The musty scent of died grass invaded my nostrils as my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness inside the grotto. In… and out… I kept my breaths deep and regular keeping me calm. The pure black was now a sultry brown as I could just start to make out the contents of the cave. The ground was covered in grass, most of which was brown and dry but some fresh green stalks could be seen here and there. The walls were a cold grey stone speckled here and there with moss.
Towards the back there was what looked like another room but my eyes still couldn’t penetrate the darkness that pervaded its depths. I carefully scanned the room I was in several times but nothing caught my eye. The place seemed empty but the fresh stalks of grass on the ground made me think that this cave was definitely occupied by something. Whether it was here or not was not so clear. Not once had my fingers loosened around the hilt of my sword since I had entered the cave but with the danger seeming to not be in this room I lowered the tip of my blade a bit.
A rustle from the inner room. My hands gripped convulsively on my sword. All my attention focused on dark arch, the entrance into the second room. I steeled myself, taking small steps towards the inner room. The contents of the room were just becoming visible as my eyes continued to adjust to oppressive darkness. Plant matter covered the floor even more deeply than in the previous room. Scattered and obscured in the dead grass were small white sticks, bones. They couldn’t be from anything bigger than a rabbit, but this was definitely home to some kind of predator.
Towards the back of the second room was a pile of grass. Another rustle. The pile of leaves seemed to shake ever so slightly. My instincts were screaming at me to run away, but I ignored them. If whatever was in the leaves were as dangerous as my instincts were telling me, running would be pointless. All but holding my breath I drew ever closer to the pile of leaves. Then I saw it.
In the dried grass stalks lay a Lynx, about a meter from the tip of its snout to the end of its stubby tail. Its lithe body covered in soft greenish brown fur, well adapted to the grassland outside. The predatory cat’s sharp features were relaxed as it slept, completely oblivious to my presence. Even in this defenseless state the cat seemed more dangerous than any animal I had encountered on earth, its well defined muscles and sharp half retracted claws left no doubt who would win in a fair fight. Luckily for me, this wouldn’t be a fair fight. I stood over the cat and carefully aimed the sword between the cat’s head and body, I hoisted up the blade as high as I could and brought it down with all my might onto the defenseless cat’s neck. The blade barely made it three quarters of the way through the thick muscle of the lynx’s neck before getting firmly stuck. The cat’s eyes opened wide and looked straight at me. I let go of the blade and retreated to the first room of the cave, the lynx managed to get to its feet, the sword dragging on the ground as it dragged itself towards me.
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Blood poured from the mostly severed neck, leaving a trail of crimson on the dried grass behind it. I had no idea how this monster could still be alive, but I was fairly sure that it would die of blood loss before long; all I had to do was stay out of its reach. I kited the lynx around the first chamber watching as the life slowly faded from its dangerous golden eyes.
After what seemed like an eternity dodging around the edges of the grotto a soft thud greeted my ears as the lynx crumpled to the ground, the light in its eye all but extinguished. I approached the dying predator cautiously. Grabbing my sword I gave it a yank finally pulling it free of the animal’s neck. I was rewarded with one final spray of blood as the last remnants of life faded from the monster’s eyes.
A wave of strength and confidence flowed through me, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I felt like I could take on the world and win now, I looked at my figure, expecting to see rippling muscles, nothing. My body looked no different than it had before killing the monster. Was the feeling of strength just an illusion? I killed something strong so now I think I’m strong? That was a dangerous line of thought and I knew it, even if I had killed something stronger than me I had definitely not ‘beaten’ it, I mean the thing survived the most lethal hit I could think of executed with all my strength. The more I thought about it the more I felt how lucky I was to still be alive.
I skinned the cat using Dunfor, if fantasy novels and anime had taught me anything it was that monster parts were worth money, something I would probably need once I started visiting towns. While I thought about taking other monster parts as well I didn’t know what was valuable and what wasn’t and the claws and teeth didn’t seem large enough to be particularly valuable. I folded up the hide that I had, rather unskillfully, separated from the cat, I placed it in my bag and pulled out the book and made my way towards the cave entrance where there would be the most light to read in. The sun was already descending towards the horizon, I had no idea how long a day was nor how long I had been kiting away from the cat waiting for it to die.
I opened the book, I figured I’d probably be able to read at least the first couple pages, probably about half the book, before it got dark. I sat down in the soft carpet of grass and stared at the cover of Welcome to Mord, the hard leather binding was a bit rough in my hand as I wondered what Meril thought should go in a guidebook. I sighed, there really was only one way to find out. I slipped my finger between the dark brown covers and pulled them apart. With my back against the rough wall of the grotto I settled in to read Welcome to Mord.