Sacred Cat Island: A Slice of Life LitRPG Series, page 1
Sacred
Cat
Island
(Book One)
By Harmon Cooper
Copyright © 2020 by Harmon Cooper
Copyright © 2020 Boycott Books
Edited by Celestian Rince
Proofed by Adam Luopa
Cover by Daniel Kamarudin; Font Design by Shawn T. King
Audiobook narrated by Travis Baldree, produced by Podium Audio
www.harmoncooper.com
writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com
Twitter: @_HarmonCooper
Harmon Cooper’s Patreon
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Sacred Cat Island is dedicated to my father, Gary, my younger brother, Brandon, and my cat soulmate, Tuck.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
.Chapter One.
.Chapter Two.
.Chapter Three.
.Chapter Four.
.Chapter Five.
.Chapter Six.
.Chapter Seven.
.Chapter Eight.
.Chapter Nine.
.Chapter Ten.
.Chapter Eleven.
.Chapter Twelve.
.Chapter Thirteen.
.Chapter Fourteen.
.Chapter Fifteen.
.Epilogue.
Back of the Book Content
.Chapter One.
The train settled, the gears below locking into place as a hissing sound filled the cabin. It was the last stop.
Ganix smiled at his two sons. “We’re here.”
Main Quest: Adjust to island living
Rowan Toragan didn’t like the look of the quest that flashed before him, nor did he like the way his dad grinned at Rowan and his little brother.
“We don’t want to go,” said Rowan, even though this hadn’t worked earlier.
“We want to stay,” Toro told their father.
“Boys, I’ve already been over this…”
Their departure really had come as quite a shock. One minute they were waking up to start yet another summer day, the next their father was telling them to pack, that they were leaving.
Ganix grabbed a leather suitcase with faded stickers plastered across it. He set the suitcase on the floor of the train. “Get your luggage, you too, Toro. We don’t have very far to go.”
Their father led them off the train platform, through a small crowd of people preparing to head toward the city.
“There’s the dock,” said Ganix as they crossed a one-lane street lined with flowering trees, past people seated at coffee shops and enjoying a nice summer breeze.
A man in a striped shirt approached them. “Where are you heading?” he asked, waving at them with his corncob pipe. “Plenty of islands in the sea…”
“Sacred Cat Island,” Ganix told him.
“Come again?” The man looked at Rowan and Toro’s father incredulously. “Why would anyone go to that run-down island? If you’re looking for a real vacation…”
“We’re not looking for a vacation,” Ganix told him, a sudden twitch at the corner of his eyes catching Rowan’s attention.
“Suit yourself.” The man in the striped shirt moved on. It wasn’t long before Ganix came to a stop in front of a boat with a green hull. The water rocked the boat back and forth, and the waves were a bit frothy, but they weren’t too strong at the moment.
“Wait here,” Ganix told his two sons.
He set his luggage down and approached the boat.
Rowan crossed his arms over his chest, and stopped his luggage from rolling off the dock with his foot. “This is so stupid.”
“I don’t want to go,” said Toro.
“Of course, you don’t want to go. You don’t want to go because I don’t want to go, because no one would want to go.”
“No, I don’t want to go because I don’t want to go,” Toro said.
“Enough,” Ganix called over his shoulder.
“But—”
“No more complaining, Rowan. At least wait until we get there. It won’t be so bad.”
“Ganix Toragan?” A man with leathery skin popped out of the chair at the back of the boat. He wore a straw hat and a loose shirt, only half of the buttons done up. He looked the exact opposite of Rowan’s father, whose polo shirt was tucked tightly into his slacks, a pair of old loafers on his feet, no socks.
The skipper’s social status flashed before Rowan and he saw that the man was just a few years older than his father:
Name: Cameron Jinn
Age: 51
Occupation: Skipper
They certainly didn’t look the same, the skipper thin and sinewy, a sparkle to his eyes that his dad didn’t have.
“Nice to meet you,” Ganix said as he extended his hand to the skipper. Rather than shake it, the man pulled Ganix into the boat, startling him. The skipper hopped off and grabbed his suitcase, which he tossed onto the boat before moving over to Toro.
“Let’s get you in there, kid,” he said as he lifted the boy onto the boat.
“I can do it myself,” Rowan told the man once he returned for him.
“Suit yourself, kiddo,” said the skipper as he turned back to the boat. “Just be careful. The boat is rocky.”
Rowan saw both his father and his brother look at him. Not wanting to appear weak in their eyes, but certainly feeling some pressure, he stepped to the side of the dock and jumped onto the boat.
The skipper laughed. “We’ve got a jumper!”
He tossed the rest of their luggage into the boat and whistled to himself as he went about removing some of the mooring. After giving the thumbs up to Rowan, he hopped into the boat himself. He flipped the fenders inside and pushed off from the dock, starting the motor, a big grin on his face.
“Anything I can do to help?” Ganix asked.
The skipper laughed again. “Not at the moment. Just hold tight, Mr. Toragan, and we’ll be there in no time. I’ve got to tell you, just in case you didn’t already know, you three are going to be the talk of the island,” he called over the roar of the motor. “Believe you me.”
“Why’s that?” Ganix asked.
“Toro…” Rowan motioned for his younger brother to follow him to the front of the boat. Once they settled, the two looked out over the water, a few seagulls overhead, the waves choppy now that they were away from the port.
Rowan remembered he was supposed to be upset about going to Sacred Cat Island, but the breathtaking view and the sweet-smelling breeze had him feeling slightly better in no time. Being on the boat was fun as well, something that Rowan had only experienced a few times.
“What’s it going to be like?” Toro asked, the boy now looking to his older brother, his hand on his brow and casting a shadow over his face.
“I don’t know,” Rowan told him. “But it’s probably going to be boring.”
“Do you think there will be cats?”
“Why would they call it Sacred Cat Island if there weren’t any cats?”
“Good point,” said Toro. “At least we will have the beach.”
“But it could be a rocky beach.”
“I didn’t think of that. Well, hopefully the weather’s nice.” Toro glanced up at the sky and took a deep breath through his nostrils. There were just a few white clouds overhead, the sun bearing down on them.
Rowan shrugged. “It’s probably going to rain a lot.”
“Do you think there will be any monsters?”
“Actually…” Rowan tightened his mouth and narrowed his eyes, causing Toro to laugh long and hard, his shrill laughter catching Ganix’s attention.
Their father came to the front of the boat to check on them. “Everything all right up here, boys?”
“Rowan is turning into a monster,” said Toro.
“No, I was showing you what the monsters on Sacred Cat Island are going to look like. That’s what they’ll look like!”
“Monsters? What? No. Stop filling his head with those kinds of things, Rowan,” Ganix said, thumping his oldest son on the arm with his finger. “There aren’t any monsters there.”
“Sorry, Dad.”
Ganix took a seat next to Toro and exhaled deeply, enjoying the view for a moment with his sons.
Rowan watched him as he did this, noticing just how tired his father looked. He’d had patches of gray in his hair ever since Rowan could remember, but the gray seemed to have spread over the last few months. His father looked heavier too, something different about the way he filled his shirt.
His father’s social status appeared before him and faded away:
Name: Ganix Toragan
Age: 45
Occupation: Former Proxima Database Administrator/OMIB DevOps
There was one word that caught thirteen-year-old Rowan’s eyes, one that had recently changed in his father’s social status.
Former.
Up until just a few weeks ago, Rowan’s father had been gainfully employed. Now, they were moving to an island, one that Rowan had never even heard of.
Rowan was too young to fully process all of the pieces that had to fall into place, or perhaps fallen out of place, for this chain of events to occur. He also wondered why their mother hadn’t joined them, his father murky with the details to that particular question and certainly not saying anything
about how she’d left a few days back.
Rowan returned his focus to the water, and the way the boat bounced up and down as it hit each wave.
Sometimes, it was hard for him to imagine how the two could be related. His father with his white beard stubble, pepper and salt hair, long arms and big hands. He looked nothing like Rowan, who was small for his age, with dark hair, his defining feature being a small scar above his lip from falling as a child. Ganix also looked nothing like Rowan’s younger brother, Toro, whose dark hair was short and spiky, the ten-year-old boy scrawny, freckles and moles dotting his skin.
“Dolphins,” the skipper called out, pointing to the west after he cut the engine off.
“Rowan, look!” Toro cried.
Rowan turned and saw a pink dolphin with a yellow tail fin lift out of the water. It slipped back beneath the surface, and as it did another dolphin, this one also pink with a yellow tail fin, did the same.
“They’re coming over here,” the skipper announced, excitement in his voice. “I haven’t seen this happen in years.”
As the dolphins reached the boat, they quickly went back under. Rowan looked over the edge, his heart leaping into his throat as he caught the face of a cat staring back at him from beneath the water.
Startled, Rowan tried to push away, but ended up losing his footing and falling forward instead.
Rowan was beneath the surface of the cool water in a flash, pink and yellow on his periphery. Even if he was under the water, he could clearly see in front of him, and what he saw sent a shock of terror down his spine. He was only under for a few moments before bubbles spun around him, an arm hooking across his chest.
He broke the surface of the waves and took a deep breath in, the skipper transitioning Rowan to a white floating device.
“You’re okay,” the man said, his arm around Rowan’s chest. “You’re okay, kiddo. You can swim, right?”
“I…” Rowan gulped in air. “Yes.”
He looked up at the boat to see his father standing on its edge, holding Toro back, who looked to be on the verge of jumping in after him.
“He’s okay,” the skipper called up to them. “He’s okay.”
The man guided Rowan to the back of the boat and helped him get in. The lanky skipper pulled himself up next, and put away his flotation device as he let the boy go to his father.
“Rowan, what happened?” Ganix asked, his hands on his shoulders now, Rowan sopping wet, his eyes stinging from the saltwater. The skipper tossed a towel to his father, and he wrapped it around Rowan’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Rowan said, feeling both frightened and embarrassed at the same time.
“What happened?” his father asked again, a fear in his eyes that Rowan had never seen before. He hugged Rowan, not at all concerned that he was wet. He pressed away, staring at him intensely.
“There was…” Rowan pressed away from his dad. He shook the water out of his clothes, and ran his hand through his wet hair. “There was something down there, a person, no, a cat monster. I saw something down there, some kind of cat monster. A cat with the body of a human…”
Toro gasped. “A cat monster?”
“Rowan, I told you…”
“Dad, I’m serious,” he said, rubbing his eyes now. “I saw something down there. And I tried to move away. I ended up falling instead.”
Side Quest: Discover what you saw beneath the waves
Rowan ignored the prompt that floated before him and continued: “I swear I saw something, Dad.” He looked to the skipper, hoping the man would confirm that there was indeed something beneath the water. But all the skipper could do was turn away, moving back to the motor.
“Sit here this time.” Ganix led Rowan to one of the chairs in the center of the boat. “And don’t scare your little brother,” he said under his breath. “That’s the last thing we need. Behave until we get to the island, or I’ll give you and your brother a Dad Quest.”
Rowan groaned playfully. “Not a Dad Quest.”
“Keep it up,” Ganix said, patting his son on the back of the head. “The more you complain, the harder the Dad Quest will be.”
Rowan kept to himself for the next thirty minutes, occasionally scrolling through his personal attributes, which hovered before him.
Rowan Toragan
Level 13
HP: 285/335
Intelligence: 23.46
Willpower: 10.31
Empathy: 6.01
Charisma: 11.84
Strength: 5.41
Dexterity: 7.24
Luck: 3.31
He never questioned why he had these stats, or why everyone else had stats, which floated before a person and were translucent unless he focused on them.
While he could see someone’s social status, Rowan couldn’t see other people’s personal attributes.
Personal attributes were private.
At any given time, Rowan had three skills he was able to level-up and swap out for other skills. These were also private, Rowan glad that his dad and his brother couldn’t see the three things he had been hoping to improve over the summer before being whisked away to an island.
Drawing / Level 3
Playing Guitar / Level 1
Talking to Girls / Level 4
While his personal attributes could change daily, his skills were the only thing he was able to actively level up, and his overall level was tied to his age, only changing once a year.
His dad, who was forty-five years old, was Level 45. His younger brother Toro was a measly Level 10.
Only leveling up once a year wouldn’t have bothered Rowan had it not come with a setback: a person’s age matched the number of items possible for storage in their inventory list.
This was one thing he looked forward to every year once his birthday came around mid-summer. An additional slot in his inventory list was always handy, and he couldn’t wait until he reached his twenties, when he’d be able to carry twenty or more items in his list.
Naturally, because he was already looking through his stats, Rowan moved to his inventory list.
Wooden Sword
Knit Hat
Deck of Playing Cards
Drawing Paper
Pencil Set
Comic Book
His father told them to pack lightly, that they would collect more things on the island than they could possibly imagine. But Rowan wasn’t so sure of this. Most of the items he saved to his list came from playing with his friends, which would be impossible on Sacred Cat Island.
Rowan turned back, realizing he could no longer see the mainland. For some reason, this made him miss his friends even more.
Still a bit cold, Rowan went ahead and equipped his yellow knit hat, which appeared in his hands as if it had been there all along.
“Good idea,” Ganix told his oldest son. “Make sure you don’t catch a cold. Put something on your head too, Toro.”
Rather than equip his hat, Toro exploded to the front of the boat.
“I can see it!” Toro shouted.
Rowan looked out over the bow to see a patch of green grow out of the water behind an old lighthouse perched on a mound of rocks. In a matter of moments, the patch expanded in size, Rowan now seeing a couple of mountains pop up in the distance, and a cliff with oddly shaped rocks jutting out of the water beneath it.
The boat began to arc toward the land. It straightened again as they moved along the contours of the island, where they came to an old dock with ample housing behind it that hugged a cobblestone road.
“Is that it?” Toro called over the roar of the motor, the young boy looking back at his father.
As it did with all brand-new locations, the words flashed in front of Rowan’s eyes.
SACRED CAT ISLAND
Ganix stood, his hand on the metal railing, a glimmer of something in his eyes as he looked to the island. Rowan didn’t know what was going on in his father’s head, but there was something hopeful about the way he stood, his shoulders back, his features softening just a little.
Rowan didn’t share his father’s hopefulness in seeing the place.
His first reaction was one of disappointment, the island not at all tropical, which was what he expected. At least there could have been some coconuts on the trees, or some colorful birds. But from what he could see as they grew close to the dock, the trees were mostly of the oak and pine variety, the birds were all seagulls, and as he had jokingly mentioned earlier, the beach that was visible was quite rocky.
