Horrible… I had no doubt about it — Lady Victoria had somehow taken over the servant’s mind and relinquished control only at the last second, when his fall and death were inevitable. Something told me that the dread Courtesan had timed it deliberately, to enjoy her dying servant’s death scream.
“Find me another Gardener,” the woman said to the gate guard, then moved her gaze to a girl sweeping the path.
“Come here!” Lady Victoria demanded, and the servant quickly ran over, dropping to her knees before her lady. “You said you know a man called Sergeant.”
In spite of her fear, the girl objected:
“My Lady, I never said that!”
“Yes, you did. Or perhaps you thought of him. It matters not,” the Courtesan frowned. “I heard that name for the first time from you. Tell me what you know of this person.”
Now I looked at the kneeling girl with far greater interest. She knew my big oaf of a master? How? This was certainly the first time I had ever seen her. Her name was Margarita, a level 15 Jill of All Trades. I thought I knew everyone Sergeant had met in the new world. I’d almost always been by his side. Could he have met this woman in that short span of time when Sergeant was in the game, but the system hadn’t let me in yet? So it turned out.
“My Lady, I saw Sergeant for fifteen minutes at the most. It was around a month ago, back on the night train that brings newcomers to this world. He was a tall and strong young man in spotted clothes, green, gray and black. Confident, good-looking. He was the only one who didn’t panic, who started helping others. Sergeant gave me his t-shirt so I could cover up. Then, when we arrived, he wanted me to go with him to Hundred Skull City. I refused. I was scared to just go off into the unknown with a stranger. That was all the contact we had. I haven’t seen him since.”
“Well, your old acquaintance has been found. Not only did he survive in this dangerous world, but he has formed a ragtag group of free players like him. Now he is a level 23 Beast Catcher, and a good one, by all reports. Do you regret not going with him?”
The slave said nothing. Her mistress laughed.
“You don’t have to answer. I see it in your eyes. But right now, I am more interested in Sergeant’s pet. What can you say about the ginger kitten?”
Margarita looked at her strict mistress fearfully.
“There was no kitten with him in the train car. I would have noticed.”
“Is that so…” For some reason, this information really caught the Courtesan’s interest, even lifted her spirits. “I see that you are not lying. This grows more and more interesting… in that case, I will give you to the Beast Catcher if he can complete my task. The Sergeant has no woman, I felt that right away. I’m sure he won’t refuse such a gift. But remember, this is only a game of sorts. You will still belong to me. Your task will be to find out all you can about the kitten — his abilities, where he came from. And let me know when he returns to his master. If you complete this task, then I will give you freedom. You will be able to go where you choose. Now prepare a bath for me. I am tired from my journey.”
There the conversation ended. The serving girl quickly retreated into the two-story manor. Lady Victoria returned to the carriage, where her baby was crying again. After a moment’s hesitation, I ran into the building — I needed to figure out who this dreaded Courtesan was, what she was up to. I hoped to find the answers to these questions in the manor.
* * *
Wow! It really was a palace. A huge hall, marble staircases, paintings and endless statues of cats. I saw two more living cats, also well-groomed and glossy, on the first floor, sleeping on soft cushions. Level 33 Moon and level 38 Furball. I didn’t want to run into them. I gave them as wide a berth as possible and continued to explore the manor. I found a big bathroom and lavatory on the first floor, a few servants’ rooms and a kitchen where an Asian man was cooking something aromatic that made my mouth water. My empty stomach growled. It was high time I had something to eat. I hurried out of the kitchen.
There wasn’t much to do here on the first floor, so I hurried up to the second. A bedroom with a huge four-poster bed with drapes. A child’s room with a rocking cradle for a baby. A drawing room. A room full of closets of clothes, with a giant mirror covering an entire wall. I didn’t show up in the mirror. A dining hall where that serving girl was setting the table for one. And a library.
It was the library with its bookshelves that interested me most of all, and I headed there. The shelves were stacked with hundreds of scrolls and ancient worn leather tomes in an unfamiliar language. I’d already seen similar books in the old fortress, but these ones here were well preserved. Shame I couldn’t read the titles on the books’ spines to figure out where the interests of the lady of the manor lay. Although… I jumped up onto a shelf and used my claws to pull out one of the tomes shining with a magic aura, dropped it onto the floor.
The thud of its fall sounded far too loud. I froze, expecting someone to come investigate. Nobody did. I opened the book. Some complex geometric drawings, diagrams, unfamiliar runes glowing with dim light… Nothing I understood. Either this was some textbook on rune magic or just an atlas of the constellations in the night sky. I turned through a few pages, but the rest of it was just as impenetrable.
Then I suddenly realized: I’d dropped out of stealth for some reason — I could see my paws with the dark smoke of Veil of Darkness curling around my claws. What happened? Was it because I touched the book?
“I knew you’d come straight here,” Lady Victoria said from behind me, laughter in her voice. My breath caught in fear and I span around.
A very large black cat stood in the library doorway, nervously twitching her tail. Long-legged, short-haired, with huge yellow eyes. I couldn’t figure out the breed. A Bombay, maybe, only not as solid or muscular. Or maybe an Egyptian Mau with an unusual coloring?
☠ Bastet.
No level, no game class. Just a bright red tag with a skull symbol before the name. In any case, if this was the level 78 Courtesan before me, then this was an enemy out of my league. I tried to go into stealth again, but it didn’t work for some reason.
“Were you looking for this?” The cat didn’t move, but one of the ancient heavy tomes hovered away from the bookshelf all on its own and carefully landed on the floor without a sound, opening and turning to a specific page. “The spell of transforming into a human? Well, I give it to you! Use it!”
I turned my face to the drawing. A complex pattern of crisscrossing lines, a dozen shining incomprehensible runes at the top of a triangle. What was this? How could I use it? The cat waited half a minute, then spoke again with a mix of disappointment and surprise in her voice.
“You don’t know the ancient tongue? And you can’t talk, although you understand human speech? Then why did you bother coming into my magical library? How did you hope to become human, little thief?”
The conversation had taken an unexpected turn. The cat twitched its tail in annoyance. This was surely the end… But no attack came from the lady, neither by claw nor magic.
“Alright, let’s try something else. Follow me!”
The cat turned away and walked out of the room. Nothing was left but to follow her. Although… maybe it wasn’t too late to run? I glanced at a half-open window in the hallway. Run to the window ledge, jump out into the park and transform into a bug there? But the window suddenly slammed shut on its own.
“I advise you not to flee,” the black cat hissed in displeasure without even turning round. “I have sought you too long to let you go now, Whiskers. Or should I call you Andrei?”
How did she know so much about me? She must be reading my thoughts. I discarded all thoughts of escape and obediently followed after the lady of the house. We crossed the hall and went into the bedroom. The black cat jumped up onto the bedside table and stopped in front of a row of vials. Deftly, as if she had long trained to do it, she used her claws to pull out a cork in a vial of purple liquid, then overturned the bottle to
pour the contents onto the table. She moved aside to let me up.
“Drink it up! I mean, lap it up! You’ll have about forty minutes in human form. Long enough for us to talk.”
The drink didn’t smell too good, like old fermenting jelly. All the same, I tasted it. Gross! I nearly threw up. Definitely no good for cats.
“Come on!” the cat urged me on. “You have to drink at least a third of it, otherwise the transformation will be partial. I know it doesn’t taste good, but it’s the least painful way.”
I overcame my disgust and lapped up more of the sticky disgusting liquid. Then, suddenly…
Shapeshifter skill increased to level twenty-two!
The world shook. The floor suddenly sped away from my feet and the ceiling rushed down to meet me.
“Meoooow! I mean, what the hell?!”
I didn’t recognize the voice. I looked down at my hands in amazement. Human hands, with five human fingers, not cat’s claws. It worked! I was a man again! But something was wrong. I had no ginger hair on my arms and chest! And the old scar on my wrist was gone. And my legs weren’t as hairy as before. And below my stomach… There was just a mass of ginger hair with a penis sticking out of it, and it was half again as long as my own should be. Not that I was complaining, but this wasn’t my body! A mirror, I need a mirror!
I must have shouted that last part aloud.
“Don’t panic. It’s normal,” came a calming voice from behind. Suddenly, I was conscious that I was completely naked in front of a woman. “Your usual body is occupied by the human called Sergeant. This is what a ginger cat turned into a man looks like. And you know, it’s certainly not a bad body. A beautiful, young, strong man.”
I turned and… all the words stuck in my throat. The black cat had turned human too. The young woman Victoria Bastet stood naked only a few paces away. Tall, dark of hair, long of leg and inhumanly beautiful. A little late, I recalled that Bastet was a cat goddess in Ancient Egyptian mythology. How could I forget that? A cult of cats, cat statues and cat paintings everywhere. Could she be a goddess..? The power of Victoria Bastet’s magic outstripped any I had seen so far. If she wasn’t a goddess, then she was certainly a remarkable player. And merciless and deadly. I couldn’t forget that for a second. That said, in her current form, the cat goddess invoked no fear. Instead, she stirred entirely different feelings within me.
“I’ve been wanting to have a very serious talk with you,” Victoria began in a strict voice, staring right into my eyes. Then her eyes suddenly traveled downward and she stopped in mid-sentence. Her pupils widened.
Ahem… Awkward. I wasn’t sure what to do. It was too late to cover up with my hands, and that would be silly anyway.
“What… What do you want from me?” I asked the first question that came to mind, anything to break the awkward silence and draw the Courtesan’s attention away from the protruding body part she was staring at.
The beautiful woman said nothing. With a wicked smile, she came closer and slowly ran a manicured nail across my chest.
“You’ve been at least a month without a woman’s touch… I can see that right away. And your thoughts… are very loud and expressive. No, I am not a goddess, although I thank you for the compliment. I appreciate it. You know, business can wait. It’s so rare for cats to find tomcats nowadays. Remember, Andrei, you have forty minutes in human form. Don’t waste it!”
Chapter 24 [Kitten]
Secret of the Cat Goddess
I WASTED NO TIME, and my ‘conversation’ with Victoria Bastet was eloquent and passionate. It was in full swing when the sharp blast of a hunting horn suddenly sounded out from the direction of the courtyard. What was happening? My experienced and tireless lover froze too, listening intently. I listened too, heard iron-bound wooden wheels clattering over the planks of the bridge, metal clanking, reptilian mounts screeching.
Radar Ear skill increased to level twenty-nine!
Victoria heard the sounds too, pulled herself from my embrace sharply and sat up on the bed.
“My husband is here. Such poor timing…”
“Huh. And who is your husband again?” I asked, conscious that I should have asked that rather important question some time ago.
“The Pharaoh.”
The Pharaoh? My heart nearly stopped. It seemed unlikely that the leader of the strongest human guild, a man renowned for his cruelty, would be happy to see a lover in his wife’s bed. Now I was really in trouble…
In the meantime, beautiful Bastet with her disheveled hair quickly threw on a gown, cast an admiring glance at me and suddenly asked whether my character had the Shapeshifter skill.
“Yeah, level twenty-three,” I answered proudly with no clue why she wanted to know at such a critical moment.
My answer clearly disappointed the Courtesan. “Not good… Ordinarily there’d only be seven minutes left on the potion, then you’d turn back into a cat. I could explain a new cat in the house. But the Shapeshifter skill makes transformation elixirs last longer. You won’t be able to turn into anything else for another fifteen to seventeen minutes.”
How did she know all this? The Shapeshifter skill had been added literally the day before. When had Lady Bastet had the time to learn so much about it? Or did the game give her more information on skills than it did me, with my twenty-five Intellect? And why couldn’t I just use my transform spells? I checked, opening the list of available Transformation Magic spells. They were all grayed out, inactive. No problem! I went into stealth and activated translucency, but Victoria just shook her head.
“No, that won’t work. My husband has many enemies, and faces a war with the sherkhs. The Pharaoh has grave fears for his life, so he is careful to the point of paranoia. Before the leader of the New Pharaohs enters, his best Scouts will examine the palace with thermal goggles and high-level skills that can detect all sorts of things. They’ll certainly detect an invisible man. They’re trained to find sherkhs. I have another plan.”
I suddenly fell out of invisibility. How did she do that?! Once more, I doubted that a human stood before me, even a high-level one well versed in magic.
ATTENTION! Your character description has changed. You are now Felix Ginger. Human. Male. Guild: The New Pharaohs. Level 23 Woodcutter.
I knew perfectly well that it was all just illusion. In reality, I was still Sergeant’s pet cat, but players wouldn’t see that now — instead, they’d see this new description above my head. Something else was bothering me — why go to all this trouble to rename me?
“I’ll say that some insane naked maniac crept into the house, attacked me and tried to rape me,” Lady Victoria explained as she quickly ran a comb through her hair. “The Pharaoh won’t take long to decide what to do about it, he’ll be so furious that he’ll just burst in and kill you quickly. You’ll revive back in your cat body and come back tonight, when my husband and his people are gone.”
The Courtesan spoke with distant indifference, as if one of my lives was worth absolutely nothing in her eyes. What a bitch! She wanted to get herself out of trouble at the cost of my life? I barely held back the desire to strangle the treacherous witch. All that kept me from it was the knowledge that attacking was hopeless — a level 78 player could easily take me out, and my actions would only confirm her tale of a madman breaking in and attacking her. This needed a different approach… I tried to calm down, to keep my tone even.
“Who would believe a story about some random madman? Just give me some clothes and put Gardener in my description instead of Woodcutter. I’ll tell the servants that I was sent to replace that last slacker. Or you could make me a Chef. Then I can go to the kitchen and help your only Chef. He’s up to his neck in work.”
“So you saw what happened to my Gardener. And you’ve already met my Chef, too…” Lady Victoria’s eyes narrowed. Her look made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I braced for an attack. But then she relaxed, laughed. “You know, Andrei, that might just work!”
Th
e Courtesan had been a hair’s breadth from taking me out, but now a spark of interest appeared in her eyes. The woman walked to the wardrobe, dug around in one of the lower drawers and threw me some men’s trousers, sandals and a t-shirt.
“Here, try them on. If you survive, that will greatly increase your status in my eyes.”
ATTENTION! Your character description has changed. You are now Felix Ginger. Human. Male. Guild: The New Pharaohs. Level 13 Chef.
So I was to be a Chef. I quickly pulled on the clothes she gave me. The trousers fit just fine. The t-shirt was actually one of my own. I remembered putting it into my backpack on the day I packed my things. The mistress of the home must have taken it from the serving girl and put it with the rest of her men’s clothes. I didn’t put too much thought into why the Courtesan had so much men’s clothing. I had other things to worry about.
“Run to the kitchen while the servants are still checking the garden. No, wait! One finishing touch. I’m going to create an illusory slave collar on your neck. There’ll be fewer questions that way. And take that flask of human transformation potion. You’ll need it to maintain your form. Done, go! Tell Li I bought you to help him.”
As fast as I could, I ran down to the first floor. I flew into the kitchen where the older Asian man Li was still working by the stove. I told him I’d been sent as an assistant.
“Finally!” the Chef breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I’ve been asking the Lady for a kitchen hand for so long. And you’re just in time! Fifty people just arrived, and we have to feed them all! You worked in a kitchen before?”
In Service of the Pharaoh (League of Losers Book #2) Page 22
