Petey was playing with Leula, and they were having fun! She would skitter off into a dark corner and he would rush over and boop her (very very carefully) and then they would do it again. Leula was fast compared to hoomans but slow compared to Petey and he kept winning, so he tried moving way slower, and then he started losing.

He was trying to figure out a nice middle ground where she sometimes won and he sometimes won when one of his hoomans patted him on the shoulder. He turned around curiously and found them panting, dirty and exhausted from trying to keep up with his pace. He immediately felt a bit guilty about leaving them behind and promptly gave the small girl a good lick in the face, and she looked better almost instantly.

Well, if it worked for them...

Wagging his happiness, Petey ran around the group as fast as he could, giving kisses to everyone and ending up saving the biggest and wettest and bestest kiss for Leula. The spooder backed away, her fine-haired legs cleaning her face as she angry-happy complained, Nooo, please don't! It's hard to clean off!

Petey panted with his head close to her and set his butt on the ground, glad to wait for a few minutes while she finished. One of the hoomans, the little girl he was especially liking, patted him on the shoulder again, and he turned curiously. She didn't look like she needed kisses (although kisses were always excellent, he was a bit tentative about hugs at the moment) but she still looked... not really sad, just worried.

She started talking to him, but her words still didn't make any sense and Petey was getting a headache trying to figure it out. Leula glanced up at him with her shiny black eyes, asking, Is something wrong?

Petey was thinking about something. He was really strong and really fast, and that time he'd hit a wall on accident the rocks hadn't even made his fur dusty, so he was probably really tough too. Was there some way to make himself really smart?

One of the blue boards appeared in front of him and he jumped back, startled. Ignoring the hooman girl's shout of surprise, he squinted at it. Every time the boards had appeared, it'd either been to tell him something important or to show everyone the big numbers that made them quiet. He was fairly sure they hadn't been around when he was back with his other owners, but he was sure it was totally normal.

Which button should he push? There were only two. There was right button and left button, and he had to choose one of them.

Looking down, he saw Leula staring at him, and she quickly flicked her head to his left. Petey was satisfied. Left button it is!

He nudged the button, and suddenly the words made sense.

Skill has been activated! Temporarily draining points from all areas to allocate into Intelligence! Commencing...>

No, Petey realized. The words did not simply make sense - everything about them made sense. Their construction, the grammatical layout of their specific word font, the technique used to manipulate the mere concept of letters into knowledge made visible. It all made sense!

Turning to the girl, Petey spoke out loud, and she fell over backward in shock as he did. "Greetings, child. My name is Petey, and my title is Good Boy. May I have the great pleasure of knowing your name?"

Her mouth opened and closed several times, and Petey shook his head dismissively. "Never mind, miss Alana - your name is merely a guess away, and my intellect is presently such that all secrets of the universe are laid bare before my prodigious brain."

Staring at the ground, Petey moved his paws, and the stone rippled like water. Of course, it would - he could see how the golden aura of light floating around him interacted with the basic molecular structure of solid objects. In this case the aura produced by his happiness via the universe-given system softened all blows by reducing the bond strength between atoms - how very smart. He would remain uninjured and the weapon in question would be nullified as it came into contact with the aura.

Points were still flooding into Petey's Intelligence stat, and his mind was expanding at an unbelievable rate. Glancing down at Leula, he told her mentally, I understand why you employ this particular method of communication. Efficiency is greatly improved without the barrier of language or species - how intelligent of you spiders.

The spooder - no, that was grammatically incorrect. The spider backed away as though Petey was aflame. How absurd, he thought to himself. If he was calculating the surface tension/density ratio of his fur as it related to the Resilience stat on his board, then he was practically invulnerable to all types of damage, regardless of whether it was energy or physical. As for attacks aiming for his psyche, his intelligence was now high enough to not only block any misled attempts but also return the mental strike a few trillion times over.

Petey inhaled deeply. This world needed hugs and kisses, and if he had enough time, he could easily industrialize the process. Creating a correctly operating government would take next to no time at all given his current state, and from there it would be simplicity incarnate to get rid of poverty and crime. The mere existence of crime was a sad, misguided ploy at either catering for attention, caring for one's family, or simply desiring to acquire more physical goods. So long as one-

deactivating! Remaining time: 10 seconds. Cooldown: 1 month.

Petey sighed out loud. Of course he would be unable to retain such an omniscient intellect - it would simply not make sense. As his mind reached its peak, he discovered something interesting. A strange name composed of a negative disposition and a type of arachnid. How curious - it was linked to everything in the universe, down to Petey's intelligence, Alana's personality and life, and even the Pantheon's power. He selected the entire encounter, put it deep inside his hidden memory, and promptly sealed it, taking great care to memorize the entirety of the elvish language (he was hard-pressed to believe that he had once considered these obviously alien biologies to be 'hooman') so that even with a reduced intelligence he could still comprehend their words.

To Leula, he confidently said, My apologies, dearest Leula. My mind is degrading rapidly - I do hope you encounter someone someday with an intellect that may satisfy your own growing psych. Fare thee well, miss spider.

The final dregs of returning stats began to settle into their place, and Petey blinked. What happened? Alana was looking worried and Leula was kind of in shock - all he'd done was push a blue button with his snoot.

Right?