Day 32
I was walking back to the path up, collecting the bark and such, when I felt and heard a rumbling. It was a low noise at first, the faint vibrations in the ground shaking loose some dirt above, worrying me. I started jogging back, not bothering with the scraps of bark now, and soon, I made it to the spiral up. The rumbling was getting worse, and the noise of it was causing creaking and more dirt was falling now, clods of it were dropping as I rushed up the spiral, the bundle of bark clung to my chest like a treasure.

I eventually made it out of the hole, getting to the surface, and I kept running, feeling the rumbling beneath me still, and I kept going, till I made it back to my camp, the rumbling lessening, and eventually, I could no longer feel it. I was slightly out of breath when I got back, fear more than stamina the cause, and I noticed the sun was already low in the sky, highlighting the treetops, gently swaying in the breeze. I hadn't heard any more noises of crashing or trees breaking, and I was done for the day and decided to go to bed early, I had a hypothesis to test tomorrow, and planned on getting started on it before daybreak. I ate a light dinner and meditated before drifting to sleep.

I didn't have too strange of a dream, it was about not remembering to close doors, like the freezer, or a cabinet, or the front door, and constantly having to take care of the problems like melted ice, or an animal in the house. I woke up soon after I slammed a particularly stubborn door shut. My eyes flew open, and I could still hear the faint crackle of the fire, I probably hadn't been asleep long, maybe an hour or two, but I could almost feel something outside, like when you're in a room with a cat and it's dark, but you don't know what it is, but you know it's in there with you.

I took a chance and shoved my bat out the curtain, hoping to startle whatever was out there, and the bat was immediately pulled from my grip to the left, and I heard it clatter against some trees a second or two later. Immediately I pulled back, and put my robe on, and readied myself. I had been hiding the Manaphage, wrapped in my jacket, and quickly unwrapped it, and shoved it out, hoping to blind whatever was out there, and it worked, I heard a yelping noise, and I rolled out of the hut, looking behind me, seeing a sort of large cat-like creature, on the wing roof I had made, it had eight legs, and a couple of them were pawing at its head, in obvious pain. I had sufficiently blinded it at the moment, and I grabbed a log that was half on fire, and threw it at its face, causing it to shriek even more and scramble backward, tearing small cuts in my roof, “you fuckin' cat!” I jumped forward, and swung at it with the ax, striking its face and nose, making its eyes burst open, all four of them, glaring at me with a mixture of pain, anger, and a little fear.

It swung one of its paws at me, roaring now, I had sufficiently pissed it off, too bad it had done the same. I punched out with the Manaphage, blocking its paw, and making a bone-crunching noise, inciting it to roar in pain. I swung the ax at its face again, clipping its head as it pulled back, and leaped to the side, off the roof, and close to the forest. Fuck no was I letting this monster getaway, I refused to let it go. I chased after it, pulling up some spears as I went, it turned and ran into the forest, quickly moving. I threw several branches full of leaves on the fire, and ran after it, following the seven steps smacking the forest floor in a rhythm, only to be disrupted by the eighth leg interrupting by limply hitting the ground, repeatedly ruining the flow. I recognized what it was doing, either naturally or on purpose, it was doing something similar to the cow bear, but I could not tell what the effect of this one was, as I chased it I made sure to remember what it sounded like, hoping I could fill in the eighth tone.

As I chased it, catching sight of it through the trees, I felt a rumbling in the ground, faintly at first, coming from much deeper in the forest, and we were running perpendicular to it. After what felt like an hour of full-on sprinting and chasing, weaving between trees, the cat thing stumbled, tripping over its injured leg, and crashed into a small tree, only a couple inches around, and snapped it in half, and it started howling in pain. I slowed to a jog, having to fight the urge to keep running, the feeling of speed had started to come back to me, and I had to fight its urge to just run past the beast, and quickly kill it and continue running, it was a weird urge I'll grant you that.

I walked up slowly, just out of range of its flailing, and slowly circled around it, and saw that it had cut open its belly on the broken tree trunk, acting as a spear point. I got around to its face, and it looked at me, the light of its eyes slowly fading, and acting quickly, I shoved the Manaphage into its mouth, willing it to absorb everything. I expected a taste to come to me, like all the other things I had absorbed, and I got no feedback, besides the feeling of absorbing its life force, which quickly came to a stop, it had already been dying, and I was there to finish it off. The blood pooled at my feet was already seeping into the dirt and thin snow, the steam coming up fogging my glasses as I stood there. I continued absorbing everything in the creature, taking in almost all its moisture, leaving only enough to make harvesting the skin easy. I heft the cat off the point of the tree, its heavyweight surprising me, I figured with this weight it would have broken straight through the wing and crashed into me.

I started dragging it back when I realized that I had no idea where I was, and I praised my own quick thinking, remembering the branches with leaves I had thrown on the fire, and I quickly scrambled up the closest tree. When I reached the top it took me a minute to adjust my eyes to the darkness, after I had the brightly glowing Manaphage in my jacket. I looked all around, and saw in the distance, the tip of the mountain, and the faint column of smoke lit from below, I threw several spears down, pointing homeward, and made my careful descent. Upon reaching the ground, I marked the tree with my ax, grabbed the body, and started going home, tired, and a little cold.

Eventually, I made it back, threw the cat to the side, on top of a snow pile, and willed some cold into its body, freezing it solid. I looked around, and grabbed my discarded bat, noting a dent in it from when it hit the tree. I noticed the log I had thrown at the cat had burned out atop the wing, thankfully only slightly charring it. The couple of holes I would have to patch up with something, but right now I just froze them shut with water and some scrap leather on top. I knew I was going to have a fair amount of stuff to take care of, and quickly entered my meditation, before falling back asleep.

I woke up late, to a cold dripping of ice water on my face, the sun had apparently melted the ice patch I had made, waking me up quickly when the water rolled into my nose, making me think I was drowning. I bolted upright, and smacked at my face, trying to clear away the gallon of water that I thought was covering my face. I opened my eyes in a panic and took a deep breath, I wasn't drowning, much to my surprise, and I was wide awake now.

I pulled myself out of the hut a little while later, and stood up stretching, I knew what I was going to have to do today, and it involved breaking down the large cat I had frozen. I steeled myself for the task ahead and ate a large breakfast first, my night's adventures having made me more hungry than usual. I finished and got up, shaking off the last of my tiredness, and got to work dismantling the rather large body.