“Is that the bear cave?” Ira asked.

“Looks like, according to the zone guide,” Jonas replied. At last, Ira would stop gabbling about the bear now that they had arrived.

The team gathered around the cave’s entrance. It was in a smaller side branch of the winding mountain paths that crisscrossed the Othary mountain zone, and easy to miss. Jonas couldn’t even begin to guess how the explorer teams had found it. Probably experience – the real world one, not the descriptor measurement value.

Ira peeked inside. To everyone’s surprise, this lair was a single cave, fairly lit from the large entrance. And at the rear was a huge furry pile of indistinct shape.

“Here’s your dancing bear. Happy?” Jonas said.

“That’s a bear?” Laura asked.

“Maybe? It’s not as if any of us saw a bear in London,” Jonas mused.

“None of you ever visited the Royal Menagerie?” Guss asked, incredulous.

“As if. We’re not Kings,” Alton replied.

“It’s open to anyone,” he said.

“Doesn’t it costs like a shilling?” Jonathan added.

“Think so. I visited it a few years ago with mum and my sister. We thought she’d like that. And yes, there was a bear,” Guss replied.

“We’ll decide if it looks like your bear after we’ve finished that lair,” Jonas cut.

Given the wide opening, the team decided to spread before making their entrance. Ira started going toward the furry occupant, who did not react until he was five feet in the cave. At that point, the fur moved and a pair of eyes peered at the Layman.

Solitary Bear

Level 51 elder

Health: 2311

Mind: 894

Endurance: 3299

Aether: 0

Jonas noted the sudden appearance of the descriptor. Apparently, the sleeping bear did not register as being there until now for some reason. He’d make a note later in the book, just in case it was a new thing.

“Pure melee without aether, so no weird attacks,” Ira noted.

“Which also means he’s going to do all kind of physical attacks,” Laura lamented.

“Like a dance?”

Alton let out a snort of laughter at Ira’s reply.

Solitary Bear growls.

“No effect? What kind of attack is this?”

The bear reared up, standing on his hind legs, then fell back on its four legs and charged Ira.

“And it begins,” Jonas started, as the rest of the team entered the cave in turn, starting to position themselves.

The bear reached Ira and reared again, swiping with both forelegs.

Solitary Bear double strikes for 85×2 damage (215 defence rating).

“Ouch. He’s a handful,” Ira lamented.

“Don’t worry, got it,” Guss replied.

As the three melee-range fighters got near and started wailing on the bear, Jonas started his own opening moves, with the Fire Funnel on the bear’s position, and readying his stream of Fire Bolts to follow.

The bear reared up again, but rather than inflicting the same double strike, he wrapped its paws around the Layman’s shoulder, squeezing.

Solitary Bear crushes bones: -5 health/sec, -3 Agility/Dexterity.

Guss noticed the effect. Unfortunately, it combined ongoing damage and potential reductions, meaning he was unable to counter it. His only options were to add health per second regeneration to Ira and wait out the bone-crushing.

The rest was already waling on the bear, whose own health started to drop steadily from Alton’s backstabbing and Laura’s smashing on the bear’s own shoulders with her new hammer. The entire team had now fallen back on their well-established routines, notably on those encounters where the enemy did not have too many varied attacks. It was a bit harder on Guss who had to keep Ira topped more often, but overall, they much favoured those kinds of fights.

Solitary Bear double strikes for 85+99 damage (215 defence/70 defence).

“Ouch, his paws reach far,” exclaimed Jonathan.

“You have less defence, but most of his attacks remain on Ira. You shouldn’t need much topping, you’ll be fine,” Guss reassured the other Layman.

“Still, try to avoid being in a position to be swiped. If that’s possible”, Jonas counselled.

They quickly found that the bear would turn and swipe to the sides, and pretty much the only place that was safe was packing themselves at the nether end of the bear, next to Alton’s usual position. That way, Ira got systematically both strikes on himself.

Solitary Bear head butts, causing concussion: -20 Focus/-30 Stamina.

“Oh, balls!” Guss yelled as the Layman fell on the ground, unmoving.

The bear immediately disdained Ira and made a turn-about, facing the trio of the melee fighters that had been attacking his nether end. Guss nearly panicked, trying to reduce the effect.

Cleanse Disease

Aether/Support

Rank 0: Remove 60 seconds of a disease effect of at most 50% of WIS or FOC level. Costs: 1 aether per level of effect.

Cleanse Disease fails to affect Ira Heard’s concussion.

Skill unlocked: Mitigate Disease

Mitigate Disease

Aether/Support

Rank 0: Reduces by 5% the Potential effect of a disease. Costs 1 aether per potential affected.

Guss blinked at the notification. Well, he still had some aether to spare… but 50 aether for a spell? And one that might not even wake up Ira.

At that moment, the bear swiped across both Alton and Jonathan, dropping nearly 100 health from both. Guss realized that he had no real choice but try to focus on Jonathan’s defence.

“Laura! You and Alton, move back. Let Jonathan handle it,” Jonas announced, seeing that Ira remained sprawled on the ground.

The bear was faster, and reared, applying its crushing embrace to Alton Raby. The Piercer screamed as the crush took effect, but kept on walking backwards. Thankfully, the bear turned back to the only person close, Jonathan, and kept on mauling the second Layman.

“He’s at less than a third of health, get ready to strike again in about… ten seconds,” Jonas ordered.

Solitary Bear

Level 51 elder

Health: 716

Mind: 894

Endurance: 2147

Aether: 0

“Should be good, I think I have him busy,” Jonathan announced.

The two other fighters gingerly approached the bear from behind, then seeing as it was ignoring them, resumed waling on him.

Jonas prayed to God that the bear would not headbutt Jonathan. Laura might have high health and armour, thanks to her heroic-type pants, but she was no defender. Even if the fight was drawing to a close…

Solitary Bear: 3118XP/6 contributors = 519XP.

You have completed the Dancing Bear lair.

“Whew. How is Ira?” Jonas immediately asked.

“Let me reduce the effect. He’s still alive, so that’s good. No sacrifice needed,” Guss replied, starting to pump his new spell. Unfortunately, he had not enough aether for more than two, and the fallen teammate’s Stamina remained at zero, lowered more by the concussion effect than his base Potential. He quickly checked the rest of the team, found that the bone crush was still ongoing, but not for long, and settled back to wait for his aether.

Two more Mitigate Disease later, Ira groaned, and put his hand to the cave floor, trying – and failing – to raise himself.

“Take it easy. Your Stamina is barely above zero. How do you feel,” Jonas said, as the rest of the team gathered around their comrade.

“Weak as a newborn kitten. And I barely see anything. The only thing that’s still clear is my status, though,” Ira replied.

Jonas breathed again. Of course, as a Professional, what didn’t kill you would be gone quickly. And even death would be gone, just a bit slower. But mundane habits lingered.

Guss refreshed the healing on both Alton and Jonathan, to let them wait out their bone crushes, and checked Ira again. The Layman was still struggling to sit, so the Hospitaler used his last aether to apply another Mitigate Disease. That let the young man finally support himself sitting on the floor.

“Still want to see a bear dancing?” Jonas joked.

“Nah. I’m good. See one, see all,” Ira joked back feebly.

The rest of the team breathed again.

“How can anyone defend against that kind of fight?” he asked. “One attack and you’re out.”

“There’s another defender-type Profession line,” Jonas replied. “Uses primarily Stamina rather than Constitution. I think they can take the concussion and keep going.”

“Or if I had been luckier, I’d see it coming with Notice Attack, maybe,” Jonathan added.

“There’s always a way. At worst, we’d have rotated the damage.”

“Hey, that bone crush is still bad. Thankfully, you don’t get a compound effect, but it’s not one I can remove at the moment,” Guss countered.

There was a loud sound at the rear of the cave. The team’s head turned immediately in alarm, but Jonas immediately realized it was Laura’s kicking at a heavily rusted box.

“Didn’t want to open. Silly box. It’s open now,” she said, fishing into the box.

Bear-Tuft Coif

Head

Quality equipment

Requires: Level 41

Provides: 12 defence rating, PRE+7, INT+3

Old Mangled Codex

Off-Hand

Common equipment

Requires: Level 44

Provides: +1 Light Blast rank

“Hey? Double loot,” she announced.

“I don’t know if it is going to fit with my look,” Jonas joked.

“You don’t want it? Real…”

“No, of course, I’ll take it. Looks like leather, and the tuft of hair makes it worse, but it’s good Potentials. Probably made for a Pilot, but it’s good enough.”

Jonas grabbed the two items handed by Laura. As he picked the mouldy-looking booklet, a familiar crawling sensation came to him, one that he’d last experienced from wearing that “Silken Caress” headgear at the Archives over a week ago.

Skill unlocked: Light Blast

Light Blast

Aether/Offense

Rank 1: Does 22.5% of INT in light damage and reduces by 4% the enemy’s accuracy for 25 seconds. Costs 0.99 aether per damage.

“Adaptation strikes again. This one is an offensive skill,” he announced.

“New spell?” Guss asked.

“Yup. Light Blast. Which, if I remember correctly from Babbage’s lessons, is one you might be able to get at tier two anyway.”

“Still easier to pick from an item than try triggering it.”

“Yes. Nobody really knows how good that Depleted Aetheric Focus is. Probably not beyond tier one.”

Jonas dropped the braided stone he had wrapped around his off-hand in his backpack, along with his old headband, and gingerly fitted the new coif.

“You look good,” Laura said.

“Really?”

“No, of course. It looks silly on you. Well, it would probably look silly on anyone, but it’s you wearing it.”

Jonas took the ribbing with ease and focused back on their current situation.

“With your bad status, I think we should camp for the day. There’s only two, maybe three more hours of light… and we have a perfectly fine cave to shelter in. Guss will reduce a bit more your concussion. Hopefully, it won’t be too debilitating tomorrow? Sounds good everyone?”

“Yep.”

“It’s cooking time,” Alton said.

Jonas helped Ira settle next to a cave’s wall, before turning to the woodpile Alton had promptly gathered from outside to lit the fire with a Flame Bolt.

Ira Irwin Heard

Health: 1185/1185 (1044)

Mind: 544/544

Endurance: 285/285 (219)

Aether: 358/358

Effective level: 61

Level 37 Layman

Level 24 Defender

Experience: 55811/61667

Strength: 38 (27)

Dexterity: 30

Agility: 33 (31)

Constitution: 54 (40)

Stamina: 5 (24)

Wisdom: 27

Focus: 12 (28)

Presence: 26

Fortitude: 25

Intellect: 26

Defence Rating: 208

20% faster levelling

Concussion (-16 FOC/-21 STA, 21 hours remaining)

5% health/CON

10% armour

Milestones: Adjustment IV, Defender I, Layman II

Skills: Dodge (2+2), Flat Blade (1), Deflection (0+1), Repel (0), Hold (0), Anticipate (0), Brace (0)

Equipment: Blue Iron Band (3CON/+1 dodge), Light Ringmail Tunic (1STA), Steady Steel Handgrips (8CON/6STR/92hp/76end/+1 deflection), Sturdy Ringmail Wraps (1STR), Blue Iron Legwraps (3CON/2GI), Supple Ringmail Sollerets (1STA/+1 dodge), Black Zweihander (4STR/49hp)