And, nestled in among those plants, a small pile of cats, two grey - an adult and a half-grown kitten, both sleek and short-haired - and one fluffy and black, all curled up in a tangle of legs and tails, asleep.

It doesn't take long for them to wake; the grey adult pins the kitten down for a quick bath while the black one pokes his head up to survey their surroundings.

A patch of prairie grasses and the like, maybe a few hundred feet across. There's some rodents and birds nearby. Up ahead, a cracked grey road. There's a car sitting still on it. Beyond that, a huge brick of a building. Warehouse or something.

Also,

Exception Detected.

Declares a blue box in the center of vision of the only person here.

Yeah, she'll say... did she die just a bit ago? It's a bit of a blur but she's pretty sure that's what was happening. It could have been a bad dream, but - this doesn't look or smell like anyplace she's familiar with. How did she get here. What is up with that road, where are its safety fences. Definitely something strange is going on.

Integrating foreign paradigm. Please wait.

There's suddenly a distant dissonant cackling and the sharp sounds of gunfire in the distance. South, past the building. 

'Wait', right, no; as soon as the gunfire sounds all three cats head for cover in the opposite direction.

(If she was going to start hallucinating, couldn't it have at least been something good? At least her familiars aren't affected, as long as they're close she should be fine borrowing their eyes.)

The patch of scrubland is pretty small. The opposite direction is a hill up to a huge highway. 88 East, according to the sign. 

To the left there's a group of overly large crows roosting on one of the cars standing still on the highway, in a big flock, fighting over something on the ground, but gently, flockmates more than enemies. And to the right off in the distance it looks like three humans are breaking into cars and going through them. They're pretty far away right now, a thousand feet or more.

Hill is good, she can dig a nice burrow in the hill and then they'll have a safe place to be while she figures out what the heck. It's quick work, thanks to her magic.

Not so quick that one of her familiars doesn't creep off to get a closer look at those crows while she's working, though.

This appears as a blue box:

Scavenger Crew Lv 1

They seem to have noticed her. A couple are watching, though not acting threatening, at this distance.

He flinches down in alarm at the pop-up and slinks back to his companions, tail lashing.

Oh, she doesn't like that.

Dig dig dig dig dig the sooner they have shelter the sooner she can start trying to put this together... and, there, that'll do, just enough space for the three of them.

Just in time too, as a strange loping creature covered in- or possibly made of- mud is steadily plodding along the lower side of the hill. More and more is off. There's no humans around- Or else the humans that are around are hiding and moving stealthily. The gunfire has stopped, with no indication about who won. There's a face peeking out of the convenience store window across the way, easy to miss. In the distance, there's more signs of strange wildlife. On the roof of the big box building- Is that a spider the size of a human? In the parking lot, a bush is walking around, finding a new spot to settle down in and become completely indistinguishable from any other shrubbery aside from its new location.

She really doesn't like that.

It's not clear what to... do... about mud monsters and human-sized spiders, though. If they're real, which she wouldn't give great odds of.

If they're not that's... slightly easier, maybe? Like, that's a problem she's seen before, the solution is to be around people who aren't hallucinating and just take your cues from them. It's not a perfect solution, but she can try it, at least. There's a building, and that means humans, and she can probably figure out some way of living there that'll let her watch how they react to things. Getting there will be a trick, but burrowing magic isn't too bad of a tool for the problem, even in a shape that's not designed for it; it'll just take a while to make it all that way.

The thing where she's still pretty sure she died recently is weird too, but honestly she has bigger problems right now.

She peeks out of her burrow to make sure she's got her bearings and starts digging again, toward the big boxy building, trusting her enhanced hearing to warn her of any tunnels or creatures she might encounter under the ground.

There's definitely some things underground. Big things. Digging with their claws rather than magic, scratching away at the dirt, so she's aware of them before she stumbles straight across a tunnel, at least.

Integration of foreign paradigm complete!

You have arrived here from [unknown].

Pattern match to local Integration template: 93%.

You have been inducted as a Player. Existing capabilities will be supported by the System. Notice: Some rewards may be reduced.

You are now Level 0. Select a Class to advance to Level 1!

She would like to go home, now no, look, it didn't even suck any less than this, it was just a more predictable kind of suck. Nothing bad has even happened here, leaving aside the hallucinations.

She can hopefully go around the tunnels? Like, underneath, or whatever? But first she's going to pause and see if she can get this box out of her face at all. Maybe properly reading it will do it?

She doesn't know a lot of those words, but 'class' gives her a bit of a sinking feeling and 'level' isn't exactly auspicious, either.

It disappears after she acknowledges it. The tunnels are navigable-around, at least right here.

Dig dig dig, then. She'll want to dig up to the surface soon and make sure she hasn't gotten turned around anywhere.

The tunnels all seem to converge on the basement of that big box building. She can hear skittering and digging sounds all throughout and around it.

-And the deep rumble of a heavy working vehicle trundling over the road off to the left somewhere.

Fortunately she doesn't actually want to get into the basement; she can avoid the tunnels and make herself an exit topside. (If she has to come up through blacktop to do it, she can, though she'll try to be more discreet than making a hole in the middle of a parking lot.) She does pause when the vehicle goes by overhead, but it shouldn't actually pose any danger to her down here.

She comes out near a small drainage pond in a parkish sort of area; The kind meant for decoration rather than actual use. There's also an electrical switchbox and a cell phone tower nearby.

The big vehicle is a large red 18-wheeler truck. It's pulling to a stop in the middle of the street. People holding guns climb onto the top and look around with binoculars. They seem excited by the mud monster, still plodding along nearby.

Well.

Good news: she's not hallucinating, probably. Bad news: monsters?! Also: these people are dressed very strangely, she can't tell what species any of them are supposed to be. It's almost like they're not presenting their soul species at all. That... could be a thing she just doesn't know about, maybe... but if so it's still not something she knows how to interpret.

She lets her familiars know that it'd be good for them to join her, and finds a bit of brush near her tunnel exit to take cover in while she watches the humans some more.

They start shooting the mud monster. It roars in rage and charges towards the truck, but collapses from all the fire before it can even get close. Two people clamber off the truck and walk towards the thing's body.

They don't seem to notice the camoflauged crocodile thing sitting by the edge of the pond. It reeks enough to be pretty obvious to her, and is clearly visible once you know to look. Their path will take them right past it.

She should probably do something about that; after a few seconds' thought she settles on digging up some muddy dirt at the entrance to her tunnel in a way that'll fling it at the crocodile's head, then darting inside.

That seems to do the trick!

"Fuck! Lookout! Some kind of croc thing!"

There's the sound of a scuffle. More shooting. A crunch.

Level 6 Camodile defeated!

Your contribution: 5%

Bonus Experience awarded for defeating an enemy above your Level (+0.6)

Bonus Experience awarded for defeating an enemy significantly above your Level (x1.25)

240 Experience awarded!

Experience gain deferred. Select a Class and advance to Level 1 to gain Experience.

....it... what?

She's still not sure she's understanding this at all, but 'bonus' and 'award' and 'gain' are at least vaguely suggestive that whatever is doing this is happy. Which is... not what she was expecting it to care about.

She can't feel it in her head like a normal familiar, doesn't have a new set of eyes available to look through, and doesn't seem to have any new magic, but... does being pointedly baffled at it do anything?

System Inquiry Detected

Remaining Tutorial Duration: 6 days, 23 hours, 39 minutes

Direct Infusion granted.

And this, pushed into her mind with all the force of a mild headache, is what Experience and Levels and Monsters are. The System is here to create Monsters and Critters and give everyone Classes and Class Powers, and a variety of other features. Players can choose whatever Class they qualify for, and appropriate magic powers will be available for purchase. Experience can be gained mostly by killing monsters or contributing to the deaths of monsters (like with her revealing the Camodile), but also by Crafting things, exploring new Locations, or in other ways depending on one's Class. The Level of something is a rough measure of how much magic power it's been granted by the System. Experience turns into Levels when one has enough of it. Most Monsters are non-sapient automata operating on simplified simulated minds. Monsters are universally hostile to Players.

Her familiars get to her before the utter, unthinking terror that this interaction inspires has passed, and the grey one squeezes up next to her in the narrow tunnel; it helps.

Okay. Well. That's. Certainly something. Why this? (She is not actually looking for an answer to that, thanks.)

She doesn't... want... to deal with this, but it's probably a good idea to pick a class at least? Like if it's not avoidable she might as well accumulate magic from it or whatever.

...later. She will ask about classes and whatever later. When she's not quite so wrung out. Right now she's just going to sit here and be snuggled for a bit.

The group of humans stomp around a bit. There's some more shooting, some faintly heard animal snarls, muffled by the thick layer of earth, a bit later.

After a good ten minutes, the truck starts moving again, slowly.

She hopes they're all right out there.

After another twenty minutes or so she retreats several feet up the tunnel to dig out a side chamber where the ground isn't too moist, to give her little party a more comfortable place to rest. And then at some point they'll need to go hunt - she'll go have a look at the area from just outside the tunnel mouth again to get a feel for her options there, maybe climb up on that switchbox to get a better look at the area, if she needs to, checking carefully for hawks or other flying nasties before going out into the open like that.

There do seem to be some flying nasties in the area. They're all busy dive-bombing the three humans she saw looking through the dead cars on the highway earlier, though. Said humans are running down the road recklessly, while trying to keep the nasties off, a few hundred feet away from her.

Though, there are some signs of rodents around, still. Squirrels and mice. No fish in the pond; It smells a little nasty, honestly.

Yeah, what she should do in the long run is figure out where the humans are dumping their trash, there'll be plenty of rodents there and hopefully less bog smell. Mice will do for now, though; her usual tactics for hunting with her familiars should work fine here, and then they'll be set until evening when it should be a little safer to move around.

Once everyones' bellies are nice and full, she snuggles up between her dozing familiars and cautiously pokes the System on the topic of classes.

Classes Available:

Uncommon:
Earthbender
Silent Assassin
Catgirl
Beast Tamer

Common:
Servant
Student
Laborer
Survivor
Hunter
Scout
Etc.

Much better, that was barely terrifying at all!

The common classes seem pretty bad. What's Catgirl do? How about Beast Tamer?

Catgirl

You have somehow fused catness and humanity, in one way or another, and embraced the power of the cat. As a result, you can now gain powers related to this fusion. A Catgirl retains natural cat-like accessories in human form, including working cat ears, a tail, and sometimes cat paws in place of hands or feet. Your Class Powers will focus on making you even more cat-like, and enhancing the synergy between human and cat traits.

Bonus: You can actually transform into a cat. No upkeep for this transformation as would normally be required if it were gained through a Class Power. Class Powers remain 100% effective in cat form.

Body per Level: 2
Mind per Level: 2
Spirit per Level: 2

Beast Tamer

By forming a strong bond with natural animals, you have come to understand them- Possibly even better than humans. A Beast Tamer is partners with their chosen animal or animals, guiding and caring for them, and being cared for in return. Whether you befriend an entire menagerie of natural animals, Critters, and even Monsters, or simply focus on one or two close companions, your Class Powers will focus on enhancing and supporting your companions.

Body per Level: 2
Mind per Level: 1
Spirit per Level: 3

Catgirl seems solidly mediocre for her purposes - she doesn't expect to be spending much time bipedal, and if she does, she wants to be able to pass as mundane, not advertise that she's a shaman - but Beast Tamer looks good, especially if it lets her add creatures to her group without making familiars of them; ideally she'll be able to do both, but in particular not having to worry so much about keeping her whole group safe at every moment would be nice, what with all the monsters.

How about Earthbender?

Earthbender

You have gained a thorough understanding of soil and stone, and a measure of attunement to the Earth's nature. Whether simply through deep meditation, doing a lot of digging, or something else, you understand earth in a way that few do, giving you a new level of influence over it. Your Class Powers will focus on control over rock, stone, soil, sand, and similar materials, a flexible and powerful ability.

Notice: Some Class Powers have been adapted to enhance existing foreign paradigm earth manipulation ability.

Body per Level: 3
Mind per Level: 1
Spirit per Level: 2

Not not interesting, but yeah she's taking Beast Tamer.

She'll have a look at Silent Assassin first, though, just to make sure she's not making a mistake there.

Silent Assassin

The hunter, the killer, never heard or seen. You have developed your skills in the hunt for some time now, whether up close and personal or from a distance, and silence and the night are an assassin's best friends. By going down this path, you will become an ever more stealthy killer. Your Class Powers will focus on sneaking, attacking from stealth, and escaping from danger.

Body per Level: 2
Mind per Level: 3
Spirit per Level: 1

Hunting is more fun than she'd expected, but it's not where she wants to focus. Beast Tamer it is; she thinks her intention at the System.

There's a sudden rush of energy, of magic. It feels like healing, healing, something she didn't even have before healing into place and becoming more, corded muscle and tough skin and a deep awareness of magic that she's never truly felt before. Like the energy inside her is suddenly like water or clay, easy to move. Like there's something under the world, the bones and underpinnings of reality, just barely able to be glimpsed-

And then the same happens to her familiars, at least the surge of energy and physical strength part. Their senses all seem a bit sharper too.

Denice Dimas

Beast Tamer

Level: 1

HP: 60/60
MP: 120/120
Experience: 240/1000

Body: 6
Mind: 5
Spirit: 12

Companions: Cat (male), Cat (female)

Conditions: Trauma

Class Powers: None

5 points available to assign. Assign points to earn Class Powers and Class Upgrades.

Available Class Powers:

Healing Overcharge 0/5 - Rapidly heals a Companion's HP, up to Spirit*Power Level HP per second. Costs 1 MP per HP healed.

Battle Instinct 0/5 - Companions move 5% faster and do 5% more damage in combat per Level.

Mana Sustenance 0/1 - You can use MP to replace the basic needs (food, water, temperature) of your Companions, though not yourself.

Shared Senses 0/5 - Companions' senses are 10% sharper per Level of this power. You can view Companions' senses for %&e# MP.

Position Swap 0/1 - Instantly switch places with a Companion up to Spirit*Power Level meters away. Costs 10 MP. Cooldown: 5 Minutes.

Natural Armor 0/5 - Companions negate the first (2*Power Level) HP worth of damage from any source. Companions take 2% less piercing and slashing damage per Level of this power.

That's much more tolerable when she's braced for it, thankfully. She reads.

She'll take Position Swap and one Natural Armor, to start with, and can she get anything about how much MP Mana Sustenance uses?

3 Points remaining.

System Inquiry Detected

Remaining Tutorial Duration: 6 Days, 23 Hours, 1 Minute

Mana Sustenance costs are estimated and vary a lot based on how much need there is. For best results, use Mana Sustenance along with reduced rations rather than replacing food, water, and safe temperatures entirely.

Cat (male): 7-30 MP/hour depending on extremity of conditions.

Cat (female): 5-20 MP/hour depending on extremity of conditions.

Mana regenerates at 5*Spirit per hour before any other bonuses.

She does some math, scratching little lines in the floor to keep her place, and concludes that that's a reasonable trade if she wants it, though not so good that she absolutely needs it. She's almost certainly going to want more Natural Armor, and Battle Instincts seems like a potentially desirable choice depending on the situation; Mana Sustenance and Healing Overcharge depend on context and how good her existing healing power is in these numbers; Shared Senses seems like a bad deal since she'd only get half of what it's meant to give her. The real question here though is how she's going to be living, whether she can settle in comfortably with the humans or perhaps some Critters or whether she needs to be more prepared to fight. Hopefully the former.

She wiggles around to snuggle properly with one of her companions to target her with their healing magic; she doesn't need it, but maybe she'll learn something about what the System thinks of it anyway.

Cat (female)

HP: 50/50

Well, it was worth a shot.

She'll doze until evening, then, unless there are concerning noises to deal with or anything.

Before she wakes, thin feelers of tree roots start inching down the tunnel, exploring and growing with barely any dirt-scratching noise. If one manages to actually touch any of them, it will sting sharply.

The little den she dug out isn't any bigger than it needs to be to be comfortable for its occupants; it won't take much time at all for the roots to brush up against the cats once they start exploring it.

All three cats jerk awake, and the stung one yowls.

The tip of the root is a sort of - sucker like formation, like a mouth. It glows red and wobbles around, trying to latch on and feed.

The entrance of the burrow has several more worming their way down aggressively, now that one has had a taste of blood.

The familiars panic, flailing around in the enclosed space trying to find a way out; Denice keeps her head enough to try digging a tunnel to the surface from the back of the den but she's liable to take a little bit of a clawing as they try to get past the vines the straightforward way.

Oddly, the clawing doesn't seem to actually... Hurt? It's a brief instantaneous ping of pain, and then nothing. The vine things aren't invulnerable either, they can be held off and cut up with claws.

The familiars' instincts do lead to them clawing at the vines as they try to make their way into the tunnel and out of the area, though not in a systemic way; when Denice notices that it's unexpectedly effective she backs out of her tunnel and tries taking out the vines that they've left behind them.

The vine tendrils die quickly as they dig through them, though they suffer a few more sharp stings, and the hurts start to linger slightly. After a good few seconds of this, the remaining tendrils retreat out the opening of the hole, and a rattling pained noise can be heard from above, outside the tunnel. Whatever it was seems to be running away.

Better than it sticking around, that's for sure.

Her familiars are still panicked, and flee for the shrubbery aboveground; she tries to keep up with them - she's not going to be able to coax them back underground for a bit, but maybe she can get them to stay put for healing, if nothing else spooks them up there.

The shrubbery flees from them! Looks like it was an ambush predator.

Aaaaa!

They will flee in the other direction then!

The other direction is nice open grass leading to an electrical box and a road, without anything that looks like an active threat. It's late evening, and the shadows are long.

Open grass and an electrical box doesn't sound like a hiding place at all; they won't stop there.

Deice tries to encourage them to stay off the road and ideally near the building.

Well, there's a bunch of less mobile shrubbery, some abandoned cars and trucks, and a Wendy's with two of the windows smashed open, all nearby.

Immobile shrubbery is good! They'll take the immobile shrubbery!

Denice wants to have a look at the stings, see if they need healing.

Cat (female): 38/50 HP

Cat (male): 55/70 HP

The stings don't look like much. Their skin is a bit sore near them, but there aren't any actual wounds or damage, just... Sore and pain, like an old bump that didn't leave a mark.

She snuggles up and makes with the healing, then. It's not fast, but these injuries look minor; she expects it to take a few minutes for each of them to get back to perfect health.

They take to healing about the same as she's used to. The HP boxes that appear whenever she looks closely enough at them steadily tick upwards, back to full.

There's more shooting coming from somewhere. It's echoing strangely off the big building, but probably from the south again. There's another mudbeast trudging along the middle of the road, visible from here. They can see spider webs strung up across the street.

Denice will start exploring the perimeter of the building, then, trying to stay near cover as she makes her way around. Her fluffy black familiar opts to join her, while the grey one stays behind where she feels safer.

The big building is... Not inhabited by humans.

She can hear strange noises from inside. Metallic whirring and clanging. Rhythmic clicking, metal on metal, but just natural-sounding enough to seem like claws or insects or something. Strange scents, of burning plastic and lightning. And a floating sphere with red and blue lights on antennae dotted around it floating in a slow circuit around the big, glass-window entrance to the place in the south corner.

Weird.

She's curious, but doesn't have time to explore the mystery right now; she's still looking for a group of humans to join up with - safety in numbers and all that.

What other buildings are around?

There's another huge box building just south of the first one. And yet another, under construction, off to the right a bit. 

If you keep going south, there's a big electrical substation with barbed wire chain link fence closing it off, and then an elevated footbridge over the road, and then a big grass field with a barn and a farmhouse. There's a high school a bit further away, a landscape supply store, a movers' company, every one of them with large open parking lots...

...The high school is kind of far from her current location, but it has the blurry figures or what look like humans standing guard on the roof.

Humans, keeping watch! That looks like where she wants to be, then. Probably if she and her familiars are alert and keep moving they'll make it there all right? ...she'll take another point of Natural Armor first, just to  be on the safe side. And maybe swing by the barn, if it doesn't seem too dangerous on closer inspection, to see whether it sounds like it's good hunting grounds or full of monsters.

The grey familiar is unamused with all this unnecessary running around, and can't be coaxed into coming along; that's probably fine, she's in a reasonably sheltered spot with good sight-lines and can follow them at her own pace.

She can smell lots and lots of... Weird chemicals and metal all around the school. And what looks like dug-up spots where things were buried. The lookouts seem to notice her but don't take particular alarm or do anything about it.

Of course they won't, she's just a kitten, there's nothing alarming about a kitten.

Is there an obvious way to get into the building?

The first floor windows are all boarded up, but the doors - while reinforced - seem to still be operable. There's people hanging out in the sort of concrete plaza by the school's front entrance, she can walk right up to them. People are going over maps and schedules, talking about expeditions and their Levels - they sound very tense but not hopeless, overall. A current of worry and despair mixed with the manic energy of a crisis.

Getting brought in by the humans seems like the way to go, here, if she can manage it. Many of them are busy but hopefully some are taking a break and might want to play with a passing cat? She'll ask her familiar to hang out on the outskirts, too, and she can get his impressions of everyone later.