Chapter 4 - Home Base

I sat right where Emma had left me, just outside the door to the store room where I had first started out. The first thing that caught my eye as soon as I had a moment to catch my breath were the windows set into the wall to my left.

‘Time to figure out where I am,’ I thought excitedly as I padded over to the windows, disregarding the rest of the room for now.

I reached the nearest window and jumped up on the windowsill. I almost fumbled my landing, realizing too late that the ledge was only wide enough that it barely fit both of my paws side to side. After stabilizing myself I eagerly turned my eyes outside the window, I was finally going to get some interesting information!

‘Wait, where are all the people?’, I wondered, my excitement quickly turning into disappointment.

The area outside the window was a large rectangular courtyard, surrounded on all sides by buildings. In the middle of the courtyard was a stone well with a wooden roof. A bucket sat on the rim, attached via a rope to a cranking mechanism. There were several stone paths set in the grass, leading from doors in the buildings to the well.

Across from the well was a large tree, it’s leaves yellowing slightly, birds flitting about between the branches. Seeing the birds, I could feel my instincts kick into hunting mode. My eyes locked on to the closest bird, and my vision tunneled even more than usual. My body froze and my ears pricked forward.

‘Woah, ok, calm down body!’ I thought and focused on suppressing my instincts, ‘Damn, that was intense! At least it’s easy enough to ignore now that I’m prepared for it,’ I thought, studying the birds.

While they were definitely birds, I couldn’t recognize any of them from Earth. One kind of looked like a jackdaw, but it’s underbelly had a red coloration and it’s beak was curved downwards slightly.

Sighing frustratedly, I decided that there was nothing interesting to be found looking out the window, so I instead turned back to study the room I had neglected.

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A set of stairs led up to a second level just right of me. On the wall to my right was the door to the store room, next to another door, which was closed. There were what looked like oil lamps set in the walls, and glancing around, I could see the same around the entire room

The wall across from me looked like some sort of museum exhibition. A set of weapons hung as if on display: a shortsword, a small round shield, a shortbow, and a dagger. On the floor was a massive grey pelt from what looked somewhat like a bear. An armor stand stood against the wall, centered between the weapons. It had a full set of leather armor on it that looked well-worn.

A set of bookshelves sectioned off the fireplace that sat in the corner across from me and to my left. The section looked very cozy, with two armchairs rotated towards the fire. Another pelt lay on the floor, though it was much smaller, and looked much fluffier as well. A small table sat between the chairs.

My gaze continued along the wall to my left, past the door to the kitchen to a small area which looked set up to be a kind of office. A large padded chair made out of dark wood sat in front of a desk which looked like it was made out of the same type of wood. Piles of paper sheets were neatly lined up against the wall, small colorful stones weighing them down. A row of pens lay next to an inkwell.

The center area of the room was taken up by a table, though it was slightly offset towards the windows, leaving a large space around the bear rug.

Feeling like I had a good overview of the living room, I decided to test my luck upstairs, maybe they had left a window open there? I hopped down onto the floor and walked up the stairs.

The upstairs area was much smaller and more barren, looking more like a hallway area than a place lived in. There were more doors and windows up here, but sadly all of them were closed as well. Just to be sure, I checked the view from the windows, but the buildings surrounding the courtyard were too tall to see beyond

I headed back downstairs, letting out another frustrated sigh, ‘Well, that was disappointing, I guess I’ll have to wait for Emma to be done with whatever work she’s doing before I can do any more exploring.’

I quickly dismissed doing more Skill testing. My current frustration and the previous excitement was getting to me and I felt I wouldn’t be able to do much useful testing without breaking more things anyway.

‘Not much more for me to do but nap, then,’ I decided and walked over to one of the armchairs by the fire and hopped up onto its seat.

‘The food better be worth it,’ I mumbled tiredly as I lay down, sleep overtaking me soon after.