Strange Awakening

Chapter 146

When consciousness decided to grace Felix once more, it came with a bizarre feeling. Rather than hay or a hard floor, he felt as if he was laying on what he’d always assumed clouds would feel like. Yieldingly soft but springy enough he didn’t feel anything hard through it.

A soft buzz of conversation was audible to him, but Felix wasn’t inclined to surrender the pleasant feeling he was experiencing. The half-remembered agony he’d felt before was gone and he rolled onto his side and fell asleep. It wasn’t until much later he woke properly, sunlight softly insisting he not layabout any further.

Opening his eyes, Felix found himself looking up at a timber ceiling and still incredibly comfortable. Far too comfortable. A soft exclamation sounded and he found himself ringed by curious faces. Human faces.

“You lot, stop crowding him,” a low female voice called. Obligingly, the people around Felix backed up and started shuffling out of the room. Once they were gone, he found himself faced with a curiosity. She looked like a muscular human woman, but her eyes were golden.

The woman didn’t wear a collar, but that coloration wasn’t human. Felix felt certain she had to be a demi-human, though perhaps from a diluted bloodline. Not that it would likely matter. Since she could pass for human, she might as well be one.

“I’m Dawn, head of the adventurer’s guild,” Dawn said. She came closer and strangely looked for permission before taking a seat on a stool next to the bed. She was dressed well, in an impressive leather coat with metal plates. If forced to say, Felix thought she looked like a particularly rich mercenary.

That still didn’t explain why Felix was in a private room, of all things. Taking in the details of her coat, of which there was a lot, he realized what he was doing and wanted to slap himself. It was a bad habit of his, getting lost in things that struck his curiosity. He needed to focus and find out where he was and how much trouble he was in.

“Felix Swiftpaw, at your service,” Felix responded a bit late. He had to make a conscious effort to smile without showing his teeth. Like keeping his ears up and forwards regardless of his mood, it was an affectation he’d adopted to smooth his interactions with humans. One he was struggling to keep up as his focus wavered dangerously.

Dawn’s eyes and her interesting title didn’t matter. She could pass for human and that meant she’d almost certainly act like one. That didn’t bode well for Felix, who felt an unusual lightness at his throat.

One hand going discreetly to his neck, Felix confirmed his fear. The false slave collar he normally wore was absent. The fate of other demi-humans who’d been caught without one flashed through his mind and his blood ran cold. The chaining hadn’t been a kind event, but it was merciful in comparison to what happened to those caught later on.

“Right, well, you ought to rest a few days before you worry about service. You were in a mad state when you were found,” Dawn said, waving off the idea.

Felix froze. What little he could remember of the time before he woke did tally with the idea of him being ill. Rather extremely, though the fact he felt fine struck him as deeply strange. He ought to have woken up in pain if he were recovering. Instead, he felt as if nothing had ever been wrong.

“The disease that afflicted you has already been dealt with by the hermit,” Dawn continued, oblivious to Felix’s turmoil.

“Wait, hermit?” Felix asked. The word stood out even as his mind raced.

“The hermit of Lorel. Hetcha sent you, yes?” Dawn asked. Her expression was curious but not upset.

“Yes?” Felix answered, as a few of his memories clarified slightly. Before he’d taken ill or whatever had happened, he’d accepted an assignment from Hetcha, a Lepusan woman who’d spoken of a hermit willing to shelter demi-humans beyond Stromholt's reach.

That he’d managed to actually reach his destination rather than simply die was a stroke of luck in Felix’s mind. He certainly hadn’t been in a fit state to undertake the journey.

“Good. It’s too bad you got sick, but at least you made it,” Dawn said, nodding.

“I was following a map… one with astounding detail,” Felix explained. A whisper of his prior reverence crept up. Dawn flinched, then nodded.

“It's with your things in the wardrobe. The hermit will want to talk with you eventually, but for now, rest up and eat,” Dawn said, as she stood up.

Felix moved to stand, but Dawn waved him off. Her behavior from beginning to end was nearly senseless to him. She acted like there was no disparity in their standing. A puzzle he didn’t linger on, as an unfamiliar but tantalizing scent caught his attention.

Looking over, Felix found himself gazing at a table covered in a haphazard collection of foods. The kinds he’d largely only seen at a distance, rather than partaken of. What it lacked in a coherent theme, it made up for in beauty and he suspected taste, if the smell was anything to go by. He was looking at a feast, one fit for a particularly rich king if he wasn’t off the mark.

Felix missed the actual moment of Dawn's departure as he simply stared. He had to still be asleep and dreaming or dead and in a much better afterlife than he’d ever envisioned. Either way, there were pastries in the mix and he was definitely going to try one, dreaming or not.

The first bite was good, but sickeningly sweet after a moment. Catkin were meat eaters primarily, but it didn’t stop Felix trying a small bite from every pastry on the table. He felt a little ill by the time he was done, but he didn’t regret it.

With that out of the way, he waited a while before treating himself to a more appropriate dish. Thinly sliced fish of some kind in a very light sauce that, while a little sweet, didn’t disagree with him as the pastries had. He ate his fill, and felt better as the hunger he hadn't previously acknowledged subsided.

Hands and muzzle a mess, Felix washed up in the provided basin and decided to change his clothes. Someone had lent him a long tunic to sleep in and had to have bathed him while he was unconscious. Even without being ill, his clothes and fur had likely been in a sorry state.

Opening the wardrobe he found his things laid out neatly and a faint herbal scent wafting from them. Or rather clothes surprisingly similar to his own. He used a gentle touch with his things, but they hadn’t been nearly so nice as the ones he was looking at, even when they were new. If not for the tail hole in the pants and the peculiarities of the cut, he might have thought they were meant for someone else. Someone rich.

After changing his clothes, Felix felt refreshed and started taking an inventory of all the goods in the various drawers. He found more things that looked distressingly similar to, but were not his original equipment. All of his things were accounted for, even if they weren’t really his, and a few were even added.

The hair along Felix’s spine stood up at attention. The entire situation was strange. Not unpleasant, but strange enough to leave him feeling uneasy nonetheless. Hetcha must have been more influential than he’d realized, or this hermit he was meant to see was more than a poor eccentric living in the mountains like most of their ilk.

One odd thing was a hard leather tube with a strap. It took Felix a moment to realize what it was, a scroll or map tube. They were expensive things, though not even a tenth the cost of their precious cargo. Though he himself was a cartographer, he’d never been able to risk owning one. A demi-human with that kind of money invited questions he wouldn’t survive answering.

The tube reminded Felix of the map and he opened it eagerly. Instead of the expected parchment, he found it empty. Surprised and rather annoyed he searched the wardrobe and a nearby set of drawers which finally turned up something. A strange little three-fold of paper formed into a triangle.

Maps weren’t drawn on anything so delicate as paper, so Felix discarded the idea even as he began to open it. He was too curious to let a mystery like that remain unexplored. After a few moments he found he’d been incorrect, it was in fact a map. The one he’d been on verge of worshiping before he’d totally lost his mind.

That masterfully crafted map was folded. Multiple times.

“What rat-tailed, buck-toothed, brainless, worthless, faithless...” Felix snarled as he continued unfolding. Laying the map out on the floor, he quickly took stock of the damage.

“What BASTARD folded a MAP!? Much less THIS map!?” he continued in a growl. The folds themselves were unnaturally neat and crisp. Parchment usually didn’t like to bend in the first place and would break apart randomly along the fold. Paper too didn’t crease well, but this paper was strange. Thick but supple, almost like a cloth.

Felix didn’t recall much about the map or its materials before he’d taken ill. He tried to think if it had been given to him in such a state or if the damage had happened later. That was when a thought struck him that he wouldn’t normally have considered.

“Did I fold it?” Felix asked himself aloud. Dawn had said he was mad when he was found. If he’d been crazed enough not to remember crossing a desert, then it was possible. Detestable, but possible.

Felix shivered as the lack of an alternate explanation weighed on him. Of all of the colorful and ill-advised things he’d done in his thus far brief life, it would be the chiefest of his sins if he’d really folded the map. Not because of its quality, but simply because he knew how much work went into making even bad ones.

Studying the map for a few more minutes Felix felt himself relax a bit. The folds were far neater than anything he’d ever bother with, even in his right mind. He doubted being addled by fever had suddenly made him masterful at folding things. It was more likely he’d been given the map in that state and simply didn’t remember.

Returning to his study of the map, this time Felix focused on actually looking at its content properly. It didn’t take long for his shoulders to droop as he realized what he was looking at. The borders were accurate, likely traced from other maps. Beyond that though, the rest was a lovely painting in the style of a map.

Felix groaned, wondering how ill he’d truly been, given he’d been fawning over the ridiculous art piece. Rather than depicting the general outline of the demon territories, it had the world end where they began and the rest was a fanciful depiction of the land of the gods. Maps hadn’t depicted that seriously for two hundred years.

The one Felix was looking at clearly wasn’t an antique but was perhaps a reproduction. It wasn’t a good map, but it did cover enough ground accurately to work for his assignment. Really, using it to obscure the location of the hermit's valley in the surrounding nonsense was rather smart.

Though he was done with it, Felix couldn’t bring himself to fold the map back up. Instead, he found a clear bit of table and laid some of his spare clothes on it to encourage the creases to straighten out. A needless thing to do, but one he couldn’t stop himself from. Maps were to be rolled with respect, even copies of crazy old ones.