End of an Era (Project Chrysalis Book 2) by John Gold (popular books to read .TXT) 📕

on me. You’re an interesting opponent though, so I’m not going to kill you. You’d be using your claws rather than just trying to scare me with them if you weren’t so weak in close combat.”

I get the sudden urge to pet the terrified animal, though it pulls up its shields to keep me from touching it. Its body is back to the form of the normal cat I first saw. Okay, Malik, we’ll see who has more patience. I start firing little flames at the shield from point-blank range. I have tons of mana, so I can do this all day.

The cat gives up forty minutes later, having earned some respect as a worthy foe. It pulls down its shields and leaps at me, snarling and unsheathing its claws. In response, I just hold an arm up and let the poor thing try to bite me. It just feels kind of ticklish. The cat wants to die in battle, but I refuse to attack it. Instead, I grab it by the scruff of the neck and look it in the eye.

“I’m not going to touch you. Calm down.”

I put the cat back down on the water and start stroking it. Its dumbfounded face stares up at me in silence.

“You aren’t a very good cat, are you? Trying to jump people, not letting them pet you. Anyway, good luck. It’s been fun.”

I leave the cat to sit there, unsure of what just happened, and head back to where Fem is waiting. We resume our run toward the Sea of Monsters. There are three days left to go, and we need to find the River of Life, not to mention whichever of the cities my parents settled in.

A week later, we find Vizir, the first floating city. The trip there is the best part of our journey, as we run along the water at night, almost as if along a shining road. It’s just quiet darkness with the four of us under the stars.

The people living there meet us with weapons drawn. That makes sense. I would do the same if two people and two dogs came dashing up out of the soothing darkness at twenty meters a second. Water splashes up behind us, the whole thing looking quite impressive.

At full speed, we dodge the shots from their stationary weapons before jumping aboard one of the ships.

“We’re humans, no need to shoot. We’re not here to harm you.”

The dogs bark, but don’t attack. Weapons at the ready, the crews stand by ready to repulse us. Oh, maybe they don’t understand us. They could speak a different language.

“Hey, does anybody understand me?”

An old man wearing knitted clothing covered in different patterns steps forward. Ah-ha! A renegade mage.

“What do you want, boy?”

“I’m looking for a couple. They have dogs like mine, and they would have come to one of the floating cities two years ago.”

The old man glances at the other men, who start to encircle us.

“We don’t give up our own.”

“I’m their son, and these are our dogs. My parents’ names are Arman and Camelia, a fisherman and a seamstress.”

Everybody relaxes.

“Why didn’t you come here the normal way?”

“I didn’t have the time or the means to find the ship coming here. I only find out by accident that your cities even exist.”

“Understood. And here we are all afraid. We thought you were hunters here for their heads. Your parents settled on a small island called Fang that’s to the east in the River of Life. The island itself is one of the transfer points where ships from the mainland stop. Arman and Camelia took a ship to another one of the floating cities, which is where I met them, and spent two months there before heading to the island. You’re in luck. I only got here just recently.”

“Thanks for the information. Can you show me on my map where the island is? And what the current in the River of Life is like?”

***

Idzumi returned to his interrupted vacation, where he and Tiamat had spent a month skiing and snowboarding in the mountains.

He drained a cup of hot soup.

“People sure know how to have fun. It’s just a shame nobody remembers all of this.”

“Actually, even if it isn’t really well developed, they do remember. Some colonies and higher-end stations have decent imitations. A few of the players in Project Chrysalis get their jollies in like this, too.”

“That’s nothing, Tiamat. Tomorrow we’re going to visit some hot springs!”

A flame appeared right then on the horizon.

“Idzumi, I’ve been meaning to ask you, where’s the kiir you always used to have around?” (Author’s note: kiir are a race of cat-like animals from Idzumi’s world)

“I left him on Tanatos. He had a hard time with the change in energy density, and that’s where it’s the strongest. It’s a good spot for him to relax.”

“Well, apparently, he’s had enough of that and decided to come and see his master again.”

An enormous cat bounded up to Idzumi and started licking him. Tiamat was a bit perturbed.

“That’s kind of weird. Why isn’t he strutting around or demanding meat the way he always does?”

Idzumi looked his kiir in the eye and “listened” to his pet’s reply.

“He says he met an opponent who could create ten charges at once, someone with huge resistance to strength. He took pity on Malik and let him go just when he was preparing to die.”

“Why didn’t he transform?”

“He couldn’t do it completely since I’m the source of his strength, and I wasn’t there. Anyway, it’s a miracle he’s still alive, and that’s why he was so happy to see me.”

The pet, a symbiotic type of kiir, was Idzumi’s faithful companion. They’d been traveling together for many centuries.

“There’s only one person in this world who can