Chapter 32: Sojourner, Pt 10
You dust off the welcome counter in the corner and lay out one of the rest stop's maps on top. The map itself isn't very technically accurate, and instead it has the general layout of the area around you. There are cute icons and images representing the various points of interest on it, such as hiking trails, nearby towns, and the rest stop itself.
On one side of the map is a localized view of the half-dozen hills, with that your rest stop at the southernmost hill. There's a couple of circuitous hiking trails that ring around and interweave between them, one of which is clearly harder than the other. In addition, there are a half dozen or so scenic stops along the two paths, no doubt to show off the beautiful forest in all its glory.
The other side of the map reveals a larger area in general around the rest stop, and marks a couple of towns and a small city beyond the forested hills you're in now. Cartoonish main roads link everything to each other in an interesting branching web, and a part of you wants to walk down all of them. Mostly because you're drawn to looting and scavenging whatever you can at every town around you.
You're practically drooling at the prospect.
Noir hops up on the counter and pads on the map, even as you're perusing it. She stops at the very center of your gaze, as though to commandeer it. When she gets it, she starts grooming herself.
You ready to go hunting yet? she asks. 'Coz I sure am.
"If you're wanting to hunt, why are you getting all spiffy?" you ask in response. "Trying to impress your prey or something?"
What? No. I'm cleaning up my own scent so they don't smell me coming. We're gonna need to clean up a bit if we wanna hunt properly.
"Oh. That makes a whole lotta sense. But you know, I can't exactly clean myself off. It's been what, a week since those rains? I haven't exactly had a bath since…"
Yeah, don't remind me. You're smelling kinda ripe.
"Thanks."
Well, there's a buncha washrooms in the corner over there by the entrance. Maybe that's got a shower?
"If it does, I doubt it still works. No way water's getting pumped up here, not without power."
Shame. In that case, we'll just have to absolutely stay downwind. Otherwise neither of us are gonna get to eat.
You certainly consider taking Noir up on her offer to go hunting, even though you're pretty tired from being on the road. Part of you wants to sit down. Another part of you wants a shower. Every part of you wants to go to sleep.
"Shouldn't we, you know, hunt at night instead? It's already getting close to noon. Plus I'm kinda worn out already."
Best time to go looking to be honest. There's squirrels out there, just asking to be taken down a notch.
"Didn't think you were so anti-squirrel."
It's the way their tails flick and wag. It's like they're taunting everything around them to pounce. Can't help it.
You feel her shrug, at least psionically.
But fine, she continues, to answer your question, we can put off teaching you until tomorrow. I'll go hunt for myself, you take a rest. We can go hunt together at dusk instead.
"Or maybe even at night," you add.
Possibly also at night.
Having cleaned herself to her satisfaction, Noir hops off the counter and slinks towards the door. She meows at you to let her out, which you do happily. Then you prop the door open all the way, because why not?
It being open allows more air to circulate, and for Noir to come and go as she pleases.
You then head into the relatively spacious washroom close to you. About a third of it is the toilet and sink area, where people can do their usual business in semi-privacy. Two toilets are behind closed doors, inside of booths. Across from them is one large and long sink with two water spigots and soap dispensers next to them.
The next third is some kind of dressing area, with a wide wooden bench in the middle and lockers along two of the walls facing each other. You peer into the lockers, but find that they're all relatively empty.
The final third is a couple of tiled semi-private shower stalls with shower curtains to keep out onlookers. You spin the shower handles easily, but nothing comes out, not even the groan of empty pipes. Not that you expect anything to come out in the first place. You just want to confirm it.
All said, everything in the washroom is relatively spotless and clean. You get the feeling that most of this has barely been used. Maybe the toilets and sink, if anything.
You then take everything off you - your hat, your poncho, bags, gun, boots, everything. You put them all in the locker area, though you just kind of pile them next to the wooden bench. No point in putting them in the lockers - there's no-one around you to take them. Besides, they aren't locked anyway.
You do take everything out of your cargo pants and put those contents in a locker though. Not to keep them safe or anything, but simply because it's too convenient not to.
You then grab one of your few remaining bottles of water and head towards the showers. There, you take off your undershirt and cargo pants, then dump them on the tiled floor right in the middle, and stand on them. Then, you pour some of that water on you, hoping to take some of that grime away from your body.
The sensation deeply satisfies you, especially when you pour some of that water into your hair to dampen it. There's nothing quite like the feeling of water spreading across your scalp and cleaning it. Even more as it drips down over the rest of your body afterwards. A sweeping sense of relief fills you as you wash yourself, as you take off layers of dried sweat and dust, as the week's hardships flow off your body.
You scrub yourself to some degree, especially around your swampiest sections, making sure to cover what you can with what little you've got.
Whatever water trickles down your body dampens your shirt and pants at the same time, allowing them to soak everything up. Though they pick up all the dirt, at the same time. Once you feel appropriately clean, you pick them back up and use them to help wipe you down.
Though you only get mostly clean, it's more than enough for you. You already feel fresher. And being this much cleaner only helps you go on that hunt tomorrow. At least, you hope so
You then soak up the last of the water in your bottle with your clothes, shake off what grime you possibly can, then wring them out as hard as you can muster. You do your best to clean them up, though without soap you're unsure just how clean you can get them. You suppose they're good enough, at least for now.
A part of you notes to keep an eye out for soap in the future. No doubt that's incredibly valuable these days, too.
Once you've got as much of the water wrung out as you can, you hang them up on the curtain rods to dry, then pad back over to your things. There, you grab an undershirt, underpants, and socks out of your backpack, then put them on with glee.
Doing so feels amazing, to the point that you realize that this simple act of being clean and putting on clean clothes is kind of a luxury. If you could bottle up this feeling and sell it, you'd be an instant millionaire. Well, if money still existed, anyway.
Or, hey, maybe you could transfer the feeling through your Surge, and maybe get something in exchange for that? That's definitely an idea to explore…
Then you roll out your sleeping bag on top of the wooden bench itself and lay down on top of it. A part of you wants to continue thinking about the day, about where you are in your journey, and where you could be soon enough. Plus how you could use your powers more effectively, not just to survive, but to live a fuller life.
But everything fades away as weariness takes over, and everything descends into dream.
…
The next thing you know, you wake up with a start, having seen Kaja once again collapse herself into oblivion. You grip your heart, unable to take the pain of it. A sheer pang of loneliness sweeps over you not long after, and you bury your face in your hands in an attempt to console yourself.
You try to rub the tears from your eyes, before they can come to the surface and leak out. Memories of Kaja flit in and out of your head, and you have to work hard to push them out.
Instead of lingering on her, you purposefully reach over with an arm and psionically tug your Old Coin from the locker nearby. You focus what you can into your budding Telekinesis in an attempt to pick it up. But the constant nagging from your memories makes it much harder than it needs to be.
With an exasperated sigh, you sweep everything away and clear your mind, then truly put everything you've got into picking up your coin. This time, it comes to you relatively easily. The coin itself clinks and clanks as you lift it up, then it slowly crawls towards you in the air.
And instead of plucking it to grasp it, you attempt to move it in front of you, then around you. Slowly at first, but speed up as you go along. It takes a great deal of your attention, and it's starting to make your head throb in pain.
But it's working. You're getting better at it.
More importantly, you're better able to rid yourself of the lingering effects of your dream. Though you'd usually be filled with a deep melancholy that often hangs around you for the rest of the day, your achievements with your Telekinesis instead leaves you with a more positive outlook.
You spin the coin a few times around you as you practice your Telekinesis, then ultimately put it back in the locker with the rest of your things. Doing so makes you feel much lighter, physically and emotionally, and so you pick yourself up off the bench and get back on two feet.
You reach out with your Scan, even as you stretch your body out. Almost like you're limbering up in every way possible. You feel your blood rush through your sleepy body, waking it more and more. At the same time, you note the numerous critters that are out and about near the rest stop, out in the wooded areas surrounding.
You can also sense Noir, who is out in the main area, lounging around lazily.
Then you pull everything back into yourself to get ready for the rest of your day. Or, rather, night. You sense that it's reaching dusk outside.
With your growing Telekinesis, you tug your cargo pants off the curtain rod and bring it towards you. Though your efforts are a bit labored, it eventually hovers over to you, allowing you to pluck it out of the air.
Though it's no longer sopping wet, it certainly still feels a bit damp here and there.
You put them back on anyway, especially since you don't really have another pair of cargos - something you need to correct at some point down the road. It feels a bit cold on your skin, though you're sure it'll eventually dry out once you get out in that musty heat.
Once you have it back on, you take everything back from the locker and stuff your pockets once again. You also ensure that your survival knife and canteen hang on your belt like always, and make sure to strap your pistol back on your thigh. Though you keep your katana in the locker - it's not like you're going to be hunting with it.
It suddenly strikes you that you're going hunting, but you don't have anything to hunt with. As in, how are you going to kill your prey? Noir can certainly kill her own prey, considering she's got physical claws. And Telekinetic claws now, too.
But you? You can barely move a coin and a pair of pants around with your Telekinesis. You're going to need something else to do your killing for you. You head out to the main area where Noir is, and bring it up to her almost instantly. What good would hunting do if you can't actually hunt?
"Hey, I'm about ready to go hunting whenever you are," you say. "But, um, I don't exactly know how I'm gonna kill anything. Should I use this gun?"
Noir turns her head towards you with wide eyes.
Gun? Absolutely not! If you fire that thing even once, you're gonna scare everything around us away. That's a no-go, captain.
Before you can respond, she half-sniffs in the air in your direction.
Ooh, you don't smell quite as bad today! Nice! That'll make things easier.
"Gee, thanks."
Noir then clambers back on four feet, then stretches out. She shivers a bit, as though she's resetting all her muscles, then she pads her way to the door out.
Anyway, don't worry about killing anything for right now. Just follow me and watch what I do. I'll try to break down how I hunt as much as I can, but ask questions if you need to. Quietly, anyway. We wouldn't want you to scare everything away.
The two of you then slink out the doorway and out into the darkening forest beyond.
Chapter 33: Sojourner, Pt 11
You and Noir both creep softly down the hill and into the dark woods ahead of you, slowly and carefully. Being a cat, Noir is far more graceful than you could ever be. Still, you do your absolute best and pour some of your Temperance into yourself. The better you can control your movements, the quieter you can be.
The further you get deeper into the woods, dusk descends further, and everything becomes darker and darker. Silhouettes of the world around you deepen and dim the more the night matures, until they become indistinguishable to you.
Even your enhanced eyesight can barely keep up.
It's almost completely dark, and you can just barely tell what's going on. In fact, you can only tell when something is in front of you if it's less than a meter from your face. Certainly, being lost in the middle of a dark forest would be beyond frightening in any circumstance, and you easily feel that anxiety sink into your bones. It makes your fingers tremble somewhat, though you do your best to calm yourself.
Soon, it becomes outright impossible to spot Noir even though she's literally right in front of you. You can't see her, or hear her even with your senses on full blast.
You're forced to open a Network with her just to be able to sense where she is at any given moment. In this way, you can locate her psionically and with absolute precision, beyond your capabilities with your ESP-enhanced physical senses.
Plus the two of you can communicate directly, without emitting sounds or unshielded Telepathic waves. That's a nice, big bonus without a doubt.
But even then, the Network doesn't stop you from stubbing your toe on a tree root and nearly falling over in the dark. You try your best to remain cool despite not being able to see a damned thing around you.
I'm having a tough time seeing what's around me, you transmit to her. I'm basically floundering out here.
Dunno what to tell you, Noir replies. Always been able to see just fine around this time, so not sure what kinda advice I can give you there.
You can't really. It's down to us having two different kinds of eyes.
Oh, in that case, just change out your eyes.
You nearly snort with a laugh, but stop yourself just in time. Not just to retain your stealthiness, but also because Noir kind of has a point.
Well, you can't actually swap out eyes, but maybe you could use Temperance to adjust them a bit? Kind of in a similar way to how you make your blood flow smoother, or your muscles more efficient. Maybe you could play with the inner workings of your eyes to make you see better out here…
Gimme a sec, you tell Noir.
You lean up on a tree for support as the energies of Temperance flows through you. At the same time, you sense your eyes shift and move and adjust in various ways.
You sense your vision sharpen, then expand, then widen. At one point you try to narrow it, then reduce your focal length. As you do so, you adjust your natural sight picture until the world around you becomes more gray and less black.
The world around you becomes a kind of mix of greyscales and all manner of silhouettes come into focus. You continue to adjust your eyes to get used to the darkness to reveal the trees and shrubs and fungi and vines and grass around you.
Noir also becomes clearly visible to you, who appears to be waiting rather patiently for you.
You're fairly astounded at what you've done. It's one thing to have given yourself a kind of night vision, and another thing that it's actually good! Things are relatively clear to you, if in a low-contrast grayscale. You don't exactly see thin and small things, such as Noir's whiskers or the very tips of leaves - your vision is a bit fuzzy and lacks fine detail. And the world doesn't quite exist beyond 30 meters or so. It's simply totally dark past that.
But that's fine. What you can see is more than enough to keep going. More importantly, enough for you to stop stumbling around.
Okay, I'm set, you tell Noir. I can see again. Kinda.
Good, she replies.
Then the two of you continue on your hunt, deeper into the woods. The two of you trot further for some time - perhaps about an hour in total. At least, until the hill flattens out a little bit more. As you do so, she imparts her hunting instincts to you step by step. She tells you how she locates a good hunting ground, how to find a good position to start from, and how to locate the right prey once inside.
You try to soak up her knowledge, but it's a bit hazy to you. Mainly because it's coming from the perspective of a cat, a natural hunter. Some of her reasons simply don't make sense to you, a human and natural scavenger.
Still, you take in as much as you can, though in exchange you pay little attention to where you're going. You're not entirely sure where you are in the grand scheme of things, and you're fairly certain that you'd be completely lost without Noir, or without any psionic powers at your disposal.
Okay, we're deep enough, Noir thinks. Let's begin.
You sense her slow down and lower herself, so you immediately attempt to mirror her. She's an absolute expert at this, at stalking at night, and you can barely hear her footsteps on the ground. You're certainly being as careful as you can, and make as little noise as possible. But it's incredibly difficult to do so.
You're simply not used to the movements themselves - sneaking around in the city's shadows to evade predators is far different from sneaking around in a forest's shadows to catch prey. The former being faster and nimbler, while the latter is much more careful and calculated.
Your muscles strain from holding your stealthy pose for so long that your legs begin to shiver. Every step becomes harder and harder to do. Worse, despite how careful you're trying to be, you're still not perfectly silent. Part of that is your growing fatigue, another part is your size - your boots simply have more area to tread than Noir's paw.
As a result, you hear the soft crunching of dry leaves and sticks as you move. Hearing it annoys you to no end.
Stop, commands Noir.
You do as instructed and stop mid-step. Then you slowly lower yourself down until one knee is on the ground, stabilizing you. You also lean forward with your upper body, to lower your center of gravity and profile at the same time.
Can you sense the wind? she asks. Which way its flowing?
As she does so, she pokes her head up slightly so her nose is up high, then sniffs slightly. She turns her head ever so slightly as well in both directions, then dips her nose back down.
You immediately get the feeling that she's measuring the wind - where it's coming from, how fast it is, and so on. Of course, you've got no idea how to do anything like that.
Well, sorta. You do that thing you've seen in a few TV shows and movies, where someone licks their finger and sticks it in the air. Though you're totally unfamiliar with it, you do sense a very light breeze cooling your wet skin. When you spin and turn it, you can just tell where that same wind is coming from. But it's not very accurate at all.
Still, you turn your whole body to face that direction.
That way, I think, you reply.
More or less, Noir says. Now that we're here at our hunting spot, we want to stay downwind. Like I said, we wouldn't want our prey to smell us coming at 'em.
In that case, won't that freak out whatever animals are downwind of us? you ask.
You Scan for animal thoughts in every direction, for about 50 meters. And as you have predicted, any critters downwind of you seem to be moving away from you. Some more hastily than others. You also note that there's relatively few of them, at least in comparison to how many dozens are out that are upwind of you.
Oh, absolutely, says Noir. But if you're doing a good job setting up your hunting spot, you shouldn't have much at your rear. If you need to run for whatever reason, it's best to have a path out of the hunting grounds without running into anything else.
Gotcha. Makes sense.
Anyway, I'm gonna go forward and actually score a kill. You stay here and keep an eye out, alright? Pay attention to what I'm doing, and try to note why I'm doing what. But save your questions for when I'm done.
She slinks off upwind after you nod to her psionically. As always, she moves incredibly stealthily with very precise and silent steps. You note that she's moving towards some kind of mouse a dozen meters away. You don't exactly see it - it's too small for you to spot even with your night vision.
More than likely, it's hidden in the underbrush and foliage.
Your scan reveals kind of where it is, roughly, and kind of what it's doing, sort of. The thing seems to be nibbling on something - a mushroom perhaps. You can't tell exactly what it is, only that you can just about hear its teeth gnaw through something relatively soft and mushy.
Beyond what you sense normally, your Scan reveals thoughts and emotions that are of satisfaction, and the single-minded pursuit of it.
There's hunger as well, of course, that universal need to eat. Certainly nothing like the Chimera's bottomless hunger. The mouse's impulse is no more powerful than the fear that sometimes spikes through it. Or rather, it feels a kind of intense anxiety which bubbles up every so often, one that's filled with a deep sense of self-preservation.
You realize that it's worried about predators while it eats. Rightfully so.
Noir skulks closer and closer to the mouse, which is still munching away happily. Her movements are slow, deliberate, and barely discernible. If you weren't already paying attention to her, you wouldn't even have known that she was moving.
It reminds you of sniper training from a documentary you watched long ago. Or maybe it was a movie? Whatever it actually was, the trainees crawled through tall grass incredibly slowly, until they reached their instructor. Or at least, as close as they could manage without getting spotted.
Then they had to fire their weapon, again without getting spotted.
You remember it being impressive. But not nearly as impressive as what Noir's doing. This is the real thing happening right in front of you. The mouse is practically oblivious as she gets closer and closer, as its death looms.
At some point it perks its head up suspiciously, which causes Noir to stop dead in her tracks, midway through a step. She only continues once the mouse's fear and anxiety ebbs enough for it to focus on its meal again.
Noir gets to about a meter of the mouse before she stops outright. You sense her rear up and gather up her psionic energies. She then unleashes all of it into her Temperance and shoots forward in the blink of an eye.
She practically teleports to her prey in a fraction of a second, and slams into it claws-first. But she doesn't tear into it, or cut it up. She simply holds it down and stops it from struggling, then in another fraction of a second, she bites down at the base of its skull.
You hear a soft SNAP, then all of the mouse's thoughts and emotions deflate and fade and vanish quickly thereafter. Thankfully, the kill was so fast that it never even realized what had happened.
A few moments later, Noir pads back towards you exuding all kinds of pride from her psyche. In her jaws is her prey, lifeless but still warm. She plops it down right in front of you, like some kind of morbid gift or offering. Or perhaps, as some kind of trophy to inspect.
You also get a sense that she's desiring praise for what she's done, so you give her a few pets on her head as reward. She purrs healthily in return.
Just like that, she tells you. That's how hunting is done. Questions?
Of course, you kind of got the gist of it all but still have so many questions for her. How did she find this particular hunting grounds in the first place? How did she pick that one mouse to kill? Or maybe the question is why - why not the other mouse a meter or two to the left? Or why not a different hunting ground close by?
Instead, you decide to think it out.
You already know that you've got vast physiological differences between you - sight, smell, and so on. So however she chooses a certain path, it probably doesn't apply to you. Maybe these hunting grounds are just populous enough. Maybe the mouse smells just the right way, or maybe it was the less skittish of all the other choices.
Or maybe she simply needed an easy example to show you the basics.
It occurs to you that it doesn't matter how she came to those decisions, at least not to you. You gotta figure out your own prey for your own needs. All that matters is that you learn from her technique, which you think you understand.
I don't really have anything right now, you tell her. I think I got it, for the most part anyway. Be quiet, be invisible, be thoughtful. Then, strike fast.
Okay, great! she replies. Now it's your turn!
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