I wanted to try a poll so I'm writing this before the chapter for a change.
So ... there is finaly some info about the new world/system. (Or rather half the chapter is an info dump.)
Also, sorry for the delay I guess?
I blame it on lazyness and a 36 + 12 h ff marathon (yeah.. I'm like that somethimes)
I wouldn't expext the future chapters to be much more frequent though. It took me a total of almost 5 h to type this in and I didn't finish the chapter itself in a day either, so it's gonna be twice a week at best.
Now about the poll.
Basically I noticed that cats don't laugh... the whole fiction is treated as a "transaltion" so it's fine to use complicated words and stuff, because Nori understands/is conveying the concept. But there are things that she wouldn't understand. For example this chapter avoids the word "reading", because Nori thinks of it as talking/comunicating and doesn't yet understand the concept of letters making up words/sentences and so on.
So. Do I make her act like a human > laughing, making use of a dictionary, do I make her as "realistic" as possible or something in between (keeping it in mind, but not bothering too much).
Anyway, hope you enjoy!
––––––––––––––––––––––––
Chapter 1 – Character creation and a new world
Suddenly there were four cats in front of me. They all had similar light grey and black furs, kind of like mine and had similar faces as well.
At first I was surprised, but when none of them moved after a while I just started to ignore them and took a nap.
When I woke up everything was still the same as before. Four unmoving cats, big white room. I decided to search the room, but there was nothing there so I got bored quickly.
I wonder if these cats can talk. They would have to move for that though. Hmm, the screen did say to choose one so maybe only the one I pick will be able to move. That would be nice.
I started to inspect them.
The first one was really big and stocky and had a lot of fur around it's neck. Almost like a mane.
The second one was much leaner, but almost as big and seemed very fierce.
The third one was almost like me, but a little bigger with very smooth fur and nice long tail.
The last one was the smallest. It had thin bones and big ears and for some reason it looked very intelligent.
Every one of them had a screen which told their names and described them a little.
The big ones were Elurk and Shyx, the normal looking one was Feax and the little one Chle.
Elurk and Shyx were apparently both god fighters, with Shyx being faster and Elurk stronger, so I didn't choose them. I mean what if they decide to attack me? Besides the other two were apparently very smart and I thought it would be easier to talk to someone who could actually understand me.
I was about to choose Chle, but for some reason I liked Feax better, maybe because Chle seemed so brittle, so I chose her instead.
Would you like to change your appearance?
"Eh? Change my appearance? Why would I ever want that?
On the other hand I always thought that I would look better with a bit more black fur."
Feax changed a bit. She was now almost pitch black with some light grey stripes and swirls here and there.
“Wait! You're changing Feax not me? Well whatever. In that case … Hmm … I remember seeing this picture once where a black cat had these blue stripes streamlining his body. I wonder I that would look good on her.”
Some of Feax grey streaks now had blue accents of various shades and patterns.
“Oh! That looks nice. Yeah very cool looking.
Are you satisfied with this appearance?
“Yes. This is fine”
Please choose a name for yourself
“Eh? But I already have a name. It's Nori!
Please choose your abilities and traits
Suddenly there was a big complicated picture floating in front of me. It had many different screens in it, that said lots of different things like
I wonder what this is.
This is the Talent Map. Here you can choose and organize your traits and abilities to help you in your adventures in 「 」.*Every trait and ability costs a number of skill-points.
*All traits/abilities can affect all other traits/abilities.
Example: trait
*You can connect some traits to specific abilities for grater effects.
Example: connecting
*Abilities can be acquired or improved using skill-points in 「 」, but traits will change only through great effort and time.
Hmm. The screens always talk about things that are difficult to understand, but I think I got the gist of it. The screen will give me some abilities that are supposed to help me in that place called 「 」, kind of like it gave me the ability to understand it, but it can't give me all of them, so I have to choose some.
There are a lot of them though, so this is going to be hard.
Let's see now …
_____________________
After a couple of naps and a lot of pondering, this is what I decided on.
For traits I chose < Silent > and < Dexterous > (as in capable of difficult/precise movements rather than good with your hands although the trait improves both) for 15 points each, because any respectable cat should aim to be both.
I also got < Strong instincts > for 10 because that will help me survive and < Fast learner > for 25 so that I can understand things better.
The abilities all took 5 points and I got
That left me with two more abilities to choose. Unfortunately most of the ones left had something to do with using tools, which I didn't find very interesting or useful. That just left me with the different magic aptitudes.
There were a lot of different ones, but in the end I chose
I rather liked how they now twirled and spun around each other so I ended up playing around with the connections for some time. Catching and flinging the screens and watching as they settled around some other ones. After a while, when I didn't feel like playing anymore, I cut most of the connections just in case and connected only
When I was done, the Talent Map slowly disappeared.
Suddenly I was thrown toward Feax and everything went black.
When I came to I was standing on a busy street. I had smooth black fur with grey and blue streaks and I was staring at another transparent screen.
Welcome to 「 」.
You have started your adventure in the city of Wolfwood, we hope you enjoy your stay.
_______________
One of the first things I noticed after appearing in the city, was that I could understand humans. Well I understood some things before and most of what they are saying still doesn't make any sense, but I could understand what they were talking about.
So I started to listen.
I don't know why, but the more I listened the more I understood and the more I understood the more amazed I felt. Maybe it's because of the
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
For one, it seems that humans are much more capable than I had imagined. They are still complete idiots in some aspects, I'm even more convinced of it now, but overall, they appear to be a lot smarter than I thought possible.
I also learned some things about this place and how I came to be here.
Apparently the weird bed is called a capsule, and it's some kind of machine that allows people to come here. I'm stil not quite sure how that works though. Maybe it's kind of like the car I was in once. You go in one place and when you come out you are in some place different. The cars can move though and I didn't feel any movement in the capsule so who knows.
Another thing I don't quite understand is why I'm now like Feax. A lot of the humans are unnaturally short or have pointy ears and even tails, so I think this is normal for this place, but I don't really understand it.
One of the humans even said something about this not being his real body, but since he was obviously standing right there I think he might have just meant that he used to be different.
After listening for a bit longer I started to grow bored and decided to explore the city. Before that though I wanted to “check my status” which seemed to be a popular thing to do around here.
As soon as I started to try I heard a small ding and a lot of screens appeared.
You have acquired a locked race Feax
Race trait
Due to your race some functions will be locked:*unable to speak
*unable to equip weapons, tools
*unable to equip clothes or bags/belts/... [can't access inventory]
*able to equip only two accessories [tail, neck]
*able to equip only custom armor [head, chest][some bags may be included]
To compensate the system will grant you:*One storage-stone > 4 inventory[can be upgraded][the stone will be fused to a place of your choosing on your body]
*Ability
*Ability
*+5 to all stats
After I had seen all the screens a beautiful sapphire-blue stone appeared and I was asked where on my body I would like it to be.
The stone wasn't big, but it would still feel weird to have it on my paws so after a bit of hesitation I put it against my forehead. It would have felt weird on my back and if I had put it on my chest or stomach then it would have been uncomfortable to sleep. Besides it looked really nice and went together with my new blue streaks.
When the screen saying that the fusion was successful finally disappeared, all that was left was the Talent Map and 4 little squares.
The Talent Map was a bit more compact then it had been before and had no more traits and a lot more abilities, but otherwise looked almost the same. There was one new screen in the center of it though.
NameNoriRaceFeaxHealth100%Level1Stamina90/90Mana100/100Strength9Vitality9Agility12Intelligence11Dexterity15Wisdom10
I'm not all that sure what it all means though.
2 of the 4 squares have pictures in them. One is of a coin and the other of a piece of meat. Both have a small number 10 above them. When I touched the coin picture a small silver coin appeared before me and the number became 9 and when I toughed the coin to it again it disappeared and the number became 10 again. I suppose this is the thing called inventory. Seems very convenient for transporting things.
With that done I closed the menu and went to explore the city.
As I walked down the street I saw a lot of tables lined up. Every table was filled with all sorts of different stuff and behind each one of them was a person. The people behind the tables often called out and sometimes other people went over and were given something from the table.
At first I wondered why they would just give their stuff away, but after a while I noticed that every time they gave something they took some coins in return.
I guess it makes more sense like that, but why anyone would want so many of those same coins instead of all the interesting stuff is beyond me.
After some more exploring and a nice lunch and an afternoon nap on someones roof I noticed that a lot of people were heading outside the city gates.
I was a little curious why a city would need a fence taller than most houses, but then apparently this place is built by humans and they are weird like that. I couldn't really see over it so I followed some of the people outside to see what was so interesting.
As soon as I stepped outside and saw my surroundings I froze.
There were humans everywhere, running around swinging metal sticks and chasing small fluffy creatures.
After a few moments my astonishment quickly turned to amusement. It seems that humans are idiots after all.
Who the hell hunts by blindly running after prey. Especially when they are clearly the slower ones.
Still, for some reason their idiocy was very amusing to watch, so I climbed the nearest tree and settled down to enjoy the show.
To my surprise some of them actually managed to catch them. Some of them did it by working in groups and wearing the creature – apparently they are called rabbits – down, but most of the people did it by somehow throwing balls of fire or water at them. One of them even threw something that looked like invisible claws.
Another interesting thing was that whenever a rabbit died it turned into specs of light and disappeared. That's not to say it didn't leave anything behind, there was always some meat of fur where it disappeared, but as far as I could see, it was always either one or the other and sometimes there were some coins instead.
I was rather intrigued by all this, so I hopped down and approached one of the more successful groups to see if I could figure it out.
For the most part the humans were either hunting or complaining. The hunting consisted of three people running around and shouting and trying to kite the rabbits toward the remaining two, who would then respectively throw slow and not all that hot fire and small and extremely inaccurate lightning at them.
The complaining went mostly around the lines of “who ever heard of rabbits being so hard to kill” and “it's not my fault that there no system assist or even proper spells in this game”.
From the short conversations in between I quickly learned that the ones throwing things were called mages and after some time trying to decipher their words I finally figured out that all mages used magic which seemed to consist mostly of making different thing appear. I remembered the
Come to think of it, I have some magic aptitudes too. I' not sure how to make something appear though. Of rather I don't know what “ethereal” is and isn't “nature” already here?
I didn't hear anything about the disappearing rabbits unfortunately, but just as I was about to leave I heard something interesting.
“Hey, Galeb. Do you think we could go back to the city before moving on? I heard that there is a library here and I want to see if there are any books about magic.”
“Hmm. Sure, but …”
Oh! books about magic? I wonder if I can understand things other than the blue screens.
So with thoughts like that I headed back to the city.
Pretty soon though I ran into a problem.
I wonder where this library thing is.
----------------------------------------
Btw if anyone has ideas for a new character feel free to comment. Nori's not gonna join a party just yet, but it could be good meet some future companions.
P.S. Traits to possibly replace "lang. comp." and "running" with? Better name for TalentMap?