Douaga: the search for Brother Dalton

[Browncoat]

"I didn't say flames, I said heat"
Mordan pressed his hand to the ground and used his magic to soften the ground beneath the bear, denying it stable footing.

[Graybeard]

"I didn't say flames, I said heat"

Therese and Sister Helen subsided, preparing to try a different spell. However, the combination of cage and soft ground seemed to be holding for the moment, although it obviously wouldn't last forever. "Let's see if we can settle that thing down first," Sister Rose said. "Can we find it something to eat -- other than ourselves, I mean?"

"I think so," said Sister Helen, and she dashed back to the temple with surprising alacrity, impressing Rose. Was she in Special Ops? I don't remember her there. Whatever the explanation, she reappeared two or three minutes later bearing a hunk of meat from the temple larder, possibly a shank from a sheep or goat, possibly something else that Rose didn't want to think about. With an assist from Therese, she hurled this into the small, increasingly rickety cage, thumping the bear on the nose. At first this just produced another enraged growl, but it didn't take long for the bear to figure out that this insult had been delivered by something eminently edible ... and it was very hungry.

Unpleasant gobbling and crunching sounds followed as Rose relaxed a little. "Well, we appear to have gone from starving, enraged polar bear in a very non-polar region to hungry, unhappy polar bear in a very non-polar region. That's progress, I suppose ... but what next? And how did it get here?"

[Drusia]

A fricken bear.

I hide behind Therese some more.

I mean, I could try my calming trick on it. In theory. But it's a bear. And it's hungry. The snake was simply wary of being stepped on. Even calmed, I would still make a tasty treat for the bear.

-- Desiree

[Graybeard]

"Came outta hole in the ground," Shortround answered Sister Rose, somewhat evasively; this didn't seem like the time to fess up to the fact that the boys had been playing around with said hole in the ground when it happened. "Over there." He pointed to the low mound.

Therese raised an eyebrow at these words. "Is that so? Bears live in dens, but why a white bear in a green forest?" Not noticing that she was being used for cover by Desiree, she stepped forward to inspect the huge animal ...

... Which picked this moment to finish its first square meal in quite a long time, and invigorated by the meat but in no way pacified, to muster enough strength to knock down its enclosure, leaving it again free to look for the next meal. The leg of whatever-it-was merely served as an appetizer; the main courses were giving it a once-over, and getting altogether too close.

"Uh, oh," Therese said, as the bear glowered at her and bared its fangs.

[Browncoat]

Mordan launched himself over the bear again to land in front of Therese. He looked the bear directly in the eye with an odd, not entirely human, expression on his face. The bear roared and Mordan roared right back. The bear stopped to regard Mordan and it looked almost as if the two were engaging in a bizarre staring contest.

[Graybeard]

The bear paused as though puzzled and drew itself up on its hind legs, its nose a good ten feet above the ground. Luminosita's Nethers, that's a big bear, Sister Rose thought, a feeling that was echoed in the minds of her companions. I sure hope we can take it alive -- not just so it can go to a zoo in Douaga or something, but also so we can figure out how it got here.

Unfortunately, one of the townspeople picked this moment to launch another arrow, as Rose cringed. No... no... don't get it mad again. But it was too late. The missile lodged in a mighty shoulder, drawing blood this time, and the bear snarled, dropped to all fours again, and charged.

[Alberich]

Another local hunter managed to sink a larger arrow into it -- designed to fell a local breed of garlop -- and turned its attention that way. The first got behind a tree and nocked another arrow - planning to let the strange, white beast get some momentum a different way before letting fly.

Audie ought to have been running at this point -- or at least getting way, way back the way Anfisa was -- but he was standing next to Mordan instead, for all the world trying to imitate the strange face the tree-driver had been making a moment before. But who was paying him any mind?

[OOC: Tekeli-li!]

[Graybeard]

The arrows didn't seem to be doing fatal damage to the huge bear (yet); all they were doing was making it angrier, and dividing its attention among the eight or ten people present that it wanted to kill. One of these things was probably beneficial. The other one probably wasn't.

Sister Rose grimaced as she turned to Argus. "I sure as hell don't want to kill that thing," she said, "and I mean that literally. But I don't think we have much choice any more. It's not going to settle down by itself, and there's nowhere for it to run to. I hate it, but it's time to bring out the lethal magic. You said something about being able to run a spike through enemies once? -- Wait, THERESE!"

The Sisterhood warrior had only heard the first half of what Rose said, and nodded grimly ... from altogether too close to the bear. She made an obvious effort to summon and shape magic, and started to cast. "FLAME VO--"

Her spell, however, was cut off along with a substantial piece of flesh from her arm, as razor-sharp claws suddenly lashed out, powered by immense paws and even greater ursine fury, and raked her shoulder. The verbiage turned into a scream as the blood began to flow.

[Browncoat]

"Sorry big guy," Mordan muttered under his breath.
Mordan raised his fists sharply and a wall of earth shot up and clipped the bear's chin. The bear smashed the dirt back down and was promptly hit by one of the pieces of Argus's pillars. Then another and another. The rocks continued to barrage the bear and most of them hit in the area of the ears.

[Drannin]

Argus sighed. He was sympathetic, bur the creature was clearly out of control. Raising his hand solemnly, Argus caused a spike of rock to surge up from the ground, impaling the bear through the heart.