Some pets, being completely loyal to a tamer, will go as far as dying to follow their master to his grave. The completely loyal pet will even fight with the tamer should he have attempted to tame too many creatures, effectively increasing his own, personal strength. As such, it is possible for the entirety of the tamer's pets to overpower the individual, yet continue to follow his commands.
-Excerpt from Adventurer Hearth's guide to Monster Taming
"Is everybody ready?"
*Yawn* "No."
"I just want to get this over with already."
Janice sighs at our response. Daniel was dragged around by her until they found me in the morning and was already sick of being in a party with us. I woke up not too long ago and was still tired, but Janice decided getting to the cave by sun up was the best time to get rid of the bear.
"We're going, suck it up." Janice basically dragged us to the cave where we encountered the bear for the first time.
After a few stretches along the way I was warmed up enough to fight. Now I can slash that bear to death, albeit slowly. We just had to wait at the front until it came back.
It was an hour past sun up and it hasn't come back. I was getting tired, Daniel was beyond bored and Janice herself was getting angry.
"It was supposed to be here!" The sudden shout startles me awake.
"Calm down." *Yawn* "Let's go look for the bear and then we'll skin it and I can go buy some real products." They both shoot me a weird look.
"What? You both saw where I was sleeping. Think I can afford anything if I can't even rent a room?" What was the look they were giving me? Disdain? Pity? Not that it mattered. I just wanted the money from the quest.
After a couple more minutes of waiting, looking around sounded more appealing to them than waiting longer. It wasn't long before we found the bear. The problem was that is was a bloody mess, but only the underside, with a wound that looked like something crawled under it and tried to tear from neck to end. It was still alive, but the biggest problem was not the bear itself. Judging from the lack of blood on the bear's face and claws, whatever left it like this got away unharmed.
"Shit!" Daniel was the most surprised out of the three of us. He was also the most disgusted. "Fuck! Man, what the hell happened to this fucking bear?"
"What ever did this is unharmed, be on the lookout." After notifying the team of my observation, I moved in closer to check up on the bear. It let out a weak groan when i got close enough to touch it. The wounds looked fatal. The bear was likely to bleed out within a half hour or less. That was, anywhere between 1 and 30 minutes. I was no doctor, the fact I could tell it had fatal wounds was a miracle in itself.
"There are cubs." Daniel whispered. I swiveled my head. Cubs? That made the situation worse. Judging from the large amount of teets, I assumed that this was a female, but cubs? They were going to die, too.
I found Sabrina sniffing at the cubs. As I looked closer, I noticed she was sniffing at gashes on their sides. They weren't deep, but could easily get infected.
As I walk towards them the mother bear struggled to get up. I try my hardest to calm her down, but to no avail, so I ignore her and pick up the cubs instead. After examining their wounds, I was sure that whatever sliced up the mother also hit the cubs. To calm the struggling mother I bring them closer to her face. The movements stop and the bleeding lessens. I can only assume she's running out.
While the cubs and mother are rubbing noses, I rip two pages from journal and pull out an over-ripe jelly fruit. I have to save and tame these two bear cubs. There is a pretty vague feeling that I read something which said chewing a fruit and applying the paste over a wound will help it heal. Something about saliva and sugar. I do so with the jelly fruit and apply it to the pages before sticking them on the cubs. The mother, seeming to understand my actions, looks at me with gratitude, or what I assume is gratitude.
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You have tamed a Giant Red Bear!
Your tamed pet Giant Red Bear is now completely loyal!
The Giant Red Bear is now my pet? A completely loyal one at that. If I had this kind of fire power I could turn around the reputation of tamers.
Your pet Giant Red Bear had died
That's just a dick move. I frown at the body of the dead bear as the cubs are rubbing their nose on the corpse and crying out.
"I figured he didn't like family, but I didn't think he'd hate the idea this much." I could hear Janice whisper to Daniel, who nodded in response.
"That's not it you idiot. She's dead. Most annoying part is she pledged her life to me right before it ended. Just thinking of having the firepower of a Giant Red Bear taken like that pisses me off." They don't look like they believe me, but I don't care.
"We still need to take a claw." Daniel takes out his sword.
"No. I want the pelt. Don't ask why and get someone who can skin her." I realized I was using a lot of gender pronouns. I didn't remember getting attached, did I feel sorry for her? Not that it mattered, I needed the skin.
"Skin that messed up carcass? Sure. I'll see who can do it." Daniel went off to the town and Janice followed. She seemed pissed at his lack of care for the dead mother. Does that mean I got points? No, no time for that, have to focus on the cubs. After watching them for a while and making sure the makeshift bandage wouldn't fall off, I separated them from their mother. I wouldn't be good if they got too attached to the corpse.
Taking out another over-ripe Jelly fruit, I try to feed them smaller bits. They accept.
You have tamed a pet Giant Red Bear(Cub)!
You have tamed a pet Giant Red Bear(Cub)!
Just as I had hoped. I wonder when they were going to get back? I just realized how bad of a situation I was in. Whatever killed mama bear could kill me, too. I really hope they hurry.
Not betraying my expectations, Daniel and Janice arrived with a craftsman rather quickly. He took his time examining the corpse.
"Everything but the stomach area is relatively undamaged, I can cut around it and skin the rest, is that good for you?" I nod in approval.
"I'll do some crude work here and take the skin back to the guild to have it cleaned up and processed. The whole thing will take all day today and be done by tonight. I can go 700 if you want it rushed, 400 if you're willing to take it tomorrow evening." That's more than I can pay right now. I may have to further increase my loans if I can't finish another quest today.
"We take it to the guild when we can, I pay upon receiving the finished product. Tomorrow evening for 400 coppers." He nods his head in approval and I sigh in relief. If he meant 400 silvers, I would've been screwed. While the currency tends to follow the pattern of 100 coppers = 10 silvers = 1 gold, it also fluctuates a bit depending on the current state of affairs. Coppers, silvers and gold represent different resources for a country, copper being normal resources such as wood and stone, silver being magical reagents and gold as a type of super currency that mediates between the both. Unfortunately I never learned the economy behind it and only traded at that price or better.
I head back to town to pick up another quest. I really want something easy.