As smoke and fire started jumping on the horizon, on the sea of dry grass and wheat, I kept meowing to Reed, letting her know my location and trusting that she would come find me. I’d lost my sense of direction in the tumult, so if I wanted to go back the way I’d come, to the road, I’d have to work for it.
With the oppressive heat sizzling away grass stalks—so close I could hear the individual pops and snaps, so close I could nearly feel flames lashing across my back—I thought of nothing besides how to escape.
Holy crap. As I galloped full-speed and my hind legs snapped forward and back under me, I realized that their toes were charred. The fire was literally on my toes.
Go faster.
Leap!
SP 35% (189/545)
I sprang for it. Hurtling through the changed, burning air, I felt a little miraculous—I was flying farther and faster than my Leaps had ever taken me before. That split second of seeming to fly above the grass, above the quaking earth, and best of all beyond the grasp of the flame, made me feel very, very alive.
I happened to look over my shoulder at that moment…
…and see, behind the flame tide, what I can only call a “flying stampede” of hell marmots…
The sight surprised me so much that I landed wrong and cartwheeled. Fortunately, I didn’t miss a beat. I was running as desperately as an antelope from lions. Yet I had a feeling I should prepare for the worst, so to protect myself a little from the flames, I activated Meditate.
A certain calmness washed over me. Time almost slowed. I was still bolting, hot, and totally unsure of the outcome of this, but now I had…clarity. I was mentally fortified, and I’d forgotten how refreshing that could feel.
I even had some fresh insight.
There were two directions I could go with this: a smart escape or a smart attack.
First, the smart escape. While Leaping above the grass, I had, of course, gotten a quick view of the world around me. It wasn’t exactly a panorama—with the time I spent airborne, I’d gotten a one-eighty, not a three-sixty—but I knew which direction the road was in.
Second, the smart attack. I didn’t have to just run and Leap. I could stand my ground. Especially now that I knew the rolling flames were a fairly small sheet of fire pushed along by a few dozen rodents.
For that matter, my Leap had proven strong enough that I could turn tail and Leap over the flames, and toward what looked like small fry coasting on their decent Intelligence. After all, I had just Evolved. I dunno, after the krigries, any other small fry just looked smaller.
That wasn’t necessarily smarter than safety, but it did have this marked advantage: it would prepare me well for future battles. A big bunch of Experience was flying right for me. Again, the stakes weren’t all that high. If hell marmots were a serious threat, Reed would have shown fear the first morning we’d spotted one.
All of a sudden, a new image crashed into my vision: Reed’s skidding foot.
We stopped just short of banging into each other.
Her presence made the decision for me—I backflip-Leaped.
Man, I wish I’d been there to see it. As in, there and simultaneously not myself. I pushed off, past Reed’s breathless face, and did what felt like a perfect pivot in the air, turning with maximum efficiency toward a cloud of foes. I Leaped straight over the flames, bending my body like an athlete over the bar, getting as high as possible so the tallest tendrils of the stinging flames couldn’t reach.
Then I landed on a hell marmot’s face and held fast.
I tore into them with my fangs and claws. This time, I showed no mercy. From my perspective, and a wild perspective, these marmots had advanced on the wrong bunch of animals and were lucky they hadn’t bumped into any aggressive adult ostriches when they blazed the place. Conserving SP, I relied on raw power.
The marmot shrieked, and sure enough, it was soon poofed away into my Meat Locker.
The freeze frame that followed was beautiful. A cat hovered in the air, paws hunched around a marmot-shaped space, mouth snarling, eyes whirling. Below was a curtain of fire casting a bizarre orange glare on the underside of everything. Above: the totally blue sky. From every other direction: marmots. Roused into fury. Snapping their teeth. Charging.
What did I do when I caught myself hovering, for just the slightest moment, surrounded by enemies and a literal floor of fire?
My mind, jumbled, went off in two different directions. Half of it said to attack the nearest marmot and the other half said to keep fleeing, to rocket off as far as I could to get safely on the other end of this flaming steamroller.
What I ended up doing was Leaping off my own front paws. Yes, I set my back paws on the only floorboard present and bounded off of them. Which kinda hurt, and made me sort of spin in midair before I began hurtling back down, right into those flames.
But I didn’t fall because a pack of hell marmots had their way with me. Pesky front teeth jammed into my back.
AGH! G-Guard! Meditate!
DEF 111 (+50%)
WIS 138 (+100%)
This was the first time I’d used both in such quick succession. A sharp ache hit me through the head—not a blow from a marmot, but the strain of having used defensive magic like this.
Oh, but there was an actual pain in my head too. And my hip and my shoulder and my paws and soon it’d be my throat if I didn’t curl up into a better defensive position.
The marmots were all over me, keeping me aloft with their bat wings just so they could continue to massacre me in an uncharred state. They were horribly, terribly…okay they didn’t actually hurt that bad. Compared to even the krigries, all their assaults were piddly claws, vaguely sharpened buck teeth, and the occasional forehead horn, from those who had horns. It really waws like getting attacked by airborne rats.
Plus, I had three Minor Heal Spells still hanging out in the back of my Inventory! As if I needed them.
HP 78% (444/570) SP 18% (99/545)
Would it kill this universe to have some better SP restoration? Apparently, yes.
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Now that I was paying more attention to the onslaught, though, I knew the tables could turn soon. The marmots were starting to glow a hellfire-crimson, and that glow was getting brighter with every attack. This brought to mind not only the krigries, but also that squirrel that’d attacked me at Memorial Grove (famous location of the CAT War Memorial for Dog-Humans).
It stood to reason that if monsters attacking you were beginning to glow with the most aggressive color, they were getting stronger before your eyes.
So I had to beat these creatures right here, right now! Choose a plan and stick to it, you coward! I taunted myself.
That was all the firing-up I needed.
At 99 SP, I was just under the amount of SP I needed to Swipe these marmots. That was criminal. But you know, if regular claws could kill one, they certainly could kill another. And another.
With a mighty growl, I flashed my fangs and swatted wildly through the air, lashing out in all directions. Even if I was about to fall in that lake of fire or take a stronger blow to my unprotected heart—come what may—I would go out swinging.
Each swish took out a marmot or even two. I was on a roll! I—
Plop.
Ah, yep. I finally fell into the flames.
But it wasn’t even that bad! Okay, I take that back, it was terrible. The pain was excruciating, and the sensation of having my flesh harden and sear and bleed and burn was…not something I’d ever wanted to feel again in all my lives, much less over my whole entire body?
What I mean was, I was getting totally immolated for multiple seconds and I survived. Only on Vencia.
HP 28% (159/570)
A Minor Heal burst free from Inventory, bathing me in a glow even more soothing and cooling than ocean waves…but only for an instant before fire overwhelmed it again. It helped, but only so much.
Okay, if I was a real action hero, I’d be crouching and waiting with my ears cocked to listen out for the moment the marmots above me lost interest, or became convinced I was dead. But for one thing, I couldn’t hear anything but a bunch of fire, and that sounded like loud, crispy gargling. For another, I was on fire. The only real option was to leave already.
I rolled sideways, then sprinted. My internal compass guided me behind the marmot swarm to a patch of rough dirt whose grass had been charred away already, and there I stopped and panted. I wondered frantically about Reed. Where was she? When was she going to come in clutch when I could actually see it?!
Uh…that last part was kinda my fault. I was always more excited about testing my own powers than teaming up with Reed and, like, brainstorming combo attacks. But couldn’t I benefit from more combos? Something to think about.
Either way, I looked up, swiveled my ears, and heard…a sword clashing! Yes!
I sprang straight upward on aching legs, and my pogoing showed me Reed facing off against an assortment of hairy baby ostriches, their claws echoing against the steel.
Weren’t they running away earlier? She must’ve had bad luck or something. How else would that even happen?
Well, uh, now that the hell marmots were either departing or deceased, I could make my way over and simply watch the show. That, I realized, was something I’d never done with Reed: not interfere and watch her go at it.
At first, I thought she was sucking. Then I remembered that she was a bit of a pacifist, when she had the option to be one. Her sword strikes were all guards, and the ostriches were bunted baseballs.
Like the marmots, they too lost interest, and one by one they shrieked and scattered off.
Then Reed’s head swiveled. The sword was flung backward, legs crouched, and I hurtled right into Reed’s arms.
Yay, her secure embrace!
Ow! My burned flesh! I forgot I’d been immolated! Every point of contact was another nail in my nerves! Let me go, Reed!
She realized this quickly. “Ah, sorry,” she said, letting go.
Then she took in my burned form for the first time, eyes wide, teeth gritted in something like terror.
Oddly, I didn’t feel like my body had been put through the wringer…not anymore, at least. That memory was increasingly distant already, and the Minor Heal must’ve done more than I expected. On the surface, it had only healed 25% of my HP. But if the healing ran deeper, then…yeah. Magic was frighteningly good.
All the same, I really should have brought a mirror. No, wait a minute…I should have brought water. Just gallons of water. That way, none of this would have had to happen.
The ultimate irony.
She shook her head. “I have to stop worrying like this,” she said. “You’re alright. I figured you would be! It’s just…” To my shock, she smirked. “You daredevil.”
She took out her canteen and a couple more Minor Heals. I refused the Heals, because…
EXP: 92% (2755/3000)
HP 53% (302/570) SP 18% (99/545)
…I was on the threshold of another Level-Up.
She gave me a wilting look and said, “Alright…” Then she cracked a Minor Heal open on herself, which lifted my spirits much more than the alternative. Reed did look a little scratched up herself.
“Are you starting to feel better, at least?”
“Meow.”
Then Reed took the canteen firmly in both hands. She raised it above my head. “Now—”
She stopped herself. She must’ve been recalling the last time I tried, and failed, to take an elegant drink.
Without a word, she formed one hand into a makeshift bowl and poured a cat-mouthful of water inside with the other. I lapped it up eagerly, and the tingle of hollowness and loss I’d been feeling in my spirit without even realizing it was repleniwhaaa! Wait!
I stopped myself in a fit of self-consciousness. What the heck were we doing?!
So me drinking out of Reed’s canteen, that was taboo, but me drinking directly out of her hand was alright? My tongue nearly brushing the edges of her palm? The hand that she used for, y’know, other daily-life things, but that I used to clean myself? Earth cats did this with Earth humans all the time, but…
B-but we weren’t on Earth! And she hated germs! Was she not seeing what I was seeing?! How was this alright with her?!
I would just have to unpack that later. For now, I stayed quiet and calmly lapped all of the water up. Modesty dictated that I not try to “lick the bowl clean.” (Besides, realistically speaking, Reed’s hand tasted like dirt and metal and I didn’t want any more of that taste right now.)
Now we could finally settle down and survey the land. We were in the middle of the ground that the hell marmots had razed. Haunting, dead land, with the smoke still rising off of it. The marmots had vanished from the sky, seemingly from this whole area, and surely there were many animal corpses littering the scorched ground. Reed apologized for not arriving sooner—by the time she knew what was going on, I was already up there with the flock of marmots and she didn’t know for sure how to help without either exhausting herself or accidentally slaughtering me.
I shook my head fervently. Secretly, I was glad that she hadn’t arrived on time, because otherwise I hadn’t come so close to my next Level. Anyway, we’d practice our team tactics more so we could be ready when the chips were really down.
Reed explained, “Now and then, hell marmots will go hunting like this, ‘mowing the lawn,’ so to speak, and laying claim to any animals caught in their wake. They actually don’t feed on the corpses, only the souls that come out of them. Expect some vultures soon.”
That was, um, both magical and deeply disturbing. Souls were actual quantifiable things in this world? I’d have to unpack that idea too. Oh, no, not another thing to explode my brain with…
“Most creatures will see it coming,” Reed continued, “most will be able to escape, but several of the small and weak ones get caught up in the inferno. Oh,” she said, noting a shadowy shape rising from a nearby den, “and anything that can hide in a burrow tends to be safe. There’s a sense of weasel-snake-marmot solidarity.”
We both stepped back as a weasel slithered out from the pit and, completely ignoring us, zipped off to the nearest piece of broiled meat. I hoped that the little hairy ostriches were all finding meat too—well, either meat or safety. Didn’t know what those rascals ate.
Then I remembered: I did have some way of figuring out what that bird was up to!
Map!
image [https://jmassat.com/wp-content/Catgirl%20System/Map/Map86-1.png]
It looked like the robin was making their way to a whole ‘nother neck of the woods. Even now, in real time, I could see it moving ever so slightly. The hairy bird, on the other hand, was still shuffling around in the savannah.
That was a relief…namely because I had unofficially claimed that bird as my prey, not the marmots’. Or…on second thought, maybe they were just my observational test subject. The bird probably had tough meat anyway—and “gamey,” as the Meat Locker would put it—so if we crossed paths, I’d gladly go for a friendly competition.
Honestly, though, I wasn’t in the mood to chase after them anymore.
The 1500-ish EXP I’d gotten from those marmots had been a huge jump, but I could get 250 EXP just as easily from a few minutes of fishing, and there was no rush to do that.
Right now, I only wanted to go home, rest up, and pull out some books. The diary—begrudgingly—but also others. All books I would actually be able to read.