Scientific Sorcery : Beware of Kittens!

Day 6

When I woke up, I went into the forest with the sharpest axe I could find and started to chop down trees.

Paranoia jolted by the book of monsters and Grandhilda’s words about evil heroes was driving me onwards.

The most basic, rapidly built defense I could think of was laying a bunch of trees on their side with sharp branches sticking outwards. Thankfully, due to the magic backpack of earth on my back my stamina was nearly infinite.

After the entire day of fortifying, the pub started to turn into a pincushion-like defense of dead trees surrounding it. Many of the trees were quite easy to bring down, their interiors hollow and covered in white dust. Upon closer examination I concluded that a lot of the trees had died in the range of one to two decades ago from a fungal infection, potentially the white blight that the Yaga mentioned.

When I went to sleep, I expected to speak to Yaga Grandhilda, but the old witch did not show up in my dreams. Perhaps our joined connection had come apart and that was it–I was on my own from here.

When I got up the next morning, I was greeted by the singing of songbirds.

As I looked at the birds outside, I noted that animals started to return to the village.

When I stepped out of my pub-fort into the village, I spotted a black, adorable kitten sitting on a ruined step of my pub and looking lost.

“Mew,” it said, staring up at me with big, pale silver eyes.

I reached out with my hand and the kitten immediately melted into it with a loud purr. I wondered if it was someone’s pet that had escaped the village before the dragon struck it. The poor thing was all bones and fur and must have spent nearly a week trying to survive in the forest.

Cats certainly seemed to possess a sixth sense of danger. According to what I knew, cats could feel minimal tremors not perceptible to humans that allowed them to escape earthquakes far more effectively than people. Perhaps, the same case had applied here.

Regardless of how the kitten stayed alive, I took the cutie in and carried him into the pub, offering the small pet a bowl of water and some meat.

“I’m going to call you Stormy,” I said as I eyed the dark kitten.

The kitten devoured the offered meat quickly, offering me a purr in exchange.

As the dark furball settled on my lap, I dug into my pocket and pulled out my Astralscope. The gemstone lenses seemed to have grown clearer and more purple.

Moving slowly so as not to disturb the happy kitten I peered at the nearest plant.

Doing so nearly made me drop the lenses because I saw something truly bewildering.

Odd, blurry, barely discernible, tiny things were moving in irregular patterns over the witch-blessed earth and plants.

The shapes were nothing like the microscopic life I was used to seeing. They traversed right through solid rocks and leaves as if they weren’t even there. If I had to hazard a guess… it was spirits!

“Science 4, Witch-Senses 0,” I jubilantly tabulated my victory, waking up Stormy and accidentally making him roll off my lap.

I rewarded myself and Stormy with dried meat and some ice I boiled in a metal pot over the fire.

I could see spirits, but I had no way to affect them, since trying to poke them with anything was impossible.

The silver-violet spoon from my pile of things went through the ghostly creatures as if they weren’t even there at all for example.

Stumped with the impossibility of interacting with the spirits, I turned to more mundane matters that required my attention.

I ventured out of the pub and collected more foodstuffs from the cold storage of ruined houses. The pub had the biggest cold storage under its floorboards, so I slowly filled it with various harvested preserved items.

I wrapped a few dry meats in leather pouches and slid them into the depths of the magical earth pile, hoping that this action would somehow improve the quality of the meat. If the Yaga was to be believed, everything within a radius of about 4 meters was affected by my magic life-rad, while things actually touching the earth were most affected.

The village possessed several glass jars, which I immediately filled with boiled and organism-filled standing water and buried them in the earth to see how liquids and microorganisms would be affected.

Stormy watched my machinations with wide gray eyes.

Day 20

Two weeks flew by as I meditated every morning and evening, fortified my home and meticulously tracked the changes occurring within my test jars and crystals.

As I unburied various items and materials out of my earth pile, I noted that their molecular structure was somehow changing. Everything inorganic within the pub was becoming more crystalline and anything organic grew rapidly or became fresher. A small jar with green algae inside it bloomed like mad. Boiled water that I kept in a large jar now tasted absolutely sublime, invigorating me like the best coffee or energy drink that I’ve ever had. Pickled food jars that lay beneath the pile of earth in the cold storage somehow tasted fresher and more filling. A bar of soap became a more effective cleaning agent. An iron dagger became tougher, a spot of rust vanishing completely off it.

I could discern no patterns within the change of the items and food, except for one - some things buried within my earth became more useful to me, their primary functions amplified.

I emptied the pub from its former furniture and added more earth from outside. Slowly but surely, the newly added earth became irradiated with life-rad, turning violet.

I also discovered that my kitten was female.

Stormy didn’t leave my side once, spending her days either sleeping lazily next to me as I worked or running up and down my earth piles chasing or pawing at things that I could not see with the naked eye.

I wondered if the kitten saw spirits too.

Looking at her activities through my improved Astralscope goggles made from layered crystal lenses and twenty stones ground down into crystalline lenses confirmed my theory. The kitten could indeed somehow see spirit life and was trying to play with it!

“Mew,” the kitten turned to me.

“What?” I asked.

The kitten walked up to the dry meat, sniffed it and sneezed and then smacked it away, looking at me.

“You want fresh meat?” I asked her.

“Merw,” the kitten replied.

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go on a hunt.”

Day 21

I crept through the forest with as much silence as I could muster, my backpack filled with earth. Hundreds of crystalline rocks covered my body tied into a mesh, keeping me invigorated and exceptionally comfortable and warm. A tunic sewn from patchwork of the most spiritually potent Zemy’s Band banners hung atop me.

Stormy sat on my shoulder peering into the fog ahead.

I spotted an elk.

The majestic creature looked down at me, raising its massive antlers and stomping its feet. I raised the arbalest, moving faster than the beast could and pressed the trigger.

Time seemed to pause for a brief moment as I watched the arrow’s flight. It struck the elk in slow motion. The elk reared up on its hind legs. I pulled another armed arbalest from my side and let a second iron-tipped arrow fly.

The elk fell at my feet, bleeding out before it could pincushion me with its sharp head-bones.

“Mrewl,” Stormy commented.

“There,” I said, my hands shaking from the stress of getting nearly plowed over by a 300kg beast. “That’s enough fresh meat for both of us for a while. Are you happy now?”

“Mrrrmwwl,” the kitten commented conversationally.

I wasn’t sure, but perhaps sleeping on my domain and drinking water irradiated with witch magic was making my pet smarter.

“You’re a bad influence you know,” I told her. “My witch-Master definitely wouldn’t approve of me roaming the forests with an arbalest.”

The kitten sneezed.

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right. She can’t stop us–she’s not the boss of us!”

Taking the elk apart and storing the meat in the cold room now packed with fresh ice from the river was making me feel content. Stormy watched as I cooked elk belly on a frying pan utilizing the oversized iron stove.

Day 23

I whistled the ‘Don't Worry Be Happy’ melody as bacon spluttered on the pan, wishing that I had some eggs to go with it. Alas, the chickens did not survive dragon fire.

As I slid the frying pan off the stove, about to indulge in delicious fried meats, Stormy started to paw at my face.

“Hold on, I’ll get you a plate,” I said, but then the kitten suddenly leapt off my shoulder and rushed to a window, staring at something in the distance.

I approached the stained glass and looked at where she was peering at.

There were three men on horseback riding through the snow covered village ruins, their stern faces looking at the village. They were dressed in simple metal chainmail and leather armor, swords glinting at their sides. They must have spotted the smoke coming from the chimney of the pub, because they stopped in front of my impassable tree-barricade and were saying something amongst each other, pointing at the pub.

Due to my monster-related paranoid preparations, there was no way of approaching the place on horseback. Short of setting it on fire, the barrier of trees would be exceptionally difficult to penetrate quickly by a large predator. I left a hidden, narrow path to get into the pub safely for myself and Stormy from the side, weaving through the barricade, and it wasn’t easy to spot.

“Rrwrrrr,” Stormy commented from the windowsill.

“Yeah, the vultures are finally here,” I said with a sigh.