Toni froze for a second when she heard a roar come from somewhere nearby. It was a terrible thing, a primal roar that instilled fear in lesser creatures. A bear’s roar.

  And it wasn’t alone, another followed it shortly, and then another. Toni saw Temate already bde in hand as he looked into the pit. Around his off hand she saw a small pte of sheer white material, like a buckler. Was it growing? No time for that, she ran over to look down into the pit with him.

  “What’s going on down there?” Toni asked, she couldn’t see anything but she could hear the roaring. She could also see Milis throw herself down on all fours and start dashing down the ramp. Honey followed close behind, but slower, Milis was fast when she decided to move. Toni looked up to Temate and was about to ask again when a quiet voice came from her feet.

  “Fighting. Sound like… Not Nitha.” Toni looked down to Surrender and saw her ears twitching as she leaned closer to the pit.

  “Can you tell what it is?” Toni asked the gremlin. The small gremlin frowned but eventually she nodded.

  “Skitter skitter, like bug.” Surrender looked up at Toni and then frowned. “Big bug, small bug, many bug. Hard tell what type, I not hear bug much.”

  “Spiders.” The word came from Temate who turned to the two of them. “Wait here, I’m gonna go see if I can help.” He turned and began running down the ramp.

  “WHAT?!” She shouted after him and began to follow, Surrender hopping up and then scrambling after her. “I’m not letting you do this alone Mate! WAIT UP!” Despite his head start, and Temate being surprisingly fast for his size, Toni caught up easily. She was an athlete after all. She saw him gre over his shoulder at her and then grunt and stop.

  “What are you doing?” He didn’t growl it at her, but she could see Temate was angry. Why?

  “I’m helping. I can do that, you know.” She frowned at him and held up her gun, already loaded with her new fshfire ammunition – which was her name for the [Power] made bullets

  “No, it’s too dangerous.” Temate shook his head and waved his shield arm at her. She gred at him.

  “I have a gun Mate, and I’m not le-”

  “Toni I can’t let you get hurt, so no, stay here.” He growled the words.

  Toni put one hand on her hip before replying. “Then you stay here too.”

  “Toni, I have t-”

  “You have to do nothing, you wanna protect me? Protect us?” Toni snapped, cutting Temate off.

  “Of course I-”

  “Then why would you go running into danger? How does that protect us?” She cut him off again, and he gred.

  “If there’s danger here, then you co-”

  “We could get hurt, yeah, an idiot can figure that out, but only one of us has actually gotten hurt running off like an idiot alone.” She poked her finger at his shield arm. At the bandages she couldn’t see because of the rge, gleaming shield of bone now attached to the arm. Tears were starting to fill her eyes as she continued, not waiting for his reply.

  “I saw you wrapped in bandages, nearly dead. We weren’t even… we hadn’t even had… you were just a guy who I was interested in then and it destroyed me and now you’re trying to run off and leave me alone so you can what? Fight spiders? They’re doing that.” She motioned down towards the sounds of roaring.

  “They don’t need you. But I do. Mate, you promised to support me, and I to you. You’re not the only one who wants to… to…” She looked down and away as she wiped at her eyes.

  She felt small arms wrap around her stomach, a fuzzy warmth pressing into her. Then she felt something soft rubbing at her eyes. She could faintly make out the fuzzy brown gremlin hugging her through her tears and the tip of the tail which was wiping them away.

  “I want to help too, Mate. We are not helpless children even if we are small. We are not strong like you, but we have our own strengths. You should not dismiss those so lightly.” The words were strange from the gremlin. Choppy but complete statements without shortcuts, her way of showing this was important. Then another, bigger pair of arms wrapped around her.

  “I’m sorry Toni. I wasn’t thinking, we don’t have to go. Timbear asked us to do something else anyways.” Temate replied and then Toni was mad as well as hurting.

  “That’s not… UGH” She pushed herself out of the hug. “You want to go, not just for us right?” She looked up at Temate, she knew her face was red and tear stained.

  He grimaced before he replied. “I do but t-”

  “Because you don’t just want to protect us. You want to protect in general.” She continued before he could make an excuse.

  He frowned a bit. “That’s true b-”

  “No. No buts. You want to protect us, and you want to be a protector. I promised to support you. So you can go, but I’m going with you. I have a gun Mate, I can stay back and safe and we can work together. Okay?”

  She saw Temate struggling with the idea for a second. Then two. He was clearly torn on something, but then there was another loud roar. It didn’t sound happy, and Temate nodded.

  “Alright, but stay behind me and if anything comes at you that I don’t see, call it out. You are my priority.” He paused and then added. “Both of you.”

  “Yes sir.” Toni mock saluted and that got a snort from Temate. The three began to run. This time, together.

  Temate felt like an idiot, and not just because he hadn’t realized that of course Toni would want to help, not for him to stop. No, that was the biggest reason, but there were a number of things. Another reason was because he didn’t realize just how much his injury had upset Toni. Another, because he got so mad just because Toni didn’t listen to him.

  That had always been a problem of his, he got mad at people doing stupid things, or not listening in important moments. It had mostly been a problem at work, where he would get frustrated and rude if people didn’t do things just so. Until his various creative projects started taking off and he could quit at least.

  It was stupid, and he thought he’d gotten control over it mostly, but then he thought about his [Powers]. Then he thought about what he’d discussed with the Warden earlier, about skills and how they fit into Idea. Timbear didn’t know much about how the Empowering of this world worked, bears apparently didn’t engage in it.

  Instead bears used their own kind of magic, as was apparently common of realm walking species. Yet as Temate expined his own skills, and the ones Toni had dispyed, the Warden had been helpful.

  “Hmm, this world from what I have discerned has no specific direction. It is likely the [Powers] a creature can acquire are a combination of their own desire, and their nature. Or possibly it is just a combination of their own Idea of themselves, and the world’s Idea.”

  That had made sense to Temate as he thought about it. Though his idea was a bit different, he suspected it was shaped by all of who they are. Their conscious self, shaped by their goals and interests. Which in his case would be [Magic Eye] and [Bone Salts]. From his love of magic and occultism, particurly necromancy and the undead.

  Then there was their unconscious self, the things that was part of them they could never truly be rid of. The things that shaped them without them realizing. In his case, [Towering Presence] clearly a result of his rge size and the impact that can have on others. Then the other two, he grimaced at the thought.

  [Iron Order], the ability to issue a single word command that weaker willed creatures would follow. That would be representative of his controlling obsession that he’d struggled for years to temper. That still shone in moments such as his discussion with Toni moments ago. It made him an excellent Dom when used healthily, but when he failed to control it…

  He shook his head and thought about his st skill, [Vicious Strike]. He knew where that came from, his youth, another thing he thought he’d mastered. Yet now, as he felt strengthened, felt released from societal shackles… It was rising again, and he was struggling to keep it down.

  That was the real reason he kept running off to fights without thinking, he told himself it was to protect but that wasn’t the truth. Actually, it was true, but only partially. The rger part was that he wanted to fight, to release that violence he felt bubbling beneath the surface. The blood thirst that drove him down a dark path early in life.

  It didn’t help that he knew he could grow stronger by fighting in this world. Nor that he’d realized he would need to be stronger, if he wanted to protect anyone. He grunted to himself and looked up as they finally reached the bottom of the ramp. They turned down towards a familiar tunnel and stopped.

  “Brin’ ‘im over ‘ere!” Pipuck was standing there, motioning toward a group of Daog who were dragging a rge wounded bear. It was a big bear, at least as big as Milis. There were one, maybe two dozen other bears injured here, green paste sthered onto wounds. Pipuck snapped at the two Daog as they brought the bear near him.

  “Drop ‘im, I can ‘andle i’ from ‘ere. Go ge’ the nex’ one!” They waved the group off and got to work examining, and then cleaning wounds.

  “Pip.” Temate called out as they approached. “What’s happening?” Pipuck looked up and their gre softened as they saw Temate, Toni and Surrender.

  They got back to work before answering. “Spiders came scurryin’ up from deeper in. En masse, and no’ jus’ little ones, big ones. They came righ’ up to tha’ cave the Nitha keep usin’ and the bears are tryin’ to push em back.”

  “Why hasn’t the totem activated?” Toni asked that.

  “I dunno, if I ha' to guess i’ was quick work an’ was only mean’ to protec’ against Nitha so doesn’t detec’ the spiders as a threa’.” Pip shrugged as they began spreading some poultice from a rge wooden tub they had sitting next to them.

  “Hmmm, how’s it going?” Temate asked next.

  “Badly.” That came from Honey who was crawling out of the tunnel, a few wounds on his body. “There are many, many spiders, and they are fighting viciously and rapidly filling the space with their webbing. Many are rge, rger than the Daog.”

  “But spiders? Really? How are spiders of any size threatening bears?” Toni asked incredulously. Honey gave her a look that Temate thought was equal parts annoyed and wounded.

  “Under normal circumstances, Lady Toni, they would not. Something is… Strange. Thankfully Sgoinneil is completing a barrier to keep them from advancing further.” Honey spoke calmly as he licked his wounds.

  “Hey don’t do that! You’re gonna get an infection!” Toni shouted in shock. Temate put his face in his hand as Honey gave her a look that was purely annoyed this time.

  “It will not.”

  “Yes it will, you can’t get sa-”

  “Toni.” Temate cut her off with a hand on her shoulder and a soft, firm word. “He’s a magic bear. Even normal animals lick wounds to sterilize and clean them, imagine what an intelligent, magical bear can do.”

  Toni, who had turned and looked irritated, closed her open mouth. Then spped her own face into her hands.

  “R-right, sorry of course you’ve got like magic spit or something, right?” Toni looked at Honey apologetically.

  “Not at all, but it is a ritual action whose intent is to purify, thus it will.” Honey replied, lifting his nose.

  “Th-THAT’S NOT HOW THAT-” Toni started, waving her hands around in frustration. Then she pointed at a nearby bear which Pipuck had put poultice on. “What about them then, huh? If they can just lick their wounds better why is Pip putting his salve-”

  “Poultice” Pipuck spoke up to correct the girl.

  “Poultice, whatever, why does Pip have to put poultice on their wounds huh?” Toni concluded. Honey looked around and then, to Toni’s surprise, ughed.

  “Their wounds are serious, mine are not. I am not healing my wounds, I am cleaning them.” Honey said as he smiled at the girl. “I also do not have time to talk, I must return to the Warden and request something new to deal with this.”

  “Can we help?” Temate asked, which seemed to surprise Honey.

  “I am... not certain but when Sgoinneil returns she may need help elsewhere.” Honey nodded as he replied. “Or you could go find her, she is likely reinforcing her warding now.”

  Temate looked at Toni and Surrender. “I’d like to go find her so we can help asap.”

  Toni smirked and saluted Temate. “Sounds good to me sir!” she flung her arm down hard, so hard in fact that she smacked it against the wall and hissed. “OW! Fucking who put this WALL HERE!”

  That elicited ughs from the furry forms resting nearby them, as well as Pipuck and Surrender. Temate just smiled softly and turned to head further into the tunnel. He stopped a few paces away and turned back to shout at Honey who was headed to the ramp.

  “What’s this S-go-eh-nile look like?”

  Honey shouted back as he walked. “Oh she’s very obvious! You’ll know her when you see her!”

  “That’s not-” He tried shouting but stopped as Honey began to lope away. “Rude. Any of you wanna describe Sgoinneil?” He turned to each of the bears in turn who all grinned and refused. Pipuck sighed and stood up.

  “I’ll take you to ‘er d. I me’ ‘er shortly after we arrived.” They said as they stood up, stowing their rge wooden tub into a cloth sack they swung over their shoulder.

  “But you won’t tell me what she looks like?” Temate said as the four began walking further in again.

  “It’s easy to expin, bu’ I don’t wanna ruin the surprise.” Pipuck grinned up at Temate who shook his head in mock annoyance. He didn’t mind surprises, he just didn’t want to pick out the wrong person by accident. Though he doubted he’d be that shocked by any bear they met.