Its a challenging climb.  While it requires no face against the rock time, it does have a fair bit of sixty degree twenty foot or so slopes so its an hour and a half later, you guess by the time you're up on top.  And your fingers are nicked in a few places.

+@1 Climbing.

Once atop, you look.  This and the next mountain over, on the far side is a wooden trestle bridge over a thousand foot deep valley.  Rails shine in the sun, glinting back at you.

Far across the jungle, toward the horizon, you see what could be city buildings.

From behind you, a great way off you hear 'Raghugklicraguh!!!" It is a roar of such volume, and peculiar nature that your hair stands on end.  Spinning about you see nothing, but the sound seems to have come from a mountain farther away.

Yeah... I don't want to find out what that is.

I'll head as directly as I can to those buildings that I see.

Heading down the mountain is actually harder than going up, until you reach the last thousand feet where it becomes less steep.  Entering the jungle, you quickly find a path that seems to lead in the direction you want to go.

You've gone for an hour when a drenching rain forces you to find shelter under the leaves of a fern tree? which is all well and good, but there is another in the shelter.  He has a wooden spear, green cateyes, khaki pants, and cheetah spotted fur all over his body with odd shaped ears on the top of his head.

I can't help but stare at him.

Wait what...there is a guy With cheetah eyes, ears and fur. Ok. I am not drunk or dreaming because I'm thinking too clearly.  Virtual Reality... to advance. I actually feel like I am here. Ok maybe he just has extensive body modification...Well that is no reason to be rude.

"Hello sir."

Does he have a tail too?
This message was last edited by the player at 14:44, Mon 07 Nov 2016.

He stares at you.

His tail flicks.

He stares consideringly at you.

"Hello, Human. Not many of your kind in the Southern Jungle."  His voice is contrabass.

Ok. That tail moves too realistically. There is no way I can justify this with our current science. Something really weird is going on.

"I suspect that I was placed here. I was in my home city about to go to my martial arts class. Then my phone shocks me and knocks me out. When I wake up I'm on that mountain over there. I don't have a clue about what is going on and I don't have the tools or skills to survive in a jungle. "

"Strange words, even for a Human.  Perhaps magic.  When the rain ends, I will take you to my village, and let you speak to Old Tom." He pauses. "Or you can climb your mountain, and go find the railroad men."

He shrugs with a ripple, and then ignores you.  The rain comes down for a while.

"...I will go with you when the rain ends. Thank you for you help."

In reply to Magnus (msg # 13):

He ignores you.  Its not offensive seeming in the way with normal folk because you're starting to think he doesn't think like normal aka Humans do.  The rain stops, and you're startled to realize he's already moving.  There's no gathering himself to move, even a curt word, he's just up and going.

You scramble after him, and he leads you through the jungle by a path.  Several times he has to wait for you.  The second time, he's snoozing on a tree branch when you catch up to him.

He gives you a darkly inscrutable glance that makes you somehow feel inadequate.

An hour later, and you enter a maze of thickly intertwined trees dotted with small holes in the branches.  He calls out, and an old cat comes out of one of the holes.  There is some hissing and spitting, and then your guide wanders off and falls asleep on a rock laying on one of the branches.

Old Tom jumps down fifteen feet, looking kind of stiff.

"Human."

OOC: Yes, I have cats.

"Greetings Old Tom.
Apparently your friend there thought you should hear my story.

I was in my home city and when to my martial arts class. My classmates ambushed me at the door. They broke my cellphone in the struggle, which somehow shocked me enough to knock me out. I woke up in your jungle with no clue how I got here."

In reply to Magnus (msg # 15):

"Friend?" He sniffs.  "I tolerate the young rascal. But I am old and have seen many things, and talked to many races, and scented many trails."

He sniffs, and then comes closer, and well into your personal space, and sniffs several times.

"I have never smelled many of your smells." His tail lashes back and forth as he steps back.  "You are Human, not Orc, or Dwarf, and yet so strange.  I suspect the working of a man of wands.  Did you step upon a golden tinted rainbow?"

He's talking about orcs and dwarfs as if they are a real thing. I am not surprised, he looks like one of those cat people from Magic the Gathering.

"I guess not. But I'm not sure exactly what you are talking about. My phone did have something called scriff in it. Apparently it is a golden metallic liquid.

...What do you mean by 'Men of Wands'? Is there magic here or something? "

He pauses, and looks away, clearly thinking, and then turns to you. "No."

"The makers of wands.  The greater magicians who create firestaffs that lesser magicians can use."  He licks his nose.  "Magic? Yes.'

"... I have never seen magic. There is none where I come from. Only Technology. "

"We used to only have Magic, now we have both, and indeed some merge them, like with the Iron Dragons, railroad engines that are captured dragons transformed into railroad engines."

"Are the Dragons sentient? Otherwise that sounds unpleasant for them.

What could the Old Magic do?"

"No, the dragons are beasts. Voracious, angry, territorial to a degree.  They have learned to avoid concentrations of the Races as some can fight them off, and for others, well, we bring vengeance to the dragons.  The wandmakers can shoot fire, and turn dragons, but the Old Magic, ah, the Tower of the Wands is the tallest building in the world, and the Golden Bridge allows one to walk from the New World to the Old World in one day.  By ship it would take maybe four or seven days.  And far to the North near Blufeld is, I hear, the Square of Being. One steps there, and arrives in the Old World, or back.  But some say they have weird dark dreams from the step.  It is said that the dragons were made by the old magi, who wanted an intelligent race, but it failed."

"That sounds amazing. Do you know Old Magic?"
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 01:12, Tue 15 Nov 2016.

He stares at you for a long second.

"I do not know any magic, much less the magery which could allow such wonders.  That said, it occurs to me that I'm helping you.  There's a rod and reel down by the creek. Catch me a fish if you want more answers."

He points off with his tail in the direction, and leaps back up into the tree.  You realize you've astounded him with your question.

"Ok. I'm not very good at fishing. But I'll give it a shot."

I'll go where he indicated and fish for a while. I know the basics. Bait the line, cast it near the middle and wait while keeping the line still. Then when you feel a tug on the line, jerk it to set the hook and reel it in.

Let see how I do.

The path to the creek is a mud path that leads down to a clay bank of a ten foot wide creek.  It and you are overshadowed by dense vegetation so that its like being in a dimly lit room.  Tossing the line out, after you stick a beetle to the hook yields a three inch fish after four minutes.

Trying again is nothing for a good bit, and you wonder if you've used up your beginner's luck when you yank up and see a ten inch long gleaming purple and orange scaled fish get yanked from the water.  For a second you  think you've lost him, but then its on shore.

Old Tom tosses the three incher away and a young cat dives on it, but then he settles himself down with a smile to the other.  He will hear no questions until he's done, and then he burps, and nods.

"Ok, Human."

1@3 rod and reel fishing.

After he finishes eating
"You mentioned other races. What is your race called and what other races do you know of?"

"We are the Catmen, or Catfolk, or 'Riishhs' " and the last sounds like something a human voice would have difficulty with. "There are Humans, who are most common, and the Elves in their greenwoods, the Dwarves, and less common, the Orc, and the least common the Trolls here in the New World and the Olde World.  We have fought some with the Dwarves in the nearby mountains, but mostly not as we neither like the other's lands.  There are Orc Pirates at times who trouble our ports, when they are not being good merchants, but that little matters to us here, in the deep jungle.  Only city cats care for that.'

"Do the humans or other racing s have people who teach magic? "

"Some of the Humans, more in the Olde World, I hear, and the Elves."