SFS - Chapter 10 (Patreon)

This is stupid. This is so incredibly stupid. Curiosity killed the cat—err, fox. I slunk forward on the tips of my paws toward the crying. It was weaker now, like the baby had lost energy. 

How could a kid even be alive here? This place was abandoned, and a baby definitely couldn’t survive on its own. Not without being, like, a genius or something… then again, the Ophidian proved that my understanding was still quite lacking. They were ‘alive’ even though I hadn’t seen any of them eat or drink anything—except for that one lady that was face up in the snow, I guess.

The fur on the bottom side of my paws acted like the perfect muffle. I made zero noise creeping around to the backside of the bookstore. The cries emanated from a collapsed door dropping down into a broken section of the building. The wall was entirely caved in, and charred pillars lay in great mounds of ash. 

There was barely any light back there, leaving the entire space dim and gloomy. My eyes adjusted to the darkness pretty quickly, though, and I got an even further look at the devastation.

Lightning flashed, and a brief flicker lit up the area. Wing blew harshly and whispered past the rubble. Something shifted—and a pile of snow plopped down from somewhere above. By the time the light faded, everything resettled.

I paused for a brief moment to listen and scent the air before moving forward into the tight, narrow space. Most of the room was entirely buried under rubble, but a tiny passage led forward and around a corner.

”Wah?” The cry came again from just around the corner in front of me. Unlike before, the fear and loneliness faded from the voice. It sounded… expectant, almost.

How—? My scent, yip? I pressed my snout to my plush fur and took a huff. I didn’t stink. All my time playing—ahem, I meant carefully hiding and observing the situation from snowdrifts ensured I was clean. 

I needed to ask the old scholar when I got back… but that was assuming I got back. I paused just shy of the corner and took a deep breath. The strong serpent-scent was nearly overwhelming, as was that of blood. Fresh blood. This place collapsed at least a week ago based on the scents of fire and the way the ash settled… 

Lightning flashed and thunder boomed in the sky above. The blizzard intensified, though the snow also acted like the perfect funnel for the light. The streak of lightning briefly illuminated a misshapen shadow from just around the corner. Its head was tilted the wrong direction, and a fifth limb twitched against the ground. The shadow rocked back and forth for the brief moment it was illuminated.

Um-um… I don’t think children are supposed to look like that. Even if humans are ugly, that takes it to a whole other level. The but along my spine bristled into sharp daggers, and my pail puffed out slightly.

Instead of continuing forward, I carefully took a step back toward the entry into the back room. I change my mind. Creepy demon baby child-thing—you can have this place! I’m giving it all away to you! You're welcome!

With my tail as my guide, I backed away from the corner. It probably hadn’t noticed me, yip… About halfway to the door—the crying abruptly stopped. Aside from the creaking of wood, silence pressed uncomfortably into my ears.

…

“WAAH!” A shriek sharp enough to cut erupted from around the corner. It bounced off the narrow space and slammed into my ears with enough volume to make my eyes flicker white, and my legs gave out below me. A pressure wave made everything tremble around me.

“Yow!” I crumpled to the ground and slammed my paws over my ears in a destined to fail attempt to block out the noise. Something hot and wet slowly crawled across the fur inside my ear.

For a moment, there was an unsettling silence. For the first time since waking up, my ears completely stopped picking up tiny details. An intense wave of vertigo hit me as my spatial awareness completely collapsed. I crawled backward, onto to slam into the wall just next to me instead. 

Ash and snow noiselessly poured from above, and I felt vibrations pour through the ground below me. I twitched and twisted away from the falling debris and flopped backward toward the door. Every step was unsteady, like I might collapse at any moment. My paw slid out from before me in the ash, and I staggered forward toward the exit.

The scent of fresh blood—my blood—wafted into the confusing silent world—and then the ringing started. It was a high pitched squeal inside my head that threw me off even more. I shook my head sharply and tried to cut off every other sense. I needed to get out of here. 

Something pounded the ground behind me. I could feel the vibrations of it closing in jolting up through my paws. It was big—too big to be just some baby left behind here. The serpent-scent poured into my nostrils, and grew more intense by the second.

I scampered away from the source of the vibrations and dove for the exit into the narrow passage. Just as I got through the door—

BUMPH!

A muted noise barely got over the ringing. A wave of ash and snow slammed into my back, and I tumbled across the ground back into the bookstore. All the air was knocked out of my lungs in one brutal sweep, and I collapsed to the ground with everything fading to black.

— — —

Ugh, my head! I curled up around my head in a vain attempt to make the pain go away. It just continued to pound fiercer by the moment. I groaned and rolled  over onto my side. My everything hurt, and my fur felt disgusting. It was matted to my skin like it never wanted to leave me.

My eyes, though—they burned fiercely. It felt like some crazy human took a hot brand and poked it right into my eye. Or like I’d been staring at the sun, and was a moment away from going entirely blind. I slapped my paws over them and rubbed fiercely the pain slowly started to fade away. 

I blinked several times and shakily got to my feet. The thorn tome floated in the air just in front of me.

[Snow - Spirit Fox

Record Level: 3

Record Abilities: | Allscript |, | Eye of the Recorder |]

Eye of the Recorder? Pending changed to something actually useful. I twisted my head and tried to pry deeper into the shifting script. Just like before, a small engraving was added just below it.

[| Eye of the Recorder | - The Recorder’s eye pries through the most hidden secrets.]

That sounds cool. Super cool. Nothing can hide from the might of my mystic eye! Muahahahaha! My ears dropped low to my head, and my tail curled. Maybe I shouldn’t go around saying things like that. It totally ruined my majestic image. Good thing no one would ever know about this moment of black history.

Pending must’ve meant the Record was waiting for me to sleep. Based on the pain I felt when waking up, that was probably for the best. Did it do something to my eyes? Oh no—did I sprout scales?!

I brushed my snout a few times to make sure I was still all fur and grace. I didn’t have a reflective surface to check myself out fully, but I felt the same as before… mostly.

How did this work, then? Allscript just auto-translated everything as soon as I looked—

The monster! I bolted upright and looked around in a panic. It was dark—nearly pitch black, in fact. It took way longer than usual for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and even then there was barely enough light to see by. Although my night-vision was good, it needed at least some fraction of light to work.

I collapsed back on my haunches and looked toward the doorway I crawled through. The entire side of the structure had collapsed in on itself, and a mound of debris replaced it. Soaked into the ash and snow, though, was a pool of rancid black blood. Whatever was back there hadn’t made it out before the backside of the building collapsed.

The noise attack must’ve destabilized the already hazardous remains of the building. I must’ve gotten out just in time. I stretched out and looked myself over. I was in rough shape. My beautiful white fur turned into a patchwork black and grey with all of the ash… though that might not be a bad thing, given the situation.

That was the last time I tried to be helpful and check on an injured human… probably. I should’ve known—better. No, I did know better. So why did I—my snout scrunched up and my eyes narrowed. Maternal instincts? Me? No way. Absolutely not, yip. I refuse.

I rubbed gently at my ears with my paws. I could hear again, though it still sounded a little off. I shook my head and glanced back toward the collapsed section once again. I needed to head back. I could clean up and hopefully get my ears fixed up back at the Ancient Shrine.

I took a step toward the exit—and froze. The storm-scent was stronger now, but beneath that were the hints of dozens of sharp blighted. Right, the noise must’ve attracted them. Thankfully, it seemed like they were on the outside of the building based on the noise. 

Blighted seemed to be mostly instinct driven from my observations. They had fragments of awareness, like when the blighted farmers kept trying to farm, but not enough of it. Their intelligence degraded enough that they likely didn’t even realize this place connected to the noise since it was an external wall that collapsed. Not to mention the door was broken so only something my size could fit through.

I glanced around the bookstore and headed for the doors—only to duck behind them and slink low to the ground. The plaza, which had been mostly empty, was now full of Ophidian. The noise must’ve attracted more than I thought. 

Aside from the usual blighted humans, a couple of the variants that crawled around on all fours prowled the street. They sifted between the other scaled monsters with their noses upturned and ready to root out anything that didn’t belong. 

That way’s out. I wouldn’t be able to cross the plaza without being ripped apart… not to mention something worse became apparent from my look outside. The rolling snowstorm in the sky stretched on in barely lit darkness. 

Night was just about to fall. The light barely piercing through the clouds was fast. At the rate it was going—I wouldn’t make it back to the Ancient Shrine before night fully fell.

I suppressed a groan and moved back into the Story by Lamplight store. Copying all the books had already taken a substantial amount of time, but then add onto it my impromptu nap? A lot of time passed since I left Old Zhou.

Should… should I stay here? It was relatively safe from outside monsters… or maybe not. Hunters stalked the dark—whatever that meant. As per usual, the way the old scholars spoke was about to screw me over. I really, really needed to figure out how to speak the human tongue so I could ask proper questions. Assuming I survived this, anyway.

Hunters… were they some kind of advanced Ophidian? I’d already seen several variants, so it wasn’t impossible for a much stronger kind to lurk in the darkness. If one found me—well, if even just a normal blight got me, I’d be torn into chunks. That wasn’t even considering the variants.

I needed to hide near one of those Spirit Flames before it was too late. I had a small window until night fully set. For a place named after lamplight, this store didn’t even have a lick of the bronze piping that the Spirit Flame braziers worked off of. Record.

The silver tome flowed out and pulled up the map. It glowed slightly, allowing me to easily read even in the darkness. I was… here? So the next closest one was—oh… Zeteoh marked one out in the plaza, but it must’ve been broken. There wasn’t even a hint of blue flames flickering out there. Could I repair—no, stupid thought, Snowie.

The next closest one was two streets away. If I move quickly and carefully, I should be able to reach it before night fully descended on Dragon Vein Village. I tapped the tome with my snout, and it faded away. 

I glanced toward the door. Now… how did I get out of here without something noticing?

— — —

AN: Arctic Foxes have special paws with thick fur to act like snow shoes and increase their traction on slick surfaces. It helps them stay up on top of the snow when hunting for, say, lemmings. Their blood circulation is also pretty unique, and it flows down through their paws in such a way to keep them from freezing over even while walking across ice. Their paws stay forever just above the tissue’s freezing point.