t in my Inventory, nor on my body, so that part would have to wait. I just kind of stripped off my shirt and went to town.

  Then I nudged the board into the water, squared up, and jumped.

  As I belly-flopped onto the water and kicked out into this miniature sea, the wonder of the place started to settle in.

  In some ways, it was like we’d washed up on a desert island. Surrounded by no humans but ourselves, with no supplies other than the remains in our mangled car and the random pocket lint in the hammerspaces behind our backs, we knew to relax now and save our worries for the next hour. Or the next one.

  And the sun on my face, though already as hot as it could ever be, was extremely refreshing after hard-won fights and, yes, a dunk in the water.

  Sunlight was starlight when the pit-filled, seaweed-dotted ground beneath us looked so much like a distant planet. The little ocean was teeming with life, churning with foes ready to kick Chora in the face and vice-versa.

  Swimming with the boogieboard in my less familiar body was surprisingly intuitive. The thing bobbed frighteningly under my weight at first—and with the occasional shaking tides, I sometimes had to hug it, save it from getting washed away. All in all, though, it was a trusty companion. I didn’t have a single moment of panic. Was any of this the coordination cantrip? Anyway, water was conquered. For now.

  I got closer to Chora’s improvised swim route and simply watched her go at it for a while. Back and forth, back and forth, briskly in a line. A wobbly line, shifting in the current—apparently, even a disciplined human couldn’t fight that—but still remarkably still.

  Once the sun had actually risen, from the corner of my eye I saw her stop, gulp in a deep breath, and hover there in the water. Two minutes later, she bobbed over to me.

  “Hey. Um…did you learn anything from that? Did you approve?”

  From anyone else, to anyone else, it would’ve sounded sarcastic.

  I simply gave her a big smile and thumbs-up. Which wasn’t just empty flattery!

  Soon I dipped eighty percent of my body in the water, one arm keeping me atop the boogieboard, and sighed in relief as the spirit board I’d just de-Inventorized stayed afloat and water-resistant. Chora patiently waited as I took way too long to spell out a message on a constantly shifted board pointed away from her. She probably felt downright weirded out as I bobbed and weaved the whole way, struggling to read my own letters.

  "NEED TO EVOLVE CANT PICK FORM HELP"

  "...How much does it matter?"

  My eyebrows twitched.

  It super-mattered! Not only would this define my build for an untold amount of time—and saddle me with Skills and Traits I would use for life—it would also give me an all-new elemental advantage and change my hair color.

  But, unable to say all of this, I just looked on. Clearly Chora was about to say more.

  “I mean…you’ve been getting new powers all the time, and eve new weapons. If a form gives you powers you don’t like…it seems to me like you can still customize yourself. T-to a certain extent. Not to be presumptuous.”

  Hm…

  I nodded and gave her answer more thought. I, Taipha, was infinitely customizable. My most impactful power-up wasn’t any part of my System’s arsenal, but instead an accessory that I had built my other Equipment and tactics around. In other words, a foreign custom part aided by custom parts. And many of my greatest moves were just moves my mage friend cobbled together in, like, her mage backyard. Or maybe in that lab? How did I still not know?!

  I knew it was ridiculous to worry this much. I knew it. But there was just something about the powers that I “came with,” something that put them closer to my heart. The pleasure of a Leap or a Slash pretty much beat all the rest.

  If I used Meteor Phalanx, could I find a way to jump on the meteors? And launch myself further out? And use it again? And Leap even further? And use it again? And use Attract, which would bring the meteors with me?

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  …Could I cross the Map in five seconds?

  I must’ve been asking myself the question, “Which of these forms would be the most delightful?”

  And, yeah, okay, maybe they were all equally delightful. But how would that solve anything?! I stewed on these things as Chora swam back and forth, in her wobbly line, and I did my best to join her.

  We washed up onshore again around the same time, maybe half an hour later. Chora seemed to glide effortlessly from crawling-swimming position to a walk, evolution-of-man style. Meanwhile, I beached myself. Not because the swim had even been that tiring (at least, provided one had a boogieboard), but because in the home stretch, at last a fresh wave had rocked the board out from under me. It hurt more than you would think. Luckily, it was back in my Inventory, not lost to the tides.

  Then I looked further ashore, where everyone was awake…and getting up to some shenanigans. Specifically, making sandcastles?!

  Reed, Bayce, and Heidschi were all hard at work sculpting sand monstrosities. Buckets and seashells littered the sands around them. Beside each one were plates of…snf…was that the rest of the banana-smelling bread from a few nights ago? Oh, those fiends. They would lure me back with the first sweet food I definitively liked.

  I salivated, but Chora chomped. She stood beside me in shorts and what looked hardly different from her typical sports bra, holding a strip of jerky clenched in her fist.

  “WOAH,” I spelled. “IS THAT WHAT U ALWAYS EAT DURING BFAST?”

  Chora looked taken aback by the question. Then she shrugged. “Sometimes. Why?”

  “I DUNNO…I GUESS ALL ALONG I THOUGHT U WERE A MASTER OF STARVING”

  Fun castles and appealing bread…this was shaping up to be a good day already. I changed into cat form to speed ahead of Chora. As a nekomata, I was faster than even an athletic human—but as a cat, I felt I had even more of an edge.

  Still, I would need a human guise if sandcastles were to be my next challenge. Hand-eye coordination and opposable thumbs would not be for nothing.

  I approached Heidschi with a courteous “meow.” They startled so that that the cantrip glasses were nearly flung from their face. Whoops, sorry.

  “H-hi,” they said, more softly than usual. “You…want to help?”

  I gazed at the sandcastle. In most respects, it looked ordinary: sandy squares for the base, cylinder towers on the sides clearly made with the help of the bucket. I'd come over in the middle of Heidschi scraping off lines of sand from the towers to make swirling, barber-pole decals.

  Also, right above the portcullis-in-progress was a sheep head. How that hadn't collapsed under force of gravity yet, I could only attribute to spellcraft. Lucky for Heidschi, we lived in a world of magic and mischief, so that was within the sandcastle-building rules. Maybe.

  I glanced sidelong at Bayce. She wasn’t building right next to Heidschi, but y’know…she did cheat during our fishing competition long long ago. Was she a bad influence? Or were the two of them…as bad as each other?

  All I could do was internally shake my head. I was gonna make my own, honest castle, and it was gonna be the best! With no cheating whatsoever!!

  But first, I had my big important Evolution question to ask. Assuming Heidschi would even understand it without the big spiel I’d given to the others.

  “UM SO…SORRY TO INTERRUPT AND STARTLE…BUT…QUESTION”

  The shepherd smiled. “Go ahead,” they said, finishing up a tower.

  “UM…I EVOLVE INTO COOL NEW FORMS”

  “Woah.”

  “BUT ITS HARD TO DECIDE WHICH IS COOLEST AND BEST. ONCE I CHOOSE ONE I CANT GO BACK!” Then I briefly described each one: the fire form that protected its allies, the ice form that sent its Attack into the stratosphere, the lightning form that, um…ensured cell death?

  “Is there nothing that gives you status effects or boosts?”

  I put a paw to my chin. “BESIDES THE ATTACK BOOST, MAYBE ELEMENTAL EFFECTS? FIRE BURNS, LIGHTNING STUNS, ICE FREEZES. YKNOW”

  “Mmhm, mmhm. Really, I was thinking about your reservoirs. Like your health and magic power.”

  “OH! SP”

  Heidschi looked around. “Sipping what?”

  “NEVER MIND I FORGOT HUMANS HAVE NO STAT NUMBERS”

  I fled in embarrassment. Augh, it sucked so bad that I never seemed to get a reliable SP recharge! Was my only option really bedrest—not even a Catnap, but a full, crappy, human-length block of hours and hours?!

  Five steps later, I nearly trampled Reed’s castle.

  Ack! And it was a good thing I didn’t! Firstly because Reed would cry. Secondly because it was tiny and would’ve all been crushed in one fell swoop. Thirdly because it was bumpy and sharp all over! She had packed it to the gills with conch-shell spires and pieces of shining sea glass for makeshift windows.

  She smiled brightly at me. “I noticed you exercising out there with Chora. You were really going at it!”

  “Meow!” I said. “MORNING EXERCISE IS SURPRISINGLY FUN”

  “Too much activity too early just makes me tired again,” she said with a laugh. “Oh—here, have this!”

  She reached over and handed me the crown jewel at the top of her tiny kingdom: a pearl?!

  It was hardly bigger than a grain of sand, but yes, it was genuine. And when I held it up cloes to my eye, I saw a gleam of luminescent pink.

  Nervously, I looked back at her. This pearl was amazing, but...why was she giving this to me? In other words, “Meow?”

  My nervousness made her nervous. “J-just because.”

  Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. Unless Reed now had arms five feet long, that had to be...

  Chora! Standing just behind me, she closed in and whispered, “If you keep questioning why people give you things, they may never give you things again.”

  With those ominous words, she walked about twenty paces away and plunked down on a sand lump, preparing to make her own castle.

  Hm…I did trust a humans’ understanding of human psychology above my own. Besides, it occurred to me now that to cast any confusion or doubt on why Reed was doing this would be, in some ways, to cast doubt on our friendship. Keep asking why two people are together every five minutes, I figured now, and they just get neurotic. So I closed my fist tight around the pearl, feelings its cool, and put it in my pocket. Wow…pockets. Proof that the System’s Inventory was expandable in the most innovative ways.

  “THANK YOU,” I said—reminding myself to treat her sometime in the future. And/or present her with not one, but two legendary topazes. Except…wait…that might just summon more evil plants again. Was that how it worked?

  Well, for now, I asked my question…

  “Which form? Well, do you have a gut leaning? Maybe for an element?”

  I nodded…but then I shook my head. Spark Panther had the attribute I was most excited about, but a weakness to my dark-horse attribute. Lightning and earth. Couldn’t they just live in peace? It also hurt my heart, quite frankly, that Solar Soldier wasn’t, like, Rock Soldier. Why was it that burning awesome flames stirred my heart far less than flying pebbles? Probably because Reed already favored fire, and used it impeccably. Also maybe because Leaping off a Phalanx Meteor would hurt less if that meteor was not flaming.

  And worse, if I set Solar Soldier aside, I started to have doubts about lightning’s coolness! What could possibly be cooler than ice?! Besides, if you freeze something, you, relatively, are moving at light speed. It’s science. It just makes sense.

  An ice bolt was objectively better than a lightning bolt. It wouldn’t be electric, but any bolt is pretty fast. If the Sabretoothed Kitten got any long-range options, it could be a force to behold.

  I spilled thoughts out basically as I had them, resulting in a mush of word fragments. “FIRE IS OK—NO—LIGHTNGIN BEST—ICE BOLT—FRZE—”

  “U-uh…now it’s getting confusing,” Reed said with a wobbly, overwhelmed smile.

  I had to get out of here! Going a few steps to the side, I came across Reed’s castle. Or, rather, Bayce’s battlement. Or Bayce’s fortress.

  …Briefly I eyed Chora’s construction. She was not making a catapult to destroy Bayce. That was good, because it meant I could.

  Anyway, clearly the witch had big plans. She was surrounded on all four sides by half-meter walls topped with spikes, with gates on two ends. Starfish, sand dollars, and other random sea debris that didn’t quite mesh together lined the outside, forming an additional fence of defense. And on the inside, she was shaping clumps of sand into little buildings and even people. The people were glorified hot dogs. They kept falling over.

  “What can I do for you?” she chirped as I peered over the wall.

  And I told her my story.

  “And you don’t know if you’re getting any support Skills?”

  “Maow.”

  “Then you have to go aggro,” she said, hands hard at work patting a cube into shape. “Full aggro.”

  “…Meow?”

  “I’ve seen you! The way you fight! It’s just full speed ahead. Slice first and ask questions later. Stealth just doesn’t seem important to you. And honestly, I don’t even get what a Subseizure is.”

  “WELL IT SAYS—”

  “Oh no, that won’t help. I remember what it said. But, I mean, is ‘burning nerve endings’ seriously a tactic you ever fantasized about?”

  “NO BUT I COULD. THATS THE PROBLEM!!!”

  Bayce huffed. “Look, just now you told me that your modus operandi was basically to ‘be more of who you are’ with each Evolution. Sabretoothed Kitten is more of what you like!”

  “BUT ITS ICE. YOURE ICE!”

  “I was ice one time! Mostly I’m gravity and being five inches taller!”

  “WAIT…UR SAYING UR NORMALLY FIVE INCHES SHORTER?”

  “Well, yeah,” she said like it was the most obvious thing in the known world. “We don’t just have platform shoes, Taipha. We have body mod cantrips.” She glanced away and quirked her lips. “Wanna be five inches taller?”

  Not particularly. Plus, what would that even do to my cat form? Would my limbs each get five whole inches longer? Would my midsection stretch out? Either I was overthinking it or it was horrifying to consider. Much like the period when I thought a nekomata Morph meant I could have human hands on a cat body. Eugh…

  “LETS TALK ABOUT THAT LATER. OR NEVER. I LIKE ICE BUT…I FEEL I AM NOT ICE. IS THIS TOO…UM…THEORETICAL FOR U? BORING?”

  “No! And don’t you say that. I love theories. Reed and Chora are the practical ones!” Then she looked off into the distance, hands solidly in her lap, thinking, thinking…or maybe dozing off, by the glaziness in her eyes. Just when I was about to meow her back to life, she snapped out of it. Perhaps that was her digging into her Wisdom. I hoped that when I went into a trance, I didn’t look half as lost.

  Still, I was truly thankful for it, and I hoped some weirder thinking might get me out of this rut…

  Bayce leaned toward me. “I’ve figured it out. First of all, set Solar Soldier aside. Kill it. You don’t want it.”

  “Meow,” I said without hesitation.

  “Don’t think of it as choosing between lightning and ice, or a stealth manipulator and a glass cannon. Think of it as choosing mystery. Spark Panther presents more mystery. Sabretoothed Kitten presents less. The latter looks pretty straightforward. The former looks unpredictable.”

  …Wow.

  Wow!

  That was a context I hadn’t known I needed. I couldn’t believe how much clarity she’d thrown on the situation.

  “THX SO MUCH BAYCE!!!!!” I said, practically spearing through the exclamation mark on my soggy spirit board.

  “You’re wel—”

  But I had already sped away, more than ready to dissolve the minimized box in the corner of my vision.

  “Wait! Waaait!” Bayce howled. “You have to make your castle!”

  Oh, fine. The Evolution would be there for me as soon as I needed it. For now, I—like everyone else—had one job. I had to relax.

  Also, I had to make the best sandcastle and shove it in everyone’s faces! That counts as relaxation if you’re competitive enough.

  Now, with my advanced strategic mind, it was clear to see that everyone else had a huge time advantage. Even Chora over there had made a sizable…um…sand crate. I would need some way to stand out if I ever hoped to win. So, using the buckets provided, I carried over seawater, kelp, and rocks from just underneat the coastal froth. All this would help me solidify the sand and give me firmer foundations.

  The rocks went inside of my fundamental sand blocks. Water and kelp further solidified my sand into cement. Hey, as long as it came from the beach and most of the outside was sand, this wasn’t cheating…I mean, if Reed could use seashells and Reed was the salt of the earth, then…then take that!

  Moving on—and willfully ignoring all rules, if such things even existed—I continued my clever design. By artfully placing kelp along the edges of a trench and filling the result with water, I had a moat. Next came the pyramid-castle itself, a fancy bridge, and the real showstopper: a catapult to metaphorically destroy everyone else’s defenses…

  The bridge crumbled beneath my fingertips. Moments later, the damp hot dog that was supposed to become my catapult cracked and split into clumpy watery sand-rocks.

  Looking down to my moat, I learned that all the water had either spontaneously evaporated or seeped through the cracks in the kelp.

  At least I still had the pyramid. It did have rocks in it, but nobody had to know.

  Moments later, Bayce announced that it was almost time for “the ritualistic destruction of all our hard work.”

  Oh…it was never a compete—oh…okay.

  Happily, though, it raised my spirits some when Bayce started with a walkthrough of everyone’s castles. Our work would still be appreciated! Seeing her give each structure a positive note helped me see them in a new light.

  “Heidschi, your detail work on the sheep head and the pillars is impeccable, but alas I am legally barred from openly showing it preferential treatment. We're all impartial here.”

  Heidschi, standing beside the creation, bowed respectfully. “I understand.”

  “Reed…” Bayce kneeled, at a dramatically, drastically slow speed, beside the castle. “This is microscopic, you know that?”

  “Yes, I’m aware!” she said with great earnestness.

  “But it’s like a treasure chest! Honestly, I’m ashamed we have to tear it down! …But not as shamed as I am about my own castle,” she said as she took a step further down the line. “I mean, wow, there’s entire people in this one!”

  Who are all bisected or decapitated, I wanted to add.

  “Chora,” Bayce continued, “the symmetry and power of your design is itself a testament to the power of architecture.”

  “It’s a box,” Chora said, “but thank you.”

  She was right.

  “I get it,” Chora added. “Your job is hard.”

  Bayce shook her hand, looking like a newscaster who’d been bested in combat. Then she came to the last kingdom.

  “And last but not least, we have Taipha’s castle, which closely resembles that famous wonder of the world: the Triangle of Liza. I’m impressed you knew about that! You didn’t even go to Vencia school or anything!”

  Uh—no comment.

  Reed and Bayce snapped a few quick pictures, including group shots, all of us standing with arms across our shoulders. Then we all became cinematic monsters and rampaged through the creations, kicking and, in my castle’s case, rugby-charging through. We had immediately afterward, I dashed to the oceanic lake to wash off my feet…sand should never go that deep.