In Which Traveler Chimiru Hunts Seven Crimson Predators
The invitation arrived on parchment that smelled faintly of roses and rain. Random Ladybird, cartographer extraordinaire, had opened another of her gardens to exploration. This time: the Fae Botanical Research Institute.
“Seven rare beetles,” the note read. “Hidden somewhere on the institute’s grounds. Good hunting.”
Chimiru adjusted their field pack and set off at dawn.
THE INSTITUTE: A BRIEF HISTORY
The Fae Botanical Research Institute was intended as a study and quarantine installation—a place where the brightest minds of both the material plane and the Feywild could collaborate. Their mission: develop new fae plant strains safe enough for serious collectors to cultivate in mortal gardens.
Noble work. Careful work. Work that required constant vigilance.
Unfortunately, recent budget cuts had thinned the staff considerably. And fae plants, as any botanist worth their spade knows, do not respond well to neglect.
The mandrake had escaped its containment.
The giant fungus was spawning minions in the lower levels.
The overgrown tree—still unnamed, still untamed—was dropping troublesome pods that split open with unsettling enthusiasm.
The future of the entire institute hung in question.
But Chimiru wasn’t here for that. Not today. Today’s quest was simpler, smaller, but no less important: find seven hidden beetles scattered across the grounds by the cartographer herself.
ARRIVAL: THE ROADSIDE SIGN
Chimiru stood at the roadside marker, whiskers twitching as she surveyed the path ahead. Stone stairs led upward through manicured (well, formerly manicured) gardens toward the main office and containment laboratories. Ivy crawled across weathered brick. Unusual flowers bobbed in the breeze, their colors slightly too vivid, their movements slightly too deliberate.
Fae plants. Definitely fae plants.
Chimiru’s tail swished once—anticipation—and she began the ascent.
BEETLE THE FIRST: RIGHT OUT THE GATE
Twelve steps. That’s all it took.
Chimiru cleared the first flight of stairs to a small porch space, breathing easily, scanning the doorway ahead—
And there it was.
Eye level. In a painted terracotta pot.
The first beetle, crimson shell gleaming in the morning light, mandibles working contentedly as it surveyed its domain from the high ground of a flowering succulent.
“Right out the gate,” Chimiru muttered, a smile tugging at her whiskers. “You’re not even trying to hide, are you?”
The beetle continued its breakfast, unbothered by the feline observer.
One down. Six to go.
BEETLE THE SECOND: LOUNGING IN LUXURY
The next step up revealed the second beetle almost immediately.
On the opposite side of the stairs, nestled in deep shade beneath an overhanging leaf, the little predator lounged like royalty. All six legs splayed comfortably. Antennae relaxed. The very picture of contentment.
“A greeting committee,” Chimiru realized, glancing back at the first beetle, then forward to the second. “You’re welcoming me.”
Two beetles. Right at the entrance. As if Random Ladybird herself had stationed guards at the gate.
Chimiru’s ears flicked with amusement. This was going to be interesting.
BEETLE THE THIRD: THE BALANCING ACT
After thoroughly exploring the entire compound—greenhouses with cracked glass, laboratories where the plants definitely watched you back—Chimiru found themselves empty-handed.
No more beetles. Not one.
“No way did I miss every single one,” she muttered, retracing their steps through moss and mushroom circles, past the containment building and around the perimeter fence.
Nothing.
So Chimiru backtracked to the front, where the hunt had begun.
And there—
On a broad leaf, perfectly balanced, all six tarsi (the proper term for those tiny leg-tips, each with hooks finer than needles) gripping the surface with delicate precision—
The third beetle.
Leaf-surfing. Showing off, really.
Chimiru sat back on their haunches, appreciating the sight. “A welcoming party. Three of you, right at the gate, and I walked right past you on my way out.”
The beetle seemed smug about it.
BEETLE THE FOURTH: AN UNDIGNIFIED DISCOVERY
The fourth beetle was found in the most undignified manner possible.
Chimiru had been prowling through one of the wilder sections of the institute grounds, where the paths became suggestions rather than certainties. Eyes scanning upward, searching the canopy, the undergrowth, anywhere a clever beetle might hide—
When their hind paw caught on an exposed root.
Down went the traveler.
Face-first into a bush.
And there—mere inches from Chimiru’s nose, perched on the very root that had caused the tumble—sat the fourth beetle.
Eye to eye. Impossible to miss.
The beetle’s antennae twitched, as if amused.
Chimiru, sprawled flat on the ground with leaves in their whiskers and dignity in tatters, could only stare.
“I fell into you more than found you,” Chimiru muttered, carefully extracting themselves from the bush. “Couldn’t miss you now, could I? Not with my face planted right next to yours.”
The beetle remained smugly perched on its root.
“Well played, Random. Well played.”
BEETLE THE FIFTH: NOT WHERE YOU THINK
Several days passed. Days.
Chimiru had scoured every inch of the institute grounds. Every planter. Every vine. Every suspicious shadow. The remaining three beetles were proving far more elusive than anticipated.
Then a thought occurred—dark, but worth considering.
Random Ladybird had a sense of humor. What if she’d hidden one somewhere… morbid?
Chimiru scanned the birds scattered On top of the Laboratory. Surely, for a cartographer called “Ladybird,” there would be irony in hiding a beetle among the birds, natural predators of—
Yes.
Yes, she would.
Reluctantly, the search had taken Chimiru up onto the rooftops where the remains might be found in the Sea Gull mouths or droppings.
Alas!!
There!
Nestled in a patch of that roof moss as if it were the finest bed in the institute—
The fifth beetle. Very much alive. Very much comfortable.
“Not dark at all,” Chimiru said, ears flicking with relief and amusement. “Just… UP.”
The beetle stretched its legs in the afternoon sun, completely at peace in its elevated moss garden.
BEETLE THE SIXTH: THE DOOR YOU PASSED A THOUSAND TIMES
Six was humbling.
Chimiru had passed that door— thoroughly ordinary—at least a dozen times. Maybe two dozen. Eyes always up, searching the climbing vines that draped the doorframe, looking for that telltale glint of crimson among the green.
Never looking down.
On the ground. Right beside the threshold.
The sixth beetle sat there, as if asking: How many times are you going to walk past me?
“Too many,” Chimiru said aloud, feeling their ears flatten with embarrassment. “Far too many.”
BEETLE THE SEVENTH: THE UPROOT
One left.
One beetle remained, and Chimiru was frustrated.
Every leaf searched. Every container examined. Every door was checked. The containment labs, the greenhouses, the perimeter fence, the overgrown sections where the fae plants had truly gone wild—
Nothing.
Chimiru was about to give up. Admit defeat. Write to Random Ladybird and beg for a hint.
But something nagged at them. A thought. A possibility.
What if…
Chimiru approached the butterfly bush,
“No,” Chimiru muttered. “She wouldn’t.”
But the hunter in her had to check.
With careful claws and determination, Chimiru uprooted the butterfly bush branch by branch.. And there—
Deep in the hollow, protected steams, leaves and butterflies, hidden in a place that required actual excavation to discover— or tripping again.
The seventh beetle.
“THERE!” Chimiru practically shouted, tail lashing in triumph. “You absolute bugger! Who would have thought THERE! Clever. Salute.”
The beetle, for its part, seemed entirely unconcerned about the disruption to its hiding spot. It crawled onto Chimiru’s outstretched paw, antennae questing, as if to say: Took you long enough.
EXPEDITION COMPLETE: FINAL NOTES
All seven beetles located. All seven of Random Ladybird’s crimson predators found across the Fae Botanical Research Institute’s grounds.
Some were gifts—welcoming guards at the gate.
Some were challenges—hidden among decoys and shadows.
One was pure mischief—buried where no reasonable hunter would think to look.
As Chimiru descended the stone stairs, leaving the institute and its overgrown gardens behind, she couldn’t help but smile.
The mandrake could wait.
The fungus and its minions could wait.
Even the unnamed tree could wait.
For now, the hunt was complete. Seven beetles found. Another of Random Ladybird’s gardens thoroughly explored.
And somewhere, Chimiru suspected, the cartographer herself was smiling too.
Next expedition: Unknown
Next garden: Unknown
Next beetle hunt: Inevitable
The crimson predator continues…
Traveler Chimiru 
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