Well, if they’re smart… maybe… just maybe… they’ll be at least a LITTLE understanding. Standing up slowly, I begin to walk towards the door. As I do so, they scoot across the floor and watch my every moment with an unflinching gaze. A mixture between what I would call puppy dog eyes and a neutral expression directed towards me.

“Are you happy now?” I ask sarcastically, and with another yawn and that same smug look on their face, yes, I’d say they’re pretty damn happy.

Slowly, very slowly, I reach for the doorknob. Frankly, I think they could figure this out if they put their mind to it, but perhaps they don’t quite realize that they can… oh, yeah no clearly they’ve done it in the past. The handle literally had a case over it.

Welp, I’m just going to have to hope they don’t try to escape… though even without a proper weapon to stop them, I’m ready to have a go at it if they try anything.

Flipping open the glass case, I twist the knob gingerly, Jasper eyed the motion eagerly, and with a sigh, I very slightly crack open the door.

To their credit, they don’t immediately bolt for it, but instead daintily stroll over to it. Sitting down and looking up at me as they wait for me to open it all the way.

Scoffing in moderate disbelief, I finally opened the door and sarcastically remarked; “Yes, your highness.”

Standing up a moment later, she prowled slowly towards the hall. Stepping foot into the winding corridor along with me. My body tensed in anticipation. I’d wrestle them, despite them being a… y’know… if I had to… I was just banking on them, maybe being smart enough to recognize that I was letting them walk around, as long as they didn’t make a break for it? Crazy, I know.

Also because I didn’t want to try and grab a cat. Look, my pain settings might be on 3.5%, but that’s still gonna suck.

Looking up at me, very, slowly, she blinked almost as slowly, before taking a few steps down the hall.

…I suppose that’s my cue to follow them? This is a weird quest, man. But ah what the hell, might as well.

Her jaunt is slow, calculated even. She seems to know these halls well enough, given there was hesitation in her chosen route. They even glance back at me every once in a while, making sure that I’m still following them. Which of course I am, though I’m not quite as tense now. This cat seems… agreeable enough.

And then she paused in place, her ears twitching at something that seemed as if only she could hear. And without a moment’s delay, they bolted.

“H-you!”

And immediately she hissed at me. Not too loudly, but her fangs were on full display. They hadn’t run very far, just towards a curve in the hall. But, why…?

Tap… tap… tap…

As quietly as I possibly could, I made haste in following their example, stopping right behind the cat as I dipped around the corner.

“Hmmm, hm hm hmmm…”

Somebody had been humming, but it quickly faded out of earshot. And not too long after, Jasper gave me what distinctly felt like a judgmental side eye, before stepping forward once again.

…So, it’s an escort mission?

Or am I the escortee here?

—

Frankly, I have no idea why this place is so big, but perhaps it was designed for quests just like this one. For at least ten minutes, I followed closely behind Jasper, paying attention to their movements and hiding whenever they saw fit to do so. We were about evenly matched for speed and stealth, but she had a clear edge in perception.

There were a few… closer calls though. Doors that Jasper couldn’t open herself, or at least, not within a reasonable and quiet time frame. I guess that’s where I came into the equation, given it was in my best interests to not get caught wandering around with property of the Guild on the loose. I mean, at least I think so. I couldn’t imagine they’d be too happy about that.

Eventually, we reached what seemed to be more of an actual pen. Like, the kind of thing you’d be expecting in my opinion. Stalls, hay and water troughs, oh and actual monsters. Many of which were hissed at by the one who currently had immeasurable freedom. Usually only in retaliation when they got a little too curious, sticking their faces out of their enclosures as best they could.

It didn’t take us too long to reach the next segment and… and we were outside. Huh. They must’ve done this before if they knew how to get here.

By now, it’s almost dark out. But still, some small trickle of sunlight manages to slip through the leaves. To be honest, I’m a little concerned about all of this, but it might be too late to do much of anything about it. This isn’t going to like, irreparably ruin something for me in this town, right?

Now that we were properly outside of the building, seemingly having taken a back exit, I found myself in a less populated part of town. If before you could compare the environment to the ideal medieval town, now it was more like… what a medieval town would actually look like. Outside of the center of the town, things were a little less colorful.

Buildings were just, ever so slightly, more dilapidated… and I guess the lack of sunlight also contributed to the more dingy aesthetic. It wasn’t exactly horrible or anything though, just slightly less appealing. Made sense why you started the game in a more colorful part of town.

Not much time for rumination though, it seems as if we’re picking up the pace. Not quite breaking into a run, but now that we’re outside and the need for stealth seems to be over, the need for speed has arisen.

We dip in and out of alleyways, rolling around town, doling out the occasional “excuse me” or, “sorry” if I cut somebody off, and… And we come to a stop at a cemetery.

Slowing down for a moment, the big cat almost seems to hesitate before setting another paw forward. But they only take a moment to fully recover, blazing right on inside. Of course, I follow behind them.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

If the rest of the town had a somewhat gloomy feeling, now I’ve walked into… well, a cemetery. It’s a bit off putting, honestly. But Jasper seemed to be looking for something. They scanned the graves, one after the other, before finally settling on one which coincidentally happened to have some of the last remaining sunlight shining down on it.

Laying down on it, she closed her eyes. Just breathing in and out for a good minute or two. I didn’t want to interrupt or anything, it kind of felt like an important moment even though they were just an AI, but…

Time was, sort of kind of definitely soon inevitably, running, ouuuuuut! I was about to make an attempt to get their attention, but once direct sunshine completely faded, they got up on their own, staring up at me with an expression that I couldn’t quite describe.

It was still a little baffling to me how an animal could be this expressive, but hey virtual reality gets what needs to be done done.

“...So, think we can make it back in… ten minutes?” I raised an eyebrow, looking at the in game clock. We left like seventeen minutes ago, and the thirty minutes would be up real soon…

Without a grunt, or a sound of any kind. Jasper stood up and shook herself out, scattering loose dirt, and pointing their fierce eyes away from my somewhat mollified own.

And then? They took off running.

I’d take that as a “yes”, to my question.

—

So, stamina does in fact drain outside of combat, when you’re properly exerting yourself is when it starts to drain.

102…

101…

Back through the paths we’d taken to get to the cemetery, weaving around buildings as quickly as we can possibly manage. I’m not quite as nimble on the ground, but I can make sharper turns and bigger jumps than my feline companion presently present.

100…

So, while they could make it down a straight lane faster than I currently could, it mostly evened out with the amount of obstacles we found ourselves traversing on the way back.

All in all, pretty good time, within the span of about three minutes, we’d made it back to the back entrance of the Tamer’s Guild. For a moment, I was worried that it would’ve been locked, but apparently no such concerns were necessary. It did have a lock, it’s just, who was going to lock it if not us? The place was short staffed today after all.

Slipping back inside, I make sure to actually lock the door this time, seeking to leave everything as natural as possible. And from there, it continues to just be a matter of retracing our steps. This has been… not necessarily a difficult quest, but certainly an odd one. I mean, I guess I wasn’t exactly looking for combat quests, but this is pretty far down the other side of the spectrum. I wasn’t expecting to be playing a stealth game with an oddly smart animal being my guide today, but that appears to be how my days turned out.

As we weave from corridor to corridor, making it back to Jasper’s room on the double, I couldn’t help but think about the quest itself, my guess being that this is part of a chain quest, cause like, an unruly individual heading over to a graveyard to pick out a specific grave, like, really? I can sniff out the plotline here from a mile away. Not necessarily a boring one, but they really made this one obvious.

Like, let me guess, she had a previous owner, they died somehow, she got taken in, won’t listen to anybody else besides their owner, whom is already gone? I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m spot on.

Ah, how time flies. We’re already back at Jasper’s room! There was a serious lack of staff that we actually needed to avoid on the way back thankfully, only one or two individuals. Leaving us with… about five minutes! Excellent time really.

“Hey,” I start as I open the door for us to step back inside, “thanks for not ruining anything.”

Seemingly taking the thanks with grace, she proceeded to practically bounce back into the room. Each step rolling with her entire body. Honestly? They’re kind of cute in that way. Like sure cats are cute, but the bigger ones tend to need to work harder for it. I’d say she’s earned the moniker a little by now.

Thankfully, everything in the room appears to be just the way it was before we left it. So, clearly, nobody had gotten in and had the epiphany of “Huh, that’s weird, aren’t we missing a cat?”

Speaking of that cat, she was perfectly content to trudge over and curl up in a corner of the room. So, now I supposed I was just supposed to wait for somebody else to get here.

Sitting down in one of the few chairs in the room, I cross my legs and stretch. Jasper? Taken care of, no issue. None at all!

—

“So she didn’t give you any trouble, did she?”

“Nah, not really.”

“Oh, good! I forgot to tell you about it, but she has a habit of trying to trick newcomers into letting her out of the room. There’s no real way out without help. Windows enchanted and everything!”

“Ah… hah… I see.”

As if on cue, Jasper herself got up and strode over, rubbing against my leg and sitting down on the ground next to me. The amount of smugness that exuded from her was baffling, but the lady talking to me didn’t quite seem to recognize it somehow. Cheeky little gremlin…

“But it’s good to hear that she didn’t try to trick you. That’s even progress, I’d say! It’d certainly help if she wasn’t quite so fleet-footed.”

“...Right.”

So, I could’ve just, sat in here and did nothing the entire quest? Heh… ahahah… oh well… nothing went wrong!

“Or maybe she just likes you? She doesn’t usually warm up to new people quite so quickly… actually, would you be willing to entertain an idea, Mr. Koth?”