So you want to hear my story? I refuse. What’s in it for me? Chin scratches and treats? Well… I suppose. Start scratching behind the ears though, ah right there, yeah, that’s it.

*puuuurrrrrr*

What was I talking about? My story? Well, I don’t remember much from the before time, it’s all a bit blurry. The first couple years of my life, I spent playing with my human, eating my fill from the food provided every day, and endlessly exploring the street my human lived in.

But those happy times ended all too soon. I was looking for some amusing prey to kill and bring back, when a vicious cruel doggo escaped from it’s yard and chased me for blocks.

That’s how I became an alley cat, hopelessly lost after a panic filled sprint, I was unable to find my way back. My only consolation is I doubt that dog ever figured out how to get back home either. It was just the two of us, him trying to eat me, me hiding under a dumpster until night transformed the alley into an unfamiliar landscape. After the dog left I tried to get back home, but well, it was not to be.

It was likely that the rest of my life would have been spent living on the streets, fathering new generations of feral cats, living off rats, finding scraps in garbage bins, and getting handouts from friendly humans. But one day, while exploring an unfamiliar neighborhood, I drifted into an abandoned house. Looking for food, I made my way past a broken door, down some rickety stairs, into a dimly lit basement and found an odd glowing circle.

Being endlessly curious, and not too smart, I promptly sat down in middle of the circle and tried to scratch at the incandescent engraved symbols. Who knows if what I did triggered that portal, or if it was simply set to trigger whenever anything, even a cat, stepped inside, but trigger it did. That is how I was transported to a fantasy world.

System registers new organism introduced by cross-dimensional portal. System integration initiated.

The message appeared in my field of vision, startling me. I had no idea what the words were, but they were blue and glowy, so I tried to bat them away. They were insubstantial and seemed to follow my gaze wherever I looked. They reminded me vaguely of this toy my human had often used, a laser pointer, and for a short while I chased the text message inside its little blue box. The flat floating box was completely intangible of course, and cared nuaght for my efforts to hunt it.

System integration complete. Status screen created. Blessing “Dimensional Traveller” applied = Your transition between dimensions has infused you with esoteric energies normally inaccessible to those who stay in their own realms. +2 to all stats. Grants innate understanding of all languages, written or spoken, and Dimensional Storage ability (novice). Title “First of Your Kind” applied = You are the first felis catus to visit this world. +2 to all stats.

The changes hit me shortly thereafter. It was extremely painful, and I yowled loudly, squirming helplessly on the ground. It is hard to describe what such a massive stat boost feels like. My strength tripled, and it felt like my muscles were transforming from flesh to iron as they thickened and tightened. That could have shattered my bones, but they too grew harder and sturdier, all my internal organs more resilient as my constitution rose to the point where I was almost as tough to kill as an average human. My skin, and even my fur had become made of some rugged stuff that resisted damage. My nerves grew faster, more accurate, and my fine control over every muscle in my body increased. A cat is naturally agile, but I’d become super-feline in my ability to control my body, and the speed at which my muscles contracted had increased.

But those physical changes were nothing compared to the changes that occurred when my intelligence doubled from 4 to 8. It was as if I was on fire inside my head. And when the pain ended, I suddenly felt like I’d finally awoke from a long dream that was my whole life. I’d become self aware. I was still below average for human level intelligence, maybe as smart as a child, but for a cat? I was a supergenius. It was terrifying.

Imagine waking up feeling completely empty? No words or concepts, nothing but a staggering confusion that replaced your calm indifference. I had been a cat, ruled by instincts, now I was a person in a cat’s body but I knew nothing.

Then the words started coming into my brain. I could feel it, the intrusive magic of the system forced me to accept the “blessing” that came with the Dimensional Traveler; the innate understanding of all languages required that I have an understanding of language in general.

Mercifully, I passed out during this process, so I can’t really describe what having the very concept of communication burnt into my poor brain feels like, but I imagine it too must have hurt, for when I woke, I had a massive migraine, and I was changed.

I understood so many new things, expanded my mind so drastically, that I’m not even sure I could reasonably be called the same creature anymore. I’d been born anew, and my past self died. Ah, well, no need to get sentimental I suppose. That past alley cat self wasn’t nearly as interesting as the new self I am now, and besides, I wasn’t yet smart enough to feel existential dread, so as I remember it, I was mostly concerned with the following more pressing question:

Where the doggo am I?

I think some censorship feature in the system’s magic left me with absolutely no swear words other than “damn”, which if you think about it, isn’t really a swear word, but rather a word that expresses a necessary idea. What would you call someone who is damned if you do not know “damn”? A curse isn't quite the same, for curses can be undeserved and need not be divine judgement. I would have to learn more serious swear words on my own, gleefully, at a later time. But I digress. At the time, my poor brain knew no word worse than doggo; it was my first and only swear word.

The circle of glowing words in a basement had been replaced by a much dimmer, non functional ring of glowing words. The basement had been replaced by a rough stone cave. The gylphs that made up the dimly glowing circle actually seemed to be a very verbose poem about travelers and a journey that folded time and space into a perfect circle that was also a line? Knowing the words didn't automatically mean I understood the message. Additionally, there were broken glyphs that I didn't know. My blessing didn't extend to damaged words. I couldn't fix them since I had no idea what their correct shape was supposed to be. And even if I were willing to guess, unless I learned how to carve glowy glyphs with strange magic ink into solid stone, there was no way home. The portal was broken from this side.

On one wall of the cave I now found myself, there was a skeleton, bones completely dry of all flesh, clothes rotted to dust. All that had survived of the skeleton's belongings were 13 silver coins, each adorned on both sides with the picture of a different animal; rat, tiger, dog, horse, dragon, to name a few.

They were still shiny, as if new, and I felt they might be important, so I tested out my new ability, “Dimensional Storage”, and stuffed them all inside my "inventory". All that was required was that I touch the coin with any part of my body, and think hard about the item being stored. So long as I had enough room, the item simply vanished. When I wanted it back, I imagined it reappearing and it did, floaing in mid-air. The coin then clattered to the floor and rolled around, giving me a few moments of merry chase. I also found one ivory key, on the opposite side from the skeleton, and stored it too. I tried to store the skeleton as well, mostly to test out how much would fit in my inventory, but error messages appeared:

Error, you have reached the maximum number of items that can be stored at your ability level and amplitude score. Error, you are attempting to store an object that exceeds the maximum weight that can be stored at your ability level and amplitude score

Curious, I thought about stats, and a status screen appeared, showing that my amplitude was currently at 4. Focusing my thoughts on my new ability, I received this information:

Dimensional Storage ability (novice) - Allows for upto 10+(1 x amplitude) pounds and/or 10+(1 x amplitude) individual items to be stored. Increased skill provides additional storage. Objects in storage are frozen in time and do not age or decay.

Thanks to the language blessing, I understood what a pound was and I was even able to estimate that I probably only weighed about 10 pounds, for I was quite thin back then. That meant I could store more than my own weight in stuff. Thinking about it, the skill didn’t mention if the objects stored needed to be alive or even if living things placed in storage stayed living. Could I store myself inside my own Dimensional Storage? I wondered.

I briefly imagined myself frozen in time inside some pocket dimension shaped like a box. Would I be alive or dead or some indeterminate state in between? I shuddered. Let's stick to dead things for now, I thought to myself.

After that, I left the dusty cold stone cave by the only exit; a sturdy looking metal gate with bars spaced narrowly enough that I almost couldn’t fit through. No one has entered this hole in the wall in a long time, I realized.

Outside I found a moss covered hillside near a softly murmuring creek. But what caught my eye wasn’t the many tiny mushrooms growing out the soft loamy soil, but rather the massive stone ceiling encrusted with brightly glowing crystals overhead. In this gigantic cavern I was in, an entire ecosystem of mushrooms of various sizes was contained, all illuminated by dim light from many sources, but no moon, sun or sky.

I suppose you're wondering what my first thought on seeing the awe-inspiring Underrealm for the first time? Ah, sorry to disappoint, but my first thought was: Where can I find some sand? I really need to pee.

Status Screen Name “Unknown” Species “domestic cat” Level 1 Jobs N/A Physical Stats Strength 2+4=6 Coordination 14+4=18 Constitution 5+4=9 Mental Stats Intelligence 4+4=8 Willpower 6+4=10 Empathy 1+4=5 Magic Stats Amplitude 0+4=4 Attunement 0+4=4 Luck 9+4=13