— Aster —

“Welcome back little Moonflower you have grown.”

Looking for the source of the voice I couldn’t see anyone or anything. Until the creature slowly began to form into a small black cat. ‘Hello, I’ve come to become stronger.’

“It has been a while since I saw you little Moonflower. I see that you have not wasted your time. You have become so much stronger. You will not even recognize yourself.” The creature began to laugh as though he had made a joke.

‘So now I will level?’

“Yes but first speak your desire.” I froze, remembering what happened the last time I was asked to speak, I had gained a word. That means I had at least become level five, although my last one had only ever been used once recently. I spoke “Pocket!” Oh, it was the word I wanted this time.

“Interesting choice. Where?” I pointed to my wrists. Once I did the creature came up to me touching my wrists with its paws. When he did a light surrounded my body. As the light faded the creature added “My, you really have become a strong little Moonflower.”

I was surprised I was still in the world of the red light. Last time I was touched I was sent back. The cat creature was now staring at me with its inquisitive cat stare. “Now my strong little Moonflower. Speak what you fear.”

This one caught me off guard before I could think I blurted “Falling!” Indeed, I had always feared falling, not sure why but I had used this to push me to never fall.

I panicked and thought I just wasted my third skill. Then the creature spoke uncertain “Hmm that’s a tricky one…Oh! This will be fun.”

‘Fun what does that mean?’ I was now concerned as I had not yet heard the creature talk in such a way before. The voice was not malevolent or bad. It just reminded me of a playful child about to do something exactly as he was told. The cat approached touching me as an orange light engulfed me. The light faded and I was back in the pool swimming to the surface. Gasping in a large gulp of air and rolling out onto the poolside. Catching my breath I opened my screens. The second screen popped up displaying what had leveled but I ignored it and stared at my level. I was now level twelve after a minute I unhide the rest of my screen to read the rest.

Name: Aster Datura

Level: 12

Class: Moonflower

Energy Type: Rogue

Animal Specialization: Cat

SubClass: N/A

Skills:

Combat:

Dagger: 20 ++

1-Handed Swords: 5

Throwing Knives: 18 +

Chakrams: 20 ++

Magic:

Mana Control: 6

Cats Eye: 13 +

Shadow: 7

Light: 4

Other:

Lock picking: 20 ++

Pickpocket: 11 +

Trap making: 6

Trap Detection: 16 +

Stealth: 20 ++

First Aid: 8

Tailoring: 3

Trap Disarming: 16 +

Words:

Soul: Faster

Desire: Pocket

Fear: Falling

It had been a while since I had looked at my skills. I was surprised I hadn’t realized I had reached level twenty mastering the skill. Next would be to learn mystic abilities with them. I knew that getting past level twenty was extremely difficult. Many people considered it capped at that level because you need to almost be inspired to reach level twenty and become stuck at nineteen. I wonder what the plus sign next to the skill is. Seems to appear every ten levels. I bet it’s a rank. But staring down at my new special skills. I had no idea what any of them really meant. I had only used it faster once and that was even earlier today. Thinking while looking at my screen maybe it’s like the first one. I think I had to channel energy to the word. Then while thinking about the word I moved energy to my wrists. I concentrated on the word as I spoke “Pocket”. Slowly concentrating I reached my hands towards my wrist imagining there was a silver line going across. My hands seemed to reach into an empty space limited by my wrist. If I were long sleeves it will look like I’m pulling it out of my sleeves.

Pulling my hands out I began to look at the last one ‘Falling’ not sure about this one. I tried concentrating hard on the skill “Falling”. Nothing happened, no drain of power or anything. I tried again this time focusing harder on the skill this time I felt a large drain on my energy “Falling” hearing a squeal in the background.

Looking around I saw Delilah on the ground. I ran over to her. “Sorry about that. I thought you left?”

Delilah took my hand and got up straightening out her pants. “It’s fine. So what level are you? I know you made it to at least five with the whole falling thing.”

I thought about lying for a second but why should I? “twelve”

She stopped moving, seeming to be shocked. “Wow, you did so many missions you went up nine levels. Didn’t think that was possible with rank zero and one mission.”

“What do you mean?”

Delilah started to walk away “You’ll see. Now get some rest you just became Rank two and level twelve. You need to adjust.”

“What about dinner?” Yelling towards her as she was still walking away

“Some other time.”

I was disappointed that she walked away, but I could only shrug as I went back to my room to count my loot.

The next three months flew by doing nothing but missions and trying to figure out how to use my skills. I was still trying to figure out how to use them. For some reason, I had no problems using the pocket but falling or faster I just couldn’t figure out what I did to use them. Every time I tried to focus on the word, and channel energy to them nothing would happen. Sometimes I would feel energy pour out of me but I could never figure out if anything happened. Now at this point, I’ve decided to put this on the back burner. As I did my new missions I have now ranked two thanks to my consistent level-ups. The rank two missions and rank three missions were similar to rank one and zero just much harder with more precise needs. Oddly enough some of them were just ranked one or zero missions with almost no time remaining. The monster fights were more difficult, and the deliveries sometimes required delivering to high-security areas or taking from high-security areas, which I thought was much more fun.

With rank two a new type of mission was presented to me called “Booby Trap”. This one surprised me. It was to set up booby traps for various places to deter thieves. The tricky part was, I had to make it hard for even me to sneak by them. I enjoyed these as they challenged and leveled my skills. The new job for rank three was “Sabotage.” This had me sneak in and disable some type of machinery or hinder someone from advancing on a project or simply delaying a person. These new jobs were harder and took much longer, but they paid almost double instead of thirty Coppers a mission I was earning around sixty coppers, but due to the length of each mission I couldn’t do that many.

Due to the quick advance in the level, my missions were a little bit slow going. I no longer knew my own strength or speed. I would move faster than I expected or accidentally break a trap instead of disarming it but after a few failed missions I was able to start to get the hang of my new strength.

In the three months, I had remaining I had only done a third of the missions I had done in my first three months. Thanks to this though I was able to gain another two gold. After reaching twelve I was only able to level up once more to thirteen. I was informed once you reached level ten the amount of experience required became astronomical.

I was a month and a half in when I was finally able to noticeably use one of my words ‘Faster’. I was still getting the hang of my word as Faster usually gave me a burst of uncontrollable speed, I was trying to figure out how to make it speed up faster but was not going well. I may or may not have run into a wall or two. As for the pockets they were amazing, I found that when I put something in the pocket it went into its own dimension the only drawback so far is it was only about the size of a backpack between the two and was a constant drain on my energy when something was in it, although it wasn’t a noticeable drain. Once I ran out of energy all the items would “fall out”. I also learned the more items inside the faster the drain. I rarely used it except when on missions. As for falling, I’m still figuring that out, but it might be my balance is better, honestly, I have no idea and nothing I’ve been trying is working.

Finally, my year was up allowing me to go into the outside world on my own. All that was left was a final speech by the guild instructor.

I entered a room filled with about twenty nondescript people wearing shadow masks, the girl sat next to me as we waited. Even with the masks, we could spot each other. Then the instructor came in pulling a large portable whiteboard.

“Hello Everyone. Today is your last day and I am sure you are all eager to meet your friends. So I will make this quick.” The instructor pulled the board forward and flipped the board and it had three statements on it. “First.” Smacking the board with a stick. Pointing to the first item “Sub jobs”

“You can all choose any sub job, such as blacksmith, miner, jeweler, tailor, etc., and so on. It is a similar process as here but with one major exception, it is only one day of training. In the two weeks, you will be out. You will be on your own, so have a place to stay. They will charge you a set amount and this will pay for basic beginner tools.” He began to pace looking out at us. “Second. The mark is the only proof you are a shadow cat, nothing and I mean nothing other than that ties you to this guild. No other guild will react to that mark, we are the only ones that do this. So if you want to take other guilds quest you just need to obtain your own book from that guild.”

He then slammed his stick on the last item on the board “Tell No One! This is the most important. Tell no one you are a Shadow Cat. Just being caught and having the mark will qualify you to be harassed constantly. All guilds will reject you if they find out, same with the sub-jobs. If they require you to show them your job, do so happily, unless it says shadow cat in the class, and explain it away as an alley cat or something.” Looking over us all and in a somber tone “Now finally I should also tell you, everyone in this guild is under a glamor to not appear as themselves. So that outside the guild no one will recognize you. That’s why all the instructors look the same and go by the same names. Jane and Kyle, obviously this is not their real name and also why to others your name sounds only as a boy or girl. This glamor has been there since you entered the guild the first time and will extend for thirty meters outside the guild but will fade after instead of persisting as it does now. This is to help hide your identity. This is my final warning. You may not be able to trust each other either as there is a reward for turning in a fellow Shadow, it is not pleasant but it does happen.” Murmur spread through the crowd “The world is not a kind place to us. Nor is it a kind place to most. There are wars and injustices, pompous nobility. We do try to help in our own ways but we are Cats, the messengers, thieves, spies, and assassins”. He said the last one with a hiss.

“We are the poisoners, the cripplers, the unseen daggers in wars. If you are successful in many of your missions none will know it was you. Only the eggs serve as proof.” Taking a deep breath he grabbed the board “You are all Shadow Cats, always remember who and what we truly are.” He began to push the board out and in a sarcastic tone “Class Dismissed.” He pushed the board out and left the entire class of rogues sitting in stunned silence. After a moment a loud roar was let out by the entire class.

We were rogues well and true. Slipping out of the crowd I made my way to my room to finish packing my stuff. Grabbing my bag I left the home for wayward cats heading to the Iron Forges.