Transformation Magic! Transform into beetle! Now to crawl up! Crawl, and not fly, because my beetle form was rather large, and couldn’t fly in the tight vertical shaft of the air vent, particularly against the air flow. Sure, I was moving slowly, but all the same I felt hopeful — my sensitive insect antennae caught the scents of grass, flowers and some sort of refuse on the air coming down. There was a way out up there! Freedom!
Perception increased to 19.
Funny. This was the second time this stat had leveled up precisely when I was using sensory organs that I didn’t often use. I’d have to think about that, when there was time. It turned out they had me locked up pretty deep! Working its little legs, my beetle passed at least two underground levels, judging by the ventilation grills in the wall. I was just starting to see light high above. It wasn’t bright — it looked like it was still early morning up there, but that was even better; it would be easier to hide.
But what was that ahead? A rat?! Yes, a rat! The furry face sticking out of a hole in the wall sniffed, twitched its whiskers, listening to the rustle of my legs. Black predatory eyes watched as the hopeless prey crawled right into its clutches. I saw two sharp and disproportionately long teeth in the rodent’s mouth. A Saber-toothed Rat! Just like the one I’d fought in the bean batch to save the harvest left unguarded by the big dumb humans. Back then, the Saber-toothed Rat was a serious opponent for me, even deadly dangerous. But times had changed!
Elemental Magic! Combined Fire and Wind! The Wind component was essential, otherwise the air flow coming from above would blow my own spell back at me and burn me up. I might have even overdone it with the wind — a stream of hot flame shot out as if from a flamethrower toward the whiskery face sticking out of the hole. Take that, rat! With a whine of fear and pain, the well-scorched rat disappeared into its hole. I smelled the sharp scent of burnt fur.
Elemental Magic skill increased to level twenty-two!
Mysticism skill increased to level twenty-seven!
Transformation Magic skill increased to level fifteen!
One rat down, three skills leveled up! The triple bonus to leveling speed was clearly working. That wouldn’t have helped if I’d fallen down the vent, which nearly happened — my bug transformation time was nearly over, and I just barely noticed in time to refresh the skill.
Shapeshifter skill increased to level twenty-one!
I dragged my bug body past the final floor and out onto the surface through a pipe, half-covered in a metal hood to keep the rain out. I looked out. It seemed I was in the inner courtyard of some big castle, or even a full-fledged fortress. There were sentries up on the walls, plus an observer sitting up a watchtower with night-vision goggles and binoculars. Where was I?
It must have been the Eastern Fortress. From what I remembered, that seemed to be the place to which Haze had ordered his guards to take the helpless cat. It was a shame they’d put me in a closed crate — I saw nothing on the way here, which meant I didn’t have the slightest idea which part of the sandbox I was in now. Where was Hundred Skull City in relation to this place? Where was the great river, the raft, Sergeant’s party? And where was my master now, anyway?
It didn’t matter. All would be clear with time. And although the watchers in the towers and the sentries on the walls were mostly looking outward, not into the inner courtyard, I still had to be careful. Transform back into cat! Stealth! Translucent mode! And Veil of Darkness, just in case, to blur the outline of my body and make me look like smoke or fog to any onlookers. Eastern Fortress, meet the perfect spy! I’ll find out all your secrets, and you don’t have a cat in hell’s chance of catching me again!
* * *
I enjoyed my invisibility and watched, listened, sniffed, crept into everywhere I could, and especially places I shouldn’t. I climbed onto the roofs of the watchtowers and crawled back down to the underground floors. I walked within a step of awake and aware people, and they couldn’t see me!
Radar Ear skill increased to level twenty-eight!
Stealth skill increased to level twenty-nine!
Your character is now level thirty!
Reward: three skill points (total available: six) and one mutation point (total available: twenty-nine).
Level thirty! Finally! I’d been waiting for this for a long time. Now I could choose another type of magic for Whiskers. But then I hit a most frustrating barrier.
ATTENTION! You cannot choose the Illusion Magic skill! Your character has reached its limit of possible magic types!
I ran into the same problem when I tried to take Healing Magic. Sadly, it seemed a Shadow Hexxer could take only three types of magic at once. Shame, but that was that. I’d have to get by with my Curse Magic, Transformation Magic and Elemental Magic. If I’d known about that limitation, I would have chosen the last of my thirteen skills long ago, and I would have had time to level it up since then.
What to do with my free points? I didn’t touch the mutation points — I was saving them for Modified Vocal Chords. As for the six free skill points, I put them into the Translator skill — I couldn’t wait start talking to humans and be understood.
After that, I continued exploring the place I’d been brought to in a box. Before the sun had risen above the mountains, I’d found answers to the most important questions. Yes, this definitely was the Eastern Fortress, the outermost human stronghold, used as a staging ground to patrol the eastern pass and the sherkh border, and as a shelter for retreat when tensions got high. The underground storerooms were full of provisions and a truly ungodly amount of all kinds of weaponry — from swords and crossbows to sniper rifles and even light artillery. Enough to equip an entire army. But it turned out I was wrong about the electricity — the blades of the huge ventilators that brought fresh air down to the underground floors were turned by tamed giga-komodos walking endlessly in circles.
The size of the fortress stunned me. Thousands of soldiers could hide here and hold out through a siege. But at the same time, the nighttime garrison in the fortress was tiny by contrast — forty people at the most. Unsurprisingly, this was due to the night beasts. Forty people divided over a large enough area caused only weak Feelers and a few Alphas to appear, which couldn’t get over the moat and through the walls into the fortress, and therefore represented no danger. The sentries patrolling the walls ignored the beasts as they scurried on the other side of the moat.
But with the dawn, when the night beasts disappeared, the situation changed dramatically. The drawbridge was lowered, the gates opened, and humans poured into the fortress from all sides. Groups of scouts returned from their night patrols, fully equipped squadrons and solo players came from barracks somewhere nearby. At the morning formation, I saw at least four hundred people assembled in the square. Most were men, although there were plenty of women in army uniform too. They were all at least level forty, and some had skulls before their names. But even in this crowd of fearsome warriors, the squad commanders stood out — true stars with orange nicknames, some even red, in full equipment and with the very best weaponry, every single one above level fifty. Some of the commanders had used their Mutation Points to make their bodies larger than normal humans, or to add predatory claws or eyes with vertical pupils. There was a human with snow-white wings at his back, the head of a group of scouts.
I must have been observing the elite of the Pharaoh’s army, the hammerhead capable of protecting the eastern frontier and keeping the sherkhs from doing anything stupid. Or, on the contrary, to go out beyond the border and bring the fight to the foe. And this fortress wasn’t the only one — as I overheard the human conversations, certain words flashed up again and again: Swamp Citadel, Northern Fortress and Mountain Fort were the names of the other fortifications on the border with the sherkhs. The soldiers called the sherkhs a ‘competing race’ and even ‘enemies,’ and few doubted that the war against their neighbors would begin any day now. The Pharaoh had gathered thousands of troops at the border, and the smallest spark could
ignite a bloody war.
The man in command here was the commandant of the Eastern Fortress, a grey-haired veteran called White Bear, an exuberant man over six and a half feet tall, with fists as big as melons and an extra pair of arms, which must have cost a great many Mutation Points.
☠ White Bear. Human. Male. Guild: The New Pharaohs. Level 69 Gladiator.
With his size, ferocity and four arms, White Bear reminded me of Prince Goro from Mortal Kombat. But unlike the Prince, who was never known for his wit, the commandant was smart, too. It was White Bear who was responsible for border defense, who took reports from the commanders and distributed tasks to the squads. Incidentally, it was the voice of the commandant of the Eastern Fortress that I heard when Sergeant activated his radio at the snowy pass and listened in on the chatter between the New Pharaoh commanders.
The commandant gave orders, assigned missions and personally punished transgressors. Right before my eyes, White Bear used his bare hands to tear apart a soldier that had done something wrong. And it shocked nobody; apparently, the soldiers were used to this from their commander. But what amazed me most was that the puddle of blood flowed into the commandant’s body, and a bright red symbol in the form of bloody teeth lit up above White Bear’s head. Must be a symbol of a temporary buff or fury. At least the creepy four-armed monster didn’t start eating the human remains.
It seemed White Bear was God and king here. But that all changed as soon as the fortress gate swung open and a carriage entered, hitched to a pair of agile lizards. Not a trace of the commandant’s importance and grandeur remained. White Bear ran like a late messenger boy to meet the new arrivals, and personally opened the door to the carriage, dropping down to one knee before the important guest. A short raven-haired girl unhurriedly climbed down from the carriage and ordered the commandant to stand with a careless wave of her hand.
☠ Victoria Bastet. Human. Female. Guild: The New Pharaohs. Level 78 Courtesan.
Courtesan? What a strange game class. And why so much respect for her? Not only White Bear, but also the squad commanders, and especially the front-line troops, all fell to their knees and bowed low.
“Haze said you let the kitten go…” Victoria Bastet’s first words pricked up my ears. Was she asking about me? Was this the same cat-crazed Lady Victoria who my jailers were talking about? She didn’t seem like the kind-hearted housewife type, to sit and stroke a beloved meowing furry pet.
White Bear seemed to think the same. I didn’t know where this woman’s power lay, but the four-armed giant shook in terror after her words. Stuttering and stammering, the commandant hurried to answer:
“The kit-kitten is s-still here on the g-g-grounds. The only w-way out of the f-fortress is over the bridge, and we h-have guards posted there. W-with thermal goggles and m-magic arcana scrolls. It won’t slip by, even invisible.”
Is that so..? Seems I relaxed too soon. The fact that people weren’t scouring the entire massive fortress for me didn’t mean that my escape had gone unnoticed. The big apes were just lulling me into a false sense of security, when in actual fact they’d placed guards in the most obvious spot the cat would have to go through to leave. I have to admit, I’d already looked round the Eastern Fortress and I really was thinking about leaving to go look for my missing friends. Although I would probably have turned into a bug and flown rather than walking through the hospitably wide open gates. All the same, it was alarming to hear that I might be caught again. I suspected it would be far harder to escape a second time.
“Where are those idiots who were guarding the cat?” the Courtesan asked in strict tones. White Bear relaxed right away — the storm had missed him this time, the strange visitor’s anger had not fallen on him.
“They are in the infirmary, my lady. Both of them. It’s taking them time to come round since the beast cursed them. At first we thought it was a venomous bite, but no. The healer says it’s a paralysis spell, and of very high level. After five hours, they have only just begun to move and speak. It is very similar to what happened yesterday on the river bank. Identical symptoms. And both guards claim that they didn’t open the kitten’s cage. The lock on it is whole, I checked, and all the bars too.”
“Paralysis? Polymorphism? And he understands human speech. How fun…” Lady Victoria’s smile touched only the very corners of her mouth.
I didn’t know what had put her in such a good mood. The dangerous visitor seemed about to say something else, but a babe’s cry from the carriage interrupted the young woman mid-word.
“I must go, Commandant. When you catch the cat, immediately send it to me at the palace, with all the necessary precautions! Driver, onward!”
The woman, leaning on White Bear’s offered arm, climbed inside the carriage and closed the door behind her. The young man at the reins cracked his whip, urging on the raptor team. It was then that I decided. I had nothing more to do in the Eastern Fortress, but as for who Lady Victoria was, and why she wanted to catch this kitten so badly, I wanted to find out. Did she just love cats? Could be, but it seemed to me that something greater lay behind her interest in fluffy pets.
In two leaps, I caught up to the carriage as it clattered away, jumped onto the rear rack and hid between the large boxes woven from vines. I didn’t plan to reveal myself to the woman, but I definitely wanted to check out her palace, and her three lady cats in particular.
They didn’t even check the carriage as it left the fortress — the gate guards just bowed low, letting the mysterious Courtesan pass. Well, all the better. Soon we’d reach our destination, and I’d learn what secrets this dark-haired pet lover was hiding. Too late, the phrase ‘curiosity killed the cat’ came to mind. Here’s hoping curiosity would have mercy this time.
Chapter 22 [Sergeant]
Old Acquaintance
“WAIT, BRO,” Julie stopped me as I finished saddling Atlas. “Here, take this!” The girl stretched out a hand and offered me a bottle topped with a plastic lid. It was filled to the top with a murky whitish liquid. “This is for Hope and the Chimeric Cougar’s kitten.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“You milked the Chimeric Cougar?! That’s dangerous!”
“Nothing dangerous about it. She practically asked for it herself. I mean, she didn’t resist at all. Her milk wasn’t going anywhere, and she was all swollen and painful. I helped her and I knew she wouldn’t hurt me.”
My sister’s skills never ceased to amaze me. Even now, at level twenty-two, the little Veterinarian was fearless before fierce carnivores. What next? Would she walk among the night beasts and heal their wounds? Julie laughed at my surprised face, wished me luck and was about to set off back to the pen full of deadly raptorhounds — apparently, there was a full day’s work there for her, — but then suddenly stopped.
“Brother, if you end up at the market, buy me some new boots instead of these trainers. They’re falling apart. Size four and a half. But take Varya with you — she needs to find a replacement for her torn shirt, and she’ll pick me out some good shoes. I know you — you’ll buy me the kind of big army boots you could mix mud in. I’m a girl, you know, I need something stylish.”
I blushed. My sister read my mind. I really would have gotten her some waterproof rubber boots or something similar, considering the primeval and impassable places to which fate had thrown us.
Atlas obediently turned onto the path leading to Markettown and charged toward the fork in the road. I knew the path by the Capital to Hundred Skull City. The great river was only a stone’s throw from there. The giga-komodo was well rested, full of strength and galloping at the speed of a horse. One hour later, I stood on the bank, waving my hands to draw the attention of my companions, who I knew would be watching the riverside. So it was. Ten minutes later, the Dreadnought moored up nearby, camouflaged from its sides to the tip of its mast with bundles of canes and boughs of firs. My friends had even somehow managed to cover the Marsh Mistress in branches and canes, making the cruel arachn
oscorp look like a huge haystack.
“How do you like our camouflage, Sergeant?” the Engineer asked, clearly proud of a job well done. The Mechanic also smiled in satisfaction as he climbed out onto the bank and secured the raft with ropes, waiting for my opinion of the Dreadnought’s new look. “Some soldiers passed by on the other bank this morning, but they didn’t see us!”
I didn’t bother disappointing my friends by letting them know that the New Pharaohs already knew all about the Dreadnought and its inhabitants. On the contrary, I praised them for their initiative. Then I brought them up to speed — the strongest human guild had promised not to touch us and agreed to guarantee free movement throughout its territory, but in exchange, they wanted us to catch a dangerous minotaur in the southern ruins. I told them all about what I’d seen in the Capital, Julie’s work at the reptile farm, the kitten’s escape from Haze, the reward that we all got to share for catching the Chimeric Cougar, the nearby market.
I was pleased to hear no complaints after I was done. So what if we had to catch a minotaur? After all the challenges we’d successfully completed, this one didn’t sound too hard. On the contrary, the whole group was inspired. They burned with the urge to set off as soon as they could.
“We got some reinforcements!” Varya Tolmachyova took me inside the structure on the raft and showed me two almost identical black reptiles, each a little over three feet long. The calves were overjoyed to see the girl and crowded round her right away. With mouths open and necks outstretched, the little megasauruses demanded food. Varya gave each reptile a couple of pounds of fish, and the scaly pair flopped down on the floor, digesting their food and lazily closing the white veils of their second eyelids. Was it just me, or did the calves grow a little after feeding? And they were already past level one…
In Service of the Pharaoh (League of Losers Book #2) Page 20
