Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Rescuing the black cat

Most players that have participated in the early access version of the game have run into the black cat at the beginning of the game.
According to Swen there's an "awfully cool surprise waiting for you" if you manage to escort it out of Fort Joy, though I don't know if he meant the fort itself or the entire island. (reference)There's supposedly also a Steam achivement for saving the cat though I don't know much about that.
Swen says that the reward isn't in the early access version but that hasn't prevented me from at least trying to escort the cat for as long as I possibly could.

Once the game is released (in two days) I'll try to save the cat in my first game. I figured I'd need a solid strategy since the cat is quite fragile and only has one life instead of nine. This means that if it isn't shot down by one of the magisters it'll die as soon as it steps into a damaging surface (poison, fire etc) or gets hit by a random AOE attack directed at someone else.

To prevent this from happening my initial plan was to avoid having the cat follow me so I could come back and 'pick it up' once I'd cleared the island/fort of enemies and dangerous surface effects. I quickly found out that it's a lot more complicated than just running past it. I'm sharing my experiences here in hope that other people determined on saving our feline friend can come up with ideas and strategies on how to rescue the cat.

Now, I realise that a lot of the following things might be changed/removed once the full game comes out, but I figured I'd share all of my findings to provide as much information as possible.

• The cat seemingly doesn't have a set spawn point. Whether you take the southern or the eastern path towards the Fort's northern entrance the cat will come running towards you and start following you.
• If the cat can't see you when it spawns (For example if you're sneaking) it will run to your location and remain there
• If you sneak past the cat and don't come back near its vicinity it won't move unless you gain vision of it - This is how I tested most of the following things. In a normal playthrough it's imperative that you do not go near the cat; I recommend making a custom marker on your map so you know which area to avoid
• The cat appears to exclusively follows the first character it sees
• If a companion goes near the cat but its main 'target' isn't anywhere to be seen (in a dungeon or is sneaking/invisible) the cat will remain dormant
• If a companion goes near the cat and the person it's following can be seen (is somewhere on the island or is not sneaking/invisible) the cat will run to their location and start following him/her
• If the cat's target enters a dungeon or goes invisible while the cat is on their trail it will stop moving until the character returns to the overworld or becomes visible
• The cat cannot enter dungeons or caves
• If you enter a cave, for example the elf cave south of the Fort, while the cat is following you it'll wait outside and continue following you once you exit
• If the cat's target dies the cat despawns and can seemingly not be brought back (at least not in EA)

With all of this taken into consideration I began clearing my way through the fort, but I was stopped in my tracks because the cat apparently despawns if you
a) Enter the cave with the fire slug queen
b) Walk past the locked gate that separates the fort (the building) from the Fort Joy Ghetto

I assume this is because the rest of the cat's quest (?) hasn't been added to the game yet. If the cat somehow despawns here in the full release I don't know how else you are supposed to bring it out of the Fort.

Basically it appears that you can keep the cat safe from any potential dangers this way, but I'm curious to see if there are other people that had thought of ways to save the cat. Based on my own observations a different way would be to leave a character behind and clear the rest of the fort with your three other characters. I'm not too fond of that idea though since it means you'll end up with an underlevelled character and your party will be missing one member for all of the combat encounters.
I'm curious to see what you have to say to all of this. ☺