Grimmblade dropped the rock on the shore. He was dripping wet, but he had pulled the stone from a nearby pond at Noobkitty’s request. It was large, oddly shaped and well a big rock.

  "Is here good?" asked Grimmblade.

  "Yes, thank you," she said, examining the stone. She was trying to see it, sense it, let it tell her what it was meant to become.

  "So why are you doing this?" he asked, watching her weirdly feel up the stone.

  "Crafters can level by practicing different crafts, so I'm trying stone carving."

  "Shouldn’t you try something simpler, like needlepoint?"

  Noobkitty looked at him with a slight frown. "Do you know where I can get non wool based yarn in this world?"

  "Um, no, but I never thought about it," said Grimmblade.

  "The sheep at the local farm are sheared daily. They don’t leave the barn, they don’t live or frolic, they just eat and grow wool and get sheared. That’s pure digital animal exploitation, and I won’t be a part of it. Honestly, I’ve considered burning that farm down and freeing all the animals, but they’d just get eaten by monsters and then respawn at the farm."

  Grimmblade blinked. "Couldn’t you just get ExpertBunny to, you know, generate you some yarn? She is an admin now."

  "That’s showing favoritism to a player, and she's trying to be fair and ethical... after her whole bad first day as an admin."

  Grimmblade laughed at the memory. "Yeah... still don’t know why she punched a dragon."

  "I quote, 'because she thought it’d be good content'," Noobkitty laughed with him. She then looked at her stone again. "Can you flip it over for me? I think I know what it wants to be."

  Grimmblade did so easily and looked, trying to see what she saw. Then he realized it and shook his head.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  "Seriously, a frog?" asked Grimmblade.

  She grinned her Cheshire smile. "It’s perfect. I just have to chip away a little, then sand, polish, and it’ll be a frog statue. Easy crafting XP." She pulled her hammer and a flat chisel from her inventory. "Want to watch the magic happen?"

  "No, all this talk about exploited sheep made me want some lamb. I’m going to Grizzlebeard’s."

  "You’re a flesh-eating monster, but thank you for your help," said Noobkitty. She knew she wouldn’t change his mind, so the insult was meant as a joke.

  "Don’t let your plant-based muscles get too tired," he teased back, walking off.

  "Crafters spec for dexterity, not strength," she yelled after him.

  She prepared to get to work.

  She held the chisel, raised her hammer, and swung.

  "MROW!" she screamed. Her thumb throbbed with pain, and her fur bristled.

  "Note to self: hold the chisel in the middle, not at the end," she said to herself. To calm down and recover the little bit of health she lost from self-harm, she sat down and ate part of a [Health Bar].

  When her finger stopped hurting, she picked up her chisel again and struck. This time she did hit the chisel, but more of the stone fell off than she had intended.

  "Maybe if I keep at it, I can make it a toad instead of a frog," she considered. She continued to try removing extra material until the rock was even more... toad-shaped. It was coming along, not smoothly, but the shape was forming, until...

  Tink! Crack! THUD!

  The stone broke in half. "What the hell? I thought you wanted to be a frog, stone!" She looked at the two halves and considered. "Maybe its butt could be turned into a turtle?"

  She tried to shape the head and got a somewhat round oblong shape until...

  "Okay, headless turtle won’t do. Maybe I can carve this into a... um... oh, a block! A stone block could be easy," she said, trying again.

  Crack! Thud!

  "Okay, maybe a small pyramid."

  ----

  Grimmblade was sitting, watching the sunset play with the shadows and enjoying a cup of tea with Celeste when he saw Noobkitty—fur frizzed, ears down, and tail swinging violently. "Um, how’d it go?"

  She slammed a stone onto the table and walked into her snack shop.

  It was an oddly shaped rock with two eyeballs carved on it.

  Pet Rock Lv. 2

  A rock with eyeballs, made by a very frustrated cat desperate to get at least one skill level up.

  ---

  Inside the shop, ExpertBunny handed her fiancée a tea. "How did it go?"

  Accepting the tea and savoring its aroma despite her fading frustration, Noobkitty replied, "I made a friend," and pointed outside to the table where Grimmblade and Celeste sat.

  ExpertBunny went to the door and looked at the rock.

  "Oh he’s, um... looks friendly."

  "He doesn’t judge my lack of stone carving skills," said Noobkitty, grabbing a cookie from the basket near the register and crunching down on it. At least she got a level up.