part0011

YES, I WANTED to go to the respawn point. Losing my human body in this huge, unexplored world was all I needed! I’d need that body, because I planned to one day find a way to return my human form, and so I had to keep close to Sergeant. Although to be honest, I was pretty disappointed in my master; how could he trust so blindly, turn his back on that dangerous thug that killed him?

A blink of an eye, and the view around me changed. Still night, but the forest gave way to dark cliffs and snow-covered boulders. And an icy wind that cut through to my bones. My fur bristled instantly. For the first time, I felt glad to have my new form — my thick ginger fur protected my kitten’s body well against the cold. A message flashed by, telling me that the Soundless Step ability had activated. Right — it was nighttime, the perfect time for cats.

In five leaps, already getting the hang of not relying too much on my injured leg, I climbed the nearest big boulder and looked around. Mountains. Not a single tree or bush. Just rocks and snow for as far as I could see. Was I supposed to sit in one spot for a whole fifteen minutes and wait for my human to revive?

I raised my face. Shame the sky was too cloudy to make out the stars. Otherwise I could have at least gotten my bearings, or checked for familiar constellations in the sky. My cat’s eyes told me even through the cloud cover that there was no moon in the sky. Was it just a new moon today, or was there just no moon in this new world? I examined the mountain slope, trying to figure out where I should go. Not further up the slope; the wind would be even more cold and piercing. Even my fur wouldn’t save me.

Wait! Did I imagine it, or did I see something in the distance between the rocks? Something dark and fast. All I saw was a quick, blurry movement. Probably imagined it. Nonetheless, I stood stock still and stared into the darkness, pricked up my ears, tried to catch a sound. And catch one I did; the sound of a rolling stone. A couple of seconds later, I saw yellow eyes flash for an instant against black rock. Someone was moving in the night! Some creature! And it looks like it noticed me!

I don’t know how I didn’t piss myself in fear… Far more scary to me than the creature itself was the fact that I lost track of it instantly, and now my dangerous neighbor could be anywhere!

I skimmed the info on these skills. The first one, as was easy to surmise, improved vision range and chance to detect creatures and hidden items. The second increased hearing range and chance of detecting living creatures. The third, in turn, improved sense of smell and chance of detecting creatures. If I was playing the role of an ordinary predatory cat, I should probably take all three. But did the kitten mage I hoped to turn my character into need all these skills? Wouldn’t I need skills more useful for survival?

Although it certainly wouldn’t hurt to take one of the three options on offer. My 17 Perception was far from a guarantee of detecting a dangerous enemy early enough, and my chances of escaping danger were pitiful with my maimed leg. What to improve? Vision, hearing or scent? I settled on hearing — detecting an enemy in total darkness or behind an obstacle might come in handy and save my life more than once.

Then my heart nearly leaped out of my chest in fear; a mere two feet from me, I saw a giant toothy animal carefully inspecting me and sniffing me! I shouted in shock and fear. Or rather, squealed pathetically. But then I realized that the creature before me was a cougar — a big cat. That meant it was no danger at all to my kitten until I hit level 10.

The cougar had strange dark fur. It was somehow flowing, not quite fur at all in the usual sense. Like a veil of darkness covering the creature. It shifted, hurt the eyes to look at. Made me want to turn away. Maybe it was some kind of magic that made the victim want to look away.

Nonetheless, I overcame myself and looked at my nighttime visitor, this time unafraid. I even looked into its mouth, impressed by the rows of sharp teeth, when it opened its jaws. Then the Chimeric Cougar leaned down and carefully took me by the scruff of my neck with its teeth. It wasn’t painful, just a little offensive that the big cat felt no need at all to ask permission. Fifty leaps later into the darkness, then a tight crawl, and the Chimeric Cougar opened its terrible maw, carefully placing me into a shallow hole covered in dry grass between three huge boulders, protecting the shelter from snow and wind.

And there was another creature in the den!

A dark, furry creature twice my size, blind and absolutely helpless. When the mother appeared, the kitten whined pathetically and crawled over to her.

Before I could look around in this new place, the mother flopped down nearby and let her cub feed. Then she nudged me insistently with her snout toward the nipples on her belly. I dug all four of my paws in. No, you don’t have to feed me milk! I’m already grown! The cougar seemed to get the message, rising and disappearing into the night. The blind cub span its head, trying to figure out where its milk went.

But just a minute later, the caring mother returned, bringing a strangled creature covered in fur and needles — either a spiny rat or a little hedgehog long overdue for a barber’s visit. This time I couldn’t avoid the force-feeding; the too-caring mother got angry and growled fearsomely at me when I turned my nose up at the bloody corpse. She even gave me a painful nip! Fine, so be it! I fought off my disgust and sank my teeth into the hot, bloody meat.

Uhm… It actually tasted pretty good! Apparently my tastes had changed significantly. I would never have eaten raw meat as a human. But it sure went down a treat as a kitten! Purring in pleasure, I tore the still-hot flesh and lapped up drops of blood. Moreover, I noticed that with each bite I swallowed, my level progress bar increased slightly. Apparently I was doing the right thing and the game algorithms approved of my behavior. And on top of that…

Now that was sweet! After I gorged myself on fresh meat, I could handle any frost. But… what was that? I pricked up my ears and heard human voices. And the crunching of snow. There were two, no, three people passing by. The Chimeric Cougar raised her snout and listened too.

“… who the [censored ] cares that those two didn’t want to come voluntarily? Our orders were to take them all. They went to the pass, so we’ll grab them on the descent!”

“Hell yeah. I want that young guy’s combat boots and nice jacket. I call dibs!”

“As if AXE will let you take two valuable items at once! One, maybe, and that only if we catch both the runaways.”

“Well, then I’ll take the boots. These shitkickers of mine are falling apart. I’ve already had to sew the [censored ] soles back on!”

“Shut up, both of you! Keep shouting and they’ll hear us a mile off. The zone border is very close now. There might be predators around. And it’s still night. We don’t want to run into a beast .

Wow, level two! As soon as I got a spare minute, I’d need to check my kitten’s altered stats and distribute the new points. Now wasn’t the time. The voices and footsteps drifted away. Soon I could no longer hear them.

I didn’t know who AXE was, or which two runaways they were talking about. Although, thinking about it… combat boots, nice jacket, young guy… Were they talking about me? I mean — about Sergeant? Then the runaways must have been Sergeant and his killer. After all, the pursuers didn’t know that the thug had killed my master. But then who were those three?

The barely visible shadow that was the Chimeric Cougar waited thirty seconds and then slipped out of the lair. The cruel gleam in her eyes told me that the trio of men was not fated to reach the descent from the mountain pass today. They’d come far too close to her lair; they might notice the tracks, and so a careful mother couldn’t leave them alive.

As for me, I took advantage of the obsessive nanny’s absence to climb out of the hole and run back as fast as I could. Thanks to the Chimeric Cougar’s tracks, it was easy to find my way. But what took a big cat fifty leaps to travel took my little kitten a whole five minutes.

Just as I hauled myself over the top of the boulder I’d recently used to view the area, suddenly, a few paces from me, right out of thin air, appeared… me. Only in human form. He groaned in pain. I mean, I did… Damn, I looked so big from a cat’s perspective!

“Finally! I hope you’re smart enough to look at the tracks in the snow here and not walk toward the dangerous predator?” I shouted at the man, and the young men turned at my whine.

He looked at me in surprise, then smiled, leaned down and picked the kitten up.

“There you are, little dumbass! I thought I’d left you back in the old world. Wow, look at you, level two already! Nice to be a kitten — nothing to worry about, no problems, just sit and meow. Whereas I have to rack my brains to figure out where I am and how to get my ass back to civilization. Well, might as well go together.” Sergeant lifted me up onto his shoulder and I dug my claws into his jacket. “Just the two of us!”

I wasn’t sure the human had seen the panther’s tracks and was taking the right measures to avoid meeting the sharp-clawed beast. However, Sergeant did go in the other direction — perpendicular to the trail of tracks. He began to climb higher and higher up the slope. The wind up there got ever colder and more piercing, and visibility fell sharply when we reached the cloud level. But my master, shivering and rubbing his hands, stubbornly continued to climb still higher.

“Where are you going, idiot? You’ll freeze!” I tried to talk some sense into the Sergeant, but the human interpreted my meowing in his own way.

He took my furry form from his shoulder and carefully put me inside his jacket, protecting me from the cold. At the same time, apparently feeling the need to talk, he spoke to me:

“You cold, kiddo? I know, me too. Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon. We’re going the right way, to the east. AXE told us newcomers that the mountain pass is in the east. I’m following the compass, so we won’t get off track!”

Now I understood the human’s behavior, at first glance so strange and illogical. Sergeant, it seems, was walking strictly in one direction, hoping to hit the eastern mountain pass. And with a compass, he could stay on the right track. But all the same, I thought for a moment and found at least three errors in my master’s logic.

Firstly, why was he so sure that the magnetic poles in this new world were the same as on our mother Earth? An old compass from Earth could lie shamelessly here. Secondly, so-called AXE (even if he was telling the truth) had pointed east from a completely different point, and it wasn’t clear at all that moving east from Sergeant’s respawn point would get us to the same place. And thirdly, we were in the mountains; magnetic anomalies were a risk. Iron deposits could throw off the compass. Full confidence in a compass up here in the mountains meant overconfidence.

And fourthly… I stuck my snout out of the jacket and looked around. Couldn’t he see?! Dawn was breaking over there! Not in the direction we were going at all! Uhm… what was this?

Sergeant’s behavior really had changed. The man stopped suddenly, then walked in another direction and crouched down, examining some fresh tracks in the snow. The trail stretched down the mountain slope to the east. The right east, not the east we were walking toward before.

“I recognize these boots…” the man said thoughtfully, then took out his axe. “Time to pay your dues, Badass! Yeah, this Tracking skill is just the trick! I’ll take it!”

So a fight was on the cards. Like a bloodhound scenting prey, Sergeant forgot his fatigue and hunger and ran along the trail of tracks, axe in hand. I climbed out of his jacket and back up onto his shoulder — soon I’d get my first chance to try my skills as a Hexxer. My human needed help, after all. We couldn’t let Sergeant get his second death in his first night in the new world!