part0023

THE DAY TURNED OUT scorching. If I could have taken off my cat’s skin and had even a minute’s break from the unbearably stuffy heat, I would have. My master and the werewolf girl were hiding from the heat too, sitting in the shade on the bank of a gently babbling brook in the woods. The human was crafting something, cutting something like a set of panpipes out of some dried reeds. Who knows why. He wasn’t doing a great job of it. Two or three ruined attempts had flown into the bushes already.

Shelly sat next to him on the grass, covering her eyes with her paws and sometimes twitching her whiskery nose. She wasn’t crying anymore, at least, but it looked like it wouldn’t take much. By her own words, the loser huntress had long suspected, and more recently learned for certain, that her packmates wanted to get rid of her. That morning, Shelly was warned that if she made one more mistake, she and her bad luck would be expected to pack their bags. But the creeping crocodile was tamed successfully! It was unreasonable of Uncle Ugmai to banish his niece. She held up her end of the bargain! Shelly was distraught with the injustice and despair of it; it was tough to accept that her relatives and packmates didn’t want her. They saw their chance to get rid of the ‘walking catastrophe’ and they took it.

“Where are you going to go?” Sergeant asked, finally breaking the silence. The girl turned to him in surprise, her tail swishing.

“What do you mean? I am yourrrs now. I go where you go. Or you want banish me too, like Uncle Ugmai?”

“No, I don’t want to banish you. I mean… I don’t know. Just… this is weird. Humans don’t usually keep slaves or servants. So you’re free. I’m not going to make you stay.”

“You not make me stay, but not chase me away either?” Huntress asked doubtfully. “If that so, then I stay with you, Serrrgeant.”

My master looked awkward. There was another long silence. He seemed to be thinking of a way to gently let down this surprise new sidekick. Shelly waited patiently, didn’t rush him. Finally, the human spoke:

“You have to understand, this is my third day in the new world. I don’t even have a decent roof over my head yet. My sister and I live in a tiny workshop. Even just with the two of us, it’s crowded. If I go back to Pan’s Landing with you, hell, they could kick me out of the village!”

“Worrrry not, they will not kick you out,” Shelly said dismissively, waving a paw just like a human. “You can catch crrreeping crrrocodiles, that is a rrrare and useful skill. Grip and Max understand that. Their word mean much. Not kick you out. You know, you sell info too cheap. For such a terrrrrible monster, you could have asked for a hundrrred bags of orrre from my packmates, not thirrrty. And something else on top. Like the shiny summoning card for some eight-legged monsterrr that our shaman keeps. The veichs would have given you a magic item.”

I listened to the two big brutes’ conversation with interest. So that’s how it was… In this world, creeping crocodiles could be sold for a good profit! And if not to the veich village of Orshi-Ur, then to someone else. I didn’t yet know much about the world we were in, but no doubt there were many more populated areas than the couple of villages we’d seen. A monster that brought in fish and made a good guard would be highly valuable to any settlement. Food for thought. Shelly continued:

“Anyway, about slaves and serrrvants… forrrgive me, master, but you are wrrrong. Humans east of mountains keep slaves. And happily buy memberrrs of my species, orrr take them by forrrce. Uncle tell me. He walk to pass, see how humans live. Therrre is whole slave marrrket. And when Uncle Ugmai get angry at me when I miss shots, sometimes he thrrreaten to sell me to humans, so they put collar and chain on me. Make me prrrotect home. Although I hearrrd from otherrr veichs that prrretty girrrls of our species are bought for entirrrely differrrent rrreasons…”

Shelly blushed, fell silent. Sergeant was quiet too, turning over this new information in his head. Another carved set of panpipes cracked in his hands, the fourth in half an hour. The human dejectedly threw away the unfinished instrument.

“I’m trying to make some birdcalls. I want to catch some birds,” he said, explaining the reason for his whittling. He pointed at a flock of careful speckled birds roughly as big as a pigeon. They were jumping around about forty paces from us on the riverbank. “I want to copy their call to catch the flock’s attention. But my Item Crafting skill isn’t high enough, and my Luck Modifier is low. I keep failing the Agility tests…”

“I know what that’s like! I have same prrroblems,” the werewolf girl snorted bitterly. “Whenever I pick up something frrragile, I always brrreak it. I lose little things. Whatever I trrry to crrraft, I always break. Veichs say I could not even orrrganize slaughter in sheep pen. But how can I make something when my Luck is minus thrrree, and I fail all tests for carrrefulness? Uncle Ugmai even patch my clothes himself after I brrreak bone needle six times… But I not think I useless. I just strrrong in other things.”

“In what, then?” Sergeant asked, cutting another reed for a fresh attempt to make a call.

“I run fast, much stamina. I can sit quiet as mouse in ambush all day, nobody see me. I have good Perrrception, good vision and scent skills. I find prey for others. Even now I see veichs that watch us from cliff over there. They think we not see them. I walk through all forrrests and mountains arrround here with uncle and Hunters. Even went to south borrrder. To forrrcefield itself. Me and Uncle even go to Hundrrred Skull City. I swim well, dive too. I can dance. Write poetry. Speak humanish. I learn much. Forrr example, I know how to get rid of biting gnats, stop them annoying you!”

My master really was scratching all over from the cloud of forest midges circling above his head. It surprised me to see that although Shelly sat only two paces from him, there were no midges around her.

“How, then?” Sergeant asked.

The werewolf girl stood and approached a bush growing on the nearby bank — spiky, with little narrow shiny leaves. Shelly stood on her tiptoes and stretched out to tear off a leaf growing high up, and then… lost her footing on the slippery sloping bank and fell with a splash right into the stream! Worse, her skirt split with a snap and started to quickly float downstream. The werewolf girl grabbed the piece of cloth at the last moment.

“See what I mean..? I’m a loser…” In spite of yet another unfortunate slip, Shelly kept a grip on herself. Covering her nudity with one paw, she tore off a handful of leaves with the other and took it to the human.

“Squeeze them and rrrub on skin. Scarrre off gnats. You can also sprrrinkle leaves in cup of water and leave on window sill at night. Then no gnats in house. Don’t chase me away, Serrrgeant! I be useful!”

“Yeah, I don’t think you’d survive on your own,” the man said, barely holding back a smile as he looked at the embarrassed wolfgirl. “Fails like that are rare even for me. Alright, you can stick with us. You’re funny. Let’s make a league out of us two losers. We can help each other out with the whims of fate.”

Three losers , I mentally corrected the big dumb oafs. My Whiskers was sorely lacking in luck too. My Luck Modifier was minus two — not quite minus three like them, but still terrible. Incidentally, it’d be good to somehow find out more about the ‘southern border’ and ‘forcefield’ that Shelly mentioned. I wanted to know more about Hundred Skull City too. Although… the talkative girl would tell us everything sooner or later anyway.

In the meantime, Sergeant took the she-wolf’s advice and rubbed his arms, face and neck with the green juice from the leaf. It sure did help — the gnawing gnats disappeared as if by magic. The human noticeably took heart and looked at the Huntress as she tried to somehow reattach the scraps of leather skirt to her hips.

“Give me your skirt. I’ll try to sew it,” the man said, throwing away another unfinished birdcall and taking out a solid steel needle and strong nylon thread. “I’m close to level six in Item Crafting. It’ll help me level up…”

Since I had some spare time, I set about spending my kitten’s free points. I’d reached level ten in the night, but kept getting distracted from distributing my points. Last night was my own fault, I admit it — I fell asleep on the watchtower roof, bathing in the heat of the firewall and the warm breeze gently tickling my fur. Before then, by training Stealth and Curse Magic on the night beasts, I’d reached character level nine and, as I’d been planning for a while, I spent seven mutation points to get the Transparency ability, just like Julie. After that I considered my mission for that night complete and started snoozing.

My awakening was unpleasant, but effective — some predatory beast swooped down out of the night sky and grabbed me in its talons! Pain, confusion, no idea what was going on. My health bar was at half and falling rapidly. By the time I came to my senses, I was already flying high above the river island in the clutches of the winged beast — a level 16 Flesh-Eating Bat!

I had no plans to give up without a fight. I spent all my mana casting spells to weaken and infect my deadly enemy. I bit and scratched, twisted and turned, trying to free myself from its clutches. Even when the beast bit its teeth into my chest and started to tear at my flesh, still soaring ever higher, I didn’t give up. Bleeding, I clung to life. With the last of my strength, I sank my sharp teeth into the bat, making it bleed. Level ten and full Health recovery saved me at the last moment. My Stamina and Mana recovered too. The battle went on! Another Weaken, another and another — I could see that my enemy’s strength was far from limitless. Its broad wing-beats were getting slower, uneven. My strategy bore fruit; at a certain point, the bat ran out of Stamina Points!

We crashed at breakneck speed into the oxbow lake, still enmeshed in our tangle of teeth and claws. We could have both ended there, since my kitten and the big bat were just as bad as each other at swimming. Rescue came from an unexpected source. The water seethed. Prehistoric teeth emerged mere inches from my head and Katy snapped her jaws shut with a grin and happily gulped down the rare winged prey. Since I looked like an ally to them, Tick-Tock the creeping crocodile carefully took me by the scruff in his teeth and delivered me to the bank. I had no idea a twelve-foot monster could have such a delicate touch!

All the same, I nearly drowned and barely escaped further bleeding. I emerged a wet cat, tired and bloodied, with my left ear near torn off. And still limping. I had just enough strength left to crawl to the workshop window and crash down in the straw next to the sleeping ‘knight’ Sergeant and Julie. I remember nothing more… In any case, I was in no fit state to spend my points. On top of that, when I reached level ten I got two more skills to choose from, so now that I had a spare minute, it was worth thinking about what I wanted my character to be like. Alright, what do we have..?

Strength 8 (-30% damage dealt in close combat)

Agility 18 (+20% movement speed, +20% reaction speed, +20% action accuracy)

Intellect 21 * Your extremely high Intellect for a creature of the ‘cat’ species gives your character special abilities

Perception 17 (+15% range to vision, hearing, sense of smell)

Physique 15 No effect

Luck Modifier -2 * Your extremely low Luck gives your character special abilities

Attention! 6 of 10 possible skills at level 10 chosen

Attention! 27 unspent skill points available

Attention! 2 mutation points available

Most of all, I needed to think about new skills. Although I was already pretty much decided on two of them: Dodge and Transformation Magic. Dodge was too tempting — my kitten had already had to battle multiple dangerous beasts in hand-to-hand combat and taken horribly painful beatings and bites from them. Both times my life had hung by a hair. My Whiskers had too few hit points to exchange blows, and it would be nice to reduce the damage he took in combat. And since I already had decent Agility, which would increase by two points when my injury healed, then I should take advantage of that by dodging my enemies’ strikes.

Why such a strange choice of a new magic type, you ask? Why not the alluring Elemental Magic? I did complain, after all, that my arsenal didn’t include any deadly direct damage spells, and Elemental Magic had plenty of those. It had the richest choice of means of destruction. But on the other hand, a kitten that threw fireballs or ice shots would kind of attract attention. My human nature would immediately be revealed, which I didn’t want for now. Illusion Magic or Healing Magic? Also promising paths, of course, but nonetheless I settled on Transformation Magic, which would let me take on the form of other creatures for a short time.

And that was just at skill level one. Sure, the transformation time was limited to thirty seconds for now, and the transformation itself drank mana like it loved the taste, but it still sounded fun, right? And what possibilities would I uncover further down that path? There was another reason for the choice, maybe even the main reason; I hoped to one day advance far enough in Transformation Magic to use it to somehow take on human form.

I picked up another skill based on the recent experience of taming a creeping crocodile for the veichs. As it turned out then, my Soothe ability worked well on creatures caught in traps, quickly calming them down and making them less anxious and aggressive. Sergeant and I worked great as a team — my master took advantage of the animals’ calm to touch them and make sure they felt safe, then tame them. Only the trouble was that activating Soothe quickly depleted my Stamina Points. I had barely enough for the creeping crocodile.

And that meant I needed to find a skill that would increase my total Stamina and its recovery speed. The game did have such a skill, and it was called Tireless. It increased maximum Stamina and its regeneration speed by 1% for each skill level.

I didn’t have time to pick up the last of the available skills, or to think of how to spend my free points — veich Hunters came to the stream and told us that they’d caught three giga-komodos, and it was time for Sergeant to show his skills.