image [https://imgur.com/pjLgkTR.png]

Current Location: Mirror Pond, East (S.C2)

HP 42% (44/105) SP 100% (80/80)

No way was I sprinting toward Reed’s Mountain at full trot. Not in this condition.

Now it was a journey. Now things were serious. I was in this for the long haul, far from any security the cabin might offer. I’d have to rely on stealth again, along with whatever defensive strategies I could cook up. There went my untamed afternoon joy. But it wasn’t all bad.

I prowled into the shadows. Now, instead of childish pleasure, I felt determination. It came to me like an old friend, tapping me on the shoulder, pointing out the best paths through the timber—the ones with the least light, the least life.

No, I wasn’t going to run. I’d take my sweet time, and my victory would be all the sweeter for it.

Quest: Explore the Vencian Wood Progress: 10% (3/30)

image [https://imgur.com/FKpQJ07.png]

Current Location: Mirror Pond, West (S.B2)

Soon I’d crossed that invisible border between an old, discovered part of the Map and a new one. But there was no great change from one to the next. That body of water my System called Mirror Pond was still far to my left. And the world was still tree-clogged.

Well, there was one change: the world was getting rockier. Gray, squarish stones appeared in my path. Was it just me, or did they look…man-made?

And did I dare stop next to a particularly huge one?

Yes I did. They were in the shade, and my ears hadn’t picked up on anything much, besides baby birds in a nest high above.

Sitting in a bit of a cluster, these could’ve been blocks dropped by a titanic baby. The rock right in front of me was twice my height and length, and roughly L-shaped. It seemed to be made of several interlocking squares, which varied in size and made the result lumpy. Alright, maybe these things were actually designed by aliens (or avant-garde artists) because nothing about them seemed practical. Squinting, I made out hints of rust colors in the grayness.

I pawed one of its many corners. It was blunt. The whole thing looked weathered, like rain had beaten down on it for years.

I sniffed it. Hm, just an ordinary rock smell.

I whacked it and it didn’t move.

My whack did disturb a little crowd of about a dozen ants along one edge of the stone, though. Ah, whatever.

Wait. Experience! Free Experience!!

I slammed both paws down on them.

EXP: 16% (121/750)

Oh yeah. That was why I hadn’t killed many bugs lately: the tidal wave of rewards.

Treasure Detected! Check your Map for the location.

Ah! A nice surprise. Could it have been something healing? Or thirst-quenching? I really didn’t like the filmy taste of pond water.

image [https://imgur.com/CILycJb.png]

The Treasure was just northwest of me, basically on the path to Reed’s Mountain. I was a little weak, but I couldn’t resist. I walked away from the L-shaped stone and wended up a tree-shrouded hill.

It wasn’t long before I found something bizarre.

As I reached the hilltop, my ears pricked for the strangest of reasons. Not from a sound, but from the lack of it. You know how your senses create, like, a 4D theater in your mind: ambient sound comes from all directions, all the time. Well, there was a “bubble” right in front of this hilltop from which no sound came. Small, but noticeable.

Hm…what could that have possibly been? I didn’t have internal knowledge of nearly enough fantasy fiction to even have a clue. Maybe it was just noise-canceling devices around a traveler’s campsite.

I contemplated it for a moment—and realized, with a hint of pride, that I was inadvertently working up my Wisdom.

But something else broke my peace. Familiar sounds, and a very familiar smell, started up nearby. Rustling leaves and digging. Less than a meter away.

Either I could run away, softly slink away, attack, or stay put and gather more information. Feeling defensive, I chose to stay put.

Between me and the new sounds was nothing but a few scrawny, lavender-tinted pine trees. They wouldn’t make for great cover if a creature looked directly at them, but as long as the animal was focused elsewhere, they’d be decent. I tried them.

Then I focused. Past the screen of young trees, on the ground, was a squirrel scratching through the dirt, paying me no attention. This didn’t calm me down at all, of course. But if I waited long enough, maybe that squirrel would just run off and do their own…squirrel things.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Frozen, I watched as the rodent dug up and retrieved not an acorn, but a tiny square stone. What was with that? Huh?

Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata I told you the System doesn’t work that way! The tutorial stage is basically over! You can’t just “huh” anything you want in this world!

It worked with the milk, though!

Look, Taipha, now that you’ve gotten your feet wet on Vencia, I am committed to letting you solve your own problems. To strengthen that commitment, I hereby give you a new Quest to fulfill:

Quest: Solve a Mystery—The Rust-Colored Stones Progress: 0%

Darnit!

The squirrel was nibbling on the stone now. In fact, they were really dedicated to eating it, no matter if it couldn’t be chewed or even fit in their mouth. Apparently it was just a bit bigger than the average nut. The squirrel stood there trying to fit the stone in their mouth from every angle. Their chittering teeth clicked against it.

Aww. Poor squirrel. Probably had like a tenth of my Intelligence. Or was this more like a Wisdom thing?

Then the critter got a disgusted, crestfallen look on their face, like they were only now tasting the disgusting rock.

They looked my way. It was a slow, deliberate look. It was strange. I didn’t know squirrels were capable of moving as slowly as the rest of us.

I blinked. Beyond that, I didn’t move a muscle.

A second later, that stone went flying toward my forehead. I’d never seen a squirrel throw anything before in my two lives.

I ducked, but the stone scraped the top of my head. Nothing serious, but—ow.

HP 36% (38/105) SP 100% (80/80)

I hightailed it out of that scene. I went bounding down the other side of that hill, where the trees cleared and sunlight caught me in its full revealing splendor.

I ran, but I could tell by the footsteps behind me that the squirrel had Speed to match or exceed mine—and I didn’t have the HP for it. Toward the bottom of the hill, I Leaped once for good measure. But I’d forgotten just how much extra length and momentum that move gave me, so I landed with a hard jolt on a long, flat, squarey stone. I’d landed on my feet, at least, but a sharp pain went through my paw pads and I feared they’d just been peeled open.

HP 29% (30/105) SP 81% (65/80)

I gave myself a moment to pause, listen out, and try and feel any little vibration in the air I could sense. Was the squirrel coming?

Yes they were coming. They were running! Squirrels weren’t even predators! Why did they care so much about me—was it the weirdness of the rocks, was this one friends with the squirrels from two nights ago, or were certain animals just evil here?!

It was time to get a move on. But as I shifted my weight forward, the flat stone I was on tipped forward slightly—and I remembered I should check the Map.

image [https://imgur.com/1xkZAEi.png]

Okay, now the Treasure was just east of here. Nothing above me except for a few branches and leaves. That meant…

I hopped off the rock and spotted a gap between it and the grass. I had a few seconds before the squirrel got here. Either I could run off, or I could try digging under this rock at the highest speed imaginable (with my aching paws!).

Sticking my head under the rock and my tail in the air, I started pawing through the earth.

Some would say it wasn’t wise for me to choose to dig. I’d tell them my slowly growing Wisdom Stat wasn’t for nothing.

When the squirrel was close, I felt its every step. Fear sparked adrenaline, and adrenaline made a bolt of logic hit me.

Inventory.

The big rock poofed away, and so did my fear that it might’ve been too big or too weird to fit.

Mirror Pond Rock A hunk of rock with apparent time-dilating properties.

That stopped the squirrel in their tracks. I turned to see them in the middle of the rock field with fur standing on end, their claws grabbing dirt in a grip of terror.

At that point I could’ve un-Inventory’d the rock and let it bash the squirrel on the head, but…I felt bad for the squirrel. First the acorn that wasn’t an acorn, and now this. Today just wasn’t their day.

…Well, maybe I could knock them out for the Experience.

I waggled the ache out of one of my paws, and then I flicked them in the head with the tiniest tick. They fell over with all their limbs stiff, just like those goats who faint when you scream at them. (Why do I know these things, Sierra?)

EXP: 80% (597/750)

So, so close… I vowed to, for at least the next hour or so, slaughter every insect in my wake.

I took a final probing look at the squirrel. They turned out to not be so corpse-stiff after all, their limbs relaxing at a gentle prod. But they were definitely out cold. At first I’d figured that the boulder had magical properties that reached out and froze the squirrel. Now I revised that theory. The rock had “time-dilating properties” but the boulder hadn’t touched them, just the pebble.

So I guessed they were just scared half to death.

Also, what was a “dilate”?

Anyway, underneath that weird rock I’d Inventoried was a little hole that I’d made just a little bit bigger. Something was up with it. Not just the suspicious way that my rock had been hiding it, but the mist now rising up from it.

I waved a paw over it—no ill effects, not that I could tell. I leaned over it and sniffed. Didn’t smell like anything.

But it sure did look like the aura that wafted up from my Swipe-using claws. Except it had a tint to it.

Where else had I seen tinted aura-smog? I thought back to the raccoon from this morning, who, in hindsight, had had the slightest bit of orange in their glow. But this was a different shade, closer to the rust beneath the gray of the rocks. It was very light, like watered-down paint, but somehow I knew it was…

The color of dried blood?

I continued to paw at the mulch on the edge of the hole, gradually making it wider and wider. Once it got a little wider than me, I hit rock too hard to dig into. Down below was a dark and crimson tunnel, almost a void, that the sunlight could only barely touch. Even my enhanced eyes were having trouble seeing into it. A light-repelling, vision-eating trench?

This was beginning to make me nervous.

I held my breath and steeled myself. If I didn’t get this Treasure now, I told myself, it’d bother me almost as much as the déjà vu Reed gave me. Just hop in, hop out, and run!

So I hopped in.

…Wait, those rocks messed with time, didn’t they? Could slow a squirrel to mortal speed if they tried to eat them? What did that mean for where I was going?!