## Introduction

This short story is dedicated to ~dozens.

Several months ago he spoke of a tabletop game that involved growing cats from
beans, inviting others to try it and share their actual plays.[^1] As it
happened, someone read the message and played the game, but the narrative that
was supposed to accompany the results never materialised, having fizzled out in
a desolate post-apocalyptic landscape before it had barely started.

Here instead is a story about growing, cats and beans, not necessarily in that
order. Discerning readers will observe its setting is loosely based in a
different game, the wonderful Basement Quest[^2] of which ~dozens is the
amazing author and thoroughly adept game host. He has also kindly given
permission to reproduce my tiny tale of tomfoolery under the CC-BY-SA
license.[^3] The story would not have existed without his support and the
patience of fellow players, though any lapses in judgement for churning out
complete drivel are mine alone. *Gratias maximas.*

~mio


[^1]: https://dozensanddragons.neocities.org/30.html
[^2]: http://tilde.town/~dozens/quest/
[^3]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

---

## Bean

Deep within the bowels of the bustling city of Vay'Nullar was a building like
every other and none other. The unassuming brick structure stood to one side of
Cofe Street, so named after a giant automaton that had once occupied an empty
plot of land for the sole purpose of selling coffee and the wonders of
mechanical ingenuity before it broke down one day and the lot, overrun by
weeds, was turned into an apothecary. There was no sign above the entrance to
announce itself to the world, the windows shuttered and the wooden door bolted
from within. It could be said that there was nothing remarkable about the
building except for a colourful row of marching kidney-shaped beans painted in
bas-relief than ran along the base of the tiled roof. The beans' faces were
contorted in various expressions of merriment, from hopping up and down with
silly grins to flipping on their backs, eyes screwed tight and mouths wide open
in laughter.

No one actually knew for sure if it was a shop, or what it sold, because the
doors had never opened for business. Passers-by can be forgiven for thinking it
was probably an ill-fated foray into fame and fortune by some enterprising
young upstart that had floundered at the last moment, and the place had long
since been abandoned to the cobwebs of aurs and dust bunnies. However, the
neighbourhood's residents knew differently. If anyone had cared to ask, they
would have recounted in tense, hushed voices of eerie sounds emanating from the
building at night. Some said they heard loud whooshing noises; others swore
someone or something was lighting crackling bonfires inside, though they had
neither seen light nor smoke from a fire. Still more spoke of a sound — the
more musically-inclined might liken it to a note blown from a long horn,
lowered then abruptly dampened. The children — the ones who were old enough or
secretly sneaked out past their bedtime — would have simply described it as if
a crowd had gotten together in a room and farted at the same time.

None of the residents had ever heard nor seen the landlord; as far as the
eldest grannies could remember, the building had always appeared the way it
did. When the city finally sent an inspector to assess the property after
multiple complaints from the most vocal residents, the man had returned so
shocked by whatever he had seen that to this day he could not utter a syllable,
his entire body frozen in fear whenever the subject of the bean building was
brought up. Cursed, was the conclusion of a guild of wizards three districts
over, though one that seemed to evade their scanners. A few of the bravest and
more curious among their ranks offered to investigate, but never returned with
their findings. Children were sternly warned by their parents to stay away and
behave, or they would be snatched up and eaten by the monster that lived within
its walls.

One afternoon, a young girl who was studying the painted relief along one side
of the building heard scratching, mewls, then a whimper coming from somewhere
nearby. Following the sounds, she rounded the back of the building and spotted
a grey kitten with light charcoal stripes slumped against the wall, paws on
their furry tummy, with a pinched expression on their face. As she came closer,
she could hear a low gurgling sound coming from somewhere near its tummy. "Oh!"
She exclaimed, her face lit up in understanding. "Stay here, kitty." she told
the kitten.

She returned from a nearby shop with a glass bottle of oat milk, two small
dishes and three skewers of tofuna balls. She set the items in front of the
kitten, removed the skewers from the first dish and filled the other with milk.
"Go on, it's for you." The girl smiled encouragingly at the kitten, who stared
at her with wide eyes before pouncing on the tofuna balls. When the kitten had
emptied the plates, they licked their face and paws, then looked up at the girl
and mewed once before disappearing into a small hole in the wall of the
building partially covered by a loose board. The girl tried to peer into the
hole but it was too dark within to see anything.

The next day and the day after, the girl returned to the same spot with food
for the kitten, who seemed to be expecting her, mewing once again before
retreating back inside the hole in the wall after the meal. On the fourth day,
the kitten was nowhere to be seen when the young girl arrived. She bent down
to fill a saucer with more milk, and found a single brown bean in it slightly
smaller than a cherry potato. She waited but there was no sign of the kitten.
Eventually she left the offering of food near the hole and went home.

As the girl lay in bed that night, she examined the bean by the light of her
bedside lamp. She held it up between her thumb and forefinger, rubbed a thumb
against its smooth contours, then clasped it gently between her palms,
gradually warming it as she peeked at it from between her fingers. After
whispering to the bean for some time, she carefully tucked it under one end of
her pillow, and yawning, turned down the lamp and went to sleep.

When she next opened her eyes, it was to find herself inside a gigantic
storehouse with a high ceiling that seemed to stretch on and on into the
horizon. One side was lined with glass partitions, some of which were obscured
with thick curtains, while others had curtains parted aside to reveal the
activities of the occupants within. On another side, separated by a path the
width of two streets, was an open grassy area dotted with large translucent
domes, like hazy soap bubbles on a summer day. The entire area was bright and
well-lit even though she couldn't make out any significant source of light
aside from the little caddy lamps twinkling from the desks inside the
partitions, or the campers' lamps inside and around the domed tents.

A cat wearing bright yellow boots, blue overalls and a construction hat was
beckoning her over. She recognised them as the kitten she had met in the alley
earlier, though now they appeared as tall as her. Just as she was about to call
out and ask where they were, the cat suddenly appeared in front of her and
said eagerly, "There you are! Come along now!"

Everywhere she turned, there were now cats in all shapes, colours and sizes —
short, large, skinny, tiny, chubby, striped, spotted, black, calico, white,
brown, grey, and so on. Many were patting rectangular panels with various tiny
buttons on the desks. Some were on all fours or sitting in various positions in
front of stools with small boxes that made whirring, clicking sounds. After
each click, the cats would shift positions, as if striking poses for some
invisible audience. One cat was mixing and matching several new outfits in
light colours. Another was hugging stuffed toy chipmunk while sorting mushrooms
at a picnic table. A few were holding a burger with an oversized cheese wedge
between their paws.

Some who were walking around the partitions were also holding mugs, the aroma
of coffee wafting through the air as they passed — except for one cat whose
paws were wrapped around a glass of a clear brown drink topped with cherries.
A cat sped by on a contraption with a handle and two thin wheels, which emitted
tinkling sounds from a tiny, nondescript box attached to a basket in front of
the contraption. They passed a group of six cats gesturing to a black board
covered in numbers and symbols; one of them chanted something that confused the
girl and pushed a button on one edge of the board, which sprayed water over the
surface, erasing the chalk writing. After wiping the board dry, the cat began
rapidly filling the board with more symbols. When the girl looked over her
shoulder, the board had already washed out the writing, and another cat had
taken up position in front of the board.

Outside one domed tent, a metal arm was mixing a vat of pink and yellow cream
while a cat sat beside it reading aloud from a scroll. At the next tent, two
cats huddled over a thin, grey bulbous metal stump placed on a tiny wooden
table. The cats seemed to be engaged in a serious conversation at first; then
the girl blinked and they abruptly dissolved into laughs, thumping the table
with a paw and barely grappling onto the table edge with the other to keep
themselves from tumbling and knocking over the metal rod. A cat reclined
against the frame of a bubble opening and seemed to be intently listening to
something, while a stockpot bubbled merrily on a stove and spewed out dumplings
into a large crusty bread bowl behind them.

A few steps from the path, a cat hung up pictures onto a pie-shaped box under
the glow of a lamp affixed to their tent. The lamp slowly changed colours, each
new colour followed by strings of words floating and fading in mid-air like
intangible poetry. Behind them, half-hidden by big rows of vertical posts made
of paper tubes, a cat perched atop a stack of ten thick black writing pads and
was writing in a notebook at a furious pace, only occasionally stopping to bite
into a slice of pie with a light yellow filling. A blue panel displaying
several lines of indecipherable characters flickered occasionally from below.
Remotely she could barely make out another cat stacking containers of different
sizes neatly as they spoke to a sliding black case on a table covered in tools
and fossils. Inside another tent, a cat was moving a small stack of old boxes
with lights blinking blearily through the tent walls and shuffling them inside
an animated green cabinet in the shape of a possum. As the girl stared, some of
the cats grinned at her, and others waved.

At random intervals, a group would gather around a large pipe made of dark
grey metal at the base, which gave way to a translucent material at knee
height, towering up before disappearing into an opening in the ceiling.
Venturing closer, she realised the translucent pipe was actually made of many
transparent small pipes with beads of light passing through them at impossibly
fast speeds. As the lights spun faster, a low purr emanated from the pipe,
which became louder and louder in a roaring crescendo as the group fixed their
gazes upwards at a spot where pipe met ceiling, some clapping their paws to a
soundless rhythm that was nonetheless familiar to them all, until the noise was
abruptly cut off to barely a whine and a chuff once more. The crowd of cats
dispersed as if nothing had happened.

Further on, another group wielding oversized sporks was shovelling piles of
pea-sized, dark brown beans at a glass pane the size of a large smoke screen,
behind which an ornate fireplace was set over a well-used hearth. The beans
seem to pass through the glass, to be devoured by the giant blaze that flared
and snapped briefly each time it received more tinder. Some of the cats looked
on with somber expressions, and the girl had the feeling that whatever the fire
did was as important — if not more so — than the stream of lights in the pipes.
As the flames gradually changed colour from blood orange to pale lavender, the
group seemed to relax into relieved smiles and slowed their shovelling, only
halting when the fire had turned a vibrant purple. Her guide gave the group a
thumbs-up before ushering her along the path.

When they had walked a few score feet onward, the young girl suddenly noticed
almost all the cats in their immediate vicinity had a small rectangular
apparatus on them — whether held in their paws, hanging from a waist pouch,
jutting out from a back pocket, strapped to their caps or arms, or placed
within reach on a nearby desk or table. In that instant, a resounding chime
like a bell rolled across the area where they were standing. The cats glanced
down at their apparatus, which were lit in varying levels of brightness. Some
of the cats looked up at one another and sported identical grins on their
faces. Then, as though following an unannounced but practised cue, the cats
applied light pressure on their apparatus. For a moment it was quiet, before
the hall erupted into a very loud raspberry. It was as though a giant balloon
had deflated over their heads and air was coming out of it in one big gush,
only there was no strong burst of wind to blow them all off their feet.
Distantly she heard the answering giggling of babies and children somewhere
around her, though there were no infants or other children in sight. The cat
with the yellow hat turned to her with a chuckle and said, "Snazzy, huh? Let's
keep this a little secret between us, okay?"

Before the girl could reply, she awoke with a start in her own room. It took a
moment for her to ascertain where she was as her eyes focused on the shelf by
the wall filled with toys and books, and the morning sunlight streaming in from
the bedroom window. Recalling the cat in boots, she felt around her pillow for
the bean, but her hand only met soft bedsheets. She shook out her pillow while
pushing aside her blankets, checked the floor and peeked under the bed, but the
bean had disappeared. As she looked around her room, she noticed the mug
adorned with tiny butterflies that she used as a brush holder had been moved
from its usual spot on her desk. She got out of bed and padded barefoot over to
the desk. Instead of one baby potato-sized bean, the mug was filled with a
number of small red beans. Shaking them out in handfuls at a time, she counted
43 in total.

The girl smiled. When the time came, she and the beans will be ready.