Waifu Catalog Beta Testet: Free to Play Skyblock

The sound of birdsong woke Gil just as the sun started to stream through the trees. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, stretched to partially alleviate the pain in his back, and started wandering again. He desperately hoped that he would find something, anything, worth his time.

"If I see something like a target tracker, that's it." He ranted to himself, just to hear a voice. "That gets fucking priority. I don't care who I have to sell or what I have to do, I'm getting it."

He almost missed the singing in the distance, a chorus of voices echoing through the trees. Gil jogged towards them; the voices were masculine, but cheerful. It had the sound of a marching tune.

"We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig in our mine the whole day through," they sang in chorus, "to dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what we like to do!"

They were moving at a steady pace, but not particularly quickly. It only took Gil half an hour to catch up with them, at which point he saw seven miniature men. Possibly dwarves, though they weren't as stocky as the name implied in Gil's memories. On the other hand, most of them had long beards and their idea of a rousing marching song was to chant about heavy manual labor in a mine, so Gil decided to treat them like any other group of strange men. Some caution, but no overt hostility.

"Ho, strangers," he called, walking up behind the column of singing little people. "May I have a word?"

The man at the front of the line, a spectacled gent in a red shirt, turned on his heel. The rest of the dwarves kept walking, plowing directly into their leader. After a brief pileup, they righted themselves and pushed glasses out in front.

"Now he seer," he began, then corrected himself quickly, "See here, what are you and who are you doing here?"

"Ah. Well." Gil stammered, translating the flipped words in his head, "My name is Gil, and I'm here to protect a young woman. I saw an assassination attempt, and I'm hoping I can find the poor girl and bring her somewhere safe."

"Assassination!" Cried a lean dwarf with a long white beard, "sounds like trouble, mark my words. We'll have none of it."

"Oh, it's not that bad," a jolly looking dwarf answered him, "if we see her, we'll be glad to point her towards you. Who is she? What does she look like?"

"Well I believe her name is Snow White." Gil reported, only to be cut off by the man in glasses.

"The princess?" He spluttered. "Who would try to hurt her?"

"The queen, I hear." I told them truthfully.

"Oh yes; it's like I said." The lean one growled, "the queen is full to here with dark magic." He raised a hand to his chin. "She'll wreak bloody vengeance on us all if she hears we hid the princess."

Gil's ears perked up at that incidental comment. Anyone who gave birth to someone as pretty as Snow had very good genes. If the queen was Snow's mother and she could use dark magic, that meant that a milf sorceress was probably in play. Gil certainly wasn't blind to the logistical issues in acquiring a murderous head of state, but he also preferred to have a list of viable targets in case he got his hands on something really powerful.

"Then it's agreed, if we see here we send her off with this nice man." The jolly one said after a short huddle with his fellows. "He'll protect her and the queen will never know we had a thing to do with it."

"Great, great." Gil said, "where can I get in contact with you? I live far away, but I pass through these woods from time to time."

"If you turntable," the one with glasses said, pointing behind me, "and walk down this path, you'll find our corsage soon. That's where we sleep, but you'll only find us there after dark."

"Thank you." Gil said with a bow. "I'll let you know if there's likely to be trouble, but I don't think there will be. Have a good day at work, I'll just keep looking. I do hope she isn't hurt."

"I hope so too," Piped up another dwarf, before sniffing and wiping his nose. "I always heard the princess was nice."

••••••••••

Gil arrived at the small cottage in the woods, and was surprised to find smoke trailing up from the chimney. It was a squat little building, hardly even reaching Gil's sternum, with a single window at the front. It was positively tiny, considering it housed seven men.

"Of course, it was built for dwarves." Gil mused, "I guess not all dwarves feel the need to build giant halls into the sides of mountains. They didn't mention anyone being here during the day, though."

He peeked into the front window, and was quite taken aback to see the entire building was crawling with animals. Deer, turtles, and rabbits carpeted the floor, most of which were carrying dishes to a large tub in the back corner of the main common room. Squirrels brushed every surface with their tails, tossing large gray piles of dust onto the floor.

At the center of it all, Snow White used a short broom to gather up the dust into an ever-growing pile. Gil heard her whistle as she worked, shepherding the pile of dust to the front door.

Gil waited for the front door to open from the edge of the dwarves front yard. When Snow opened the door so as to sweep the dust outside, Gil made his move.

"Excuse me, miss?" He called. "Is this your home?"

"Oh, I hope so." She said absently, in a light chirping voice. "Oh! I'm sorry sir, who are you?"

"My name is Gil." He answered cautiously. "I'm hoping to take Princess Snow White somewhere safe. Are you Snow White?"

"Why yes," she said, "I am. Do you know the children who live here?"

"Children?" Gil asked, "oh, no children. They are little men. Very short, but quite adult."

"Well they don't look after their home like adults." Snow declared with a sniff. "I was hoping that if I surprised them with a clean home and a good meal, they'd let me stay here."

_Quite a lot of faith to put into complete strangers. _Gil thought, She seems a little bit naive. I can probably use that.

"The men who live here are good men, my lady." I told her, honestly. They seemed like a solid bunch of guys, if a bit silly. "I don't think they could protect you for long, if the Queen found out you were here. You wouldn't want to put them in danger, would you?"

"Oh no, but how could she know I'm here?" Snow fretted, moving her surprisingly immaculate fingernails to her lips. "Only my friends here know."

She gestured at the throng of animals that were listening to our conversation with interest. Gil wasn't sure if this was a world with fully sentient animals, or if Snow was doing something to them. The power to make small woodland critters sentient and helpful would be far from the most useless thing he'd seen magic used for.

"I can take you somewhere she can't follow, even if she knew where we went." Gil promised. "I just need to mark your hand with this stamp."

It was probably true. In his experience, company spaces were nearly impenetrable. If this queen was powerful enough to follow Snow to the Skyblock, she probably wouldn't be press-ganging random woodsmen to do her dirty work. Really, the whole world seemed to have a rather light and pleasant kind of vibe, going by the collection of comic relief dwarves and the painfully nice princess. Then again, for all Gil knew there was a war torn dystopia just beyond the borders of the forest. Humphrey, or whatever his name was, had certainly been desperate.

"Oh of course." Snow said, holding out one hand, "I wouldn't want to cause any trouble."

"Alright, have you found the pantry? We need to get some food for the journey." Gil declared. "I'll come back to repay the dwarves later. Quickly, we need enough to feed the two of us for a week."

Gil clapped his hand on the innocent princess's shoulder, who narrowed her eyes and stuck out her lower lip.

"You need me to take their food and run, do you?" She asked, a light touch of sarcasm creeping into her voice. "Immediately?"

"Okay, yes, it is stealing." Gil admitted, "but we really do need food if I'm going to take you to safety. Probably a cooking pot and a spoon, too."

"Well you don't seem very ready to travel." Snow teased, "I'm sure they'd be happy to work something out, if you really do know them so well."

Snow White sat down and folded her hands in her lap.

"I don't see why I should run off with you immediately, if we must steal." She declared. "Isn't the cover of night good for traveling in secret? I'm certain I've heard that somewhere."

The animals subtly shifted, crowding around Snow as she worked. Gil was being watched out of the corners of a hundred eyes; he wasn't going to force Snow to go anywhere. She was as sweet as a spoonful of honey, but that didn't mean she was an idiot. Just overly optimistic and quick to bounce back. It was honestly a bit surprising that just the day before she'd nearly been murdered by an acquaintance.

"I'm going to vanish after noon, and I don't know how long it will be before I can get back." Gil explained, trying honesty. "I can take you with me, but we'd starve if we don't bring at least a few days worth of food."

Snow looked to her left and met the eyes of a deer, her face searching. Some silent communication passed between the two. She folded her arms and nodded once.

"Well alright." She agreed, "but I'll at least whip them up something to eat later as payment."

Gil watched as the princess puttered around the room, digging through the pantry.

"Hmm. Yes, these are just about ready to go bad." She said with a satisfied expression, picking out a collection of root vegetables on the verge of rotting and a small bag of dried, discolored beans. Finally, a few rabbits presented her with a spoon and a dented metal pot that had been sitting unused in the back of a closet full of clutter.

Fresher ingredients were quickly chopped and placed into a stew to simmer for several hours, while a few blue birds were appointed as fire keepers. They would make sure the cook fire didn't set the house ablaze. All the while, Gil anxiously checked his tablet as the time slipped away. He wanted company on the Skyblock, and that meant getting Snow out into the woods and through the portal in the next three hours. Snow seemed like she'd be moderately pleasant company, and if nothing else he hoped to get to know her quite intimately. There were worse ways to kill a week than seducing an 18 year old girl.

Because of course she was 18; Gil didn't even need to ask. The Company was bound by many interdimensional codes. No one was sure why exactly 18 was the age that objectifying women became ok, but Gil supposed they needed to pick an age and stick to it. If this was a derivative work, like most Company experiences, Gil half expected that she'd originally been a seven year old or something. She certainly fit the "clever yet innocent child" trope in a few ways.

"You seem a bit antsy," Snow commented, glancing up from her chopped carrots. "Do you think you could get the broom? I didn't get around to sweeping upstairs."

For lack of anything better to do, Gil complied. He didn't do a very thorough job, but didn't think that the dwarves would even notice their bedroom had been cleaned in a distinctly half-assed manner. They didn't seem particularly observant, and a colony of seven messy bachelors would probably be thrilled to just see the floor at all for once.

He came down to find Snow storing the supplies together in the bag of deteriorated beans. Gil's stomach rumbled when he smelled the soup; he hadn't eaten anything but berries in almost twenty four hours.

"You'll get yours later." Snow assured him, jabbing her spoon at him playfully, "this is for our hosts. I'm ready to go whenever you are."

Gil escorted the princess through the woods. The two of them made good time in broad daylight, guided by Gil's navigation app. Snow White wasn't particularly athletic, and Gil was laden down with supplies, so after the requisite hour of jogging both were huffing and puffing.

"Come along." Gil wheezed. "Through the portal. It'll close soon."

Snow White gasped upon arriving on the Skyblock, looking around in wonder. Gil couldn't see through the portal, so naturally he ended up ramming into her back with all the mass of his full sack. The two of them fell forward, with Snow releasing a cute little "oh!" as she did.

The young woman blushed furiously when she realized Gil was laying on top of her. She scrambled to her feet before brushing dirt off of her dress, fixing her hair, picking up the vegetables… anything but looking directly at the person she would be spending a week with.

"Be careful of the edges, princess." Gil cautioned her gently, "I'll give you some space to get settled."

It wasn't purely out of kindness that Gil excused himself. In the rush, he'd almost forgotten to gather firewood. His last thirty minutes in The Queen's forest consisted primarily of gathering sticks and rushing them back. He didn't relish the idea of eating the slightly questionable veggies raw.