“Hey, hey Daki,” Taeo said. “Wake up!”

It was strange being in the void, an abyss which supposedly went down for an eternity, but they all knew it must not be true. There had to be an end somewhere, hidden below the vast amounts of fog, beyond the cliffs and countless discovered and undiscovered dungeons. Who knew how long it would take them to get there however?

Though it was Taeo who called out to him, it wasn't the hare who brought Daki back to reality. Up until this point he had had his eyes closed. He found it much easier that way, as he was being taken away from everything he had known during the twenty-four years after the scar had appeared. Daki was nervous and afraid. Was he even up to face the challenges which lay ahead of him? Before he could contemplate what his answer might be, he fell to his knees and covered his ears.

“AAAAaagh!” Taeo shouted as he did the same.

Daki could only imagine the type of pain the hare was experiencing, with his much better hearing. “W-wh-what is this?” he asked.

“I… I told you to wake up! You potato head!” Taeo winced as he let go of his ears and stood.

“P-potato head?” Daki questioned as he stood up as well.

“Hey,” Taeo said. “I only make the insults.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Daki said as he shook his head. There was no time to dwell on that though. What had made that awful sound?

“This is exactly why you should never let your guard down!” Taeo said. “The previous adventurers cleared this path and made it safer yes, but that does not mean that it is safe. Look around.”

Daki did, glancing from one cliff edge to the next. He looked both above and below the platform. He could see nothing but the dark outlines of rocks. “I… I can’t see anything,” he said.

“Hmmm… probably because you’ve never been down here before,” Taeo said. “It’s too dark for a surface dweller to properly see. At least for now… I should think that your eyes will adjust in time.”

In time… that wasn’t soon enough. “Then how do I fight back?” he asked.

“Relax!” Taeo said. “There is another way.”

“Another way I can see?”

Taeo nodded. “Remember that bracelet? Well… I want you to put it on.”

Another loud screech sounded out, somewhere in the darkness, though it wasn’t quite as loud as the first. Whatever creature had made that noise, was moving further away. It wouldn’t be the end of it however. Daki knew the creature would return soon.

He shook his head. “How is that going to help?” he asked. Though the bracelet was important, Daki had removed it from his wrist because of the weird, glowing text which appeared right in the middle of his vision. It was incorporeal and couldn’t be touched and was a complete distraction to everything else around him.

“Matthias foresaw this obstacle and on every new bracelet, he installed a function which is meant to aid all new guild members like yourself.”

Daki sighed and reached into a pocket in his jacket, pulling out the ring of blue fabric. “I don’t see how looking at that… interface is going to help…” despite his doubts though, he slipped it on without any further questions.

“Well duh!” Taeo said. “It is an interface, so you can interact with it.”

He looked at the hare, both surprised and… bemused. Interacting with the text was something he had actually not thought of doing. It had never even occurred to him. “How?” Daki asked.

“Right now you should be on the welcome page. Use your other hand to slide it over and another page will appear. Slide it back and it will return to the first. Slide it up and you can get a clear picture of all your equipment. Slide it down and the entire interface will vanish. Then you just tap the air in front of you to bring it all back. You understand?”

Despite Taeo’s long winded explanation of the bracelet’s mechanics, it all sounded rather simple. He could use his other hand to switch between pages in order to view different sets of information. “I think so.”

Taeo nodded. “Good, now we haven’t got much time before they are fully upon us!” the hare said. “Slide it twice.”

Daki brought up his other hand and flicked it two times. The page that appeared then, only had one, short line of text.

Feline Fanatics

“Do you see it?” Taeo asked.

“I do,” Daki said.

“That is a skill which all new guild members are given. You can use it to gain more visibility and it… does some other things as well, but the visibility is what you want in this scenario. Tap it.”

Daki did. Though he was somewhat expecting something to happen when he activated the skill, he still fell back a step when his entire world turned green. The shadows and silhouettes became brighter and he could no longer see just the outlines of objects, but their full form. The text became a light purple. “I… I can see,” he said.

“Good,” Taeo said. “There’s more to the bracelet than that, but for now this is what you need.”

The creature screeched again, louder than the first time. Daki winced. “There it is!” he shouted.

It was a grotesque and ugly thing with an extremely long and scaly body. The creature’s claws were strong enough to pierce through stone and its head was almost the same size as its torso.

“Yes!” Taeo said. “I see it!”

“What is that thing?”

There was a short pause before the hare answered. “A… screecher.”

Screecher… wow… how very creative of them to give a monster who was known for screeching the name ‘Sreecher’... Daki shook his head. “Really?” he said. “That’s what you all choose to call this thing?”

Taeo shrugged. “Hey, if you want to rename it, go ahead. I don’t think anyone would object.”

Daki's eyes went to the creature as its mouth began to open. He slid his feet apart and readied himself to jump.

"What are you doing?" Taeo shouted. "You can't dodge."

"What?"

“What do you think might happen if that monster lets out an attack and there’s no one in the way of it?”

Daki glanced down at the old, rickety, wooden platform they stood upon. The hare was right. If neither of them blocked that creature’s attack, the platform might suffer for it and as far as he could tell, they were still nowhere near their landing. “How about I jump out of the way and you deflect its attack?” he suggested.

Taeo shook his head. “It’s not as simple as that.”

A loud hissing noise began to escape from the screecher’s throat and a large ball of pure, white light was forming in its mouth. “Not as simple as that?” he said incredulously.

“No,” Taeo said. “I do not have the power to deflect such an ability.”

Daki rolled his eyes. The hare, who had much more experience than he did and who was supposedly from The Scar, did not have the power to deflect a simple ball of light? He inhaled. Well fine, if that was the way it was, he would need to do something to protect them both!

The ball of light grew bigger, the hissing more intense and then both stopped. It fired towards them!

“Move!” Taeo shouted as he leapt out of the way. “Er… I mean stay there!”

“I’ll do what I want!” Daki shouted and leapt out of the way as well. As he did though, he clenched a fist and aimed his thoughts towards the wood. What he was about to do was an extremely risky thing, but what other choice was there?

Thick vines sprouted from the wood, blanketing the platform in a thick veil of green. The light smashed into it and dissipated without damaging the structure. Both of them landed, surprised and a little bewildered at what had just happened. Daki used magic, but it didn’t backfire.

Taeo turned on him. “You idiot! You know that could have gone horribly wrong, right?”

Daki shrugged. “But it didn’t,” he said.

They both stopped and turned, when the screecher landed on the platform behind them. Daki drew out his rusted, old sword.

“I’ll… lecture you later on the importance of not using magic willy nilly in The Scar,” Taeo said as he slipped on a pair of fingerless gloves.

“It was the only way,” Daki said. The only way to protect both him and their ride down. He looked up as the enormous reptile inched its way closer to where he stood. “Back off you fiend!”

It opened its mouth wider, showing hundreds of tiny dagger-like teeth and a throat large enough to swallow an elephant. The screecher whipped its tail around!

Daki leapt into the air over it and with his sword held tightly in both hands, slashed a deep gash in the creature's head as he fell back down. It screamed in pain and tossed its head. He watched in the air as the platform grew further and further away. Tch! Great! Is this how my life is going to end?

“Hey potato head! Use the skill for newbies!”

The skill for…? But wasn’t that just for allowing him to see in this darkness? Daki shook his head. No… Taeo said it could do other things as well. Like what though?

The entire theme behind feline fanatics was that it could allow him to do what a cat could right? As he flew through the air, Daki smiled. He twisted his body toward the falling cliff face and pushed off with his feet, propelling him back toward where that screecher still stood. In the air he somersaulted and using the move he had seen Taeo unmasterfully perform against that slime, the heel of his foot slammed into the creature’s head. He backflipped away and sideswiped the screecher with the same foot.

It screamed and screeched as it plummeted into the depths.

Taeo watched as it fell, showing a little concern. “I hope there is no one down there to stop its fall, Daki.” and he left it at that.