Chương 2: A Perfectly Normal Cat

Two days in and Amberlin was already lost. She was a city girl who knew nothing about navigating without convenient street signs and GPS. In her old life, the last time she went out into nature, she got stung by a bee—and that was on a boat. To understand why Amberlin overestimated her own abilities, you have to know this about her. She was smart enough to know that the sun rose in the east, careless enough to forget that she was no longer on Earth, and lucky enough that it didn't matter.

The most common compliment she got from strangers was that she had a sharp and intelligent face. It was only when they got to know her that they truly understood what it meant to judge a book by its cover. She read a physics book once because it had a cat on the cover, and it left her deeply confused because she didn't understand any of the plot lines. But in truth she was a quick learner.

By the time of her death at age twenty, she had mastered a dozen instruments and could competently play anything else one might have lying around. Her problem had always been the haphazard way she applied her mind, allowing important matters to be decided on instinct and by what she believed to be common sense. So far the only troll she'd killed was the one that led her into these mountains. She had to leave the carcass behind because she didn't have a bag or convenient inventory interface.

The only parts she'd been able to take with her were its teeth and the meat that had already passed through her belly. Maybe she could have made something of the other materials from the troll, but she didn't have the tools or knowledge or patience for crafting. She wished now that she'd found some way to bring more of the meat with her. While she'd learned during the three-day battle that she was afflicted by neither hunger nor thirst, she still found comfort and pleasure in a nice, hot meal.

It was in the middle of these thoughts that she noticed a commotion from over the next ridge. There was the rumble of two mighty beasts clashing, and sparks of fire and lightning arced up into the sky. Her regrets quickly slipped away as she excitedly ran up to catch a glimpse of the monsters. She couldn't wait to join in on the action. It didn't matter who was winning or losing—if they were a threat to Liana, they were gone.

But the battle was over fast, and the ridge farther away than she thought, and then it turned out not to be a ridge at all but a plateau, and then there was a downslope and a ledge, and by the time she got to where the creatures had fought, marked by the scorched rock and melted snow, all she found was a half-eaten carcass being picked at by a small house cat. The carcass seemed to belong to some sort of giant lizard.

Whatever killed it must have been fearsome indeed because the shiny red scales protecting the lizard's back had been blown apart. She picked up an intact scale by her foot and felt the weightiness of it. It had the heft of solid iron. She stowed the scale, filling up the remaining pocket in her cloak, and approached the cat. It was black and white in a tuxedo pattern identical to one she had in her last life.

The poor thing must have been starving because it barely gave her a glance before going back to gorging itself on the lizard.

"Quite a little scavenger, aren't you?" she cooed. It must have noticed the battle like she did and run here in the hope of getting a bite after the victorious monster had eaten its fill and moved on. Since the carcass now seemed to be abandoned, she cut off a slice for herself and used her magic to start a cooking fire. The cat watched with interest as she held the meat over the fire with her bare hands. There were perks to being immortal.

Maybe it was because the last thing she ate was rock troll, but the lizard meat smelled delectable and tasted divine. The cat continued to stare at her, so she tore off a roasted piece and held it out to him. He was a bold little thing and approached her fearlessly to eat the offering from her fingers. After the meal she continued on. It was troubling to think that there were more than just rock trolls in these mountains that could pose a threat to Liana. It occured to her that she was a on a fool's errand.

These mountains were vast and she missed her friends. There had to be a better way to keep Liana safe. She decided to return at once to Restford. So she picked a likely direction and got herself even more lost. The cat came along with her. It remained out of sight during the day but joined her every evening for a meal. It brought along its own offerings, which she cooked for both of them. At first they were small rodents and lizards.

But sometimes she could hear it meowing behind a rock formation and would make her way over to find it dragging at a larger carcass. At times these were goats and eagles, and once there was even a mountain lion. With scavenging skills like these, it wasn't unusual that a cat could survive in these harsh mountains. She got into the habit of calling him Boots after the cat she had in her other life. Her old Boots had also been adventurous and fearless, and this one looked exactly like him.

One day she followed his meowing and came to find him swatting at a strange rock formation. It was at the top of a plateau and looked like someone had laid out pebbles in the shape of a spell formation. There were three concentric circles with other lines in between them, and at the center of it all was something like a small shrine. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. This brought back memories from her brother's game.

There was a quest that involved seven keystones across the world. The player had to find all seven and activate them. The details of the quest hadn't been written yet when she died, so she didn't know what the keystones were meant to do. Nor had she gotten far enough to find the one on this mountaintop. But there was no question in her mind that this was it. Yet it looked so old and weathered, and there seemed to be nothing magical about it at all. She reached out and touched it.

The stone crumbled to sand like it was held together by thoughts and prayers. Nothing else happened. Maybe the quest line never ended up getting finished. Disappointed, she put the matter out of her mind and moved on.

Boots felt sorry for the weird Kitten. She was clearly afflicted with some manner of curse that stuck her in the wrong shape. The curse was troublesome because it affected him too whenever she got too close, shrinking him into this inconvenient little form. Her shape made her loud and clumsy and scared off all the prey, so he'd been traveling ahead and doing the hunting for the both of them. It was a new experience for him, taking care of a kitten, but it didn't altogether feel so bad.

There was this strange sense of comfort when she was around, of a sort he'd never felt before, and he delighted in sitting atop her shoulders and taking in the world while she wandered in circles around this colorless wasteland. He didn't understand why he was so sure this Kitten was his, but it didn't matter overmuch. She was the most precious thing ever, and he wouldn't let any harm come to her.

This was why, when her circles took her a bit too close to a certain troubling place, he batted gently at her face to warn her off. But her mother clearly never taught her how to communicate, and rather than heed his warning, she set him down on the cold, white snow. Seeing no other option, he ran off. He didn't want to fight the big stone man, but he saw no other choice. Once he was out of Kitten's sight, he transformed into a mountain lion and bounded powerfully across the rocky landscape.

The big stone man came into view, shaped like a giant blocky human, and being the troublesome thing that it was, it spotted him coming from a great distance. The two of them had already clashed, about a week ago when he first came to this area in pursuit of that delicious dragon. He'd only managed to destroy one of the big stone man's hands before losing interest and leaving the area. It wasn't because he'd been running low on essence. Though he was. It also wasn't because rocks that moved were creepy.

Though rocks shouldn't move. And it definitely wasn't because his attempts to break through the giant marble doors it guarded had been futile. Though he would have liked to take a peek inside. Just a peek. To begin with. But as much as he didn't want to fight the big stone man, he understood the Kitten well enough. She had the proper curiosity and playfulness of a young cat, which was why she poked her head into every cave they came across.

And when she saw those heavy doors, she was sure to try and poke her head through as he had. So the big stone man had to go. Since he saw it last, its missing hand had grown back, and it raised both blocky arms at him. This time he knew what was coming and deftly avoided the energy beams before returning with his own thunder from his whiskers. He sped up to close the distance, and as he did, he underwent another transformation.

His body grew, and a thick amber mane sprouted from his head and spread protectively down his neck. No longer was he a lion of the mountains but of the savanna. But he wasn't done. He continued to grow. He burned the essence from the dragon and felt the power surging through his claws, tearing away the rock beneath him with every stride. When he landed before the big stone man, their size was evenly matched. Each stood taller than a house and had the weight of centuries behind them.

He let out a mighty roar that started an avalanche on a nearby mountain face. The big stone man swung at him, and he swung back. The magically reinforced stone of its body was more resilient than regular mountain rock. But his own flesh was not to be underestimated. What he'd done once he could do again, and he kept swatting at the hand, trying to make it fall off. The big stone man tried a wide assortment of magic, from fire to water to earth and frost, and he returned in kind.

The rock around them burned and melted and churned and froze while the two at odds remained unaffected and continued their close-quarters cat fight. The marble doors remained untarnished even as they were struck by stray magic and he rolled into them while wrestling with the big stone man. The stone that housed the doors seemed equally impervious. There was no way to melt a second way in. Fearing that this was taking too long, Boots burned more of the dragon's essence and called up some of his own reserves.

Other creatures he'd eaten in the past, all the trolls and drakes and ostriches that had been assimilated into his core. Power surged down into his claws and his next strike scratched four jagged trails into the big stone man's wrist. But it was only the first strike of many, and and the follow-ups came faster than the stone man could react, each slicing deeper than the last until the stone hand fell to the ground. The big stone man stumbled back.

Though its face was forever unchanging, Boots had fought enough opponents to sense uncertainty and doubt in his adversaries. He could read it in the way they moved, how they became more like prey than predator. His stone opponent recovered quickly and sought to fight on despite the disadvantage. This was why he found rocks that moved to be so unnerving. Rocks didn't behave like reasonable creatures, who knew when it was time to flee. This rock was more stubborn than the humans it was shaped after.

But if the rock didn't know sense, he would just have to destroy it. The loss of its hand had swung the advantage firmly in his favor. The battle should end quickly now. He jumped in to finish the job, his next target the stone man's neck. But he was met with a queasy feeling when the ground seemed to fall away and he realized that he'd shrunk back down to the size of a house cat.

When Amberlin heard the fierce roar in the distance, she did what anyone would have done and looked for her cat Boots. Not seeing him around, she raced toward the sound, hoping that her sweet little scavenger hadn't caught the attention of the mighty beast he'd been leeching off. It was a good thing she moved as fast as she did because Boots was in the midst of a chaotic battlefield between the mystery beast and a giant stone automaton.

Some high-level magic must have been involved because it looked like someone had called upon a miniature volcano and melted the entire mountainside into slag. It seemed that the automaton won because the mystery beast was nowhere to be seen, but now it had turned its attention on her cat, and it stomped around aggressively while Boots dodged between its legs.

In her frantic effort to save Boots, she may have used some magic to boost her speed, and while she was able to slide in between the giant automaton's legs and scoop Boots up, she lost her footing on the slippery snow-melted-refrozen-ice and found herself sliding way too fast toward the marble doors. She braced herself, hoping to survive the impact, afraid of losing hold of Boots if she got teleported away. The doors gave way with no resistance and she tumbled through.