Making our way over to the area the stupid wind raptors had fallen in was a lot harder than expected. The snow was shifty and treacherous, lying on the broken and rocky mountainside. Even if I was able to keep the snow from shifting under us, if I focused and used a lot of magic, the rocks below were not subject to my power and if the foundation shifted, it was seriously hard to hold the upper layers in place. After we almost fell, due to a rock shifting and rumbling down the mountain, producing a small avalanche, I resorted to brute force. It took large amounts of magic, forcing me to rest and meditate once, but I was able to simply produce a solid path of ice, complete with footholds on top and spikes underneath, placing it on top of the snow. Walking on the path distributed our weight over a huge area, reducing the weight transferred on individual areas. It was the same idea behind snow shoes, only taken to ridiculous levels.
But, it allowed us to make the journey within thirty minutes, with little to no danger. It would have been faster, but we had to walk down into a valley and up on the other side. When we got into the area, I had reached the point of regretting the idea to look for the raptors, but sometimes, you have to check out the last nook and cranny of a blind alley.
We looked around the rocky slope, searching for the downed birds, when another being announced that it was hungry. Or maybe it announced something else. The noise was a mix between a roar a bark and a groan, sounding almost like a rockslide going downhill. Everyone spun around, looking for the source of the noise, and it was quite easy to spot, making me wonder why we had not seen it before.
It was a brown bear, slightly larger than even the strengthened Ylva, its back about as high as Adra or Rai. But where Ylva was slender and long legged, the bear had roughly three times her mass, maybe more. But just the size and mass was not what drew my attention, the blood around its snout did. It was quite clear that we had disturbed its meal. So, being a polite bear, it wanted to invite us for dinner. Or was that, as dinner?
Running would be pointless and I doubted that we could annoy it more, if we tried, so I observed it and was informed that it was a Brown Mountain Bear and level sixty-two. Sometimes, the species names seemed so incredible informative, I could not help myself but groan. My use of observe was answered with another roar.
I had a feeling that killing it would be child’s play, at least for me. Just cause an avalanche and it will bury the bear. What made it a bad idea was that it would also bury us and the surrounding mountainside. But mostly that it would also bury us.
The bear roared another challenge and started its lumbering charge towards us. Seeing it barrel towards us, I considered the avalanche again. That was, when Sigmir started to glow red and started sprouting the thin, silvery fur again and answered the challenge with a howling roar of her own. When I had considered what to do, she had taken Ylva back into her Hallow and was now preparing to meet the charge, axe and shield in hand.
Knowing that I could help with that, I raised my hand and drew runes to produce a halo of darkness that would increase her strength and speed, seven runes, three Dark Radiance as a medium and two each of Strengthen and Hasten. I kept the formation open, channelling power into it to give Sigmir a prolonged buff, taking the burden to maintain it on myself.
Next to me, Adra had her spear in hand while Rai had drawn his blades, not that I thought he would do much. Concentrating to my utmost, I kept the formation for Sigmir going and started drawing a second one, this one targeting Adra, buffing her up just the same.
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While we prepared, the bear had gathered speed and Sigmir had braced herself to stop it, so it could not simply run us over. Part of me wanted to simply jump aside, hoping that it would barrel down the mountain but I knew that my hope was unrealistic. The bear knew the mountains and their treacherous nature much, much better than us, so hoping that it would overshoot that badly was just wishful thinking.
The bear tried to use its bigger mass to run her over, while Sigmir used her shield to take the impact, getting pushed back a couple of steps, before rallying and striking back, using her axe. At the same time, Adra and Rai attacked as well, from the sides.
Adra managed to poke a hole into its shoulder, while Rai’s attacks might have tickled the bear, but maybe not. There was no visible indication that it had even noticed him. Adra on the other hand had to quickly jump back, to avoid its paw. That opening allowed Sigmir to bury her axe into its front leg, drawing more blood.
The bear reared back onto its hind-legs and let out another roar. It washed over me and I felt like I had stuck my head into a ringing bell. For a moment, I lost concentration on the buff-spells I was channelling and both fizzled out before I could restore them. When I looked over to my companions, I saw that Rai had stumbled back, blood trickling from his ears, while the other two seemed shaken, like me, but still fine.
After the stunning roar of the bear, Adra and Sigmir kept trying to grind it down, but it was slow going. Their attacks managed to breach its defenses but not deep enough. Even Adra’s spear, which gave me shivers, just from looking at it, managed to get maybe a hand-width deep before getting stuck in the rock-solid muscles the bear was packing. Sigmir and her one-handed axe were even worse off, her axe only got a finger-width or two into the muscles before losing momentum.
My options to help them were rather limited, I had a strong feeling it would shrug my icicles off without even blinking and ensnaring it with darkness magic was a joke.
Thinking that a curse might work, I threw one together to weaken its speed. Sigmir already was able to hold her own against its strength but every hit she could simply avoid was one she did not have to endure. So, I focused to increase its weakness, instead of decreasing its strength.
The curse worked, sort of. The bear was slower but I felt it pushing against my curse, quickly weakening the curse. But the other two were able to use the curse’s effect, getting a few better hits, striking where the muscles were not as thick and protective.
When the bear reared back, I saw an opportunity, guessing that it would roar again, and instantly projected three runes, shooting a small drop of liquid moonlight - right into its opening snout. Once it was inside, my control was cut off and the liquid moonlight did its thing. The effect looked almost comical, instead of a roar, there was only a choked whimper coming from its mouth, alongside a cloud of icy mist. Within seconds, the bear started to twitch and keel over and I had a good idea what had happened. The intense cold inside its snout had probably caused the blood in its brain to rapidly cool down. There were few more delicate organs than the brain but the moist environment of the snout and the soft tissue nearby were excellent conductors for heat, or in this case cold.
Shortly after the bear had fallen, we got EXP and relaxed.
Sigmir and Rai took care of skinning the bear, it had a good coat of fur, maybe good enough to make a new armour and if not, we could sell it for profit. Probably not in Yaksha but further west. While they did that, Adra and I looked around, quickly finding what the bear had been snacking on. The rest of a wind raptor alongside shattered remains of an icicle, were still lying in front of a cave. We had literally dropped food in front it the bears cave, almost right into its mouth. And then, we had disturbed the sudden windfall. No wonder that the bear had been slightly annoyed, first it was woken up by the delicious smell of blood, then it got disturbed while it was eating.
But, judging by the cave, we had a good hideout to camp in, I doubted that anything would annoy us for a couple of days, out of respect towards the previous owner. It was not a tremendously large cave and the smell was strong and musky, but it would protect us from the weather and give us a good base-camp, slightly above the treeline.