Chapter 99 - Nefertiti's Transformation!
*Screams!*
"MIAOW!"
"He, Help!"
"Aaaah! My arm!"
"Pleas… guh!"
"Monsters!"
"How rude! Can you say that again on a closer look?"
"M, Move away, woma… aaah!"
"How vulgar!"
"Stop! Nooo…"
"Run! Run for your li…"
"MAAAOW!"
"Annoying cat, catch the ones there!"
"Stupid Hooman! Do it yourself!"
*swoosh* *swoosh* *swoosh*
*scratch* *scratch*
"Help me! Please!"
"I am sorry, brother, but my brain is short on cells since last week. Rest in peace for now!" I prayed for the man dying in front of me and gave him a merciful stab to the heart.
The scene in front of me is giving me a serious headache!
"How the hell did this happen?" I kept asking myself this question over a hundred time since we stepped in this ruined underwater fort which was called 'Ilinalta's Deep'. Actually, I have been asking myself that question for seven days by now.
This was not the only question. There are others like "Why did this happen?" and "Can this be still called a fight?" and "How fast clearing this place can be?" along with many other questions.
Too many questions since that day in the glades. Somehow, I am regretting making a deal with Hircine.
I am not sure what happened that day in 'Bloated Man's Grotto' but Nefertiti is making me worry since then.
To organize my ideas, I have to remember what happened from the very beginning till now.
First, when I found Nefertiti, she was in a bad shape and I had to pour all my Magicka into healing her. I was worried! But the weird thing is that she talked, and even Jullanar could hear her.
I mean, wasn't she always talking to me?
No no! What am I saying? Jullanar reminded me that day that cats aren't supposed to be talking, right?
Why did Nefertiti talk to me from the beginning in the first place?
Now that I think about it, it doesn't make any sense!
I remember her saying that she could understand me and I could understand her because I am her hooman and we should understand each other naturally.
But that isn't really natural at all, right?
Cats don't talk!
Or do they?
THE HELL! AM I GETTING CRAZY HERE?
Cats don't talk. I already know that!
Why did I not think it was unnatural from the beginning?
I mean, I was happy that I finally befriended a cat but that should have never stopped me from noticing such an abnormality, right?
Right?
Oh boy! So all these times when I was talking to Nefertiti in front of people, I remember their reactions were a bit off. Even Nurina was looking at me like some sort of weirdo.
I am losing a lot of brain cells thinking of this subject alone. Let's just continue from the point when Jull could hear Nefertiti.
After that Nefertiti passed out and kept sleeping for three days. I had to feed her by mincing the food and give her few drops of water along with all the healing techniques I am aware of.
The fourth day, everything changed!
Nefertiti woke up before anyone and was super energetic. She kept saying that she jumped and ran and hit a lot of bad wolfs. I didn't understand what was going on but when I asked Jull she said that she couldn't understand what Nefertiti says at all now. To her, Nefertiti was just using her usual cat voices.
BUT I WAS HEARING HER TALKING DAMMIT!
I kept asking her how could she talk to me from the start and she looked at me as if I am some sort of idiot!
"Hooman, you only noticed nyow?"
"Yes!"
"Nyah! Clumsy Hooman. Hooman is myow hooman, of course, myow hooman should understand meow."
"But there is no known cat that can talk to their humans other than you!"
"There is nyo?"
"Yes, there is not."
"Nyot at all?"
I shook my head.
"Nyot possible!"
We kept staring at each other with shocked expressions until we reached an agreement to never talk in public.
I contacted 'The Augur' that day and he cringed at me really hard. He had no definite answer and said to not contact him unless it is serious.
The fifth day, I kept monitoring Nefertiti. At night she said she wants to go out to the woods. I didn't understand why but she kept nagging and said it was urgent.
The three of us went to the woods at night. Nefertiti then found a spot under the moonlight and something bizarre happened.
It caused me and Jull to scream while hugging each other.
Nefertiti's appearance started to change in a strange manner. He body became bigger, her limbs became longer than usual even to the enlarged body, and her claw also became longer and sharper. She resembled a normal feline but her height was almost one meter with a long black fur, longer limbs, and longer claws.
Her cute face, ears, and tail also got larger to fit her body.
"Hooman! I can do that now!"
"Wha, What the hell is that?"
"Jon, did she just talk?"
"Wait, you could hear her again?"
We couldn't even focus on one problem that night anymore! We were in a deadlock between 'Nefertiti's new appearance' and 'Could it be that Jullanar can only hear Nefertiti in her new appearance' along with everything weird that happened that night.
I had to contact 'The Augur' again to report the development to him. He was interested at first but he said that Nefertiti got a 'Beast Astral Extension' into her soul.
A 'Beast Astral Extension' is the Soul Magic Technique that Hircine uses to create his were-creatures.
"But shouldn't the 'Beast Astral Extension' be a Soul refined by Hircine to be attached to a Mortal Black Soul? How come Nefertiti's White Soul can be attached to something like that?"
{That would be true if the cat's soul was truly a White Soul but there is something that only few may be aware off.}
"What is that?"
{Rather than the Mortal Black Souls, the Lesser White Souls, and the Divine Dragon Souls, the souls of the cats can be considered unique among all of these souls.}
"I am not sure I follow. Is this the reason why the 'Beast Astral Extension' got attached to her?"
{Maybe! It is rather a complicated issue. But I remember that once an Ayleid (Heartland High Elf) Wizard claimed that the cats are able to cast magic the same way mortals do yet they are unaware of it. But his theory was debunked for the lack of evidence and some other notable mistakes.}
This was what we could find around the subject and we ended the discussion after he assured me that there is no danger on Nefertiti's life.
I was still worried and couldn't really get my head together around that problem.
I asked many questions to Nefertiti who told me the story of how the wolves chased her and the Aspect of Hircine gave her 'light' after it broke the ring I retrieved.
She couldn't understand what the Aspect generally wanted to say but he was interested in some sort of hunt and some sort of fate.
I got chills down in my spine from these words! They only added to my headache.
And from that day, my headache only increased! Jull got really on good terms with Nefertiti and went on a hunting competition behind my back.
I had no power to scold them so I just stayed there in the inn complaining about life.
The seventh day, today, came and I noticed that I have wasted a lot of time in Falkreath. I have only two weeks to go back to Winterhold now.
I can go back to Winterhold in four days on the Flame Horse Atronach if I wanted but I had some destination in mind before doing so.
I want to visit 'Ivarstead' and 'Windhelm' before doing anything else.
But today I had to finish the last quest I was here for.
The 'Star of Azura'!
I took the girls and rode until we reached 'Lake Ilinalta' north to the town of Falkreath. From there I conjured the Flame Atronach Hawk and rode on it across the lake to the north.
The reason why I didn't use the Flame Atronach Hawk was the woods around Falkreath. I am not still that good with the spell so I can make it fly only up to ten to fifteen meter which is rather hard as Falkreath woods were rather high.
As we were on a lake like that, I asked myself, why the hell not fly? And so it was decided to fly.
For that reason, we arrived at the northern part of the lake, the Flame Atronach Hawk landed on some old ruined fort that mostly sank underwater. It was called 'Ilinalta's Deep'.
Ilinalta's Deep was originally an Imperial outpost, known as Fort Ilinalta, until it fell into the lake due to instability caused by experiments carried out by a mage called Malyn Varen. Rumors claim that the area is cursed and many fear to go there.
Malyn Varen is a Dunmer mage who was exiled from the College of Winterhold for pursuing questionable research with Soul Gems, killing a student, and many other unacceptable acts. Malyn's experiments were to find a way to become immortal, and he believed that storing his soul in Azura's Star would prevent him from dying. The problem with this is that one of the properties of the star is that no humanoid black soul could enter.
According to the game, the further Malyn progressed towards his goal, the more Azura cursed him. The Daedric artifact drove Malyn insane, causing him to "hear voices" that were not there, see people that were not there, and eventually, to murder one of his students. He left the college, collected a band of followers, and continued his research here as he sought to capture his own soul in the Star to achieve a state of immortality. He achieved this goal to some extent, however, he must continually be 'fed' souls from the outside world to continue his state of existence.
After we infiltrated the keep, we found Malyn's cult of followers who were doing his bidding. They were all stationed in the sunken outpost. The appearance of so many skeletons within suggest they had been kidnapping and sacrificing people for quite some time.
After we started the fight, things got really weird and that brings us to this very moment I am witnessing.
A large black cat and a crazy half-elf archer are murdering the hell out of the cultists and the undead in this fort.
No one is safe!
Jullanar is using her magic arrows to bring down multiple enemies at once. I saw her skewering three mages with one arrow.
Nefertiti was faster than anything I have seen. A second she is her, another she is there. And her claws can cut anything, even some of the metalware around got torn apart.
I was following the two who went on a rampage and finishing what they started. Some cultists were left alive with torn limbs and were in a lot of pain. I was mercy-killing the people they left to die in pain.
How did things come to this?
"Jon, I finished them."
"Hooman, Meow finished too."
Yeah! You guys killed anything killable already.
For some reason, I had no power to refute at all.
I just went to the room where the broken Star of Azura where and picked the damn thing up.
After a small tour around the fort once more, I took whatever seemed of value alongside a good number of coins, soul gems, some research papers, and some books then headed out.
'Ilinalta's Deep' underwater fort was cleared with a time record that day.
Next destination! Ivarstead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-Bonus-
▪ Scary!
"Jon, did you buy the things I want, nya?" (Nurina)
"Huh!" (Jon)
"Jon, how was your training, nya?" (Hilda)
"Wait! What?" (Jon)
"I want to take a look at your sketchbook again, there is an idea I want to confirm, nya!" (Wulfur)
"No! Stop!" (Jon)
"""What is wrong, nya? Don't you want us to be like this, nya?""" (Everyone)
"Noooo! Go awaaaay! Huff! Huff! Huff! It was, just a dream! Phew!" (Jon)
"What's wrong, Jon?" (Jull)
"A scary dream! I dreamt that everyone I know has grown cat ears and tails, and also talked like cats!" (Jon)
"Hmmm! Like this, nya?" (Jull)
"... NOOOOOO!!!"