Chapter 06

As soon as the empty rectangle disappeared, the bruised, burnt, and bloodied monster collapsed. Mittens was perplexed. Why did the thing collapse as soon as the rectangle disappeared? And why did the blue square help him while he was hanging from its face? The squiggles and squares had appeared occasionally as far back as the cat could remember, but never this frequently or intrusively. Mittens thought about the squares and, as if it was waiting, one popped up in front of his face. Struck by curiosity, Mittens didn’t immediately dismiss the square as he always had before. This time he looked at it, he squinted his eyes, as if to scry out its deepest secrets. And suddenly, the square changed.

Frenzied Forest Pygmy Wolf, Level 5, defeated!

Partial credit for finishing blow

Level up!

Level up withheld due to ongoing event, “Village Invasion!”

Mittens pondered what it could mean, but was interrupted but a worried “mert!” and scratching sound. Merelshirra was clawing at the door to the hut, which Mittens could see had now caught fire. The roof had a smouldering chunk of reeds where the wind had blown an ember. The night was alight with embers flying to and fro, carried by the sea breeze. Merelshirra looked back.

“Help me! The kitten is inside! We have to help her! I can’t jump, I can’t get inside! The home is burning, she’ll die!” Mittens was weirdly uncomfortable at seeing the normally elegant and composed white cat panicking. Blood trickled down her hind leg, clearly too weakened to make it through a window. Angry red patches of skin under charred spots of fur gave her a haggard look, and her eyes, wide with dilated pupils, unsettled him. Cats should be the epitome of grace and confidence, and Mittens was determined to help his friend be the best cat she could be.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll get the kitten out of there. Please, Merelshirra, I need you to have a lie down by the hedge and let me know if anything else like that beast shows up. We won’t let anything happen to your charge. It will be okay.” Mittens had never had to comfort another cat before, but he figured that the best way to help her return to normal would be to retrieve the human kitten. Without waiting for a response, he leapt through the empty window on the front of the hut.

The inside of the dwelling was dark, but not devoid of light. The fires raging nearby and the embers held aloft let in enough of the yellow glow for a cat to see - not that there was much to see. The whole place was one big room, with a small iron stove in one corner, shelves from floor to ceiling on one corner, a rickety wooden table with two chairs, a low bed in another corner, and a pair of wooden boxes next to that bed. The human kitten was still yowling away, apparently wrapped in cloth and confined to a wicker basket sitting on the bed. Mittens disregarded all of the weird human building quirks and approached the human kitten.

The basket was slightly larger than one Mittens, barely large enough for him to fit inside, were it empty. The kitten was quite large for a kitten, at about half a Mittens. Its eyes were open, and watering, but it didn’t seem to be strong enough to do more than wiggle its legs. The tiny human’s eyes latched onto the cat, and it launched into another round of yowling.

Mittens experimentally pulled at the basket - could he move it? It slid about half a Mittens so yes, yes he could. He pulled the basket off of the bed, being careful not to let it tip over, and it thudded lightly to the ground. The top of the bed was only about one Mittens tall, so he didn’t think anything bad would happen to the kitten. Mittens knew kittens were fragile, but surely they weren’t fragile enough for that to damage them. Continued yowling reassured the cat that he wasn’t wrong. Dragging the basket to the door was a laborious process, and the smoke slowly filling the room lent urgency.

Reaching the door presented a problem that Mittens hadn’t considered - how to open it? He mostlyentered and left buildings through the windows, but he wasn’t strong enough to carry the kitten that way. Even if he was, the drop would be too much for a newborn kitten. The few homes that didn't have appropriate windows, he could bat at the door a few times, and the residents would let him in. That clearly wouldn't work now. Mittens stopped to think.

What could he do? He knew doors opened, that was the point. It was always humans that opened the doors though, never cats. How did humans open the doors? Mittens thought, and thought. They did something with their hands,several Mittens up the door, and he could see something square-shaped at the side. Suddenly, a blue square popped into existence, as seems to have become the norm recently. Mittens nearly reflexively dismissed it but, reconsidering, gave it permission to continue existing. Perhaps, like with the box on the nose of the big rat, it had some way to help?

Urgent Event, “Village Invasion!” has ended

Withheld rewards distributed

You have gained the title, “Mayor”

Debug: Resource allocation for AI entity 4361744d697474656e73 increased

Debug: Title sets NPC category to “Rare Elite”

Debug: Rare Elite overrides current category

Error: Conflict in decision tree “Promotion”

Debug: "Critter" genus marked inviolable. Resetting category

Error: “Cat” category static, marked inviolable

Warning: Escalating to Overseer

Debug: Cat category overrides

Debug: New inherited category: “Cat (Rare/Elite)”

Debug: New genus assigned: NPC (Critter). Growth rate changed from 0.0 to 0.2

Debug: New category assigned: Cat (Rare Elite). Growth rate multiplied by 10.0

You have gained a level

You have gained a level

You are now level 2

You have unspent attribute points

Was that helpful? There were so many squigglies. Words, he suddenly realized that those were words. What were words? Mittens didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care at the moment. He batted at the square speculatively. A new square popped up.

Mittens

Cat (Rare Elite)

Beefiness

1

Speediness

10

Chonkiness

1

Thinkiness

1

Carefulness

8

Handsomeness

10

Unspent Points

10

What do the numbers mean? What even are numbers? Why did he know they were numbers? Maybe the numbers could help. Mittens bapped the square away, then pondered the numbers as hard as his tiny, fuzzy cat brain could. He pondered the squigglies, and he pondered the numbers. He pondered himself, squigglies, numbers, and humans.

Skill “Pondering” acquired

Pondering has reached level 1

Thinkiness has increased

Smacking the new blue square away, Mittens thought. It didn’t seem like the numbers could help - more blue squares wouldn’t get that door open. Despite the open window mere Mittens-lengths away, the valiant cat never considered abandoning the human kitten - that would devastate Merelshirra, and he had promised to protect her charge. A proper cat would never renege on a promise. Mittens had nothing if he was not a proper cat.

It was getting harder to breathe as the room filled with more smoke, and an orange glow lit the corner. Despite the mud that made up part of the roof, the reeds crackled ominously. The door had to be opened. The humans could open the door. Anything the humans could do, he could do better. Humans did not have a monopoly on thinking, solving problems, or planning. Mittens thought about thinking harder, better, faster. He thought about thinking better than humans. Mittens thought about what separated humans from cats, and how he could break through to something more than either. Mittens demanded that he become that more.

Error: NPC automatic attribute allocation failed: No class found

Debug: Assigning default class

Error: No default class found for genus NPC (Critter)

Error: No default class found for category Cat (Rare/Elite)

Warning: Escalating to Overseer

Critical: Overseer overrides decision tree

Debug: Resource allocation for AI entity 4361744d697474656e73 increased

Debug: Class set to 5043205475746f7269616c

Notice: Attribute allocation type set to Sapient Entity

Allocate unspent attribute points to Thinkiness?

Yes / NoYes

Mittens huffed - he was annoyed, frustrated, and more than a little panicked at the growing smoke. He bapped the blue square yet again.

Mittens changed.