Chapter 31: Bear Market Behavior

Thomas and Jo crept up on their next target, which was a bear eating a bunch of blackberries from a thorny bush. It hadn’t been hard to find. There were over twenty bears in this dungeon, and this next one was across the stream, around a bunch of bushes.

This dungeon wasn’t very creative.

If it had been a real bear, it probably would have scented them a long time ago, but this one just continued to munch along, not paying them any attention.

Generally, the monsters would not move from their territory unless they were directly attacked. That wasn’t a strict rule, as he remembered from the Veggie Dungeon and the Chipmunk Forest Fire Dungeon, but so far it seemed to be the case here, probably as a way to balance out how tough the monsters were.

Thomas glanced at Jo. She watched the bear calmly, sword still in hand. She’d seemed super comfortable with it, so Thomas had let her have it. He held the mace, though after seeing what those spikes had done, he was very careful with it. He kept the pen knife in his other hand.

They didn’t speak. They’d already pre-planned this part, and so just waited until the bear shuffled around, presenting its wide hind end at them.

Thomas stepped out of the bushes, counting on his Notice-Me-Not cloak to keep him… uh, unnoticed. Then he threw the mace end over end, like he was a lumberjack in an axe-throwing contest.

It caught the bear’s big butt vertically, not spikes first as he’d hoped, but it still drove some spikes inward. The bear roared and whipped around so fast that it should have been impossible for a creature that size.

Oh shit, Thomas thought as its beady, evil little eyes focused on him. It roared again, saliva stringing out from its mouth, then charged.

Then it stumbled sideways a few steps, as if it were drunk. Or poisoned by sinister mace spikes.

The guy in the pawn shop had said that the mace inflicted spiritual damage. Obviously that had killed the robber. But until now, Thomas wasn’t sure if dungeon creatures had spirits.

Apparently they had something close enough, because the bear stumbled as if it were suddenly dizzy. Its gaze was still on Thomas, though, and it was clear it wanted him for lunch.

Suddenly, Jo seemed to appear out from behind a tree. When had she gotten over there? Oh yeah, he’d completely forgotten about her again. Damn, that Gift was good.

She greeted the bear sword first. Jo might have some kind of skill-inspired control over her sword, but she was no trained swordswoman. It was a very basic stab: in, then out, with a gout of blood.

The bear roared again and swung towards her, but then fell on its side. Not because of her stab, but because it seemed to have just developed a very bad case of vertigo. But it was thoroughly distracted.

Thomas rushed in, his Notice-Me-Not cloak flapping in a way that should have been extremely noticeable, and, clicking the button, stabbed his pen knife into its back.

He had to stab a lot deeper than he thought. There was a lot of fur.

The bear roared and clawed at the air as if thinking it was still on its feet and wanting to charge. Then it went silent, and the little jewels on the pen knife turned a deep chocolate brown.

All right. One bear ghost locked and loaded.

Thomas concentrated on the pen knife for a second, and his triumph fled.

“Ah crap,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” Jo asked immediately, circling with the sword up in what he supposed was some kind of guard position.

“The durability on my pen knife just went down by ten points. Now I’m at thirty out of one hundred.” He caught her quizzical look and said, “Oh yeah, that’s a thing you can see for System items once you hit level 2. It’s great. You also get the titles of things.”

She nodded, taking that information in. “So… we can kill three more bears?”

“I’d rather not kill any more bears with this pen knife,” he said. “It’s too valuable, and I don’t want to just use it up until it breaks, but I don’t understand why it’s getting damaged.” He frowned. “I mean, it got damaged in a Mantis dungeon because they had corrosive blood. Bears don’t typically have that, I think. I’m not a biologist.”

Jo was silent for a moment, then said, “Do you dive level 2 dungeons a lot?”

“No, well—” He was about to explain about the Chipmunk Forest Fire dungeon, but duh, no one was supposed to know about that. “No,” he said again, then could have slapped his forehead. “But this pen knife came from a level 1 dungeon. And it’s slaying level 2 monsters! That must be it!”

“Well, there you go,” she said, and turned her attention back outward, watching to make sure no other bears came up on them.

Thomas frowned. He didn’t know Jo well, or at all really. But she seemed strangely flat. Was that because he had given her two water mana crystals? But why would water do that?

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Maybe shutting down slightly was how she dealt with stress. It was certainly preferable to her freaking out. He decided not to mention it, but to keep watch.

Meanwhile, there was looting to do.

The bear had dropped two B-grade earth crystals. He wanted an item, but even he knew that would be greedy. Still, it was a nice loot drop.

“Got two B-grade browns,” he said, holding them up triumphantly.

“That’s a nice loot drop,” Jo said, with all the inflection of Siri.

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. “I think it might be because you’re level 1 in a level 2 dungeon. Maybe that messes with the drop table.”

He only felt a little bad about his lie.

She nodded. “Where’s the next monster?”

****

The next bear on their path wasn’t alone. In fact, it had two little baby bears tumbling around, while what he assumed was the mother stood nearby on two legs, busy scratching her back on a tree.

“Let’s move on,” Thomas said uneasily.

“Why?” Jo asked. “The last one wasn’t so bad. Hit the mother with the mace to stun it, and I’ll go after the babies.” She held up the sword, which, Thomas saw, was still stained with the last bear’s blood.

He glanced again at the little bear family. The babies looked exactly like teddy bears, with big heads and eyes, and they were wrestling and play-biting with each other.

These are dungeon monsters, he told himself. Get a grip.

The demon chickens had been kind of cute too, with their little cockatoo crests raising up. And so were the chipmunks, when they weren’t breathing fire at him. These aren’t real animals.

Besides, he ate real animals. He wasn’t that much of a softie, but…