Karl woke early again on Saturday, when the sky was barely lightening. He reveled in the morning shower, then enjoyed the simple pleasure of dressing himself without any aches and pains. There was one spot on his back that had always ached in the morning for the past twenty years; it didn't hurt any more, and hadn't since Tuesday.
When he emerged, Paul and Chad were both stirring. Trying to lead by example, he'd invited the two brothers to share his living quarters until things got less crowded. They'd agreed, but insisted he keep his bedroom and had sacked out on the living room floor. There was no bedding available, but fortunately both men had thought to store camping gear and had their sleeping bags.
He went out and wandered into the community center. The walls of the cafeteria were rapidly getting covered with notes taped up, with messages, lists of every sort, questions, instructions and who knew what else. He spent a little while reading them at random, getting a feel for how everyone was adapting. There were a million little details that needed tending to, but he decided to let others cope with whatever irked them most and see how that shook out.
Within an hour, more people were up and about, and the cafeteria started getting populated by hungry people. Ryan put out bowls and silverware, but couldn't tell people when breakfast would be ready. After a few complaints, he started setting out lots of boxes of cereal, but there was no milk. Karl wondered how anything like breakfast would be prepared without eggs or dairy or meat available.
“Anybody know a magic spell to turn water into milk?” he joked. He was tempted to spend one of his four silver on a full hot breakfast, but that was a luxury, and he didn't have enough coin to buy it for everyone. He couldn't even afford enough gallons of milk for breakfast. Maybe I should go out and kill something. He resigned himself and had two bowls of dry cereal with sips of water.
Despite the best efforts of Paul and various other organizers, it took quite a while for people to wake up, and simply finding everyone was a challenge when nobody knew where anyone was sleeping. The kitchen eventually provided hot oatmeal, fruit and some muffins cut into quarters, which frankly impressed Karl given their limited resources. The restricted fare was plenty of motivation for volunteers to join the foraging groups.
Karl ended up with Jo, Tabitha, Jim, and two more combat classers: a warrior named Josh, and Annie, both of whom had just gotten to second level on Friday. There were six non-combat volunteers, including, of all people, Ms. Taggart. He wondered why the woman had offered to help, but couldn't think of a tactful way to ask, and so just left it. Two other groups formed up as well, and after consulting with Annie, they all set out for different grocery stores.
Karl's group headed west on Post Road, aiming for the White Mountain Grocery three miles away. Twelve people was a large enough group that many of the common monster spawns avoided them. The non-combat volunteers slowed them down to a moderate walk, though, so a half hour jog became a two hour hike.
One of the volunteers started complaining about the walk being so long, and Ms. Taggart suddenly snapped at them, “Shut up! I'm trying to be useful here, and if I don't get to complain, then neither do you!” Which was an appropriately crabby way for her to say that she was making an effort to be more pleasant. Karl wondered what had caused the change in attitude, but had no interest in stirring the pot.
At one point, Jim appeared out of stealth and warned of a horde of gremlins nearby. Jo grunted. “Not a problem. We can ignore them unless you want to farm them for experience.” Jim looked skeptical, even though he had seen the kythar warriors almost flee from Tabitha and Jo yesterday. Karl realized that it was still a bit of a leap of faith when a potential swarm was right there in front of you. But faith is part of the job, he reminded himself.
“We don't want a fight just now,” Karl replied firmly. “Let's keep going.”
Despite his expectation, Karl stood ready to summon his orcish short sword out of inventory as they walked on. He found that he really missed his shield, which had been destroyed in a fight. For a minute nothing happened; then several gremlins burst out of the trees. They really do look like miniature green kythar, Karl observed briefly. Jo slammed her sword against her shield, and Tabitha started a one handed flamethrower spell. Over a dozen gremlins had already poured out onto the street in a growing wave. Karl held his breath.
The gremlins abruptly turned and fled in a tumultuous mob, screeching.
Tabitha turned off her flamethrower spell and Jo vanished her equipment again. Then, taking everyone by surprise, Tabitha ran over to Jo and kissed her enthusiastically. When the kiss ended, she suddenly blushed crimson up to her red hair and looked at the rest of the group.
Karl saw several people looking away: a few of the volunteers pointedly, and Josh and Annie more out of embarrassment or shyness. Ms. Taggart was among those facing away from them. Karl could see her face; her mouth was working as if she were struggling to keep quiet. But keep quiet she did, and Karl mentally gave her points for that. I wonder if the System is giving her experience points for that. Heh.
“Thank you, Hordeslayers. Let's keep going; we're just over halfway there.”
As their walk continued, the day clouded over. It started to look as if it might rain. Jim reported several kinds of creatures as they approached each, but none engaged them. At one point Jim was gone long enough that Karl started to get worried. When he reappeared, he needed healing.
“It's okay, I led them off and managed to get away without any of them tracking me,” he said without elaborating further. Karl wondered if being secretive was a personality trait that impelled the System towards offering them rogue classes. He simply offered up a silent prayer and cast healing hands on their scout.
They kept going and the sky grew darker. Jim appeared again and warned them of a large pack of Dire Boars, which Karl was not looking forward to fighting. Then he explained that one of the boars was much bigger than the others.
“Oh, crap, an uncommon spawn?” Josh asked.
Karl sighed. “Sounds like it. Even the regular ones are a handful. Jim, see if you can find a way around for us. Is holding position here all right for now?”
“Yeah, here will do. Just don't go past that group of trees.” Jim pointed. “Good thing we're downwind of them. I'll be back as soon as I find a path you guys can handle.” He walked off the north side of the road, starting to pick his way through the woods.
“Are we going to have to do that?” Chet asked nervously.
Karl nodded. “Don't worry, he knows to take our capabilities into account. It'll be a pain, but much better than fighting those boars. And remember, you don't have to worry about things like sprained ankles any more. One healing spell, or even waiting half an hour, will fix you right up again.”
“It's still so hard to believe,” Chet admitted.
“How's your daughter doing? Maya, was it?”
“Lily. Maya is Bethany's.”
“Right, sorry. A lot of names to keep straight.”
“No problem. Bethany is watching all three of the kids, and there are others watching the babies and the older kids. Since the three of them have each other, I think it's a lot easier for them to handle. You have to be careful leaving anything unattended around them though, or it will vanish into their inventories.”
Karl snorted. “Glad I don't have that problem, at least. Do you have any classes that interest you?”
“I'm...not really a fighter.”
“You mean combat class, or fighter specifically?”
“Uh? Oh! Combat class. I don't think I'd be a good fit.” Chet looked more than a little ashamed. “Besides, I've got Lily to take care of.”
“Fair enough. It's not for everyone. But there are lots of classes out there that aren't combat based. Jake Cook's a Tinker. Madeleine is a Carpenter. That shy girl...Lisa? No, Laura. She's apparently a third level Cook. Just based on that, there must be a lot of others available. What did you do before the world ended?”
“I was a writer. I mean, I wanted to be, but I was an administrative assistant to pay the bills.”
Karl shrugged. “Well, the new world will need writers eventually, I suppose. The town could do with a newspaper at some point.”
“The town? You mean the Safe Zone?”
Karl blinked. At some point in his imaginings for the future, he had started to think of Endurance as a town, rather than a simple fortification and a couple of buildings. Aloud he said, “Endurance will grow. I refuse to let civilization slip away from us. We may be tiny now, but soon we'll be scouring the hills for every survivor we can rescue. We're crowded at the moment, but when we build the expansion, we'll double the area of the Safe Zone, put up enough housing for everyone, and maybe get some other things going.”
“How are you going to do that without any metal?” Ms. Taggart demanded. Then she bit her lip a moment, as if regretting speaking up. Karl took that into account and offered a little prayer that his newly higher Charisma score would help him navigate this.
“Well, there has to be a way to get that metal. Expansion wouldn't be listed as an option if there wasn't a way to do it. I've told people back in Endurance to look into it. In the absolute worst case, we'll get together the money and buy the metal bit by bit if necessary, but I'm hoping an easier route will present itself if we search long enough.”
“Maybe if we could find a...a...” Jo stopped, thinking. “I don't even know what it's called. We mine metal, right? Like copper and lead and stuff, here in New Hampshire. We're not famous for it or anything but there's some.”
“There aren't any mines near here that I know of,” Karl pointed out.
“Yeah, but...um...” Jo clearly had a thought in her head that she couldn't express. Tabitha walked over to her and took her hand.
“Small words,” she whispered.
Jo nodded and smiled thanks at her girlfriend. She took a deep breath. Then in a firmer voice she said, “We get metal out of the ground. But it's not metal yet. It's rocks. That stuff gets taken somewhere. Then they melt it or crush it or whatever and get the metal out, and make it into...blocks of metal. And then they sell it to someone else who makes stuff out of the metal. One of those places. Maybe we could find one of those.”
“A smelter. Or a distribution center.” Karl rocked back on his heels, thinking. “Those are great ideas, Jo. Thank you. I don't know how we'll find out where those things are, but it's something to look for.”
They waited for what felt like a long time. It started to rain, just barely more than mist. Some people had headgear, but most of them didn't. It was an uncomfortable wait. Finally Jim reappeared.
“Okay, I checked and the boars haven't moved much. I found a path. Follow me.”
Jim led them down a small incline, across a trickle of water that probably didn't even deserve a name like “creek,” then up a hill, around the peak and down into a valley.
“There's a black bear up ahead, but it's a normal sized one. I figure it will just run away from a dozen people.”
“No glowing eyes or horns or anything?” Karl checked, and Jim shook his head. “All right. Volunteers, stay in the middle just in case.” They continued down the valley.
“Should we make noise to scare it off?”
“No,” Karl decided. “We don't want to attract other things that may be out here.”
They reached the bottom of the valley and Jim pointed at their path up the other side.
A black bear lumbered into view around a rock outcropping, directly in their path. It growled at them.
“Move aside, we don't want to hurt you but we will if we have to,” Karl muttered.
Then it charged them. Karl braced himself and wished mightily for his lost shield. Jo stepped up beside him on the right, Josh on his left. He mentally pictured Tabitha a ways behind Jo and Annie behind Josh, guarding against attacks from the side or the rear. As the bear approached, Karl reminded himself that he had superhuman strength now. I can do this.
To his surprise, the bear focused on Jo. The heavily armored Protector braced her shield. Karl took the opportunity to take a stab at the bear with all his strength.
Critical Strike. Damage X2
Karl was about to let go of his sword before he remembered that he didn't have other weapons in his inventory besides rocks, because he needed the carrying capacity for the return trip. Any weapons he brought he would have to carry in his hands the whole way back. So he yanked his sword back out, trying to do more damage as he did so.
Jo did surprisingly well, almost managing to stop the bear's charge as her feet slid downhill slowly. This might be an ordinary bear, but it was a big one. Karl wondered why Josh wasn't circling around when a sound caused him to spin reflexively. A second black bear, if anything a bit bigger, was charging him, and he had no shield. It was almost upon him by the time he registered the second threat.
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Do the unexpected. As the bear finished its charge and reared up to swipe at him, Karl dove forward and stabbed it in the gut as hard as he could. Karl heard Tabitha's flamethrower spell start up and desperately hoped that there wasn't a third target. As the bear's claws started mauling him he caught one and held it, making one fewer sources of damage. Karl saw his health points plummet. He shoved at his sword hilt, driving the blade deeper in, even as his magically reinforced trench coat got shredded.
I really, really need to learn how to fight, thought Karl with his teeth clenched. He couldn't pull his blade free so he tried to saw at the bear's guts with it, then gave up on that and used both hands to hold the bear's right rear paw up in the air, keeping it off balance. From the way it twitched and roared, he could tell that others were doing it damage.
He tried to figure out what else he should be doing, but keeping one of two targets mostly immobilized seemed like a good use of his time. If someone desperately needed healing that Annie couldn't provide they'd shout for it. He got clawed again, and grit his teeth. Hopefully it would be dead soon.
He was on the verge of giving in to caution and healing himself, when the bear he held finally stilled and fell sideways. Karl gasped in relief and turned to see the other fight. Jo was bleeding profusely but glowed golden from Annie's healing spell as he watched. Tabitha was burning the bear from the side. He could see Jim to one side of him, as they both considered where to position themselves. Then Karl remembered to retrieve his sword. It took him a couple of tries to tug it free. He noticed in passing that the bear was male. They must be a mated pair. Are there young cubs to watch out for too? Karl trusted the others to finish off the second bear and scanned the forest floor. He thought he heard something, but it was drowned out by the death cries of the second attacker.
He cast healing hands on himself, then walked over and cast it twice on Jo, who was staggering. She straightened and muttered, “Thanks. I don't know how you held one by yourself, Sir Karl. You'll have to teach me.” He had to restrain himself from laughing. As if I knew what I was doing!
“If...” Karl stopped. He thought he heard something again. “Everybody stay alert, there might be angry cubs or something...” He glanced at the other bear, checking how and where it was wounded, and realized that the other bear was male as well. Not a mated pair. Two males wouldn't travel together unless...
Oh, shit.
Identify!
Thunder Bear cub corpse, uncommon, unlooted
Shit. These are the cubs!
Jim appeared next to him, talking quickly. “Trouble! We've got a—”
“Mama bear,” they finished together.
“It's an uncommon spawn,” Karl added. “Damn it, always Identify a foe when you're scouting!” And that goes double for me. I should always double check at the start of a fight. He grabbed Jo's shoulder and cast healing hands on her twice more. Jim vanished.
“Annie, if you've got anything left, save it for the right moment,” Karl called. “Everyone, call out to me if you need healing.” He glanced back at Ms. Taggart and the other volunteers, who were huddled together next to a big rock. “The good news is, if it's only one more, we can keep it off of all of you,” he said to keep them from panicking. “Stay together no matter what. If the fight moves towards you, back up together, slowly.”
He noted that some of the leaves on the ground were on fire. Tabitha was holding her hands out to them. Is she starting a forest fire?! He wondered for a moment, then realized that she was sucking the flames into her palms, extinguishing the fire instead of fanning it. Good pyromancer, cookie.
“If there are two, leave one of them to me,” Karl said, projecting confidence as best he could. “Focus on the other one and keep it away from the volunteers.” There's no way I can beat one of these, but hopefully I can keep one busy long enough.Hopefully there will only be one. “Jim, how soon?”
There was no reply. Hopefully that meant that Jim had to travel a ways to find out. “Everybody loot,” Jo reminded people quietly. Bear meat, Karl thought hard at the System hopefully as he went to loot each. No such luck. Karl received a silver and change, and a bear tooth that he would likely need to discard...then he blinked and remembered that he also carried a backpack and could put it in there, saving an inventory space for a whole stack of cans or something later.
Karl realized that he was distracting himself as a way of coping with the nerve-wracking delay. Then he realized, or his increased Charisma goaded him to realize—Karl wasn't sure which—that the others would be having their own crises of confidence about now. He cleared his throat. “Look on the bright side. The bigger it is, the more bear meat we bring home.”
“Oh, right!” Jo abruptly went over to one of the bear corpses, placed both hands on it, concentrated, and it vanished. Then she repeated the trick on the other and looked pleased with herself. “Things in inventory are frozen in time, turns out. Hot food stays hot, cold stuff stays cold, corpses don't decay.”
“But how are you getting something that big into—?” Karl started asking about the inventory trick but stopped when they could all hear the thunder of paws.
Karl felt mounting fear as the thunder grew louder and still nothing appeared. If it was that loud and still that far away...He tried to stifle his fear by tending to the others. “Don't worry, we beat one of these in Bill's Market the other day.”
“We had Chenelle and Doug and Michael and Jake with us...” Jo muttered quietly.
“And we've all leveled since then, too.” Karl added firmly. “Two days ago is ancient history.” He tried to think about the last fight with a mutated bear and what they could learn from it.
“Tabitha,” he called, and she looked at him, a bit alarmed. He smiled at her. “You're our ace. Be patient. Wait for the perfect moment to strike.” He turned back to wait, thinking, In other words, don't just say, 'I like fire' and wander in. He almost missed the look of gratitude Jo sent his way, and gave her the barest side-eye wink.
He settled himself to wait, then thought, Haven't we been waiting for quite a while? It should have been here by now.“Jim? Update?” he called, not sure if the rogue was nearby. “I wonder if Jim is leading it away from us so we won't have to fight it.” I wish Terry were here.
Karl looked around, trying to think tactically. If the high ground is good, this isn't it. We should move uphill in the direction of the noise, maybe? Or retreat a little so that it has to come uphill at us? Is this one of the times when a good commander is suppose to wait and be patient?
Karl decided to start walking forward cautiously, beckoning the others to follow. They started up the hill. He needed to know what was going on.
As they moved closer, Karl heard growling, from more than one creature. Maybe we should have taken our chances with the boars, he thought in passing. It gradually dawned on him that monsters were fighting each other up here. Karl imagined sneaking past, but realized that their group would have to fight the winner, either now or on the way back, and better to do it while the survivor was still weakened from this fight.
They approached the rock outcrop that was blocking their view and Karl signaled a halt. Gesturing for them to wait, he crouched down, and then crawled forward slowly, trying to get a view of the fight without alerting the monsters to his presence.
He needn't have worried. Mama Bear, which was at least the size of the one from Bill's Market, was fighting a giant horned gray wolf. They seemed almost evenly matched, but the wolf was winning, if slowly. If Michael or Christine were here, they could whittle down whoever was doing better. Or even Alain. We need more ranged attacks.
He backed up cautiously anyway, then stood and went back to the others. Jim dropped out of stealth a moment later.
“Sorry I'm late,” he said quietly. “The wolf scented me while I was trying to work my way around the bear, so I set up the death match here. Took me a while.”
“Okay,” Karl said. “Mama bear and giant horned wolf are fighting. I propose we immediately attack the winner after the other dies, before they can recover from their wounds. Thoughts?”
“Should we attack before then?” Jo suggested. “Maybe help them whittle down each other?”
“Any risk of them teaming up against us?” Josh asked.
“I doubt it,” Jim answered. “They are obviously each other's biggest threat, so long as we don't do too much damage.”
Tabitha murmured something. Jo leaned closer to her. A moment later she stared at her partner. “You have a fireball? Since when?” Tabitha huddled deeper in her hoodie and mumbled. Jo looked up, “Karl—”
“I got the gist. Tabitha, how many fireballs can you throw?” The pyromancer held up a fist and raised one finger, then another, then another, and then another but grabbed the last one in her other hand and pulled it halfway back down. “So three, maybe four if you get to recover some mana?” She nodded.
Karl thought hard. “Okay, tentative plan. We move into the open and watch the fight. If it looks close to over, Tabitha, you throw two fireballs at the one who's winning. Then we wait until you've recovered your mana, then do it again. Repeat until one is dead and the other one is extra crispy. Then we all fight. Objections?” No one spoke. “Then let's go before the fight finishes without us. But first...” Karl drew his sword, gently held it out to Tabitha, and when she touched it, he cast Guardian Angel on her. He had a feeling she would need it.
They moved around the bend and forward almost to the edge of the open area where the two huge beasts were fighting. It was a long narrow space between trees where a tiny creek flowed. The monsters clearly noticed the humans, but were too busy fighting each other to do anything about it. Once the humans had a good position, they readied themselves.
Tabitha stepped forward, raised her hands, and began to chant something. Karl was fascinated. Is this the language of magic? He wanted to tear into that puzzle, but as always, there was no time, so he set it aside. A moment later the fireball formed in front of Tabitha's hands and flew towards the fight. It moved a bit slower than a thrown rock might.
The wolf saw it coming, and dodged. It paid for it with another bad swipe from a bear claw. There was still fight left in the mother bear. Tabitha stamped her foot, looked up at the misting sky and glared. Then she took a deep breath, held out her hands and chanted again. She held the fireball, a glowing sphere about the size of a baseball, hovering in front of her, and started walking sideways away from the group.
The wolf seemed to understand the threat and kept trying to maneuver to keep the bear between them. The bear kept taking advantage of the wolf's split attention. Finally Tabitha aimed the fireball directly at the bear and let fly.
The fireball flew straight at the bear's head. At the last moment, Tabitha yelled, “FIRE!” The bear ducked and the wolf caught the fireball full in the face. Then Tabitha crossed her arms and walked back to the group.
“Nicely done,” Karl told her. They settled down to watch the fight for a while. Karl watched his mana recover slowly from the huge expense of casting Guardian Angel.
It was slowly getting clearer that the bear was going to lose despite Tabitha's help. It looked more and more bloody, and started moving more slowly. After a couple of minutes of this, Tabitha stepped forward again, raised her hands, chanted, and a new Fireball hovered in front of her palms. This time, Tabitha released it and immediately summoned another, and another. Three fireballs flew through the air in rapid succession. It seemed to Karl like a waste of mana. Surely the wolf would dodge the other two even if the first one hit?
The bear was clever. She opened herself up to a vicious attack in order to grab the wolf, and then deliberately fell over backwards into the path of the fireballs with the wolf on top. One, two, three fireballs all struck the wolf squarely even as it struggled to break away.
The bear died from its many wounds. Finally, too late, the wolf tore itself free of the bear's death grip. Karl was struck by a sudden impulse. “Wait here!” He sprinted forward, vanished his sword, summoned a baseball sized rock, and flung it with all his strength at the wolf. Then he did it again, and again, with each small rock in his inventory. At least a few of them missed, but enough of them hit, and stung, that the temptation of one isolated small enemy was too great to resist. The wolf charged him.
When his brain caught up with his instinct, Karl realized consciously that the absolute worst thing that could happen would be for that wolf to flee. In a short time it would be fully healed and they would have to be constantly wary of its revenge while escorting half a dozen fairly helpless people through already hostile territory. It would be a recipe for disaster. By taunting the wolf without looking like too big a threat, he had prevented that outcome.
Right, what was the next step in my brilliant plan? Karl asked himself. Running would probably not even gain him a second, so instead he charged directly towards the wolf. He almost lost his footing, which gave him his next stupid idea. He readied his sword, and the moment the wolf had committed to its first bite attack, Karl deliberately let his feet go out from under him as if he were sliding into home plate.
Unfortunately he had underestimated the friction and slid to a halt too soon, turning a brilliant theory into a nearly suicidal execution. But at least instead of biting him in half immediately, the wolf missed with its bite and merely pummeled him with its lower jaw, which Karl promptly slashed before trying to draw a breath. The wolf then stomped on him with its left paw, pinning him and costing him half his remaining health in a single blow.
I think I... Karl grabbed at his next idea, yanking one arm free of the paw with a desperate surge of strength. He still couldn't really move or dodge at all, nor could he retrieve his sword. The wolf's maw descended to bite off his protruding head.
Reaching up with his free hand and visualizing carefully, Karl waited for the last instant and then summoned the last weapon in his inventory, bracing himself. The biggest rock he could lift appeared next to his head just as the wolf chomped down with all its strength.
The giant wolf gave a yelp of distress as more than one of its teeth shattered against the granite. It lifted its head to spit for a moment, distracted. Karl cast healing hands on himself and prayed for the best. A moment later he glowed again as he felt another surge in his health. He was glad of the spell; the longer he lasted, the longer he had the wolf pinned in place. Heh. I'm not trapped under you; you're trapped on top of me!
“I've got him pinned!” he shouted to the others as encouragement.
He vanished the huge stone back into his inventory in case it proved useful again. Also it was absolutely the only thing he could reach. He was tempted to resummon the rock on top of the wolf, but realized that a) it probably wouldn't be enough weight to keep the wolf's paw pinned, and b) the added weight might well crush him to death, especially if it shifted position, as was likely.
I can cast healing hands on myself some more, or wait. That's about the only choice I have available. Or shout something else to the others. For the life of him he couldn't think of anything useful to say. Jo was still going strong, but Tabitha was almost totally out of mana, Annie must be out of healing by now, Josh was only a level two warrior, and...who am I forgetting?
Another yelp from the wolf reminded him. Thanks, Jim. It shifted its weight, costing him a quarter of his remaining health, but then the paw came off of him entirely. Karl rolled for his sword, grabbed a rock on the ground and vanished it, and cast healing hands on himself, realizing that he only had enough mana for a couple more of those.
“Sir Karl, please...” Josh's voice begged. Karl spun to him; the boy was on the ground, his body a bloody mess. He looked terrified, with tears in his eyes. Karl dove down into reach, grabbed him and cast healing hands. “Thankyothankyouthankyou,” the boy sobbed frantically.
“Get up! Don't waste my spell!” Karl snarled, stumbling to his own feet even as he took in the sight.
Annie was wringing her hands some distance away, but when she saw him looking at her, her eyes widened and she nodded as if he'd given her an order. She started scrabbling on the ground, picking up little rocks with frantic haste. Karl barely registered that as he turned to see what the wolf was doing.
Jo was straight out of a fairy tale: in armor, sword and shield face to face with a vastly larger foe. She dodged, partially parried some blows, took some on her shield, and occasionally slashed at the beast in front of her. The only jarring thing was the look of grim, controlled utter terror on her face. Karl didn't think Jo would ever be so...
Oh.
His brain caught up with his perceptions. Jo wasn't guarding Tabitha.
She was terrified for her partner, yet stood her ground and did her job as if it were ripping her heart out to do so. Where is Tabitha? Karl scanned the ground looking for her body first, but didn't see it. Then he ran along the side of the wolf, searching for the burn marks—there.
Karl had gathered that Tabitha's searing hands spell cost very little mana, but she could only attack with it by direct touch. That Jo was letting her do this testified to just how dire their situation was. He spotted the pyromancer clinging to the fur on the beast's hind leg, hands glowing red as she charred whatever she touched and moved on, slowly but steadily costing the beast health points.
Absorbing all of this in the few seconds it took him to spin in a circle and then charge the side of the beast, Karl stabbed with all his strength into its belly. It howled, clearly badly wounded by all the attacks from the bear and then the party. Karl pulled out his sword and stabbed again, and again, trying not to think about what terrible price his teammates might be paying to give him this opening. He simply knew that this thing had to die, now. No skill, no finesse, just brute strength stabbing again and again and again, until finally, finally, it died.