The Misty, Purple Cat

Chapter Thirty-Five ✎ - Tardiscat's Tournament, Round One, Part One

@Tardiscat
Group 1
@Lilystrike (Go check out her entry when she posts it!)
@Charizard_100
Prompt:
You're playing a game called Wizards & Warriors when, suddenly, lightning strikes the house, scaring you and causing you to black out. When you wake up, you're trapped inside the game. The only items you have are a sword, a backpack, and a note: "Beat me and escape back to reality."

My work:
After the lightning struck the house, and after I woke up, I found out I was my character in my game, Wizards & Warriors. With my luck, I had only the basic items, and none of her badass equipment. I did, however, retain her lycanthropy, though I didn't know the current phase of the moon. It had been a while since my character last transformed. A normal steel broadsword was in a sheathe around my waist, plus the standard backpack. Inside the backpack, there was a note. My teleportation into the virtual world was no accident from the storm, it seemed.

When I observed my surroundings, I saw more than the land around me. The land was beautiful and full of life, it was incredibly lifelike, even though the graphics were beautiful and realistic anyway. I guess that's what happens when you get captured by a game. I was in the meadow area of Mion, the name of the place the game was in. I could see the far off mountains where I had been headed to defeat the wicked ruler, but now I had nothing. Well, almost. I had my dog as well.

"N-Nanuk?" I said. The kuvasz looked at me. He looked younger than seven, I couldn't even find the aging white fur on his face anymore. Nanuk walked over to me and leaned on me. "At least I have someone else here."

Despite my lack of equipment, I started walking towards the mountains, Nanuk on my heels. Where else am I supposed to go? And where else would the person be who brought me here? Bandits would be up ahead, and they would be perfectly happy to rob a lone girl. We would have to sneak by them, or learn to fight. I was ready to do either.

"Nooky," I hissed. The bandits were just inside the forest's treeline, and my plan was to come up behind them and take them out, one by one. Nanuk followed me as we crept around their camp. I counted four, and one was heavily armored. He definitely was the leader. Another had a basic long bow. A bow or dagger would come in handy here, I thought, grudgingly. Then I looked at the ground, which was littered in sticks of all sizes. Or a dagger substitute, though these can't slit throats. Not much help here.

I 'set up' camp by ordering the kuvasz to stay in a clearing, wearing my backpack. As I sneaked closer, I saw glints of short, well polished metal from the setting sun. Daggers.

Then the pain started.

I was just about to make a noise in the bushes when it happened. My skeletal structure started shifting, and I tried to keep my pain to myself. Even if I had succeeded, the crack, crack of my bones would have given me away. I started growing brown fur, and when I saw my hands, they were turning into claws. Clean, short, white claws were there instead of my nails and my vision had been tinted red. A ferocious snarl escaped me, and I had a thirst for blood. Faintly, I heard someone say, "What's there?" "I don't know. Go check it out," but it was in vein. I raced into their campsite, and threw someone to the side with my new, savage strength. "Werewolf!"

I raked my claws down their torsos, the only minor problem was the bandit leader's armor. Not that it stopped my claws from reaching his heart. A flash of white jumped onto the dying leader, and ripped out his jugulars. At first, I thought it was a white wolf, then I saw those brown eyes turn to me. Nanuk was a wolf? I patted him with my paws and turned away. The bandit's campsite was a great place to set up camp, and I could gather their food supplies.

As I tried to pick up the food, I heard a sharp yelp from behind me. When I looked to see what was there, there was nothing. Nanuk should be there! I thought. At that point I heard a twig snap and then a sharp pain in my neck. The world dipped and swirled, but before I went unconscious someone snapped a bracelet on my wrist. Then I was gone.

✽ ✽

I woke up next to Nanuk, who was still unconsious. I was in a cage, which was in a room built fully of stone bricks. Other cages lined the walls. A burning came from the bars of my cage, which were silvery in color. Obviously tarnished, but it was unmistakeable. This cage was made of silver. "Damn," I said, then realized I was able to speak. I recalled how I started to regain my senses before I was taken, so I must have neared the end of the lycanthropic night cycle. The fur on me was slowly falling off, so I had reason to suspect the bracelet delayed the transformation back into a human.

A creak alerted me to his entrance. He was old, and wore a long cloak with a hood, which was pulled over to hide his face in it's shadow. Keys clanked together in his wrinkled hands. "Greetings, Luna." My blood went cold. Luna was my real name. He walked over to my cage and stuck a key in. "Let's chat, shall we?" He opened the door.

"And what, pray tell, are we needing to speak about, sir?" I asked harshly, not moving.

"Oh, just your freedom. You got my note, I presume."

I stared at him. This guy was the one to bring me here? "You asshole!" I snarl. He held up a shiny pendant, probably more silver. My snarl quieted to a growl. "Then why am I still a werewolf?" I left the cage and he closed it, leaving Nanuk alone. Knowing this, I stood outside the cage, watching the man defiantly. I will not leave Nanuk.

He locked up the cage. "You are a werewolf because there is a small chance every night of this happening. The chance waxes and wanes with the moon cycles."

"No shit sherlock. Why am I still a werewolf? I see the sun is out."

"That bracelet delays the transformation process," he replied. "Now, let's go and discuss...matters." He turned to leave, but I stayed where I was.

"The white wolf comes with me or I stay here," I growl. Nanuk was now awake, but groggy.

He sighed. "Fine, fine," he said, going to unlock the door. Before he got the key in the hole, he lunged at me, grabbing my arm.

"Hey! Let me go or I'll--"

"You'll what? Kill me? I am your ticket out of here, Luna." And with that, he made a hand gesture and the setting changed. We were in a dark place that sparkled with dark hues of purple, blue, and black. The boundaries to this crystalized place seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. "Now, we talk."

The steel broadsword was still on my waist for some reason, withstanding my werewolf form and no one bothered to take it in the first place. I drew it out and the wizard laughed. "Fool! You have no skill in swordsmanship! What are you, a werewolf who can't fight with a sword, to a master wizard?"

Something came over me, and my voice was different, older. "I am Esmerelda, Defender of Balance, Second in Command to Mion's army, and Slayer of Devils, Master Wizard Shunu!" I called out. "Face me in battle, coward, and fall." My body was and wasn't under my control as I leapt at Shunu. My fury fueled Esmerelda's strength, and her agility in this form was unbelievable. Something glowed white in our left hand, it was a spell of her own, though none that I knew. We casted it on the ground next to us, and a white wolf appeared. He launched himself at Shunu as we threw the sword at his heart. The sword ultimately missed his heart, instead impaling one of his lungs. The white wolf tore out his jugulars and then faced me. I wasn't all too surprised to find it was Nanuk once more.

I felt Esmerelda's skill leave me, and I walked over to Nanuk, hugging him. Then he vanished, as did I from the realm of Wizards & Warriors.

✽ ✽

I woke up on the couch to find the two friends I invited over shaking my shoulder. "Luna?" asked Jacob. "Are you okay?"

I pushed myself up and looked around. Esmerelda was still in the strange place Shunu took me, but she was transported back to the cage room. Nanuk was on the floor next to me. "Yes, I'm fine."

My other friend, Abby, was practically jumping all over. "That was really cool! Well, maybe bad. But your character was moving on her own! And a white wolf killed that guy she was supposed to fight."

I laughed. "You two will never believe anything I'm about to say, but this is what happened..." I started to tell them about what happened, and in the end, I called it. They didn't believe me. That was fine by me, though. No one needed to remember this journey into another place, a place I shouldn't have been able to go to. If I remembered that place, surely Nanuk did as well. "At least I wasn't alone," I murmured to him.