All over Florence hens cackled in protest as Da Vinci dropped his last raw egg into the dye bath.
"Sir, the recipe calls for egg yolks," he said, his hand shaking as he held up the funnel, "but the ductility of the egg white makes it better for mapping stars...."
"Stop! It's sunscreen, not a mural!"
I robbed the dyer's wife of a clothes rammer, smashed almond oil and beeswax into a paste. The system suddenly projects a warning on the retina:
"Detected Giovanni explaining celestial mechanics to prostitutes using a sausage model. Historical deviation +15%."
The man in black floated past the window with his indigo face, his new robotic hands covered in chicken feathers:
"There you are! The Duke of Medici has offered a hundred ducats..."
"The host! Use sunscreen!"
The hamster system screams and pops up the composite interface. I picked up the half-finished mechanical eye of the man in black, and the gear suddenly jammed and made a farting sound.
"My gyroscope!"
The man in black spins around the dye rack, and the colorful fabric wraps him into rainbow sushi. The system took the opportunity to activate the "Star Guide", and the indigo dye pool suddenly reflected the Big Dipper:
"Go through the dog hole, turn left after 30 meters and meet your destiny!"
We were running down the alley with three buckets of sunscreen when we bumped into a redheaded teenager sketching.
"Lady Cecilia needs a model..." I pulled him into the toaster before he could say, "Michelangelo! Come and help with the eggs!"
The fifteen-year-old future artist holds up an egg beater and is stunned:
"How did you know I was looking for human muscle material?"
"Host Unlocks Hidden Achievements: The Three Renaissance Heroes Summon the Dragon."
The hamster rolls around in the flour. "Reminder, sunscreen lacks the final ingredient -- the olive leaf that Socrates touched."
As the man in black cracked open the toaster, I saw the Athenian wildcat running across the corner of the street.
It was holding a yellow rainbow wrapper in its mouth and an olive branch with teeth marks wrapped around its tail.
"Catch the cat!" The moment I threw myself out, Michelangelo overturned the sunblock bucket.
Egg whites mixed with indigo dye are thrown at the pursuer, and the mechanical legs of the man in black begin to tap dance:
"Mucus is eating my bearings!"
Feral cats jumped on the scaffolding of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Flowers, and I started Eternal Sketch to draw giant catnip on the walls. When it was intoxicated and rolling, I pulled out the historic olive branch:
"Sorry, philosophy cat!"
Sunblock is rolling out in Santa Croce Square. Da Vinci designed the octopus blender, Michelangelo carved muscle lines into the clay pot, and I controlled the heat with the Eye of Truth.
The system suddenly plays the jingle:
"Roman sunbathing and medieval whitening are no match for Victor's heatstroke!"
The first one to try was the flower girl. She caused a sensation in the city when her arms turned iridescent in the sun after being smeared with sunscreen. The monks shouted "The stigmata appeared," the whores exchanged silver coins, and even the men in black smeared them in the cracks of their masks:
"As if... Does it really stop itching?"
"Hosts Create a beauty Revolution!" The system blasted the virtual ribbon "but detected catnip in the sunscreen..."
Before he could say anything, the city was overrun by wild cats from every direction. Sunblock citizens are licked by cats, and bronze lions on top of cathedrals start spraying lottery tickets after their tails. Michelangelo took the opportunity to sketch cats:
"Perfect dynamic muscle line!"
In the confusion, the man in black finally pulls off the defunct mechanical mask - revealing a face that has been stung into a pig's head by bees:
"I am His Majesty Napoleon... Achoo!" A feral cat jumped on top of his head and scratched, and a sunscreen allergy caused him to sneeze and make a snot bubble.
"History falsifier allergic to cats?"
I laughed so hard I almost knocked over the sunscreen, "System, is this a work injury?"
Leonardo Da Vinci suddenly holds up an improved sunscreen:
"Teacher, I added firefly juice!" As night falls, the city's rainbow skin glows and Florence turns into a giant disco ball.
"Start Plan B!" I grabbed the glider Michelangelo had jumped on." Hide in Venice...."
"Host triggers linkage quest!" The system suddenly pops up the prompt box:
"1. Teaching Copernicus to Square Dance (0/1)
2. Fertilizing Newton's Apple Trees (0/3)
3. Help Cleopatra treat cat hair allergy (urgent!) "
Indigo sunblock was running down a drain into the ocean as we crashed into the revelers.
In three months, the legend of the glowing blue merman will appear in the Adriatic Sea - that's for another time.
And to top it all off, the Man in Black's sneeze activated the time teleportation device. We were sucked into the vortex, along with five wildcats, three buckets of sunscreen, and half a bronze lion, and the system's screams echoed in the air:
"Warning! Carrying a live cat through the Space and Time Teacher's Code No. 3..."
Sunblock - smelling stardust in a space-time turbulence, five Florentine wildcats explode into dandelions. As my face sank into the Nile mud, I heard the intermittent announcement on the system
: "Through... The success... The side effects... A master of meowing..."
"Teacher! The bronze lion is eating the papyrus!" Da Vinci's screams came from the reeds. I looked up and saw half a mechanical lion carving hieroglyphs with gilded claws
"Buy Sun ferry tickets for Pharaoh's mummy".
Even more terrifying was the scene from three metres away: Cleopatra's fleet of gold ships was docked, and our sunblock bucket was rolling down on the shore, emitting a faint blue glow. Cleopatra VII sniffed the air:
"Where's the fragrance? Is it the gift of Ra?"
"Host triggers hellish quest!"
Hamster system disguised as lotus leaves: "Pack sunscreen into holy oil in 10 minutes, or Queen Cleopatra will be disfigured by UV allergy (major deviation in history)"
I grabbed the mud and smeared it on my face:
"Quickly! Dress as a priest!" Da Vinci had already woven pompous headdresses out of reeds, and Michelangelo transformed bronze lion tails into scepters.
The feral cats suddenly squatted demurely, as if they were born to wear scarab collars.
"The messenger from Memphis!"
I growled with my newfound meow skills, my vocal chords vibrating to produce a purr. Cleopatra's pet cheetah suddenly crawls to the ground, and the sunscreen bucket floats on its own - the system quietly activates the maglev effect.
Cleopatra got some sunscreen on her fingertips and was about to apply it when she stopped:
"Why does this holy oil taste fishy?"
Da Vinci quick Answer:
"With the sweat of Harpy, God of the Nile!"
He kicked over the bucket, and Michelangelo immediately cast a reflection of the constellations on the water. As the sunscreen turned amber in the sun, I hastened to add:
"Apply daily to protect skin regeneration like Nefertiti!"
Queen Cleopatra was about to try it out when suddenly the reeds heard the roar of the Pharaoh's guard. The man in black paddles the leaking papyrus boat and emerges with a robotic hand transformed into the shape of an alligator's head:
"They're liars! The holy oil will make... Achoo!"
Five wild cats suddenly charge, and one of them, the Athenian philosophical cat, jumps onto the crocodile manipulator and sharpens its claws wildly.
The man in black's allergic sneeze causes mechanical failure, and the crocodile snaps its mouth shut and bites its own tail.
"The holy cat has worked!"
The priests knelt en masse. Without hesitation, Cleopatra rubbed her entire body, the sunscreen reacted with her serpentine armband, and the moon began to glow.
The system suddenly garbled:
"Warning! Cleopatra on... Meow mint... Become dependent..."
On both sides of the Nile at the moment, sunscreen is out of stock. The bronze lion carved "Buy one, get ten free" on the pyramid with its tail, and the man in black was forced to jump into the river by the cats. And worst of all - Cleopatra's cheetahs are ogling Florentine wildcats.
"Host gets the title of Animal Matchmaker!"
The hamster system laughed, "Side effects: Pets must be involved in all subsequent intake tasks."
That night at the banquet, I was forced to communicate with Cleopatra in meowing. She languidly petted the cheetah:
"When will the angel's cat give birth to the beast?" The philosophy cat suddenly jumps on the table, dips his tail in wine, and writes in Greek - "Socrates asks if you need philosophical help."
The man in black paddled the broken boat down the river, his mechanical crocodile head repeating:
"The destruction of civilization... Achoo! Destroy sunscreen first... Achoo!"
In the middle of the meal, the queen broke out in a rash - Florentine pollen in the sunscreen had taken hold. Amid the screams of the priests, I pulled out the sunblock that had failed to ferment:
"This is... Detox ritual!"
Da Vinci immediately set up a distillation unit and Michelangelo carved a mask for the Sphinx. When the empress sneezes while wearing a mud mask, the system pops up a new prompt:
"Napoleon is detected approaching disguised as a Roman emissary!"
The Nile ripples eerily in the moonlight, and the dark shadows of Caesar's fleet emerge from the blue sun block.
And our bronze lion has built a pyramid casino out of sunscreen cans...