Book 1: Chapter 20: Feline Fury.

Book 1: Chapter 20: Feline Fury.

To its meager credit, the cat was fast. All of two heartbeats passed between me yanking the door open to it bolting between my feet. Or it tried to. The pail of milk hindered it somewhat. And I was no slouch in speed either.

My haste fueled by rage, I grabbed the creature before it could escape and hauled it skyward. It squealed in protest as I breathed heavily, contemplating simply hurling it at the sky with all my strength.

Do you know what happens to thieves? I rumbled, blood pounding in my eyes. This farm already had one slacking-off useless resource drain. And he mostly existed because I was too far into the sunk cost fallacy to kick him out.

No? it whimpered. And I blinked in surprise. Of course there were talking cats here. Now that I glared at it closely, it also wore some rudimentary clothes.

Thieves get fed to the plants. I growled and stomped toward where the biter pods were.

Nonono. It meowed furiously. Im sorry-sorry for taking your milk. I was hungry, yes-yes.

Sorry isnt going return it. I snarled. I was well and truly fed up with all the random bullshit life had been throwing at me lately, and this threatened to be the last straw.

It squirmed in my grasp, glancing over its shoulder as I approached the plants.

Im really, really sorry, mister. It yelped. I can pay you, yes-yes.

That got a twitch out of me, and I stopped. It was firmly in my grasp, but I wasnt squeezing tight enough to crush it. The cat was near two feet tall, and weighed a few dozen pounds, I reckoned.

Coin. I rumbled. Now.

I have none but I can help on the farm! it spoke in a rush. Help on the fields, catch vermin and stuff. I promise-promise.

I paused and considered. I did need some way of keeping mice and other vermin out of my harvest, and having some controllable way of doing that seemed good to me. Still, I wasnt about to let this be another Gol. I yanked the creature close to my face and glared at it.

Fine. I growled. You can stay and earn your keep. But any funny moves and I feed you to bear. Try to run off without repaying your debt, and Ill send the best huntress this side of Koth after you. Am I clear?

Yes-yes. It nodded enthusiastically.

With that, I dropped the creature and folded my arms. It righted itself mid-air and landed on its back feet, tensed up.

First of all, Im going to need a name.

Artyom. It complied.

I very much had a finite amount of meat, and didnt look forward to hunting myself or acquiring more. Id never been much of a woodsman, to tell the truth, and my large size would make hunts even more difficult.

I could send Ishila, came the solution. I was the Tax Evader, not her. I stopped, blinked, and realized this solved so many of my potential problems. I couldnt sell or buy goods reasonably, but the lass could. This didnt entirely answer the question of finding new suppliers and buyers myself, but I more than trusted her head for Hullbretch and bring in a load of meat.

Lerish was an option, but I had first met her outside the Hullbretch butchers place, so I assumed she got her kills processed into meat for herself. Would have to inquire about that.

A light meal later, I returned with axe in hand and began to hew earth for a much larger garden patch. This one, I made closer to the stream, so I could either water it via the holding pool or even by hand. I carved out a much larger plot of land simply by dragging the axe as I walked to break up the soil. Then hitched up the plough and crudely turned the soil along the furrows I had craved.

Back and forth I went in steady repetition in the afternoon heat, turning the soil over and over.

It being this close to the forest, I debated on fencing it off immediately but decided to leave it. It wouldnt be ready to plant until I acquired more seeds anyhow.

The reality of it was, most farming was a waiting game. Plant the crops, weed endlessly, harvest, and repeat. There was little to break up that cycle, and the sheer amount of work I had done in the past while was all to get the cycle in place.

With those tasks finished for the day, I found myself once more back at the monstrous plants I had sown.

Being the one most capable of catching prey -and the ones I had fed the most- the biter pods were the largest. By now, they were at my waist, with pods the size of a baseball. But I wasnt here to admire them. I wanted to see what made them tick.

Long knife in hand, A approached a long vine and reached out. A mouth grinned open and fangs revealed themselves, but my hand shot forward and closed around the pod. With it trapped, I cut off the pod and pulled it free as the others began to turn towards my touch.

It was then that a surprise revealed itself.

The pod in my grasp continued to wriggle and strain. Curious. Separated from the vine, it still lived. It refused to relent either. After a few moments, its movements were still as strong as before. I peered at it, absolutely fascinated. When detached from its stalk, plants should, by all logic, die themselves, cut off from their lack of nutrients. But what was essentially a rounded mouth with fangs inside instead moved as if it were alive. It seemed agitated, even.

I needed to test this out. With brisk strides, I crossed the yard and into my house. Pod still in hand, I cut off a strip of meat and emerged back outside. Having smelled food, Gol wandered over, but I had no interest in him.

Instead, I tossed the meat into the grass, and then, cautiously, tossed the pod next to it. The reaction was immediate. The pod hit the ground and bounded towards the hunk of meat, and I watched in fascinated horror as it tore into it with gusto.

What was essentially just a mouth swallowed a chunk of meat near its own size, its form swelling all the while. Gol growled as the pod turned towards him, and I swooped in to snatch it up before it could do any harm.

It could function separately from the vine. But that changed my perception of it. Beforehand, I had thought the pods to be a contraption of sorts, controlled by the vine. Now I saw it more of its own separate being that just so happened to feed the vine nutrients.

I crouched there in the grass, a dozen different ideas whirling through my head. I observed the pod as it wriggled in my hand, gnashing its teeth for more. Where was it putting all that material it consumed?

Eagerness in my mind and some degree of glee in my eyes, I turned away and hurried back to the house. I had some experiments to run.