Your thoughts are interrupted as you feel the ground gently shudder under your feet as it re-assumes its quadruped status, and you catch a flash of fabric trailing back from its closing maw as the scarf-like strip flaps in the descent and falls to rest over the Oakenbear's neck. Your eyes narrow, countless thoughts flashing through your head at once as you try to think of any number of reasons besides the obvious as to where this thing could have gotten fabric from out in the middle of a forest.

You felt your chest tighten, the thundering beat of your heart beginning to pick up as the reality of the situation started to press in on you. Something tugs gently at the edges of your consciousness as your breath quickens.

>The predator-prey relationship was overwhelming, time to take flight!
>You'd never outrun this thing, stand and deliver!
>Get vertical! It's probably too heavy to climb!
>Other? (write-in)

>>40762037
>Get vertical! It's probably too heavy to climb!

Previous Threads:
https://archive.moe/tg/search/tripcode/!y56qKWqxyc/results/thread/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=valen+quest

Where things are said:
https://twitter.com/Riz_QM

Pastebin Stuff:
Kara's Day Out - http://pastebin.com/8ZbiSKLs

Misc notes:RIP Oakenrue.

QM is still not solar powered. Daywalking is anathema. Hopefully night will come soon.

>>40762037
>Get vertical! It's probably too heavy to climb!
...and if it CAN climb, we punch it until it stops moving

>>40762255
>>40762077
We vertical now.

Writing!

Your mind finally grinds to a hault as you remember how Kara had dealt with the first one. You only glance away from it briefly as you take in the surrounding trees, finding one that seemed pliable for what you had in mind. Looking back to the slowly advancing oakenbear, you let a nervous smile surface at just how slow the thing was moving before you cut and ran straight for the tree you had picked out. That smile died the moment your foot hit the ground and you very nearly lost your balance under the shaking ground - Your pace picked up quickly, distantly realizing how much easier it was to run when not carrying Kara or Ari, but the moment you had turned to run was when the oakenbear had shed its lazy demeanor and started pursuit in earnest.

Oh god, were all bears that fast? Why couldn't it have been more oak than bear, just this once?!

You threw yourself up the trunk with a dexterity you didn't know you possessed, no doubt supplemented by the adrenaline flooding your veins, and quickly scrambled to press yourself further up the jagged bark until you could grasp hold of some kind of low hanging branch to pull yourself up. One foot swung out and away as you lost track of whether it was the tree trembling due to the approaching oakenbear, or your hands. You only barely managed to dig your shoes into the rigid bark and thrust yourself high enough to grasp hold of a branch when you felt the wood under you jerk abruptly.

Your fingers clenched around the pathetic nub of a branch that held you in the air as the entire tree shifted ajar with a spine-chilling crack of unearthed root. You slammed heavily against the now leaning tree, gasping for breath as you look down to see where the oakenbear had simply rammed itself against the tree rather than come to a stop.

if you had been a few seconds slower on catching your grip, you'd have been smeared across the bark right now.

>Keep climbing, you may be above it now but you just saw the damn thing stand up!
>Drop down on top of it, climbing the tree will just get the tree knocked over!
>Try and bait it into nudging the tree more, maybe you can use it as a ramp into the canopy!
>Other? (write-in)

>>40762720
>>Drop down on top of it, climbing the tree will just get the tree knocked over!

>>40762965
This.

Writing!

Hanging from the branch, you had only a split second to make a decision. Part of you wanted to climb, to keep climbing and get away from it. You could maybe have done it, too. Even if this tree got knocked over, who knew if you couldn't have managed to get into the canopy proper at least.

That part of you, though. That part of you was screaming in the back of your head as you felt your fingers let go. It was screaming as you felt gravity take hold and the short drop began. It was still screaming when you landed roughly on the bark-spined back of the oakenbear and instinctively clenched your thighs around the the thing's bulging midrift in an attempt to balance yourself as you rocked forward and grabbed hold of pieces of the bark which jutted out from its jagged wooden coating.

This was without a doubt your first time mounting something as large as this oakenbear. Even last time, you had been holding onto Kara the entire time so it wasn't the same. It wasn't as direct, or real, as you simply watched the demihuman snugly land and proceed to wrestle the bear to its own death. Now, though... Now it was different. You could feel its mass shifting under you; The nervous shudder down your spine as you distinctly felt the difference in sheer weight class between you and the oakenbear that let you know you were as apt to weigh the thing down as Ari had been to slow you down - Maybe even less so.

You had made your choice though, fingers digging into the bark as the bear regained its equilibrium from the crash and began to crane its neck around in order to throw you off. Too far down on its back for that, you felt the world begin to shift as it started to rear up on its back two legs once more.

Piggybacking an oakenbear was a thrill, right up until one of its gnarled wooden claws swung through the darkness and nearly crushed your ankle against its stomach. You ripped the leg free in time to avoid that, barely noticing the sound of ripping fabric or the sudden flush of blood from your lower leg as you clutched tighter to its back and through your legs free in order to avoid getting clawed.

Your knuckles nearly shone white in the darkness as you desperately clutched onto the thing's back. Some distant part of you continued to scream, but it wasn't screaming ideas you could use, so it was summarily ignored. All the same, even as you clutched wild-eyed to the thing's back, your mind whirled to figure out what to do. If you just kept hanging back here, you'd run out of stamina before a damn oakenbear would! You needed a better handhold, you needed-

Everything slams together at once as you twist one leg away from another seeking claw, ignoring the crunch of wood against barky wood as you plant both feet into the oakenbear's back and leap upward to grab onto the cloth you had noticed earlier. It was still warm, you realize belatedly, and your grip nearly slips away before you manage to clamp down on the blood covered strip you had noticed hanging from its head earlier.

You were now rappelling from the back of a standing oakenbear, and you're not sure if this was better or worse than hanging from a partially uprooted tree above said oakenbear. It had occurred to you to wonder just where fabric had come from earlier, but now that you were literally hanging from the wooden beast by the strip it was an unnervingly simple matter to recognize it - Especially since it belonged to you.

This was one of the strips you had used to bind Ari's clothes.

Bright spots were beginning to creep along the edge of your vision, a tugging insistence trying to pull your consciousness away. You clench your eyes, trying to ward it off while you focused.

>Plant your feet into it's back, use the cloth as a rope and ride.
>Try kicking off pieces of its bark.
>Climb towards its shoulders while its standing.
>Jump off while it's standing, try and get away.
>Other? (write-in)

>>40763679
>>Plant your feet into it's back, use the cloth as a rope and ride.

>>40763700
>>Plant your feet into it's back, use the cloth as a rope and ride.
>>Try kicking off pieces of its bark.
If we can somehow take it apart, we could cripple it. It's just a wooden case, right?

>>40763727
>>40763806
We're in for a ride.

>>40763806
The most literal definition of kicking ass.

Writing!

Your hand tightens around the bloodied cloth strip with a grim resolve as you pull your knees up and plant your feet into the oakenbear's back. Pushing off with a hold on your newly acquired leash for the thing, you sway dangerously back from the new standing bear and can very nearly brush the leaves above you with your free hand.

But escape is the last thing on your mind as a scream rips out of your throat and you viciously drive your foot against one of the jagged bark spines that cover the bear's back. The jarring impact races up your leg, barely even bending under your initial assault, but it grabs the issue of the oakenbear as it jerks its back and very nearly dislodges you from its back when you're forced to swing out to the side. The cloth pulls taut against whatever it had been stuck against and you frantically slam your foot back down in order to stabilize your swing and jerk yourself back away from another passing claw.

The sound of tearing fabric by your ear as you feel a fresh wound open along your upper arm was a nice accompaniment to the sucking air when the paw passed, but you managed to avoid the worst of it.

...Or so you thought, as a familiar burning pain spread across your scalp as your head jerked to the side. With your heels too stubbornly dug into the wooden body of the oakenbear, the claw-full of your long hair which had been too slowly pulled away was forced to snap under the strain. You saw red as the locks were half ripped, half cut away, and redoubled your effort to drive your foot through the bear's coat of bark.

You were still screaming as your foot crashed into the gnarled spine. Again and again, you frantically fought to keep your swinging body from shifting too closely as the spine began to crack under your single minded assault. The blinding rage from having it grab your hair passed, only to come again, rinsing in and out like a tide of fury to fuel your impassioned attempt to physically break an entire bear.

When the final crack gave way, it was drowned under by a roar that vibrated through your very bones. In a single triumphant action you had managed to break the gnarled spine away, and with it, a chunk of the wood it had been attached to. Your thoughts burned with spite as you heard the bear cry out. Could it even feel pain? If it couldn't, you were going to be so pissed.

Whether it was in pain or merely annoyed, the thing had wasted no time as it started to throw itself back towards a nearby tree to crush you between its wooden body and the trunk.

>Pull up, get to the shoulders!
>Swing to the side, get around its arms quickly!
>Dive off, we're abandoning bear!
>Twist around, try and brace your legs between the bear and tree!
>Other? (write-in)

>>40764590
>Swing to the side, get around its arms quickly!

>>40764590
>>Dive off, we're abandoning bear!
This is starting to take too much of a toll. We've damaged it, but shouldn't push our luck.

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>40764636
1. Swinging 'round

>>40764736
2. Abandon bear!

Dicegods guide us, I suppose.

Writing!

You kick off of the bear's back as the tree approaches, holding tight to the cloth as it snaps taut and swings you around. In a split second, you make the decision to let go of it and send yourself careening the relatively short distance from the oakenbear's back and straight into a rough landing. your hands burn as you hit the ground and skip across the gnarled roots and leaves that cover the forest floor before you can arrest your progress and scramble up to your feet.

A shuddering crack fills the forest when the oakenbear slams back first into its intended tree, dirt erupting into the air as more and more roots are forced up from their subterranean home and into open air due to the tree being forced ajar. Your breathes come quick and deep as you look on at the wrecked tree. The wooden spines on the bear hadn't broken upon it, so much as shredded the thing to pieces and added the fresh scraps to its back. The horror you feel creeping up on you as you realize what would have happened if you had tried to brace that is only marginally mollified by the fact that the spine you had managed to kick off earlier was further down the thing's back and thus hadn't benefited from the sudden addition of yet more wood onto the damn thing.

That single bright side really meant nothing to you now, since you didn't think that whatever laziness had allowed you get a literal drop on the bear last time was going to happen again. You stumbled back, a sharp pain flaring up from your previously clawed calf. Any plans of trying to outrun this thing was well and truly shot for you now.

The ground once more trembles as the oakenbear slams back down to its feet, its hollow eyes quickly piercing the darkness to narrow in on you as you unsteadily shift weight from your injured leg.

You take a deep breath, consciousness starting to drift, your adrenaline fuelled senses focusing entirely on the implacable predator in front of you as the dark forest began to tremble from its charge.

This was it. Kara wouldn't be coming, Asche was in Carona, you have no idea where Rinnier had even gotten to, and Ari...

Your fingers weakly clench, briefly entertaining the thought of biting the thing's throat out before the end. You couldn't even do that, though, could you? It was covered in wood.

You bet aunt and uncle never saw this coming.

>You are Rinnier Suriah Lamandra.
>You are Ari. Just Ari.

>>40766050
>You are Rinnier Suriah Lamandra.

Abandoning the bear was fucking stupid asshole who voted for it.

Hey there, OP. Turning into a daywalker on us, are you?

>>40766050
>>You are Rinnier Suriah Lamandra.

>>40766070
Relax. Swinging around to a limb seems like it would've been equally stupid, given that it could easily swat us against a tree or the like.

>>40766184
>Turning into a daywalker
This will kill me. I'm struggling as it is, just hope the sun sets before I redline and have to cut the thread short again.

>>40766184
Still better than giving up our advantage, We could have repositioned still, instead of being left open for a mauling. Unless RIz deus ex Machina's this Irue is dead.

>>40766050
>You are Rinnier Suriah Lamandra.

>>40766070
>>40766184
We were fucked the moment we decided to kill tree friend. I'm surprised we managed to do anything at all to this thing.

>>40766050
>You are Rinnier Suriah Lamandra.

Goodbye Irue, you lived... Well you lived.

>>40766234
"Friend" It was a pitcher plant going to eat us like the bear.

>>40766234
I mean, given what happened when we attacked our oak doppelganger, we can probably imagine that an oakenbear has a similar 'core', and the previous one didn't take so much as slamming it with our fist to break it.

Would just be a matter of locating it.

>>40766255
Just saying, we had a choice between a hilariously easily broken tree cocoon and an aggressive wooden bear.

>>40766285
That could be true, though we never confirmed if oakenrue was the same kind of thing as the oakenbear or not.

>>40766070
>>40766184
>>40766234
>>40766248
We are become Rinnier, destroyer of flames.

Writing!

>>40766386
>we had a choice between a hilariously easily broken tree cocoon and an aggressive wooden bear.
Not really the plants was tougher enough to keep us in, and we'd have died if we didn't escape. We pulled agro on the oaken bear by accident. At this rate though We'll burn through all the possible pcs before we the game month is out.

>>40766430

>>40762018
>you realized what you had been forgetting.
>This smell of kill and rancid meat

Dryad thing had a weak spot that killed it instantly, and we could've noticed that the oakenbear was outside the whole time last thread. If we ever fucked up, it was way before just now.

You are Rinnier Suriah Lamandra, first princess of the Teranford royal family, oldest of the daughters, third oldest of all siblings, thus third in line for the throne. You are also, much to your displeasure, some manner of slave-test for a sheltered and stupid noble of a prestigious house whose influence had even been notable in your country. You suppose, due to the circumstances which led to the last thing, you are now second in line for the throne. Or you would be, if there was even a throne left to take.

Honestly, you didn't even know if your mother was still alive. If she hadn't made it, then that makes your elder brother acting King now, making you first in line for inheritance! The fact that you were theoretically getting closer and closer to being queen did not make you happy in the least.

You had become separated from your erstwhile idiot of a master - You snort at the thought of Irue being anything even resembling such a thing. That prat was a partner to help try and re-establish yourself in order to try and help your scattered country at best, and at worse... Well, the argument the two of you had earlier said enough. You were making plans already. You had been making plans ever since you found out the entire library was filled with books on magic and Mana instead of something more practical. The fact your 'partner' couldn't even practice any of it had just solidified the notion that you shouldn't expect much.

You had never gotten along, even from day one, and it all led up to you being nearly alone in this blasted forest in the middle of the night. You had thought that Irue and the dead weight they insisted on bringing along had been behind you, no one had spoke up otherwise and... You had been a little distracted in your efforts to beat down every piece of stray plant life in order to vent frustrations.

When you had asked, rather sharply, whether the flimsy noble had needed a break to rest, you thought that the ensuing silence was just them being cross with you. You ignored it. If they wanted to be stubborn about it, you could do the same. You DID do the same. You didn't have the patience to play these kind of academy games with some immature prat.

It was only, perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes after that when you finally stopped to breath and announced your intent to make camp did you look back and realize a particularly important fact.

You were entirely alone.

A series of curses spit from your mouth, swears born from flame - A language inherent to the Lamandran family, learned by higher class attendants of the Salamander Shrine - and you resisted the urge to simply scream. Again.

It would be getting dark soon, which meant you had very, VERY little time to find those two worthless pains in the ass before it became too dangerous for you to wander in the forest without losing your way. It's not even like you could make your own fire out here either...

Your grip tightened on the stick in your hand, wrapping comfortably about its solid length. "Irue!" you called out agitatedly, "Where are you?!"

You began to stomp your way back the way you came, feeling every single foot of lost progress as you growl under your breath.

Honestly you had completely decided to give up when you heard the cocky brat. It was a faint echo, but it was definitely Irue. It was already dark though, very dark, which was why you had intended to just hunker down for the night. You had started roughly in the direction you heard it from, blindly attempting to navigate forest at night, when a second, much more terrifying sound rang out.

"Irue you idiot!" You cursed, already imagining the many different stupid things your short-sighted partner could have done to find and anger a bear after somehow failing at the very simple job of following you in a straight line.

A few things told you that you were getting closer. One of those things was that the screaming and roars were getting progressively louder; That was a decent sign, even if you weren't entirely sure where you were now that you had been forced to rush through the woods in the dark. Another thing was that the stench of carrion had gone from barely noticeable to a nose-curling horror that had hit you hard enough you needed to take a moment to spit out the little bit of vomit in your mouth that had inadvertently risen.

You gagged away the bitter taste of bile in the back of your throat, wiping away the light coating of spit from your lips and nearly jumped out of your own skin when a particularly angry roar was punctuated by an entire tree crashing to the ground with a thud that shook the ground even this far out. The closer you got, the more often you could feel the earth tremble, and for the first time you start to think that maybe whatever Irue had pissed off this time wasn't even a bear.

Your advance halted at that. Whatever was going on, could you even help? ...Did you even want to? Your 'partner' had said it themselves, you had written them off already. You had plans for when they failed. If you just let them die, you could probably make it back to the road and then get to Carona in your own time. Honestly you had already plotted a route for exactly that, starting from the river you had been heading towards. Sure, you'd be giving up the chance to get House Valen's support in your plight, one you had secretly hoped to potentially gain from Irue's cousin if they proved more competent - his nature as legitimate son to the current stewards making him far more useful to you in the immediate sense than some far flung hope that Irue would truly become the head in the future - but you'd also be free of this slave-testament business entirely.

You bit your lip nervously, eyes shifting rapidly back and forth as you turned over your options.

All you had to was just walk away, and pick up the pieces. No one could blame you for this, and you still had a country of people you were responsible for out in the world somewhere. If you could make it to Ephlesia somehow, then maybe...

But... But if Irue did manage to become head somehow. If they did pass this ridiculous 'Rite' of theirs, then... No, Irue would definitely die. Even if it was a bear, there wasn't anything you could do! And.. Bears didn't make the ground shake and topple trees! Now was when you needed to just cut your losses and try to pick up the pieces.

You slowly stepped back, back towards where you had come, when another roar shook the forest and froze you in place.

Dammit. Dammit, Salamander burn this entire forest! Was this even the right choice? If you left Irue now, could you make it out? What would you do when you got to Carona? Should you keep going to Irue's cousins like planned and try to spin some story?

The ground rattled forebodingly. What was the right thing to do here?!

>It's not always the right choice that matters, but that you did something. That idiot better appreciate this!
>Cut and run, we can make it to Carona and try to work from there.
>Retrace steps to the river, keep straight to Caylen's and try to think of a story.
>Climb into the canopy, it's too dark to move tonight. Just... Sit tight until morning.

>>40767300
>>Cut and run, we can make it to Carona and try to work from there.

>>40767300
>>It's not always the right choice that matters, but that you did something. That idiot better appreciate this!

>>40767300
>It's not always the right choice that matters, but that you did something. That idiot better appreciate this!

>>40767300
>It's not always the right choice that matters, but that you did something. That idiot better appreciate this!

>>40767333
Off to Carona!

>>40767366
>>40767375
>>40767428
How did we let Irue talk us into this shit.

Writing!

Your fingers clench around your walking stick, the same one Irue had managed to find for you before this entire trip even started. You could just cut and run now, but...

Hot swears slip from your lips as you turn back towards the commotion disturbing the otherwise silent fight and start to run towards it. You should be running away from it. AWAY from it! You still had people you were responsible for, you still had a country to rally. If you died now doing something stupid, trying to save that idiot from whatever trouble they had ended up in this time, then what?

...But if you just let Irue die and gave up the chance of getting House Valen on your side, then what? With that much power behind you, there's nothing that could stop you from managing to pull your country's people back together. Even if the chance was slim that Irue would succeed-

You grit your teeth, tossing your napsack aside as you get closer in order to shift the walking stick into a more familiar grip. This was a stupid decision, and you were stupid for making it to save a stupid person, and all of this was stupid! The wind whistled past as your strides lengthened in your rush, thighs and calves burning as you navigated the alient forest landscape. This was hardly the sand and packed dirt you were used to, the canopy above you even blocking out most of the pale moonlight you had long been accustomed to having shine down around you even at night.

All you had to guide your advance in the night were the trembling ground, air shaking roars, and the sound of Irue's hoarse resistance in the face of whatever had gotten pissed off tonight... But that was enough. It led you directly to the devastated clearing that even a brief glance would tell had been the site of their conflict. Trees lay shattered and torn from the ground, piles of earth and sprawling coils of roots dotted the landscape of a place that had not hours ago been the same thick forest as the rest of these blasted woods.

Your mind boggled at the sheer strength that had to have been necessary to have redesigned such a place so quickly, but it finally cleared enough of the overhanging branches to allow a silvery moonlight onto the abominably misshapen form of Irue's assailant. While at one time it had perhaps resembled a bear, that time had past once most of its upper body had evidently been consumed by the trees. Unwieldy bulges of wood torn from the ruined trees protruded from the former bear's body, grotesque and vicious lumps of splintered logs filling in hastily where features had once been.

From its face to its front paws, it looked as if a normal carving of a bear had suddenly begun to expand in molten bubbles before hardening again in some half-assed shape. Only vague features remained in the pieces of its body which hadn't been subsumed by the ripping and subsequent assimilation of raw wood from its environment; An action you freeze at the sight of, after the wooden bear angrily swatted a familiar long blonde haired noble clean off the ground and sent them crashing into a tree across the clearing with a boneless thud. Rather than advance to finish Irue off, the thing - an Oakenbear you realize after a moment, putting its appearance and Irue's description together with the smell you had been enduring - had shoved its shattered stump of a leg onto a nearby tree and was visibly devouring the fallen tree itself to act as some awkward prosthesis.

...How the hell do you kill something like THAT in a forest?

>Rush to Irue while it's busy, maybe you can both get out of here before it recovers!
>Attack now before it can recoup! (any specific method?)
>Try and get the damn thing's attention, maybe you can lure it away.
>Call Irue. You flinched from the sound of impact all the way over here.

>>40768341
>Rush to Irue while it's busy, maybe you can both get out of here before it recovers!

>>40766916
I had assumed based on the flower nap pollen stuff that the rotting flesh pointed toward this dryad being a hunter as well, albeit an ambush predator rather than the oakenbear's roving around and gathering meat. The smell being a totally separate oakenentity never really crossed my mind.

>>40768341
>>Attack now before it can recoup! (any specific method?)
Try to shatter what's left of its leg before it can assimilate it. Keep it off balance and look for any chinks in its awkward composition like the piece of its spine Irue chipped off.

>>40768360
We aren't outrunning it. Not with an injured Irue that couldn't even outrun it solo in good health.

>>40768467
>using meta knowledge.
nice

>>40768482
At least I suggested something unrelated first. There's a good chance she'd notice it in the process anyway.

And Rinnier could understand Irue couldn't outrun it either way, given she was locked in combat with it before we arrived.

>>40768341
>Rush to Irue while it's busy, maybe you can both get out of here before it recovers!

>Rush to Irue while it's busy, maybe you can both get out of here before it recovers!
Yelling seems like a bad idea, and there's no way we're just going to attack it on instinct, especially not with a stick when it seems perfectly capable of sucking up wood to repair itself.

See if Irue is okay, and then go from there.

>>40768360
>>40768529
>>40768539
Rushing to Irue, that takes priority!

>>40768467
Letting it recover now would be a terrible idea.

Writing!
Captcha asked me to identify steak. 8 of the images were steak. What even is the point of this, anymore.

You'd like to avoid drawing the thing's attention to you if you could help it, so you take the opportunity to quickly skirt the edge of the clearing towards where you had seen Irue fly off to while the oakenbear went through the process of recovering one of its front legs. You keep a close eye on the thing as you move, noting with morbid fascination how the uneven recent assimilations seemed covered its body. From what you had just seen, you could only assume that kind of action was taken to mend its wounds somehow... Which meant every gouging strip or disformed bulge of wood on the thing's body were effectively battle scars.

Nearly all of its upper body was a frantically healed battle scar; The resulting assimilation leaving it top heavy to such a drastic extreme that you doubted it could even balance if it decided to rear up like normal bears did. Its lower body had its own fair share of damage done to it, though it was relatively minor compared to the front. At the very least, the thing's ass still resembled the ass that was wedged onto the front lawn back at Irue's house.

You were going to burn that ass the moment you returned. If these things really didn't die when you killed them, maybe you just needed to liberally apply fire to everything until there was nothing left to come back from. You'd have applied all of that fire and more to this thing, but your present reality was much harsher than the one in your memories had been.

After an uncomfortably long span of seconds, you were finally close enough to Irue to look in on the battered noble. To say they had gotten into a woodchipper wouldn't be far from an exaggeration; More accurately, you could say this was what it looked like to pick a fight with a tree. Or an entire host of trees. A forest of them, really.

You could see blood glistening darkly under the moonlight along the noble's lower leg. While both arms were dyed red in blood, the sleeves themselves were curiously undamaged for the most part. A line of thick red ran down the blonde's temple, and you realize with a start that even now Irue's eyes were open. Their left hand twitched as you approached, that bracelet the idiot was so fond of wearing dyed in the same red as the rest of their arms. "Hey, are you okay?" the ridiculousness of the question striking you not long after you had hissed it out, "Can you stand?" Slowly, deliberately, Irue was already beginning to push themselves from the ground and onto their knees once more.

You let out a breath you didn't know you had been holding, relief flooding you as you realized you hadn't been too late. "Listen, we need to get out of here while it's still inj-Irue!" Your words are ignored, out of spite? Was this brat STILL angry that you had written them off? "You idiot, what are you doing?!"

There had to be a limit to how melodramatic someone could be, and the measured and deliberate step Irue had just taken back towards the injured Oakenbear without response was far past it.

>No time for this shit, grab Irue and go!
>Yell louder, make damn sure the idiot can hear you!
>Try and intercept before Irue gets too far away.
>Hang back in the shadows, you don't want to draw attention to yourself.

>>40769212
>No time for this shit, grab Irue and go!

I think Irue is either fighting while unconscious or is in a fugue.

>>40769212
>Try and intercept before Irue gets too far away.
Oh no you don't, Irue. You're going to turn right the fuck around and explain yourself.

>>40769212
>Hang back in the shadows, you don't want to draw attention to yourself.

>>40769212
>>No time for this shit, grab Irue and go!

>>40769455
>>40769251
No time for this shit!

>>40769288
Aw hell naw.

>>40769314
Nope. Fuck that.

Writing!
Update may take a little longer due to making food

Whatever Irue's problem with you was, now was not the time to be an immature brat over it. You were NOT going to let all your effort in coming back to save this idiot go to waste and get you both killed just because they were having a temper tantrum! "Get back here you idiot!" You hiss tensely, grabbing Irue's shoulder before the noble could go too far and physically beginning to drag them back to you. "We're leav-" You bite down quickly, stifling a gasp of pain as the blonde noble jerked you forward by your hand and into a driving sidekick that very nearly folded you in half.

Your struggled to force yourself to breath again after the air was forced out of you, trying to get your body under control when all it wanted to do was keep exhaling until the pain ceased. You needed to breathe, you needed to inhale! You stumbled back, a single step the only break you got before you felt something solid rock into the base of your skull and drive you to the ground, forcing your body to forget its silly apprehension about breathing in the wake of the silent scream you only barely rasped out through emptied lungs.

Training took over as you forced your body into motion and rolled to the side, ignoring the splitting headache and lights clouding the edges of your vision just in time to avoid the foot that lashed down where you had collapsed not moments ago. "What the hell are you doing?!" You groan furiously, blindly finding a grip on your walking stick as your eyes refocused under the pale moonlight.

Irue's head shifted towards you, an expression more at home on that damnable maid's face than the blonde noble's peering out at you from beyond bloodstained hair. You struggled to your feet, bracing the walking stick defensively between yourself and Irue as you did so. The noble's eyes didn't even seem to register the movement, and for a moment you think you've finally gotten the idiot's attention.

Your world tilted of its own accord when you finally managed to stand, and you blink rapidly to force it back into focus with a scowl that could have killed - Would have killed, if you still had Salamander's favor - but any demand for explanation is cut off by the rumbling earth as both your and Irue's heads jerk towards the now recovered Oakenbear turning from its gutted tree and back towards its prey.

You look between Irue, who had seemingly forgotten about you in that moment, and the oakenbear readying itself for another round.

>Fine, deal with the oakenbear first, but you're kicking Irue's ass after this is over!
>Don't turn away from me you watery tart! Explain yourself!
>Irue wants to die? Not your problem!
>Try to talk Irue out of this. You know damn well that flimsy noble can't keep this up.

>>40769947
>Irue wants to die? Not your problem!

>>40769947
>Fine, deal with the oakenbear first, but you're kicking Irue's ass after this is over!
Fuck you, bear. This is for interrupting our catfight.

>>40769947
>Try to talk Irue out of this. You know damn well that flimsy noble can't keep this up.

and if all else fails

>Fine, deal with the oakenbear first, but you're kicking Irue's ass after this is over!

pls save 'rue from himself

>>40770036
>him
I believe you are operating under a misconception.

>>40770048
misspoke, mistakes happen. herself*

>>40770076
No worries. Wouldn't have brought it up, but I could've sworn someone made that mistake in the last thread's archive as well so I thought it might bear mentioning. But it's gone now so either I completely hallucinated it or it got fixed upon request? I dunno.

>>40769979
Lettin' Rue die.

>>40769998
>>40770036
Bear first, Irue second.

>>40770036
Talkin' Rue out of this.

Writing!

>>40770240
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my academy in the Teranford Royal Capital, and I’ve been involved in numerous hunting trips in the desert, and I have over 300 confirmed trade contracts with neighboring countries. I am trained in polearm martial combat and I’m the top Salamander Adept in the entire Teranford royal family. You are nothing to me but just another pretentious noble. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with slapping me just because you're having a bad day? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am remembering all of the years I spent training with my family's secret police in locales all across the most remote wastelands and i know where the fuck you sleep and can run faster than you in these goddamn woods so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your dignity. You’re fucking dead, brat. I can stomp my foot in your ass anywhere, anytime, and I can out politic you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in national intrigue and diplomacy, I have access to the entire arsenal of the Teranford Salamander Shrine and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass straight out of these thrice blasted woods, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little prissy fit was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have checked your fucking privilege. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, Irue.

>>40770371
ayyy

It always bothers me when people half-ass their edits of copypasta, but this seems pretty thorough.

"Irue you idiot, did you even see what that thing did!" You raise your voice, tempting fate to try and get the noble's attention. It was not successful. "What the hell do you plan to accomplish when it heals itself by eating trees? We're in a Mana damn forest!" The ground shook as the oakenbear began to lumber across the moonlit clearing, picking up speed as its momentum began to add up. You looked between it and Irue again, shaking your head in raw denial at the sight of the injured blonde starting to shift a leg forward and lower themselves into some kind of primal stance.

No, no one was that stupid. You were already backing up, trying to make space between you and the direction of the oakenbear's charge, but Irue remained rooted to the ground with a blank stare even as the rumbling ground began to force you to use your walking stick as a third brace.

That frantic denial turned to despair when the malformed bear barrelled into the relatively diminutive blonde noble - Only for that despair, in turn, to be replaced by incredulity when continued past unobstructed save for a veil of hair. The sound of bark shattering echoed an uneven staccato that was soon drowned out by yet another furious roar as its massive form jerked to the side midcharge and 'bumped' Irue several feet back. The noble landed on their feet, their knees bent as they slid back over the trampled leaves and upturned dirt while partly pitched over. You feel horror rising from the pit of your stomach when you realize that Irue's left arm had emerged as some twisted up and mauled limb from the ordeal.

Fine; you came this far, you'd deal with the oakenbear first - But when this was over, you were kicking Irue's ass

You grip your walking stick, tightening your fingers around it until you can shake off the tremble in your hands at what you're getting yourself into. When the oakenbear turns back, you're finally able to see what the cracking bark had been.

It was top heavy, the front of its body encased as if it was being eaten by an entire tree, but the entire right flank had a gouge running from just behind the front shoulder joint back to its haunch. For the first time you get a glimpse at what, exactly, had been the cause of the carrion aroma sickening the air as corpses of animals so far rotten or mauled as to be unidentifiable spilled haphazardly from the partial gutting. Pieces of fabric, and you even see a torn chain hood dyed blackish-brown under the moonlight just laying out.

Distantly you realize this more or less confirms that someone else besides yourself, Irue and that dead weight had been somewhere in these woods recently, but that little moment of validation is shunt aside in favor of looking at the wound itself. What the hell had Irue down to just... Rip the bear's side off?

You heft your walking stick warily, switching grips to one that more favored a staff than a hiking aid, and watched in equal bits relief and anxiety as the oakenbear continued to ignore you in favor of Irue.

>That's a chink in its armor if you ever saw one, time to take advantage! (how?)
>Try to get it's attention somehow. If Irue could do that, buying the idiot some time will be all you need.
>Stay close, keep an eye on how it proceeds before you jump in.
>There might be weapons inside that thing's stomach, too. Maybe you could fish something out?

>>40770875
>There might be weapons inside that thing's stomach, too. Maybe you could fish something out?
A chain coif means there was someone vaguely combat-ready (maybe not THAT ready, I guess) in there. Whatever they might've had on them is bound to be better than a sturdy branch.

Wrap some cloth around your face before trying to do anything, at the very least. Rooting around in putrescence without at least some rudimentary barrier between us and the smell isn't going to be comfortable.

Fuck you, cake totally is food, captcha.

>>40770875
>>There might be weapons inside that thing's stomach, too. Maybe you could fish something out?

>>40770875
>Stay close, keep an eye on how it proceeds before you jump in.

Grabbing a weapon isn't going to be much help for Rinnier and here's why - she's trained in polearms. The knights and guards around here are armed with mostly swords, and if there was a wooden spear in there then the oakenbear would have already consumed it into its body and all we'd find is the metal tip.

>>40771011
>>40771021
We're going tauntaun'in.

>>40771121
Stayin' close and watching for an opportunity.

Writing!
May be delayed, stomach bug is acting up.

>>40771121
>all we'd find is the metal tip
I'd still prefer this to nothing, since worst case scenario Rinnier can jam whichever polearm head she can find onto the end of her stave and smash it with a rock or something to crimp it in place. Sure it means we can't replace the haft later since we'll have fucked up where you'd normally pin it in place to hold it on under ideal circumstances, but we don't really a permanent solution.

That, and IIRC the whole guard squad in Carona was equipped with polearms, so I'd imagine they're more standard issue than you think.

You look between the stick in your hands and the rivet that had been carved into the oakenbear's flank. If whoever had been eaten by that thing had been armed enough for a coif, then who knows what kind of weaponry they had on them - Hopefully something of the metal variety, since you had just seen the thing absorb a tree. The process had taken some time, and given the landscape you're relatively certain that the assimilation isn't instant, so you were probably safe using your walking stick for quick strikes and thrusts... But prolonged contact was bad.

If there was a spearhead or sword lodged in there somewhere though, you could certainly make better use of it than its previous owner had.

The problem from there was how to even find that out? The gash torn into the side of the bear wasn't nearly large enough for you to slip into without some effort, and that was assuming it wouldn't be rampaging around in the meantime. Even after that, if you did get in, you'd be stuck inside the wooden abomination with who knows what kind of carcass, bone and other pointy bits that could be dangerous if you slipped in the wrong direction too hard. Still, as you had overheard your elder brothers discussing during their polearm training some years ago, a hole was a hole. If you didn't take what was offered and thrust your lance into it, you were going to regret it later.

You had taken those words to heart, and never once let a flaw in someone's defense slip past you from that day onward. It was a large part of why you quickly grew to become one of the most proficient polearm bearers in the royal family. Though the stick in your hands wasn't nearly as long or heavy as you were accustomed to, you would be remiss to be forced to eat your constant bragging of mastery over your elder brother's lance if you did not oblige the opportunity before you!

You waited, patiently circling closer so as to not draw undue attention to yourself. When it began to move again, you seized upon the chance to dash forward and plant yourself sturdily into the ground as you thrust forward and pierced the oakenbear's wounded side, the feeling of flesh squishing against the tip of your extended haft. A triumphant smile flashed briefly across your determined face as you realized the oakenbear hadn't even felt your violation of its holding tank, and your hips twisted with an abrupt shift of your weight in order to drag your fishing pole through the tight corridor of the torn open gash in order to physically rip out whatever lay within.

For a moment you became worried when the shaft caught on the narrowed edge of the wooden gash, but the quality of the walking stick Irue had found you shone through brilliantly when it ripped open a small extension of the wound in a flurry of wooden splinters as if shearing through water.

An untold amount of rotten, unidentifiable meat and bone were hauled forth from your efforts; Some falling upon the ground with a wet 'splorsch', while others still hung limply from the oakenbear's side.

Among them was little you found of use to yourself. Rotten meat that caused you to recoil, half-digested or shattered bones, the metal coif that you would much rather die than actually wear yourself, along with a ratty shirt that had several metal plates evidently sewn onto it.

As the oakenbear bellows out its displeasure, you notice the moonlight glint off of something still half-submerged in the meatpit that is the thing's stomach. You've no idea what it is, but if it was metallic then it was either more armor, or some kind of weapon like you had assumed.

>>40771722
>as you had overheard your elder brothers discussing during their polearm training some years ago, a hole was a hole. If you didn't take what was offered and thrust your lance into it, you were going to regret it later.
...I think Rinnier may not have read far enough into her brothers' conversation.

>Try for the weapon this time, you were close!
>Stick with your staff, it had done its job surprisingly well.
>Back off, you don't want to piss this thing off enough that it focused on you.
>Just try to widen the hole, see if you can force more of whats inside to topple out on its own.

>>40771760
>>Try for the weapon this time, you were close!

>>40771746
Yup, girl is lucky airier bought her instead of someone else. I doubt she'd take it.

>the quality of the walking stick Irue had found you shone through brilliantly when it ripped open a small extension of the wound in a flurry of wooden splinters as if shearing through water
You did good, oaken'rue. RIP one of you guys.

>>40771760
>Back off, you don't want to piss this thing off enough that it focused on you.
>Try for the weapon this time, you were close!
Probably shouldn't give up on our course of action entirely, but it is probably a good idea to focus on doing it via hit-and-run tactics so that we don't get mauled.

Cracking the hole open further would probably work as well, but might lead to the oakenbear resorting to repair measures like we saw it take for its leg, and we'd rather not have to go back to square one where our access to the meat reservoir is concerned.

>>40771801
>>40771860
Trying for the weapon!

>>40771860
Back off, let its aggro cool.

>>40771746
What else would they have been talking about, anon?
Are you attempting to spread slander about Rinnier's dear elder brothers?

Writing!

>>40771978
Surely not. They are fine, upstanding gentlemen with exacting standards. Also they could easily be dead, so potentially RIP them too.

>>40771801
>airier

Why do you.

You back off as the oakenbear's head swings in your direction, levelling your gore covered between yourself and the wooden behemoth in a warding manner as you begin to slowly edge away. Its attention wavers, and your legs tense in preparation to bolt before it can begin to advance - An advance that thankfully never came as Irue took the opportunity of its lapse in attention to cover the space between them. You catch a glimpse of Irue's face illuminated in a dull red under the silvery moonlight before vanishing beyond the wooden girth of the oakenbear, another sharp snap of shattered wood causing your spirit to soar.

You darted in as the thing's head shifted away, poking and proding at the open hole tentatively while Irue somehow managed to stand toe to toe with the misshapen oakenbear. Even without it actively attempting to maul you, it was no easy taks to accurately slip your staff back into relatively narrow gap. If you made it bigger perhaps you could have had an easier time of it, but you worried that exasperating the chink to that extent would have just encouraged the beast to go eat a log or something and render everything until now to be moot.

The last thing you wanted to happen now, after this progress had started to be made, was for you to have to start over. Given the amount of trees in this forest, you had little doubt that even Irue's bizarre determination would run dry far before the oakenbear if was allowed to consume and heal as it pleased. It was injured now, but you needed to pay closer attention. You needed to make a plan for how to kill the thing for good, before that could happen!

More carcass spills out of the gash, and you realize with a start that the oakenbear had begun to rear back onto its back legs for the first time since you had arrived in order to tower over Irue. The mess held within its hollow body shifted wetly within its confines, and it strikes you that now is exactly the moment you had been waiting for.

You rush forward and thrust your pole once more into the bear's wound, arresting the fall from the haunch as you immediately feel the piling weight of the dead and rotting weigh down on your walking stick. Your grip shifts apart, one hand bracing the underside further ahead as your back hand comes to rest atop the blunt edge closest to you.

You groan as the weight presses down, your feet sinking into the ground while you felt the strain of lifting the immense weight travel through your arms, to your lower back and down to the calves. You only needed to shift it up a little, the intense burden causing your grip to shake as your back palm finally finds purchase and you push forward, driving the staff up and forward at an angle with your entire body. You expected to tilt the innards, to give them a brace to slide out of of their own accord, and to your credit that is exactly what they did - a length of steel as long as your arm tumbling free with a flash as well.

What you had not expected was for your staff to not be stopped by the other side of the oakenbear as you felt the slight resistance stop you for a breath of a second before shattering and allowing you to run the entire behemoth through. This miscalculation cost you dearly, your balance thrown off as all the resistance seemed to simply end at once, and you found yourself lifted bodily from the ground as the rearing abomination jerked its body aside and dragged you along with your staff across the ground.

Its roar was anything but happy, and you catch a short sight of its mottled and pockmarked face before one of its gnarled paws slams into you and you - along with your staff - are ripped physically from the thing's body and sent flying crashing into the ground brutally in a manner not unlike Irue had when you arrived.

The impact drives the breath from you for a second time that day, and you can feel the searing pain of the claw wounds it had left upon your upper shoulder and neck when it had batted you away. You bounce from the ground, skipping across solid earth as rock and root alike scrape along your back, before finally skidding to a halt.

Your fingers are still wrapped around the staff, more than proving its worth in weight of gold to you by this point, as you curl forward and brace yourself against it to stagger back to your feet.

Once again missing a front paw, with a hole the size of a stove through its body, the oakenbear had thrown both you and Irue away in that single moment.

It stood for a moment, teetering on its feet as its massive upper body weight threatened its ability to balance, but you already saw its head swivelling towards a felled log.

>Rush it, tripwork is the specialty of the polearm!
>Call out to Irue, if you don't manage to finish it quickly, it'll start healing again!
>If it's down to this, a lance can serve as a spear in a pinch!
>Exchange your staff for the bloodstained longsword that had tumbled from the bear's gut!

>>40772630
>Rush it, tripwork is the specialty of the polearm!


Oh. I just realized Irue is a bezerker. Nice.

>>40772630
>>Rush it, tripwork is the specialty of the polearm!
>>Call out to Irue, if you don't manage to finish it quickly, it'll start healing again!

>>40772630
>Rush it, tripwork is the specialty of the polearm!
If we can damage the back leg on the same side of its missing front paw, I suspect the extra weight and unbalancing nature of its early repairs will do a lot to keep it from reaching its destination.

>>40772630
>Rush it, tripwork is the specialty of the polearm!
>Call out to Irue, if you don't manage to finish it quickly, it'll start healing again!

Man, I can't wait to take a penalty to trip actions because it's a quadruped.

>>40772703
Might not be an issue as it's vaguely tripedal at the moment thanks to foreleg damage. And after all, it's way easier to tip over a four-legged structure with one broken leg than it is to tip over a natural tripod structure, especially when the mass it has to support is as large as an oakenbear's.

>>40772654
>>40772675
>>40772698
>>40772703
You gotta be trippin' if you want that log!

>>40772675
>>40772703
Irue, stop laying around and help!

Writing!

You weren't about to let all of this progress go to waste, even if your knees felt like jelly as you struggled to stand. Once more the world itself seemed to swivel on a tilt. You stumbled to the side, clenching your eyes shut as you tried to shake the disorientation from your senses. Unlike before, it would be generous to say that it had even half washed away the dizziness that permeated through you. You bit down though, forcing yourself unsteadily through it a you rushed the oakenbear before it could regaining its own balance.

You ducked forward, stumbling over the ground itself as you fought not to lose your footing during the approach. "Irue, drop it!" your muddled brain pieces together the shortest, most succint instruction it can handle at the moment and you hope that wherever Irue landed, the immature idiot is more prone to listening to you now than they were several minutes ago.

As you approach, you're forced with a decision you only had a moment to make - the staff in your hand twisted slightly as you looked over the still swaying wooden behemoth and tried to decide how to actually topple the damn thing.

>Leap and plant your staff into its chest; ride it down with momentum!
>Slip the staff between its legs and twist! If it tries to take a step, it's going down!
>Slam your staff into the back of its legs, when it starts to tilt back!
>Thrust staff into its gut and exasperate its effort by causing pain! (can it even feel pain?)

>>40773121
>Slam your staff into the back of its legs, when it starts to tilt back!

>>40773121
>Slip the staff between its legs and twist! If it tries to take a step, it's going down!

Considering just how much heavier this thing must be compared to Rinnier I'm not sure a staff slam would do it.

>>40773121
>Slam your staff into the back of its legs, when it starts to tilt back!
Focus our energy on one leg so we don't need to split our force between two limbs. It's standing on two legs at the moment either way, so taking out even one leg is going to fell it handily.

>>40773216
Trying to trip it is just going to get us pulled along for the ride for that exact reason. It's got way more mass on its side, and all we'd have to brace ourselves against it is our own two feet and one teenage girl worth of mass.

>>40773163
>>40773238
Have a nice trip

>>40773216
See you next fall

Writing more trip puns!

>>40773334
*tips bear*

In an instant you root your legs as steadily as you can into the dirt and swing your walking stick-cum-staff into the back of the oakenbear's legs. You had waited for this moment, just as its forward tilt reached its apex and the thing had pulled its weight back to try and correct itself once more; Alone you had no chance of toppling something this huge, but it wasn't as if she had trained purely against people her own size. Those in armor, those naturally larger, when it came to combat there was more than brute force - Some times what you needed was to help, rather than hinder. It was a wonder what just a little more force in one direction or another.

The gratifying crack of your staff against the oakenbear's legs as it tilted back was enough to let you know your job had been done; The unexpected follow through as the staff cleaved clean through its kneecap from behind and sent the bear toppling directly towards you, on the other hand, was nothing except for alarming. You abandon any pretense of retaining stance or balance in the wake of it to throw yourself violently aside just before it can crash down on you.

You feel the clearing quake from the impact, a result far more drastic than even something of its size should have been able to elicit, and immediately try to scramble away from the felled beast.

A sharp pain rips a scream from your throat as your scramble is halted harshly by the one remaining front paw of the oakenbear thrashing onto your calf in a desperate bid to roll itself over from its side. The gnarled claws slice beyond skin as it starts to press down, putting the entirety of its weight on its single remaining arm and pressing your trapped calf into the earth. Stuck with your back to the sky, your fingers grip the ground desperately as you try to pull your leg free, only succeeding in tearing the a gash along your leg for every quarter inch of progress made - The pressure increasing far quicker than you can pull the limb free.

All at once that agonizing weight relents, relief coming in the wake of a similarly agonized roar as you hastily pull yourself across the ground and roll yourself over to face the fallen behemoth.

The blonde noble had returned to the fight, withdrawing their left hand from the shattered wreckage that remained of the oakenbear's last remaining front paw which had nearly become your bane. Though nearly beside the abominable tree-beast, their face remained blank and unresponsive to the danger; with the same single minded intensity which Irue had turned on you when you arrived, you watched the near paraplegic beast that had seemed so imposing now struggle piteously against the dispassionate and methodical violence being inflicted upon it.

A strength you knew that idiot didn't have held the oakenbear's jaws at bay without so much as budging, the lower haft being ripped away by their left hand as if it was a twig rather than the solid wood you knew it to be. It was barely even mobile now, a crippled Mana forsaken beast which lay almost humorously not a few bodies length from the very source it needed to recover those wounds.

You struggle to pull your legs under you, breathing heavily in the brief respite as its struggles slacken the more Irue tears the pinned creature apart piece by deliberate piece. When all was said and done, what remained of the Oakenbear lay still upon the upheaved dirt of the clearing.

You try to stand, but the burning pain in your leg puts a stop to that. It's only by leaning heavily on your walking stick are you able to barely pull yourself up and look over the devastation left in its wake.

>Talk to Irue, the idiot's still just standing there.
>Destroy the head, you don't know if its dead yet or not.
>Where's Ari?
>Beat the shit out of Irue, who the fuck do they think they are trying to hit you?!

IF 4, SPECIFY LEVEL OF VIOLENCE.

>Smack a bitch
>Baseball staff
>Shove your good foot up their ass
>Initiate Level Five Old School Beatdown

fixed for typos

>>40773878
>Destroy the head, you don't know if its dead yet or not.

Also >he

>>40773923
Being a daywalker causes terrible things to happen to me. I fixed it.

>>40773919
>Destroy the head, you don't know if its dead yet or not.
Finish what Irue started. Also,
>Where's Ari?
Rue might be liable to collapse at any moment in her state. A word or two might get through better than a staff up the head.

>Talk to Irue, the idiot's still just standing there.
>Where's Ari?

>>40773919
>>40773878
>Destroy the head, you don't know if its dead yet or not.
FUCK THIS BEAR. There will be no mercy for bear faces or bear asses.

>he
It keeps happening.

And YOU.
>Smack a bitch
What the hell is wrong with you? We could've probably gotten away while it was trying to pick up new bark, you idiot. And maybe it snaps her out of her vacant-stare kung-fu stance or whatever as a bonus, who knows.

And then eventually
>Where's Ari?
Rinnier's opinion of/concern for Ari seems pretty low, so I'd imagine it'd take until she got her more immediate fuming out of the way before she gets around to noticing that she was nowhere to be found.

>>40773923
>>40773965
>>40773983
Destroy the head. If it works with zombies...

>>40773965
>>40773972
>>40773983
Where's Ari?

>>40773983
Smacking bitches.

Writing!
Kind of tired, but I'm feeling better since its night time. We'll see how far I can take this before I need to shut down.

You hobble forward, wincing with each step as you approach Irue and the remains of the oakenbear. While all but one of its limbs had been torn away or broken off, and you had very nearly destroyed a complete side of its torso, you have no idea what this thing. From Irue's story back in the library, you knew that, under certain circumstances, they wouldn't die even if you killed them. The thought was disturbing, to say the least.

If those circumstances were a burial, however, you don't think either of you were in any condition or inclination to actually dig a hole to shove the blasted thing into... But what even constituted a hole? Was all the upheaved dirt in the area enough for it? Did it even need to be buried, or was that just folklore?

...Was it even dead now?

Placing your weight down on your injured leg as gingerly as possible, you take a moment to hover the blunt tip of your staff just over the thing's skull; Half deformed and bulbous from previous attempts at healing, half ripped apart and destroyed by Irue. Somehow.

You thrust down, destroying what remained of its wooden head with a surprising amount of ease. You had managed to cleanly sever it from the neck as if wielding a focused torch, rather than a blunt walking stick; A curiosity you're unsure as to whether to attribute to the beast being dead, and thus fragile, or your staff itself. From the damage to the terrain, you refused to believe that a creature like this was just naturally so physically vulnerable.

With the head properly destroyed, you could finally breathe a sigh of relief and let the weight of the fight press down on your shoulders. Thinking back over the last few minutes of your life, you find no good explanation for having engaged in this lunacy. Had you not, just before you left, clearly stated what you thought of these Mana forsaken abominations? Why, then, had you just willingly fought one with nothing more than a stick and a moody noble?

Speaking of said noble, your eyes drift to the still immobile blonde. "Is it dead?" You ask after a moment, receiving no suitable response. "...Where's the other one?" your eyes narrow curiously. The entire time you had been fighting, you just assumed the dead weight had been with Irue. That question, at least, finally pulled a reaction from them; It was faint, barely a twitch, but you could see a vague sense of awareness begin to trickle back into Irue's eyes. "Did you put her in a tree or something before you attacked an oakenbear?" you complain exasperatedly, "Isn't it about time she came out? Honestly, why did you even get into a fight with one of these things? I thought we agreed that was a terrible idea. Terrible!"

You paused briefly, realizing that whatever progress Irue had made in returning to their senses wasn't about to complete itself any time soon. You doubted they could even set the damn thing on fire if you asked them to, at this point.

"...We'll make camp here for the night." You mutter tiredly, turning to hobble away only to pause as your more luxury senses finally unlocked themselves with the adrenaline sloping off. "...On second thought, we'll make camp somewhere that doesn't smell like dead things. I don't want to be here when the wolves come howling."

Your answer was the distinct sound of someone collapsing onto the ground behind you. You didn't even really need to turn around to realize what had just happened, and the groan it brought out of you was equal parts exhaustion, pain and exasperation with everything that had happened today. You weren't in any position to haul Irue anywhere, you had no idea where the third one was, and you were all but stuck in a clearing filled with carrion for the forest scavengers.

>hunker down, it's gonna be a long night.
>You can barely keep your body going, it may be dangerous if you don't sleep.
>Go looking for Ari, you can't just leave the useless thing out there.
>Wander off. You're not sleeping in a gore painted clearing.

>40774417
>Go looking for Ari, you can't just leave the useless thing out there.

>>40774428
>Go looking for Ari, you can't just leave the useless thing out there.
Irue's useless in this state, and staying up all night like this is going to be excruciating. If she's ANYWHERE nearby (probably cowering away from the bear is our best guess), at least that means someone to share night watch with regardless of their frailty. And hell, maybe she can even pull together enough strength to lug Irue into cover.

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>>40774485
>>40774508
Off to find Ari!
_________
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Valen+Quest

And we are archived.

I'll lurk the thread for a bit to try and answer some questions if I can.

This will be the last daythread I run for a while, as well as the last thread period until at least this saturday or sunday. As some of you aptly noticed, running through the sun starts causing me to malfunction in unforgivable ways and is just generally difficult.

It'll take me a few days to properly recuperate after this, so expect to return to the usual schedule in the immediate future.

To those who did not make it to the end, we will never forget your sacrifice.

Thanks for playing.

>>40774674
thanks for writing this. One of the better quests here

>>40774707
I try.
Honestly I kind of wish my lurker/player ratio shifted a little further towards the player side. I like reading the conversation between anons, and it would be much less confusing to me if I had more than 6-8 players an entire thread and somehow ended up with 15+ score on suptg.

Though my biggest concern is just how often I end up having to roll dice to decide a course of action due to how easy it is to tie. It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable arbitrarily allowing RNG to determine a decision that should be the player's - IE: Ari's name, for example.

>>40774674
You are good, your quest is good, and I like you. Thanks for running.

With every oakenbear we've run into having been full of rotting carrion from the things it hunted, where in the world does the edible meat like the kind stored in the first bear's ass come from?

>>40774808
Not all of the meat is the same age! Oakenbears are just containers really, so they don't 'digest' the food like an animal would. Most meat in an oakenbear will stay fresh for maybe a week at most, for a given measure of fresh at least.

When Kara brought back the other bear, she had to sift through its insides and only bring what smelled freshest to her. Even then, Asche actually threw out a fair portion of that meat and only kept a relatively small amount of the entire haul.

Even then, it's likely she had to clean and trim some of that.

What a demihuman considers acceptable to eat is very much removed from what is safe for human consumption.

>>40774863
I sort of figured Kara's standards for 'edible meat' wouldn't be something reasonable.

I thought there might've been a multiple stomachs deal like cows have, since I didn't think any meat would stay good for any reasonable length of time if it was being dumped right in with the carrion slurry, but hey.

'night.