I knew I had to be careful. If I wanted to avoid the ocelot’s notice, I had to make no sound and leave no trace or scent. This would be a challenge but a gut feeling told me it was not dangerous. We had not gotten in a fight with each other. With me intruding in its home that might change but I counted on my ability to escape into the air. That was why I decided to take on my metal form. The cat lived near a pond and used water magic. It could easily stop me from taking to the air. An added advantage was my immunity to poison.

I decided to wait for the next night. An hour or two after sundown it was time. I dropped out of my circling flight and closed in on the treetops. I had not spotted the cat leave the area but I judged that to be because of its stealth Skills. Hopefully, it would not come back before I found what I was looking for.

I was still careful with my landing, choosing a spot a dozen metres into the forest rather than out in the open. [Sneak] was active and preventing any sounds and smells from leaking out. It also helped me avoid leaving any footsteps in soft ground. After waiting for a few minutes, I spotted no sign of anyone knowing I was there so I advanced. Careful steps brought me to the edge of the small clearing surrounding the pond. There was a line of maybe one metre without any tree, instead, bright grass slowly gave way to brown and blue crystals closer to the water. The node was located in the centre of the pond. A few larger trees had branches hanging slightly over the water.

Another minute of waiting convinced me I was alone with the exception of a few insects here and there so I started to make my way around the edge of the clearing to look for traces of my quarry. Tracks of several animals could be seen, most of them just walking up to the water and retreating again. I was not able to figure out what exactly had come to drink from all of them but a few looked like deer. Nothing showed the telltale tracks of cat feet, though.

I reached a small rivulet flowing into the pond from higher within the hills and stepped over. The other side of the clearing was much the same. A lot of tracks had shaped the ground around the crystals. Soon I started to see some of them were not reaching the water. A few footprints were going much deeper than most and stopped just before the water. I wondered how those had come to be. Most likely some animals had gotten scared off as they approached the water.

The ocelot did not leave any tracks here, either. I was getting frustrated. Had I been misled? Was this node not its home? Another flow of water, this time more like a river, was in my way. I crossed with a wing-assisted jump and kept looking. Nothing. A second time I rounded the pond but had no more luck. Maybe this really was the wrong place? I took a deep breath and looked around. Had I missed something? The water had slight ripples going through it, a small flow coming in from the hills and a larger amount leaving down towards the large lake. The node was feeding additional liquid to the pond creating more waves in its centre. I looked into its depths. It was not very deep, but in the dark of night, the ground was near impossible to make out.

After staring into the ripples for a good while, I spotted something. A sparkle shone up from below the node. Something had reflected its light from within the water. I shifted my head and took a few steps back and forth to get a better angle. Yes, there was something there. It almost looked like a hole right in the middle of the water. That was promising but would a cat really go into there? And where were its steps if it had its den in the water? More detective work was ahead of me. But this time I had a good idea much sooner. I had looked up and spotted the branches hanging over the pond. The ocelot would be able to cross there and jump into the pool. Or it just had a second entry somewhere else. But at least now I was sure this was the right place. As sure as I could be without any concrete evidence.

It was a good thing I was already in my metal form. I jumped up and flew the two metres to the centre. Careful not to touch the node, I dropped into the water. The liquid flowing in between my metal feathers felt uncomfortable but I could deal. It was another two metres down before I reached the ground. Much more than I had expected. The light refracting on the surface had made the pond seem shallower than it was.

I sunk down to the ground just letting gravity do its work. I knew I could just walk out afterwards. A few experimental flaps of my wings made me believe I could maybe swim like a penguin if I had enough space to accelerate. This pond was definitely too small for that though. At least my shadows ignored the presence of water mostly. Where I wanted to I could make them physical and they would push the liquid around but also be moved by it. With two metres to the surface, I could just shift out if I really needed to. Though I doubted I could take to the air from such a position.

Finally, I reached the bottom. And promptly sunk deeper. I saw the ground around me in the node’s light, the moon helping out as well but directly below me there was just a hole. It was maybe half a metre wide and mostly circular. As I sunk into it, I scanned the walls with my shadows. They were covered in something soft, probably algae, but beneath that was solid stone. Another two metres down I reached the ground. A thought came to my mind. Did I need to breathe in this form? I had my beak closed and was not moving my metal lungs so no water was going into my actual body but I had not tested if I needed air in this form. It did not matter much right now. In case I needed air I still had time to get out of the water. Death by suffocation was not a threat. My Core served as another security net as well.

I eventually ended up on solid ground. This time for real. There was a tunnel only slightly higher than I was tall in front of me. I took a step forward and my shadow feelers felt out for anything interesting. Which promptly caused a number of sharpened sticks to shoot out of the walls right in front of me. They line the whole tunnel and would have impaled me had I not been careful. Though I was not sure they could have harmed my current form. I waited for a moment to see if the trap rearmed itself but nothing happened. That was unlucky. Now the ocelot would know I had been here. Or rather, it would know something had invaded its home.

Not that I could do something about that. I weaved in between the sticks and made my way forwards. Careful not to get hit by the next trap I made sure to thoroughly test the ground, walls and ceiling of the tunnel in front of me. In the pitch-black water, I shuffled further in, trying to measure the distance. At some point, the tendril I had put at the entrance hole with its tip started to dissolve. At the same time, I felt a change on the other end of the tunnel. That made it about five to six metres long. The change was a sharp upwards curve I was unsure I could traverse. My wings were simply too large to spread down here. I kept going anyway and reached the end. My tendrils broke out of the water on the other side. I was confused since the water level should still be below the pond’s until I activated my mana senses. I should have done so earlier. Not only was I able to see magical triggers for the spike trap all over the tunnel there was also another trap on the entrance to the new cave. Though this one was more metaphysical. It only held water and light from moving through.

My shadow in the room I activated [Eldritch Shift] and moved inside. The room was maybe one and a half metres tall and four or five metres in width and length. It had a cleanly cut floor and the walls were covered in carvings. In one corner I spotted remains of fish and a few other animals. Another one held a bunch of moss and leaves carefully set to create a primitive bed. The ceiling was a little rough in parts, holding mana crystals all over to cast a blue and brown light through the room. On the back end another tunnel opened up, this one dry and leading into a larger room not fully illuminated. It was the same height but had much more space on the walls, much of it still cleanly cut stone.

The ocelot was carving as a hobby. Of course. Someone sapient had to do something other than hunt, eat and sleep or they would go insane. This place looked to be its creation. I really wondered how the cat had dug out all of this stone and where it put the material. For now, I knew where it lived. And I knew it was not unlikely to become a friend. Maybe it was even like me? A human reborn as an animal? I hoped we would be able to communicate.

I walked around the place getting a closer look at the carvings. There were a lot of them looking rather simple, almost like caveman drawings. These seemed to be the earlier attempts. After a while, I was actually able to make out some details. The ocelot had captured scenes of its daily life. There were animals it had seen, deer, the mountain lion, lizards of different sizes, insects, rodents, fish and birds. All of them had little objects carved around them, plants or stones to show them in a natural place. A particularly large mural had been devoted to the node, simply shown as a wavy circle with the pond below it and crystals all around. These carvings made it less and less likely for the ocelot to be reincarnated. I would have put my memories from before into pictures. Even just a car or a few letters. I was missing details, yes, but not all the important stuff was gone. I could have filled at least half the room with things I was interested in that had no place in the wilderness.

At least it was actually smart. The new room still under construction was what fully convinced me. The wall right next to it showed a simple but clear map of the surroundings. There were lines marking the river and the hills, markings for important places such as the monitor lizard and likely resting spots for the mountain lion. And most importantly, my old roost. It had a face carved into it closely resembling my own. And right next to it I spotted some familiar lines:

Species: Sgiathan Dorcha Owl (adult)

Age: 0

Name: Fio

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy, Beast Core (unique)

Level: 20

This was my status screen. Or at least the first six lines. Which made me think the ocelot had [Identify] on level six. So, did it know how to read? Looking at the carving from a different angle no longer fully focusing on it, I saw a weird shift go through. Suddenly, it looked like inane squiggles. But as soon as I looked back directly at the spot it sat, my status screen once more popped up. I looked back and forth, trying to figure out what was going on. My mana sense picked up nothing, there was no magic at work. Or rather, no magic I could make sense of. This had to be the system’s doing. It had to be how the ocelot saw its status page and because it was such a core part of the world, it somehow automatically translated when I looked at the lines. What an intriguing effect. Could there be a use for this?