Between Worlds (WIP) - Chapter 4: This Cat is Definitely Called Bob

Vinera found herself walking the same path she had taken the last time she had visited the temple garden, following the familiar stone road towards the door. She looked around, but things had not changed in the interim — however long that was.

Unlike last time, however, she did not enter the temple proper, only pushing the door open and taking a peek inside. The statue that she remembered moving towards her stood where she had first found it, and Vinera hoped it would stay put this time around. Nope! Not gonna go inside this time. She shut the door, making sure it would not open without the handle being used. The idea of a statue following her around was less than appealing.

Instead of exploring the inside again and being dumped onto a field with some dirt-covered golem skeleton thing, Vinera chose to try her luck finding another way out via the garden in front of the temple.

"No statues is good," she said and nodded to herself, pulling out her phone to see if it somehow had a connection. It did not, of course, but it had still been worth a try. "Now… where do I go to leave?"

The sound of rustling leaves to her left caused Vinera to turn and raise her arms slightly to protect her chest and face from the overly aggressive garden gnome she was sure to find. Peering over her forearm, what she saw was not a piece of decor that had gotten a mind of its own, but a black cat that seemed to have been attacked by a rogue glitter mage.

Vinera took a step backwards as the cat meowed at her. She expected it to jump at her and try to claw at her face, but instead it walked forwards slowly and calmly, then began purring as it rubbed itself against her legs.

"Okay," she said, the word drawn out past any reasonable point. "I can strike 'meet a cosmic kitty' from my bucket list."

The cat offered another meow in reply before it stopped walking between her legs and moved towards the wall that surrounded the gardens. Vinera could not help but feel a little trepidation at the prospect of leaving the temple grounds. If the building itself already housed a statue that could move on its own, and the garden had a weirdly sparkling cat, what would the outside hold? Probably a dragon…

"Do you have a name?" Vinera asked as followed the cat through a small winding path she had not noticed before. The cat did not reply to her question, causing her to start suggesting names. "Is it James? Marko? Are you even a dude-cat?"

The cat turned its head briefly to offer another meow but never stopped walking. "I will call you Bob. Bob the glitter cat."

Whether or not Bob liked his name would have to remain a secret to Vinera a little longer as what she could only describe as an earthquake shook the floating island she was on. How the ground could shake like that when it was literally floating in a black abyss was probably beyond her grasp, but Vinera still let out a string of curses as she grabbed a tree to steady herself.

The rumbling of the island only lasted for a moment, replaced by an equally — if not more — worrying flash of light far above her. Vinera shielded her eyes from the sudden glare.

In the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of countless blue-silver lines running up the polished black surface of the temple, all rushing to a point so high up that she could not see it from her spot in the gardens below.

"Did you do this?" she asked the cat without looking at it. "I feel like you have something to do with this, you sparkling demon."

The cat simply offered a meow in reply that did not tell Vinera anything except for the fact that this being was, in fact, a cat. Something she had already been able to ascertain by making use of her very own eyes.

Any further conversation — one-sided as it may have been — was cut short as another rumble ran through the island, this time accompanied by a slight buzzing that Vinera wanted to call static and a pressure that built up in the air around her.

The rumbling ceased as quickly as it had begun and Vinera was pushed into the ground by an invisible force, her back pressed against the dirt of one of the flower beds. Her new position afforded her an unwanted front row seat to a spectacle she had not thought anyone alive had ever seen.

Far above the floating island, three beams of silver light converged into a single point. At first, only the small point lingered in the not-sky above her, almost like a fake sun. Vinera blinked as the beams of light twisted slightly and bent themselves into a set of rings around the small sphere.

For a moment, the small ball of light and its three rings remained motionless, but a second rumble heralded another wave of angry air, one that both pushed Vinera down and caused the rings to rapidly rotate around themselves. It did not take long for them to move so fast that her eyes were no longer able to tell if they were still separate or had merged into a single big sphere, but the idea was made moot as a third and final rumble shook the island and the ball of light above her fully ignited, turning into a blue and silver sun.

Vinera simply looked at the newborn star that hung in the black abyss above her. If its light did not shine directly against some of the middling windows of the impossibly high towers of the temple, giving an indication that it was not as far away as a celestial object should be, she would have thought that it was an actual sun that this tiny island orbited around. Now though, she had to accept the fact that whoever had made this floating temple had also made an artificial sun for it. Insanity.

A meow at her side caused Vinera to turn her head. The cat had sat itself down next to her, seemingly unbothered by an entire sun just appearing above them, not to mention the earthquakes. Islandquakes?

"Is this normal?" she asked, sitting up. "Something tells me it is."

Much like before the cat did not reveal any information, this time purring as it rubbed its head against Vinera's side. The Human gave a half-hearted laugh and ran her hand over the cat's head, pausing briefly at the practically velvety texture. "Fancy cat, aren't you?"

The feline was not the one that replied this time, but the small window from before that had told her she had been paralysed.

System adaptation in progress. Soul has been temporarily anchored to Nexus World designated 'Verenier'. A new [Status] will be generated once adaptation is complete.

Before Vinera could even begin to process the information the small window had given her, another one entered her vision.

Your presence in the Heart is no longer required. Terminating presence.

"What do you mean, termi-" Her question was cut off as the ground she had been laying on simply vanished and she fell through the black nothing that surrounded the island.

A moment later, the air was forcefully expelled from Vinera's lungs as her back impacted rather solid ground. She let out a series of coughs as she rolled onto her side, trying her best to control her breathing.

"Why?" she gasped after she had finally managed to take a few breaths.

She dug her hands into the grass and pushed herself up, taking a proper deep breath once she had gotten herself into a sitting position.

A quick look around was all Vinera needed to see that she was inside the ruins of a temple that had long been overtaken by nature again. She stared intently at the space in which the System messages, which had begun to bug her of late, had previously appeared, fully expecting it to tell her something like she had just been put in a dungeon, and was expected to escape. More like survive, if that happens.

After engaging in the one-sided staring contest for a few more breaths, Vinera shook her head and tried to stand up only for a stabbing pain to race through the left side of her chest.

She put her hand over her ribs out of reflex, wincing slightly at her own touch. Vinera took a cautious deep breath and clenched her teeth before she carefully pressed against her ribs to make sure they were only bruised, not broken. She had been slammed into the floor too many times while sparring to not know how that would feel.

"Nothing broken," she mumbled as she slowly stood up, making sure to put more weight on the right side of her body. "Just bruised."

Vinera looked around from her new, higher vantage point, taking in the old moss-covered stones as well as the numerous trees which had successfully de-roofed the crumbling building she was in.

The stylised flame adorning one of the few walls that were still intact caused Vinera to pause. It was a little different, but it bore a rather striking resemblance to the one she had seen in the temple she had just been evicted from.

"So this one belongs to the same person? Organisation?" She shook her head, wincing slightly as she began to walk towards the only door she had spotted. "If I ever meet the one responsible for this System bullshit, they will get a stern talking to."

Vinera paused for a moment, looking up at the sky through the broken ceiling, waiting for some deity to strike her down for her hubris. When a minute passed and nothing happened, she shrugged and stepped through the broken door.

The outside was little different from the inside of the temple. Stone buildings lined the streets — four of which extended away from a large plaza in front of the temple — but they were all broken and largely reclaimed by nature.

Vinera took a careful step forward, setting foot onto the plaza. Nothing happened in response to her motion, the world and its System seemingly uncaring for her presence.

A caw caused her to look up and spot what looked like a large crow — certainly much bigger than herself —  flying overhead. The bird seemed to glance at her, offering another caw before it beat its wings and rose higher. Its call was quickly echoed by others that soon came into view. Did my arrival spook them?

Vinera stood still for a moment as she watched the still-growing murder of crows leave before she shook her head and directed her attention back towards the four roads she could travel. "If that was meant to be a sign for me, I don't want it."

Before she could further contemplate the meaning of a murder of crows and four streets in front of her, another System window appeared in her vision.

Adaptation complete. Congratulations, you may now interface properly with the System. Generating new [Status].

[Status]

Name: Vinera Hope Soletti

Species: Human

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Class: None

Level: 1

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 9

Intelligence: 6

Mana: NaN

Vitality: 7

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Titles: [???], [Veil Walker], [Soul Anchored]

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Skills: None

Vinera blinked at the window. That was most definitely her [Status], despite the slightly differing presentations. The three titles were new, though. And my mana reading as Not a Number and not zero... Does that mean that I have something else now?

She did not feel any different — except for the pain in her chest, of course — but that probably did not mean much. The last day had been a little more eventful than it had any right to be and Vinera would have greatly appreciated some more time to prepare. And to tell my parents…

While not much time seemed to have passed during her first instance of being whisked away by the powers that be, the System had quite clearly told her that she was now 'anchored' to the Nexus World Verenier for the foreseeable future. Whatever that actually meant.

Vinera shook her head, banishing the thoughts from her mind and started to walk down the second street from the left as it seemed to be in a better state than its brethren. If she could find a house that was a little more intact and perhaps even had a working door, she would take the time to take a look at her wound. For now she could do without the self-examination, as she could not feel any blood trickling out nor could she feel anything else moving when it was not supposed to.

"First order of business," Vinera mumbled to herself as she walked down the rather wide street. "Figure out a way to leave this city-temple-dungeon-thing. After that, find a way home." She looked at the sky again, free of any crows, and narrowed her eyes. "And lastly, complain to whoever put me here. I am a weak Human with no Class or access to mana, why do you dump me in what looks like the next big dungeon?"

As she continued to make her way through the ruined city, Vinera would from time to time look at the sky, asking the clouds that lazily drifted overhead why, exactly, she was here. Nobody replied, of course, but that had never stopped Vinera Hope Soletti from doing anything.

///

"What a most peculiar Soul." The voice of the winged woman echoed through the Void, reflecting off of the nothing that filled it. She stared at a section of empty space, observing something only she could see. "Its bearer has returned to the temple — and subsequently left it."

"Is the temple still in the Heart?" the other woman asked as she turned a glowing ball of blue in one hand while writing runes on it with the other. "Would be impressive if they managed to pull it back."

"It remains. The caretakers stayed, and so did Myoki. Our feline friend has even met this Soul already." She paused briefly, staring through the nothingness of the Void that surrounded them. "He seems to like her."

The wingless one gave a laugh at the words. "Of course he stayed, he likes it there. Inside the Heart, he is immortal. The caretakers don't bother him, and you know how much he likes his quiet time."

A nod was the only reply before the winged one returned her attention to the specific section of nothing in front of her. "Perhaps Myoki will actually help our lost Soul when she returns to the temple again," she mused as a thought sent a fraction of her mana to one of the enchantments she had left below the temple in the Heart, and it glowed with renewed life. "If he does not, I will have to give her another nudge of my own."

"But she is not in danger, right?"

"Not more than any other mortal." The winged woman shrugged, the motion exaggerated by her feathered limbs. "She has potential, perhaps more than many, but that is something she has to discover on her own. Nudges are all she will get for now. Perhaps if she achieves something more I will grant her a boon."

"A blessing?"

"No," she replied with a shake of her head. "She has no need for borrowed strength. What she requires is knowledge. Understanding."

"So you are going to gift her a lecture once she achieves something?"

"Perhaps not a lecture," the first awoken replied. "But a few words, and perhaps a memory or two, should help her plenty."

The other woman let go of her creation, smiling at it before it disappeared. "Now that the temple is awakening again, we should leave. I would quite like to go see what has become of this world."

"So would I," the winged one agreed, a wave of her hand causing reality to split apart and reveal an island floating in another dark abyss. "I would also like to get my weapon back."

"Without just summoning it, I hope."

"Yes. The last time I did that, they started a world war." She sighed, the river of lights in the distance flickering with it. "Mortals never seem to learn when it comes to that."

The other woman let out a slight laugh before she appeared next to the winged one. "Let's hope your plan of striding into whatever monument they have built around your weapon in order to take it will not end as badly."

"Not to worry. Nobody lives there anymore." She tilted her head slightly. "Nobody that would object, anyway. You will have more trouble with them."

"Ah," the other woman said with a sigh. "I guess a family reunion was only a matter of time."