As I ran toward the commotion, I started to catch glimpses of movement through the trees. There was a large, dark shape thrashing about. I rounded yet another tree and suddenly had a clear view of a row of spines, confirming my fear: it was, indeed, a spined bear. And there I was, running toward it. Like an idiot. All because of some silly sense of nobility that I apparently had—or possibly just empathy. Whatever it was, it was going to get me killed.

I slowed to a walk once I was within a spear-throw of the bear. I might have been heading into danger, but there was no need to be completely reckless about it. The bear’s back was to me, so thankfully it didn’t notice my approach. However, that did mean that its body blocked whatever or whoever had screamed, so I had to keep moving—arcing around—to see if it was actually a person. As I circled, I summoned several Mana bolts into my orbit.

If it’s Marcus, I’m leaving him to die. No way his life is worth tangling with that bear. As I drew near, the figure became clear: Marnie. Fuck. I have to help her. She had her bow out with an arrow nocked and was circling around a large tree, keeping it between her and the bear. It didn’t look like she had been entirely successful though: there was blood running down her arm and something was giving her a limp.

As for the bear, it had several arrows sticking out of its face and shoulders. They seemed only to enrage it though. None of them were in a vulnerable spot and there wasn’t much blood leaking out, especially not for a beast that size. Absently, I noted by the scar on its flank that it was indeed the same bear I saw by the river. While it wasn’t quite as tall as my original ten foot at the shoulder estimate, that wasn’t much of a comfort in the moment.

Fuck. What do I do? Observe. The results hadn’t changed since last time: all it said was that the bear was Level 6—no information about Health or weaknesses. If Marnie can barely scratch it, there’s no way I’ll do any damage. Fuck. Fuck. Distract it and hope that she has the sense to run away? She’s limping though—

Just then, Marnie glanced my way. She must have been surprised to see me because she tripped over a root. I actually felt a small bit of triumph seeing someone other than me being gravitationally challenged before I remembered the situation. The bear was mere feet away from her, leaving me no more time to plan.

I released all three Mana bolts orbiting me at its head. Without waiting to see if they had any effect, I shouted unintelligibly and charged forward with my spear. My target practice over the previous days paid off, seeing as all three bolts hit its head, one even hitting an eye. They, or my shout, grabbed the bear’s attention, saving Marnie. Of course, now I was about to get mauled instead. Hooray for my success.

The tree! I thought, making a mad dash towards a large tree, hoping to follow Marnie’s example and use it as an obstacle for the bear. I made it past the tree, then turned to face the bear, brandishing my spear.

Dodge the claw and move back. Keep turning, keep retreating. Quick jab, then jump back. Just keep moving back around the tree. Don’t fall, just keep moving. Keep the tree in front of the bear. All that running around with Griff yelling at me was paying off. Need to aim at the weak spots; should have an opportunity soon. Duck and stab!

I ducked under a sweeping paw and thrust my spear up at the bear’s neck, infusing Health into my body. The spearhead only sank about an inch to the bear’s hide, and the bear didn’t even pause. What the hell is this thing made of? Oh right, it has Health too. Fuck. To make matters worse, I was a bit slow dislodging my spear and retreating around the tree, so the bear managed to graze my forearm, leaving a gash several inches long with its claw. Ow, fuck. Ow. Ignore the pain, keep moving. I can do this; I’ve had practice. Just focus on not getting hit.

Alright, the spear isn’t working, how about Mana Bolt? I sent a couple bolts at the bear’s face. One hit its snout with no visible effect, the other landed on the cheek and left a coin-sized bald patch. Fuck, that was worse than the spear. How is this thing only Level 6?

The bear and I continued our odd game of chase around the tree for several laps, and I was slowly getting dizzy from all the circling. Or perhaps that was the bloodloss. I can’t keep this up. I’m going to need Marnie to help, or at least have gotten away so I can make a break for it. On my next lap, I didn’t even try to attack the bear, instead keeping my eye out for Marnie. What I saw wasn’t promising.

She had managed to pull herself upright, but was leaning heavily against the tree trunk, and one arm was hanging limply at her side. Something about the way it was hanging struck me as unnatural, but I didn’t have time to speculate. Even worse was the blood running down the side of her head and the blank look on her face.

“Marnie! Get out of here! Run!” I didn’t expect her to listen though; if her head injury was so bad that she wasn’t even glancing at the massive fucking bear trying to maul me, my shouting probably wouldn’t move her.

Sure enough, on my next lap, I saw her in the exact same position.

Oh fuck, we’re going to die. Even if by some miracle I am able to keep running away until the bear tires or loses interest, Marnie’s just sitting there defenseless. And I’m probably going to trip on a root long before that happens. Fuck. I need a plan. Fuck, THINK. I can’t hurt it. I can’t distract it. All I can do is run away.

Well, running away wasn’t exactly a creative plan, and it definitely didn’t take a genius to realize that getting away from the big, angry bear was a good idea, but it was the only option. To maximize my chances, I started pouring all my Mana into a single giant bolt. I hadn’t tried that yet because larger bolts were harder to aim, but given the size and proximity of the bear, aim didn’t really seem to be an issue. Using all my Mana in one attack also wasn’t a great idea mid-combat, but as a last-ditch effort while running away it would suffice.

When my bolt was charged and the bear, the tree, myself, and Marnie were all lined up in that order, I launched the bolt at the bear’s face. Without pause, I turned around, dropped my spear, and sprinted at Marnie. Behind me, the bear let out a roar loud enough to send vibrations through my body. My bolt had at least enraged it, for good or ill I couldn’t yet tell.

As I neared Marnie, instead of slowing down, I bent forward and infused my whole body with Health. My shoulder slammed into her midsection and I straightened up, lifting her onto my shoulder, figuring any bruising this might cause was better than what the bear had planned for us. Speaking of the bear, I could hear it crashing through the undergrowth behind me in close pursuit.

Come on, come on, please don’t catch up. If there are any gods watching, a little help would be really nice right now.

I ran through as many densely packed trees as I could find, hoping the bear would have to go around. Thanks to my earlier experience running from the bear (even though it wasn’t pursuing me at the time), I remembered to track my general direction and head toward town.

Several minutes of frantic sprinting later, I realized that I couldn’t hear the bear behind me, so I slowed down to a more sustainable jog. When I still didn’t hear anything, I stopped and put Marnie down to evaluate our injuries. Thankfully my bag, which contained my new first aid supplies, was still tied over my shoulder. Ha, good thing I got these from Cassie.

My arm was still bleeding, but the wound wasn’t particularly deep, so I just wrapped it in a bandage. Marnie wasn’t still bleeding anywhere, but her daze worried me.

“Waassh appenin?” She asked as I examined her wounds.

“You had a run-in with a bear and hit your head pretty hard. I’m taking you back to town. But first, drink this,” I said, tilting my Health potion into her mouth. I wasn’t sure if it would help, but it couldn’t hurt and it wasn’t time to be stingy.

“Alright, we need to keep moving. Can you hold onto my back?”

“Yeh.”

Then we were off again, this time with Marnie on my back instead of over my shoulder. That made it much easier to run and wouldn’t cause further injury to Marnie, unlike being slung over my shoulder.

We made it to the outskirts of town without incident. My near-constant activity lately along with a steady infusement of Health allowed me to jog all the way back, though I was ready to drop by the end.

Since I hadn’t heard about any healer or physician in town, nor did I expect there to be a reputable one, I headed to the apothecary. Nearing the center of town, I spotted Marcus, for once unaccompanied by his followers. Of course, he spotted me too. Just what I need right now.

“Hey, nitwit! You assaulting women now? You got no money, so that the only way you get any action?”

I ran right by him, hoping he wouldn’t interfere. Doesn’t he have anything better to do?

“Hey! I was talking to you! You—” I couldn’t make out the rest of what he said over the sound of my footsteps. I kept expecting to hear more shouting or another set of feet behind me, but nothing came. Huh, maybe he actually does have something better to do.

I made it to the apothecary without anyone else giving me a second glance, let alone commenting. Are bloody people running around so common that no one cares? I can’t believe they just aren’t nosy.

“Hey,” I gasped out to Cassie as I barged inside. “Marnie needs help. She hit her head and has some other wounds. From a spined bear.”

“Bring her in back and I’ll see what I can do.” I followed Cassie into the back room and set Marnie down on a cot, then sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the room, the exhaustion from the afternoon finally hitting. At first I tried to follow Cassie’s work, but soon zoned out, confident that she would at least know better than me.

When I returned to awareness, I realized that Cassie had been asking Marnie questions and Marnie was responding, so I took that as a good sign.

A bit later, Cassie walked over to me. “Well,” she said, “looks like she’s going to make a full recovery. Head injury, dislocated shoulder, and a sprained ankle were the worst of it. She seems to have a Skill that uses Health to passively regenerate her body, which is helping a great deal. I’ll keep her here overnight just to be sure. Now let’s take a look at that arm of yours.”

I had completely forgotten about the gash on my arm, but now that she mentioned it, it became quite painful. Guess the run took more out of me than I thought, if I was tired enough to ignore the agony. Anyway, I wordlessly held my arm up and a short while later Cassie had my arm stitched and bandaged.

“Thanks for your help. I, uhh, don’t really have anything to give you in return,” I said.

“My pleasure, and you don’t really owe me anything. Tell you what though, you can bring me some Common ingredients when you come to have your stitches taken out and we’ll call it even.”

I headed home and ate a meagre supper of some random plant bits from the bottom of my bag. I then performed my regular Mana Bolt practice, now focussing on packing more Mana into each bolt, since that had been at least somewhat effective against the bear. Finally, I headed to bed as the sky started darkening.

Despite my fatigue, sleep did not come easily. Between the pain in my arm and the images of bear claws coming toward my face, I was in for a long night. It didn’t help that I kept questioning every decision I had made regarding the bear. Should I have just run away? Marnie was doing fine until she saw me, after all. Maybe I could have lured the bear away right from the start. Or targeted weak spots like the eyes, trying to kill it?

I woke up the next morning sore and hungry. Since I had eaten the last of my food the night before, I hurried off to my traps, eating what I could find in the forest on the way. When I did manage to find a rabbit in the second to last trap, I thanked whatever gods were watching over, since without my spear, I would have been left eating mushrooms if not for the rabbit. I did consider trying to retrieve the spear, but I wasn’t sure exactly where I had lost it and didn’t want to risk another encounter with the bear. It wouldn’t be too much work to replace anyway.

To that end, after cooking and eating the rabbit, I headed back to town. Rather than prevail upon Griff for more flint, I found the deposit by the river and took as much as I could carry, then returned home. There, I built a fire and set the flint around it. Since the heat treating process would take many hours (I had previously asked Griff for details), I made short trips into the nearby forest to gather firewood, food, potential spear shafts, and plant fibers. Then I sat by the fire to prepare my spear components. Whenever my Mana was full, I would cast Mana Bolt, and I was steadily improving:

Mana Bolt has advanced to Level 6!

Early that evening, Marnie came by, walking with a crutch but otherwise looking healthy.

“Hello,” she said, “I’m glad I caught you. I wanted to thank you for your help yesterday. I’m fairly certain you saved my life.”

“No problem; it’s what any decent person would do. How did you wind up fighting the bear anyway, I thought they weren’t aggressive?” I was worried I would have to become paranoid about the bears.

She snorted. “That was completely my fault. I noticed that it was eating animals out of my traps, so in my arrogance I decided to track it down and attack, rather than accepting the loss. Thought I could riddle it with poisoned arrows and then keep running away until it succumbed. Except instead the poison had no effect and I twisted my ankle.”

How far did she track it? Aren’t her traps on the other side of town, or is my sense of direction terrible? “Well, at least everyone survived and now we know spined bears are resistant to poisoning.”

“Right. Anyway, I wanted to give you this in thanks.” She held up a thin book. “It’s a Spellbook, which is really just the same thing as a Skillbook. I noticed you have an affinity for magic, so I thought you could use it. No idea what sort of Spells it might have though. My grandfather owned a bar and took it in trade for a fellow’s tab, and since no one in my family has been magic users, we’ve just held on to it. It’s been gathering dust, so I figured you should have it.”

“Thank you, but this really isn’t necessary. And wouldn’t Spellbooks be quite valuable?” Not that I didn’t want it. In fact, I was sorely tempted to snatch it out of her hands.

“Well, they can be, but not when you don’t know what Spells they have. It’s not like there’s anyone around here who would buy it, either. Plus I value my life quite a lot more, so I insist you take it.” She thrust the book at me.

I took it. “Alright, thank you. Umm, how do I use it? Do I just read it?” I asked, examining the book. It had two solid covers made of a material I didn’t recognize, and there was a clasp holding them closed. Only a couple pages were inside, though they were rather thick.

She chuckled. “No. You just open it up, put your hand on the first page, and think about absorbing the contents. Fair warning though, the rush of information will probably knock you out, so I recommend being in bed. The book will probably fall apart afterward, too. A Skillbook can’t give its Skills to multiple people, but some high-end books can be imbued with Skills multiple times. Most books though, probably including that one, are disposable. I’ll leave you to it. Good luck!” She turned around and hobbled off.

“Goodbye!” I shouted at her retreating form.

Right, then. While I desperately wanted to use the Spellbook immediately, that would waste the rest of the evening and delay my new spear. After much dithering, I put the book inside to remove temptation and returned to tending the fire. However, instead of waiting for the heat treatment to finish, I took a piece of flint and started knapping it immediately. The resulting spearhead was a bit cruder than my previous one, and I managed to complete it and attach it to a shaft by sunset. Ehh, it’ll do. With any luck, by tomorrow I’ll have some proper offensive spells and won’t need the spear anyway. That’s enough being patient, time to head inside.

I lay down on my cot with the book, reverently ran my fingers around the edge of the book, undid the clasp, and opened it. My jaw must have fallen open when I saw the inside: there were luminous lines tracing indescribable geometric figures. The whole page pulsed through the colors of the rainbow. I tried to follow some of the lines one the page, but they twisted and turned in ways that should have been impossible on a flat surface. Seemingly of its own accord, my hand reached out and touched the page while I wondered at what information might be within. There was a brief stabbing pain in my head, then blackness.