My eyes open. It takes a moment for them to come into focus, but when they do, I see that I'm in a strange and terrifying environment. It's a 400 square foot tent that's lit from the center by a pit fire. Standing at the edge of the fire is a tigerman shaman wearing a green hat with pointy ears, a green cape, and a dark green tasset around his waist. He holds a knife above his head with its blade pointing downwards at the victim on the flat table before him. This victim is none other than Primetime.
I yank my wrists to try to move forward, but I can't. I'm fastened to a tall wooden board with metal cuffs around my wrists and ankles. Across from me on the other side of the tent, I see Kat and Magnus in the same situation. They struggle as I do, but not even Magnus can break the metal restraints with his physical strength. We watch helplessly as the tiger shaman drives its blade deep into Primetime's chest.
"Nooo!" Kat screams.
The shaman jimmies the knife and I hear the bones of Primetime's ribcage snap one by one. It then reaches its paw into his chest and pulls out his heart. Next, the shaman holds it up triumphantly, and the multitude of tigermen in the tent with us unleash a celebratory roar. The shaman then consumes the heart, and I turn away in disgust.
Yet I'm not left to my disgust for long. After dumping Primetime's body in the fire, the monster tigers come for me. A black tiger, likely the same one that knocked me out, stands within an inch of my face and booms its feral voice at me. I smell its foul breath and realize that it's probably the last thing that I'll ever smell. Next, it digs a single talon of its claw into the lock of the fetter binding my left wrist. It opens with a click.
It would seem that my time has come. I'm going to die here at the age of 21. I never got married or even had a girlfriend, nor was I able use the education that I worked so hard to acquire to produce a single article. I'm going to die in this awful tent and nobody's ever going to know what happened to me. My poor parents. This is going to destroy them.
I hang my head, accepting the sad inevitability. Yet suddenly an orange tigerman rushes into the entrance of the tent. It roars what I presume to be language to the others. In turn, the shaman barks some orders, and all the tigermen filling the room funnel out.
Now, Magnus, Kat, and I are left in the dimly lit tent with only the tiger shaman. It looks at me, points the index finger of its right claw, and unleashes a loud roar. I don't speak tiger, but I presume what it said was something along the lines of, "Your turn is next sucker," or something to that effect. In any case, it wasn't anything good.
What is good, however, is that on the other side of the room, Kat shape-shifts her body into her namesake cat form. By transforming herself into a small, household cat, her arms and legs no longer fit the metal fetters and she escapes. At once, she shape-shifts again, but this time into her Werecat form. While the shaman is too busy daydreaming about all of the horrible things that it wants to do to me, she charges it from behind.
Due to its keen hearing, or at least I presume it has keen hearing, the tiger shaman senses Kat coming before she reaches it. It flips around and answers her charge with its own charge. Yet it's not the correct move. Kat pulls a head fake and suddenly transforms into a giant alligator. Thus, when the shaman dives at her, it dives straight into her mouth. She immediately bites down on it and shakes her head back and forth to rip it to pieces with her sharp teeth. A moment later, she opens her mouth and slings it to the side. She then returns to her Werecat form. The tiger shaman, for its part, doesn't move again.
Kat rushes to Magnus to unlock his fetters with her claw. Next, she moves to me and frees me as well. For the moment, we're clear of tigers, but they could return any minute, so we have to hurry to escape.
Not wasting time, we book it for the tent's exit. Once we step outside, we see that we're in the heart of a tigerman village. All around us in every direction are dome-shaped, green pavilions constructed of leaves, branches, sticks, and stones. These pavilions have torches dug into the sand on both sides of their entrance doors. Also, above many of the tent doors, like the one we just exited for example, there are the skulls of numerous types of animals such as camels, hyenas, and in the case of this particular tent, humans. Seeing these skulls stirs up an ominous feeling within me. Were it not for the adrenaline rush coursing through my veins, I'd probably shut down in fear. But there's no time for that. Kat and Magnus make a run for it, so I follow behind them.
They head off to the right. I don't know if that's the correct direction. I doubt they know either. Regardless, as long as we don't run into any tigermen, it doesn't particularly matter which way we go. Except that it does. We run into tigermen immediately.
Armed sentries to our left spot us from a short distance down a lane between the tents. They roar for backup and then pursue us. Coincidentally, I'm the one at the rear of our group. Not only that, but I am also hands down the least athletic of the three of us. I'm not going to be able to keep up with Kat and Magnus. I'm only going to slow them down. Their best option is to let me fall behind and use the time that it takes the tigermen to slay me to gain precious distance for themselves. That would be the smart thing to do, but apparently, not the honorable thing.
Magnus stops his retreat and turns to face the tigermen. Still running, I sail right past him. As I move beyond him, he shouts, "You two run. I'll hold them off."
I'm not proud to say it, but his words relieve me. Within moments, the tigermen would have caught me. Now I have a chance to escape, but that chance comes at the expense of Magnus. I look backwards while fleeing. One of the tigermen swipes its kanabo at Magnus with a heavy blow. Luckily, he dodges to the side, elbows the tigerman in the nose, and steals its weapon. From there, I don't see what happens because suddenly three additional tigermen peel around a corner and come chasing after me and Kat. We continue forward as fast as we can, and seconds later we blast out of the tigerman village and into the high dunes of the desert sand.
Judging from the height of the sun, it's around midday. This fact does not bode well for us. It's from midday until dusk that the temperatures in the Kanabo desert can rise to as high as 120º Fahrenheit (48º C). If we don't find shelter soon, then the sun will cook us for the tigermen. They won't need a fire.
Kat and I rush up a tall sand dune as quickly as we can. Fearing that we're not going fast enough, I look behind to check how much space remains between us and the tigermen. To my surprise, they continue to pursue us, but they're no longer running. Like in the instance when I first saw them, they walk rather than run in their pursuit, and now I think I know why.
"Kat," I call when we reach the top of the sand dune. "We've got to slow down. If we keep running like this, then we'll dehydrate and exhaust ourselves. Look at the tigermen. They're walking."
She peers back at them. Surely enough, they keep coming in our direction in slow, steady strides. Turning her attention from them, Kat points her finger towards the west. "I see what looks to be mountains over in that direction. Maybe we can lose them there."
For lack of a better plan, I agree. The two of us careen over the side of the large sand dune and fumble down it as best as we can. Once we're at a more even footing, we break west and head for the mountain ridge. As expected, the tigermen notice our change of direction and leisurely follow us.
We don't travel far before the stifling heat becomes almost unbearable. I undo the buttons of my shirt and take it off. This isn't so much to cool myself as it is to make head protection. "Kat use your claws to tear my shirt in half. We can wrap it around our heads to protect ourselves from the sun."
Understanding, she does as I suggest and hands me back one half of the shirt. It doesn't make for the world's best headscarf, but it's better than nothing. We continue our journey with the tiniest bit of an improved situation.
"Do you have any water?" I ask.
She summons an inventory bag and withdraws a stainless steel canteen from it. She then hands it to me. I take a swig, but try not to drink too much. We'll need to conserve what little water we have. It'll be the difference between life and death for us. I hand the canteen back to Kat, and she drinks a small amount as well.
Continuing, we walk towards the mountains for forty minutes. I suspect that the tigermen which are native to the Kanabo desert are less affected by the environment than us because by the time we reach the mountains, Kat and I are practically dead on our feet. The tigermen, however, walk along casually as if nothing were unusual. In fact, maybe it isn't unusual. Maybe this is their M.O. for stalking prey through the desert. I really don't know. But what I do know is that thanks to the tall canyon walls formed around a ridge within the mountains, Kat and I finally get to travel in an area with some shade. Even better, we walk only a short distance within the canyon before we see a ridge within the ridge containing water. Out of abject need, Kat and I quickly conclude that the best course of action is for us to scale down the side of the ridge to the area with water. We do so as best as we can, and lo, neither of us fall and get injured. It's a major score for us.
"Kat, let's drink the water from the canteen," I suggest. "We can refill it here, but we can't drink this water directly. We'll have to boil it to disinfect it first."
"Right," she agrees.
We divide the water remaining in the canteen between us. Kat then refills it in the slot canyon's stream. After that, we get back to moving. While we go, the tigermen follow us from above. Despite having five-digit hands, their fingers are stubby and I don't think they have the manual dexterity necessary to climb down the rock face to get us. It's a lucky break for us because it allows us to significantly slow the pace and catch our breaths.
However, something strange happens after five minutes of this. One of the tigermen above expels its growling voice. This causes Kat and I to whip our heads up at them. When we do this, we see the tigerman pointing towards the sky. Naturally, we veer our eyes to whatever he's pointing at. Overhead it looks like there are some thunderclouds gathering. Clouds don't concern me as compared to monstrous tigers, but it seems to deter them. They roar at me and Kat derisively and then they turn tail and run away.
"Hmph," I huff. "After all of that, they leave because of some rain."
"Go figure. Kitties don't want to get wet," Kat comments.
We continue following the path of the stream. Admittedly, I have no idea where this path will take us, but it's not like we could easily climb out of the slot canyon, and certainly not without the risk of injury. As such, we continue walking.
In a rare twist, Kat and I find ourselves journeying in peace and tranquility minus the sound of thunder blaring in the distance behind us. We pay little mind to this and keep moving. But then I have a thought. "Hey Kat," I say, "I think we should hurry before the rain catches up to us. Since we're in a low ridge, I wouldn't be surprised if the rain could fill this spot in as little as an hour."
"Good idea," she agrees.
We pick up the pace. While we shuttle over the rocky surface of the slot canyon, I hear what sounds like moving water. Curious, I stop and look behind us. I don't see anything, so I keep staring. But then suddenly, I do see something; I see a tidal wave of water rushing at us.
"Run!" I scream.
We take off running. Kat peeks behind at the quickly approaching water. "What the heck?" she blares.
I answer while moving, "It's a flash flood! We've got to get to higher ground!"
Yes, we have to get to higher ground. The solution is obvious, but the obstacle to the solution is that the tall slot canyon walls are made of jagged and crumbly lime rock. We can't easily climb up them and certainly not with flood waters pressing at our heels. We have no choice but to go straight, and that choice, sadly, is a crappy one. We don't get very far before the rushing flood waters swoop in and carry us with them.
Right away, I feel my body being shred to pieces by the countless sticks and rocks within the silt-filled mix. In addition to the silt, there's the rocky ground over which we were walking. It doesn't help at all. However, the real danger is drowning. The land that was relatively dry a moment ago has now been replaced by a raging river in a matter of seconds. Kat and I had no chance to see the flood coming.
Luckily, we catch a break. The rushing water shovels us straight into the remains of a tree that's three-quarters out of the water. When Kat hits it first, she straddles on top of it and inches across it like a worm until she finally touches onto the land at its dry side. This land slopes upwards at an angle and rises high enough to be beyond the range of the floor waters. Following Kat's example, as soon as I hit the tree, I repeat her movements and escape the flood waters. This occurs within a matter of seconds from the time the waters swept us away. Nonetheless, by the time we escape, my body is bruised, cut, and bleeding all over. I imagine it's the same for Kat.
I slink forward grumbling from pain and fall to my knees. The fact that my wounds are covered in sandy silt only adds further to the burning agony that I feel from head to toe. Kat, for her part, takes a few deep breaths and then staggers over to me. She places her hands on my shoulders and sings, "Meow!" This, of course, is one of her class unique Sound Magic spells. The spell provides healing, but it's only a patch job since Kat doesn't have the raw magical power necessary to cure such extensive injuries in one fell swoop. Still, it does help, so I recover to my feet.
"We've got to get out of here," I say, afraid that the floor waters might rise.
Kat points to a cliff wall that punctuates perpendicular to the walls lining the ridge. It's inner edge appears more pronounced and easier to climb than the outer walls. So not objecting, I follow behind Kat, who leads the climb. Several times my hands and feet slip, but by way of sheer determination not to fall, I eventually make it to the top.
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Now that we're out of the canyon's flood zone, we're safe. Except not really. I might be a green journalist with no survival training, but I do at least know that deserts dramatically drop in temperature after nightfall. With us being wet and somewhat dehydrated, this puts us at serious risk of hypothermia. In other words, we need to search for shelter and build a fire to dry our clothes and sanitize our water.
"Kat, let's keep going in the direction of the river, but while we go, we need to keep a watch out for any possible shelters."
"Okay."
That's the plan. We move along the high part of the mountainous structure keeping an eye out for any areas below or at level that could serve as a shelter. We put in another 15 minutes of walking before we find an open mouth along a rocky wall to our right. Tentatively, I move to this opening in the mountain and search inside. Unfortunately, I can't really see anything. I tell Kat, "It's dark, but this could be a good place to spend the night."
"Let me look." She steps to the entrance herself and transforms into her Werecat form. Then scanning her eyes around the cave, she nods her head. "Yeah. This is as good a spot as any."
True enough. We enter the cave. I don't have cat eyes, so I have to wait for my pupils to adjust to the lack of light before I can see anything. When I finally am able to see, I find that the cave is actually quite large and deep. Overhead there's a collection of jagged rock structures called stalactites coupled with similar shaped stalagmites on the ground. If we wanted we could go deeper into the cave, but in a world of monsters that would probably be a terrible idea. Possibly even the worst mistake we could make, so we won't be doing that. Rather, we're going to set up shop not too far from the entrance.
"Okay Kat," I begin, "Now that we have shelter our next priority is to build a fire so we can dry our clothes and boil the water. Any ideas how to do that?"
She shrugs her shoulders, "I don't know. We've got to get wood and stuff."
Right. Basic. I knew that. "I saw some shrubs not far from the cave. Do you have a knife that I could use to cut the branches?"
"Yeah." She summons her inventory bag and retrieves a survival knife in a case.
Holding on to it, I feel extra macho, but only for a moment. I quickly remember my survival impotence and recognize that if we don't succeed at building a fire, then our chances of making it until the morning will be dire to say the least. With that thought in mind, I exit the cave in search of material for kindling a fire.
Not far from the cave on a part of the terrain that slopes downwards, I find a number of small green shrubs including mesquite trees. Dutifully, I gather as much material for kindling wood as I can. I do chop some branches for good measure, but my real hope is in the dead leaves and debris that I gather. The only problem is that it's all wet from the rain. The same thunderstorm that nearly killed us in a flash flood continues to pass overhead, thereby soaking all of the precious material that we need for a fire. If I didn't know better, then I would say that the Kanabo desert selectively does not want us to make it. But I'm sure that's only my imagination and not actually true. The land is indifferent. It's our lack of knowledge and preparation that's putting us in danger.
All the same, I take what I have and return to Kat. She watches as I spread the material along the ground with about one foot of surface width and six inches of height. The rest of the wood, I throw aside for later use to keep the fire going once it's lit. I then move aside to let Kat do her part. "Okay," I say, "Try to set the wood on fire using your magic."
She looks at me blinking. "What?"
"Use fire magic on the wood."
She places her fists on her hips and shifts to one side. "Umm hello Jacob! I don't know Elemental Magic. I thought you did."
"What? No! I don't know any magic. I thought you did."
She answers, "Yeah, but Werecat class mages use Shape-Shifting Magic and Sound Magic, and none of the spells that I know are capable of starting a fire."
"Arrgh!" I grumble. "Then how are we supposed to light the fire?"
"How should I know?" she questions, sounding offended in her tone.
I back off. There's no need to upset her right now. That won't help our situation at all. There has to be some other way. Think Jacob, think.
"Hey," I begin, "Isn't it possible to start a fire by striking stones together?"
"Oh yeah. I think I've heard of something like that."
"Well we've got nothing to lose, so why don't we look for some rocks within the cave that we can use? The rocks outside will all be wet by now."
"Sure," she agrees.
With that, we wander deeper into the cave. As stated before, I don't want to go too far: just far enough to find what we need and then return to our kindling materials to try to ignite them. Holding that thought in mind, I draw attention to the first pile of rubble that we encounter. I don't know diddly about rocks, so I couldn't identify what kind they are. I think the pretty crystal-like ones are quartz or something like that, but that's all I know, and pretty rocks probably aren't good for starting a fire anyway. Nonetheless, I get to work grabbing a variety of rocks whether I personally think they have a chance at sparking a fire or not.
Within the small rock quarry, I touch something leathery. Before I even have a chance to realize what I've done, a giant snake whips out of the rocks and curls at me. Immediately, I scream with all of the high-pitched wussiness of a schoolgirl and freeze in place. The snake shoots its fangs at me, but within the split second it would take to bite me, Kat manages to dive on its back and clamp its mouth shut. "Kill it Jacob!" she commands.
"How?"
"With the knife!"
Oh right, the knife. I withdraw the blade from its case and timidly step to where Kat holds the snake. I've neither killed an animal nor monster before. I don't want to do so now, but it's us or the snake. Therefore, doing my best to man up, I hold the knife above the snake's head, close my eyes, and go wild stabbing it repeatedly. Suddenly, I feel energy shoot into my body from the snake. This frightens me, so I fall back once more screaming like a sissy girl.
"Something just happened to me!" I clamor.
Kat rolls her eyes. "When you kill a monster, a portion of its magical power transfers into your body and increases your own magical power. It's called a level up. Haven't you ever killed a monster before?"
I shake my head. "No."
"Well then you probably gained multiple level ups from killing one powerful monster rather than lots of weak ones. I doubt that your body's used to the sensation, but you're fine. Trust me."
I take a deep breath to calm myself. Now that it's all over, I'm a bit embarrassed about the way that I handled myself in that crisis situation. Fortunately, Kat chooses the gracious route and doesn't rub in my cowardice. Thus, I go back to gathering rocks as if nothing happened. Moments later, we've gathered all that we can carry. We then return to the front of the cave.
Dropping the rocks, I lay flat on my stomach in front of the spot where I mean to start the fire. Not knowing which rocks might work, I grab two and strike them together. The first two don't work, so I toss them aside. I then grab two more to the same result. I think it's possible to start a fire with rocks, but I don't know how the process works.
Seeing my lack of success, Kat joins me in the noisy festivity. Like cavemen, we smack rocks together in the hopes of starting a fire. Needless to say, neither of us knows what we're doing and the lack of results proves the point.
"The rocks keep breaking," Kat complains.
"You'd think rocks wouldn't break so easily. But we could try to strike them with something harder."
"Like what?"
"The steel knife's the only harder thing we have. We could try it."
"Might as well."
Taking a new approach, I strike one of the quartz rocks with the back of the knife. Much to my surprise, it actually creates a spark. Eagerly, I repeat the motion and again receive the same result.
"Kat look!"
I angle the rock and the direction from which I strike it to throw the sparks directly into the kindling material. The leaves and debris don't ignite in the way that I hope. Likely due to moisture. It's disappointing to say the least.
"I think our kindling stuff is too wet."
"Then do we have anything dry we could burn?"
I give it some thought. I'm a journalist. The only thing that I have on me is paper, but unless I'm mistaken, paper burns. To test this possibility, I retrieve an extra notepad from my inventory bag, rip out some pages, and set them on top of the rest of the kindling material. Then, like before, I use the knife and quartz to create sparks. To my delight little glowing embers catch on the surface of the sheets of papyrus paper that I tore from my notepad. Before they die out, I carefully blow on them to provide some extra air. Somehow despite myself, my efforts work and we have fire. I almost don't believe my eyes.
"Quick. Let's heat the water," I say.
Kat places the steel canteen at the edge of the fire. While she does that, I remove my pants.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Kat squeals.
"We've got to dry our clothes," I say in a matter of fact tone. "You should do the same."
Reluctantly, Kat grabs at the bottom of her shirt. "Okay, but no peeking, you perv."
Her insult isn't fair. I haven't even had a chance to peek yet. Not that I would. I have more dignity than that.
I hold my pants a short distance away from the fire. I then turn them inside-out and repeat the process. From the opposite side of our fire, Kat removes her shirt and pants. Unintentionally, I get a glimpse of her matching blue bra and panties. I avert my eyes and think no further about the sight in front of me.
For like five seconds. Gradually, my eyes stray little by little to Kat. Thanks to being a professional monster hunter, she has a surprisingly tone and appealing body. I accidentally become spellbound. But in the process, I also notice the multitude of small cuts and scrapes along her arms, legs, and stomach.
"Okay," says Kat, "You're not even peeking. You're just staring straight at me."
My face whips down. "You're injured," I say, both out of concern and in an attempt to cover myself.
"I'm fine."
With my pants sufficiently dry, I put them back on. I then sit on the cave floor by the edge of the flames. Kat requires more time to dry her clothes, but eventually she finishes and puts them back on. Admittedly, I'm a bit sad to lose my eye candy, but that's beside the point.
"Tomorrow we have to escape the desert," I say.
"How?" she asks.
"I guess we should just keep moving in the direction of the river and hope that we encounter a civilization somewhere along the way."
Kat rocks back and forth, cradling her arms around her knees. "Jacob, I'm scared. I don't want to die."
I don't respond to her words. The truth is that I'm scared witless myself. Not but a few hours ago, I was on the verge of death at the hands of the tigermen. I know exactly how she feels. Yet as a man, I feel some obligation to at least feign strength and confidence. "Don't worry. We'll be okay," I state. Yeah Jacob. That's convincing.
Kat continues, "Hypervox and Primetime were only a few years older than me. Sven had a family. Now they're gone."
I nod my head understanding her sorrow. Her friends died so swiftly that she must be in shock. Surely she knew about the dangers of the monster hunter lifestyle in advance, but I imagine that this is the first time that one of her runs has ended in disaster. I feel bad for her, but I do have to wonder why anyone would willingly take on this lifestyle. Moreover, I wonder how many monster hunters go on to a happy retirement because from what I've seen today, this career path seems like a surefire death sentence. But that doesn't matter now and I don't want to say anything to upset Kat. We should rest.
"Kat, we're both tired and we should try to get some sleep."
"It'd be nice to have a pillow."
Yeah, no kidding. But a lack of a formal bed isn't my concern as much as the dropping temperature. The fire helps, but the air blowing into the cave and around us will still be chilly throughout the night. I doubt that one can get hypothermia while lying around a fire, but then, I don't know for sure. We should probably huddle for warmth, but Kat already thinks that I'm a perv. She probably won't agree.
I try nonetheless. "Kat, we should probably huddle for warmth since it's going to become cold in this cave later on."
Kat gazes at me blinking her eyes. "What are you up to Jacob?"
"I'm being serious. If we get hypothermia, then neither one of us will be leaving this desert alive."
She breathes out a heavy sigh. "Fine, but if you try anything, I'll make you regret it."
"I understand."
Kat moves around to the side of the fire with me. She then lays on the ground facing towards the back of the cave. I position myself directly behind her and wrap my right arm around her. Nothing about our situation is ideal, but it's not entirely bad either. And by that I mean that we have a roof over our heads. That's all I mean.
I scoot my body a half inch closer to Kat and hold her a little more tightly. It's in this position that we sleep the rest of the night in the cave.
Hey guys. We're now halfway through the story. How do you feel about it so far? Are the chapters too long? Let me know what you think and give me some advice for next time.