Cedrick continued his trek down the beach. Judging by the position of the sun, some unknown source of knowledge told him he was headed East. If that were true, than the wild undergrowth in front of him was Bulvon Woods. He knew he had to find a way around them. They were far too dangerous for him to travel through in his current state. With little more to go on, he trudged in what he assumed and hoped was East.

His wounds grew more painful with each step, slowing his pace. After taking a better look at the gash in his side, he noted that it was fairly deep and could be susceptible to infection. He desperately wanted to somehow clean and bandage it. Approaching the shoreline, however, was out of the question. Never mind entering the waters.

But I'm in Felarya, he remembered. This place is crawling with magic. The soil itself is magical.

Any chance of infection was greatly diminished because of this, but his risk of attracting a predator who saw an opportunity in weak prey was greatly increasing with each step. Which raised many questions in his mind about Anko.

Why didn't she eat me? Was she really just interested in fucking with me?

At this point in time, it didn't matter what the giant mermaid's intentions were. The sun had been up for about an hour, allowing enough morning light for Cedrick to really take in his new situation. He found that he couldn't walk very far with only one boot. It was not because of any hindrance to walking, but because his booted foot felt cramped and uncomfortable. Much to his chagrin when he finally looked down, the light revealed that his feet required no boots, as they were furred and padded with four toes touching the ground and a fifth thumb-like extension separated from the other four toes.

This did not sit well with Cedrick. On first discovery he thought of drowning himself in Jadong Lake or running madly through the jungle until something ate him. A very real will to survive and recover his memory kept him from doing any of that. So he merely sighed and accepted what he could not currently change, trudging forward down the beach with no real direction.

After about a mile down the beach, Cedrick heard a rustle off in the undergrowth. He had been walking close to the treeline. Immediately, his instincts kicked in and he hid behind a giant boulder, the first thing he saw. Peering over its top, he noticed for the first time that smoke was wafting around in the dense foliage just a few feet into the woods. The smoke was growing thicker and darker before finally a bright spark erupted in the distance followed by a series of yelps and loud cursing.

Moving in closer to investigate, Cedrick started to climb a tree for a better view. Having a bit of trouble he was about to give up when he felt a new sensation in each of his toes. Looking down, he noticed claws had extended into the tree bark, allowing him to more easily climb the tree. Partly happy and partly upset with his new-found retractable claws, Cedrick hurried up the tree.

The air was full with the potent smell of burning rubber. Upon reaching a high branch, he got his first glimpse at what was going on. A man was waving an arm in the air, coughing and sputtering a bit as he tried to avoid the smoke cloud. His voice returned to a low pitch and Cedrick couldn't hear what he was saying, but it sounded angry and strained.

Feeling no threat from this lone man, Cedrick decided he needed to meet him. Without thinking, something in his brain suggested, just jump. And so he did, fifteen feet from the ground. Terrified and unsure of why he did that, Cedrick braced himself for a painful landing. Surprisingly, some other instinct took over and caused him to roll as he hit the ground like a spring. This action only agitated the already open wound on his side but otherwise left him unscathed.

The man however was frightened into a panic. “Hey! Hey! Stay back!” He said loudly, pulling out a rifle.

Upon seeing Cedrick, he lowered his rifle and slit his eyes a bit. “Oh, you're a neko. The hell do you want?” The man spit disdainfully holstering his rifle to his back. He was older than Cedrick expected, with graying hair and a grizzled white beard. He had goggles resting gently on the top of his head and a tattered scarf around his neck. The old man was wearing a brown leather suit that was semi form fitting and almost resembled overalls with their large straps coming over his shoulder and across his midsection with some kind of dingy cloth attire underneath. Hard black leather boots and gloves adorned his feet and arms. The man looked like an engineer of sorts.

Cedrick got his first look at what was billowing all this smoke into the air. He recognized it immediately as a Felarya VTOL Jetbike. Albeit, a bit busted up. All the smoke was pouring from one of the turbine engines.

“You ever see anything like this, cat?” The man said gruffly.

Cedrick looked the man squarely in the eye, “First off, I have seen plenty of Jetbikes in my time,” he felt odd saying this, having no way to know for sure if it was true, “and secondly, I'm not a neko.”

The main raised an eyebrow, “Well... Okay then! Regardless of your apparent identity crisis, you reek to high heaven of neko. Heaven and Hell! Why did you come over here? It's bad enough I'm basically signaling all the predators in the area to come eat me. I mean, you damn nekos get eaten all the damn time because you're clumsy. And here you come, falling out a trees! Mercreti knows what's trackin' you!”

Cedrick felt an incredible rage bubbling up inside him. He was about to curse at the man when another flashback hit him. Jetbikes. He had experience fixing Jetbikes before. Not entirely sure of himself, he replied to the older man, “Well then, I was going to offer my expert services to help you fix your Jetbike, but I guess I could be going on my way.”

The old man laughed a bit, “You look professional. You from Negav or somethin'? They're the only nekos I know that care to understand human technology in the slightest bit.”

“You could say that.” Cedrick lied.

“Well, look kid, I really don't care where you're from and I doubt you know much more than me about VTOL Jetbikes.” The man stopped a moment, looking at his smoking Jetbike, and then at the surrounding woods, “but... I'm pretty much screwed anyway. So I guess you can take a look if you really want to.”

Cedrick wasted little time. He approached the the turbine engine and opened some of the panels. As he was poking around inside, fragments of memories came flooding back. None of them really made much sense. Mainly just memories of tinkering with machinations, magic artifacts, and dimensional portals. The last thought sent a chill down his spine. There was good reason to be fearful of dimensional magic. It was highly unstable, unpredictable and not well studied.

Cedrick felt for the first time how unpleasant a feeling it was for a neko to have their tail grabbed.

“Here,” the old man said, letting go of Cedrick's tail. Cedrick pulled his head out from the turbine panel. The man was handing him a small ring. “It's a very basic artifact. I usually carry an extra on me for good luck. It reduces the strength of your scent trail.”

Cedrick thanked the man and slipped the ring on, it fit nicely, but Cedrick could tell the magic was weak. He wondered if it was even working or if it was even of any use now that he'd already walked a few miles.

“By the way, my name is Dunali of Negav City.”

“Cedrick.”,

He had an uneasy feeling. They needed to get out of these woods as soon as possible.

After a few more minutes of tinkering. Cedrick popped up, “Aha!”

“What is it?” Dunali came rushing over. Cedrick held in his palm a piece of charred wire.

“Spark plugs are all in the wrong place, and some wires are making the wrong connection. Either you're an awful mechanic or this turbine has been tampered with. ”

Dunali took his hat off and wiped his brow of sweat, “Damn it... You've got to be kidding me. A damn sabotage?”

“Luckily it seems like all your sensitive instruments for flight are just fine, but you may have lost some weapons capabilities. Just another moment and I'll be done!”

“Damn it! Damn it all to hell!”

Sticking his head back into the guts of the bike, Cedrick said finished toying with everything, “Looks like flares should still work but you're smoke grenades and you're rear-mounted 0-VM Hot Rifle appear to both be tampered with and unusable. Luckily, the scalar visual distortion field and sound dampeners are still intact. Ooh, what's this?... holy hell!” Cedrick pulled his head out, “You got an AID Grenade?!”

Dunali was looking seriously angry. For a second, Cedrick thought he was mad with him.

“Alright, that's enough, neko. I get the picture. Well, I guess I'll be on my way!” Dunali slammed shut the compartments Cedrick had opened and jumped on his Jetbike.

“Wait! What the hell! Where are you going?”

Dunali sighed a bit, as if hoping Cedrick wouldn't ask. “I need to get back to Negav city and I've been sitting here for far too long.”

“Please, you gotta take me with you. I'll never make it on foot. I have zero supplies. Plus I just helped fix your Jetbike!”

Dunali looked displeased at the prospect. He took a deep breath and let it out, eying Cedrick suspiciously.

“Alright neko...”

“I'm not a neko.”

Dunali rolled his eyes, “For the love of Mercreti! Hop on the back already!”

Cedrick nodded and was about to get on when his ears twitched backwards. His actions did not go without notice.

“What is it, neko?” He said in a whisper, slowly moving his hands over the controls in preparation.

Cedrick focused hard, it was a very quite rustle that caught his attention. Now with his ears trained backwards, he could barely pick up the faint sound of light breathing.

“We're being watched.”

“Get on. Quickly. We'll have a better chance fighting off whatever it is in the air...” Before Dunali could even finish his sentence, Cedrick had scampered on to the backwards facing passenger seat and strapped himself in. Cedrick primed the engine and the turbines roared to life. As he did this, Cedrick watched the treeline intensely for any movement.

As they began their vertical ascent, the ground fell quickly beneath them. The turbine engines were making a ruckus and rushing air all around the intrepid duo. Yet, only they were trapped in the noise cloud as Dunali activated the sound dampeners and visual distortion field. Cedrick felt a rush of relief wash over him. He hadn't realized how tense his body had been on the ground.

Looking back down at the ground, no creature showed themselves in the clearing.

He felt Dunali's hand grab his shoulder. Looking back, Dunali was speaking, but his words were drowned out by the noise of the twin engines. Finally, Dunali handed Cedrick a plain looking helmet with a sun-reflecting visor. Understanding, he put it on his head, but not without some difficulty. Cedrick cursed his awkward neko ears that cramped up painfully inside his helmet. Seeing this, Dunali none-too-gently smacked the top of Cedrick's helmet. This cause two conveniently placed slits to open at the top, allowing Cedrick's furry neko ears to pop out and for the helmet to sit more naturally on his head.

“There's a built-in headset in the helmet, so you can hear me talk. Keep your damn cat eyes useful and scanning the horizon for harpies and other predators.” Dunali's rough voice cracked on the intercom. “And I swear to the Guardians, if you give me flees, you'll wish I'd left you here to be eaten alive.”

With that, Dunali initiated regular, horizontal flight and zoomed off south across the Bulvon Woods. The expanse of forest was huge. It would probably take an hour or so to cross. Cedrick began to wonder if they'd make it back to Negav by nightfall. He also began to wonder if there was anything waiting for him at Negav. It struck his memory hard, something was on the tip of his tongue. He just knew that there was at least something worthwhile there that might jog his mind up a bit.

“What a terrible place.” Dunali remarked.

Cedrick looked down at the forest, “You mean Bulvon?”

“Yeah.”

Cedrick couldn't remember much about the Bulvon Woods except for one specific, terrifying beast. The disgusting Chorygate. Resembling a monstrous flatworm, the smell of the thing was said to be so overpowering you'd pass out from nausea.

“I lost a good friend in those woods.”

Cedrick didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.