Stray Cat Strut
Chapter Forty-Two – Loading, Please Wait

Chapter Forty-Two - Loading, Please Wait

"The average home is meant to last thirty years from time of construction. That is, what the architects and engineers who plan the house account for.

Some of the oldest mega buildings are nearing that thirty year mark."

--Except from the CIAL Architecture 201 textbook, 2056 edition.

***

"I mean, that was conjecture," I said. "For all we know, this building will be standing here this time next year."

"You know, I spent most of my life low-key kind of afraid that all of the megabuildings above me, or at least the supporting plate, would just collapse one day," Rac said. "Like, once, about four years back, there was a section of road on the surface that cracked and fell down. It was just automated trucks, but they were heavy, and when it came down, it crushed like, three levels beneath."

"That sounds kinda fucked up," I said.

"Yeah, I remember going out the next day and there was just... a large hole into the sky in the plate, and rain was coming down, and there was a whole layer of the undercity on the ground below," Rac said.

Right, she'd lived most of her life beneath the city, but above the actual ground, because... well, no one lived on the actual ground.

"I mean, there's an easy solution to this," I said. "Hey, Myalis, what are the chances that this building falls down like, today?"

Hmm, I'll have to use some suppositions for that, and any number I give you would be a wide-ranging statistic.

"That's fine," I said. I had the other's attention now.

Then I'd say that chances are between 13.4% and 13.6%.

"That's not a wide range at all." I said.

It's large enough to fly a sun through it.

I had no idea what that meant at all. "Okay. Did you all hear that?"

"Nya's AI related it to her," Nya said.

"Ouein," Gros Baton said.

"No. You were just talking to yourself again," Rac said.

"Oh right. Well, Myalis says there's a thirteen-ish percent chance that the building collapses."

Rac's eyebrows climbed up at that. "Thirteen-ish?" she asked.

"I'm paraphrasing," I said. "Thirteen percent isn't that bad, but it's not great."

"It goes up," Gros Baton said. "Tabarnak. My AI said it goes up a couple of percent every day, or it's projected to. Anyway, that means things are bad."

"But we have time," I said.

Nya cleared her throat. "Nya thinks that there's a eighty-seven percent-ish chance that we have time."

Right, that was a fair point. "Okay, so let's just... get a move on? You guys haven't destroyed the hive yet?"

"Non," Gros Baton said. "We've been working down floor-by-floor, like I said. We cleared the first floor, which had some 'ive things in it. Roots and such, but not the actual 'ive. 'Edge'og said it was probably on floor three to five."

I nodded. "Well, you might want to call him up. I don't want to go stealing all of your points, but I'm supposed to make sure you're both alright, and that means no buildings collapsing on your pretty little heads."

"At least you think my 'ead is pretty," Gros Baton said with a cheeky grin and a wink.

Rac made a sound of disgust. "Idiot," she accused. "Don't flirt with her, she's a stray."

"What about the other cat-lady?" he asked.

"Old enough to bhmmhmm-" Rac started, but was cut off when Nya placed a hand... paw, over her mouth and muffled whatever she had to say.

"Nya is a little bit too old for you. A little." She pinched her fingers together. "Nya is still young and spry and hot. But you shouldn't think about Nya like that because you're a little too young for that kind of thing."

Gros Baton looked from Nya to me, as if asking me with his eyes if I knew what to say to that. I just shook my head. "Okay, dabors. I'll call 'edge'og and let 'im know that we're here. You're going to lead the charge down?"

"Nah. Like I said, I'm not here for your points. If you guys want to share, that's cool. I've got the evening free enough to help. But as long as you two knock the hive out this evening, I'm happy. Just don't let it fester. And if you want to do each floor after that to find stranglers, then I'll leave you two to it."

Gros Baton shook his head after thinking on it for a second. "Nah. I'm new, I don't need a million points. I've made a few, and I can get upgrades to my stuff already. I don't need to be greedy and stupid. Don't know if 'Edge'og will agree, though."

"You don't think so?" I asked.

"Man 'as something to prove," he replied before setting down his bowl of poutine. "You know 'ow most samurai are a bit, uh, crazy?"

"Yeah," I said.

"A bit?" Rac asked.

"Nyo?" Nya said.

Gros Baton shrugged. "'E 'as a thing about proving 'imself, I think. What do they call it... a chick on his shoulder?"

"Chip," Rac corrected. "And I'm pretty sure that's not the expression you're looking for, but I get the point. I've talked to him a couple of times when I came over. He's polite, but a bit rude, too?"

"Yeah, he's kind of cold, but really formal about it. I think he's ex-military, or ex-PMC, which is almost the same thing. He was good to have around during the whole Phobos thing. I thought he and Tankette might have had a little something going on. There was chemistry there."

"Your brain is too romance-coded," Rac said.

"What even does that mean?" I asked.

"Anyway," Gros Baton said with a smack of his hands on his knees. "I sent 'im a message. He should be up soon."

I decided that we might as well just sit here and wait. It was that or go seek him out and... "Wait, where is he, anyway?"

"Few floors down," Gros Baton said. "Did you want to go meet him instead?"

"Eh, I guess that wouldn't hurt. Unless it puts pressure on him? Like I said, if you two want to handle this on your own, then I won't interfere, it's just that it's usually best to tackle hives quickly instead of waiting them out."

"Yeah, I understand," Gros Baton said. "'Onestly, I wouldn't mind moving on from 'ere too. The city stinks."

"You get used to it," Rac said.

"You could get used to the nice, fresh air in the country side too," he said. "And the sunlight. You'd look good with a tan."

"And get skin cancer? No thanks. I saw the sun once and that was enough for me," Rac shot back. "Besides, your podunk little town is like, thirty minutes from the city, tops. Air can't be that fresh."

"Podunk?" he repeated, his accent making the word sound funny.

"It means shitty," Rac replied.

I glanced at Nya and our eyes met. She smiled, but I just resisted the urge to roll my eyes and gestured to the elevator. "So, going down, good idea or nah?"

Just then, the elevator opened and out came Hedgehog. His kit had changed a little... or a lot, but it was still very recognizably... him. Obviously.

The dude was wearing form-fitted armour, with panels over his vitals and what looked like some sort of dark-grey weave material over his limbs. The usual bits were armoured too, crotch, knees, elbows, the back of his hands. He might have passed for a well-off PMC, or some corpo spec-ops, only he was wearing a Hedgehog-style hedgehog cloak.

His helmeted face was covered by a deep hood, and the cloak trailed behind him like a heavy cape. It was covered in thousands of narrow, pointy barbs. There were more on the bottoms of his vambraces and it looked like the back of his helmet swept into even more.

Lots of spikes going on, in fact.

"Heya!" I said.

"Nya-hello!"

Hedgehog paused a step out of the elevator, grip tightening around the handle of a little assault rifle, then he dropped it and it dangled by his side from a sling. "Stray Cat," he said. "Rac... and an unfamiliar samurai?"

"Nya is nya!" Nya said.

"Pleasure," he replied. "To what do we owe the visit?"

"Wellness check," I said.

"You do... wellness checks?"

"I have a metaphorical gun to my head," I said. "It's probably more of a laser cannon, actually? Trust me, I'd rather be at home wearing way less, tinkering on my toys or... doing things. But Deus Ex told me to check up on all the locals. Oh, and Crackshot said to say hi, too."

"I see," he replied. "I'm well enough. I believe Gros Baton is as well. We've been productive."

"Yeah, I see that," I said. "So... about that."

I couldn't see his face, but I imagined that his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Yes?" he asked.

Oh boy, this was gonna be fun to explain.

***

So, big news! The first bit is the one that'll be easier to announce! Podium reached out to me with some dates for the releases that we'll be having between now and June of next year! That's just the Podium releases, Mango Media is jumping up and down to release Ivil Antagonist and Sporemageddon as well.

Here's the deets:

Cinnamon Bun Volume 7 will be published on 6/16/2026!

Stray Cat Strut 7 will be published on 2/10/2026!

Fluff 3 will be published on 1/20/2026!

Now, keep in mind that these are subject to change. We haven't even begun recording yet!

Next Hope//Punk is going ot go up on Kickstarter this Thursday. Just as a pre-launch, which means that I'll be asking y'all to sign up and follow the launch up on KS. Pre-launches are kind of important, they give KickStarter and any potential publisher a solid idea of how much interest there is in a given game. They don't cost anything (but a bit of time) to follow, so I'd love to see everyone here hop on the Hope//Punk pre-launch. I'll have a better idea of a proper launch date once I've finished my talks with various publishers!

Oh, but speaking of... I'm attaching Version 0.63 to this! It's got some updated graphics~ I think it looks way better, and will look super cool in print as well.

Old version:

New version:

Still working through the list, so that'll keep me a bit busy over the next few days! Other than that, I'm checking for grammar errors and filling out the Lore section some more, but... yeah, it's pretty much done and in a playable state!

My goal is to put the PDF for the Core Rule Book up on DriveThru and Itch for... free. I mean... why not? I'll sell the print copy for a few bucks (probably a lot of bucks, actually, printing stuff is expensive), but I make enough money from writing that I don't need a second revenue from TTRPGs.

Success for Hope//Punk, as defined by... uh... me, means that the game is being played and people are having fun with it.

I mostly wanna do the kickstarter to raise awareness, and because if I'm giving the PDF rulebook out for free, I need money to afford the art that I want to include. Which is a lot of cool art.

Speaking of Kickstarters...

LitRPG!

 I think I've mentioned this already, but the game's Kickstarter is currently up for its own pre-launch. It already has 600 follows! Way more than I expect Hope//Punk will ever get, lol!

Anyway, the game is fun, having played the... very-pre-Alpha version. Plus, it does have Cat in it, which makes it 100% better!

Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/critrpg/lit-rpg-a-progression-fantasy-action-roguelite

Uh... other than that... I plan on starting Sporemageddon Vol Five this week! I'm only a couple of dozen pages away from the end of my re-read of Volume Four, and I'm having ideas!

I think I'm gonna have it split a little, most chapters will follow Mushie, but there will be some chapters following City Nineteen Special Inspector Declan Slate. A hardboiled veteran of the 'Bully' investigation team, trying to track down the one who killed so many nobles in such a brazen way....

I'm thinking we'll see Mushie grow her... mushroom empire and prepare herself to take out the city's last dungeon while trying her best to evade the attention of the Law.

It's gonna be fun!

Oh, and we got new covers for Spore!

Oh!

Right, almost forgot this... I'll be in Norway in two weeks! I'll be visiting Selkie and some other friends in Oslo, and maybe popping into the Norcon 2025 convention? That's a big maybe!

Anyway, if any of you happen to be Norwegian, lemme know! I love meeting readers IRL. Maybe we can chat at a decent pub and have a drink! If you think my books are funny, wait until you meet me IRL... and are hit by crippling disappointment when you realize how unfunny I am!

I'll also be heading to DragonCon this year, in late August/early September! I'll be there every day that the con is taking place, so... yeah, lemme know if you're going and we can hug and chat and all that!

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