Chapter 33: Bear-Serker Potion

Heeeeey, so no pressure but I have a patreon. Upfront, since I’m posting a chapter a day right now, I have zero backlog. That will change this week. https://www.patreon.com/Jack_Golightly

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“That’s a potion,” Thomas said. “It’s called Rage of the Mama Bear.”

Jo looked at the crystal flask a little like she was holding a hand grenade.

“Yeah, cool and all, but is it one of those potions that change you forever, or a one-time thing?” Twitch asked.

Thomas turned to him. “Why do you think you are involved in this conversation?”

“Because I killed the bear.” He nodded so fast it looked like he was vibrating. “I’m part of the team.”

“You are not!” Thomas sputtered. “There is no team. Jo and I are just trying to get out because you and your buddies chased us in here, shooting–”

Jo cut in. She had put away her sword and looked at them both with an unimpressed eye. “Enough. You two argue worse than children. But also, Twitch, you are not part of the team. Don’t even think ’bout cozying up.”

Twitch huffed, but he didn’t look actually offended. Not that Thomas cared about his feelings, particularly, but he got the impression suddenly that Twitch was just trying to wind him up.

So, determinedly, Thomas ignored him and walked over to Jo to get a closer look at the potion. What little he could see behind the thick, crystallized glass was a deep, mud brown. Not appetizing.

“Does your System show anything else?” Jo asked Thomas.

“No, just the title, and I don’t know much about potions.”

Twitch jumped in, speaking quickly. “I’ve seen them come in two types: the ones that are one-off and give great boosts or healing, and the ones that provide lesser boosts but are supposed to last forever.”

“You got an alchemist in your gang?” Thomas asked, only a little snidely. He was still irritated at Twitch, and at himself for healing him, even though (sigh) it was the right thing to do. He just didn’t know why the guy hadn’t fucked off already.

He must have accidentally scored a point, because Twitch looked down even as he shuffled in place. Though the guy wasn’t currently relying on his gift to keep himself alive, it seemed he was always… Twitchy. It made Thomas wonder if that was the key to his skinniness, if he just burned off every calorie he ate.

Nah, it was probably drugs.

“No alchemists, I’ve just seen some potions. Okay, a lot of potions,” Twitch said. “Like, a whole ass vault of them. And they were separated into those two types.”

“Did you steal them?” Jo asked.

Twitch shook his head. “No, I was only lookout for that one. ‘Cuz of my Gift, I have to step in if things go wrong. Nothing did, so.” He jerked a shoulder up and down. “I didn’t see any of the gains from that hit. That all went to the high-rankers, the veterans, and the lieutenants. They always get the good crap.” He made another jerky shrug, both shoulders this time. “I’m barely even a regular.”

“Uh-huh.” Skeptical, Thomas decided to change the subject. He looked at Jo, who was the only one who mattered in this conversation. “What do you want to do now? Those last couple of bears were hairy—that was not a pun,” he snapped to Twitch, who had opened his mouth.

Jo paused and thought about it, fingers drumming on her belt an inch from one of her blades. But she wasn’t reaching for it. Clearly, she wanted to be in control of her emotions. “Do you think we can find the exit without more battles? If we were careful?” She emphasized the last word, communicating that she meant with her Gift. She didn’t want Twitch to hear about it, and Thomas didn’t blame her.

“Give me a moment.” Thomas didn’t need to close his eyes to use his healing sight, but he’d perfected it in the dark, and having that darkness around him helped. Though what he saw didn’t make a lot of sense. He opened his eyes a few seconds later. “There are only about five bears left. A lot have disappeared and…” he trailed off, his frown deepening as he struggled to discern what the faint life signs in the distance were telling him. “I think your friend, Griff or whatever, is fighting the boss.”

Though Twitch was in almost constant movement, he still seemed to slouch. At Thomas’s words, he stood straight up, rigid as a fence post. “Shit, then we need to go. Now.” He took a few steps, then turned, frustrated that Thomas and Jo had not moved. “C’mon, I’m serious, guys.”

Thomas and Jo exchanged a look.

“Hon, why don’t you tell us what this is about?” Jo asked. “Then we’ll decide if we need to get involved.”

“I think your friend killed the bears that disappeared. If he wants to kill the boss and clear the way for us, I’m not going to stop him,” Thomas added. “You can go help Griff if you want.”

“It’s Grimm. Like the Grim Reaper, and where I’m from you don’t get those names because you’re soft and cuddly,” Twitch corrected, showing the first signs of real frustration. “What do you think is going to happen if he leaves first and then gathers up everybody else, huh? You think he’s going to forget what happened in here? What you did to Marco and Cheesy?” He thumped his own chest with the flat of his hand. “Or that I ran off from him? It doesn’t matter if there was a bear hot on my ass; he’ll see that as disloyalty. And Grimm doesn’t tolerate that.”

Now, the look Thomas and Jo exchanged was more weighted.

“What are the chances that he gets killed by the boss?” Thomas asked. “He’s just a level one, right?”

“If there’s a way to kill, he’ll find it. But that house we hit, the one with the vault? He got a lot of that stuff: crazy weapons, natural treasures, and all sorts of really old, weird magical crap. He’s a veteran ranker, an OG. You get it?”

“Wait…” Thomas wasn’t sure why he’d picked up on this at first. Probably because he didn’t trust half the things that came out of Twitch’s mouth. “Did you guys burglarize an old Family home?”

“A what?”

Jo was looking at him in confusion too, so Thomas elaborated. “You know what the government said about some dungeons being open for years? Well, some powerful people got a hold of them and grew stronger. I guess they created kind of a cabal. They call themselves ‘Old Families’.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Twitch said quickly. “Some of that stuff was really old. Who cares?”

Thomas found himself grinning. “Because from what I understand about the Old Families, if they trace that burglary back to your gang, you’re all in deep shit.”

“We’re all going to be in deep shit if Grimm gets out before us,” Twitch said. “If you don’t trust nothing else I say, trust that.”

Thomas looked to Jo. Her lips were pinched shut in a thin, unhappy line.

“I guess it couldn’t hurt to take a look,” she said. “And head toward the exit if he’s distracting the boss. We can get out ahead of him.”

That sounded like a plan to Thomas.

****

It was pretty easy to find out exactly where the boss was. All they had to do was follow the path of destruction. There were dead bears… everywhere.

Thomas sort of missed the mimic dungeon. Once they were killed, the mimics would disintegrate into a pile of goo. These bear bodies just stayed there, cut up, some with patches of fur and skin sliced off, some with their paws gone for no reason that Thomas could see. One had its eyes gouged and tongue missing.

The worst were the baby bears, which had their intestines hanging out. Judging by the wandering blood trails that ended at their bodies, they’d taken a while to die.

“Um,” Thomas said. “I have a question: What the fuck?”

Twitch said nothing, just marched on. His jaw was so tight that Thomas could see the tendons sticking out on either side.

“Hon, what exactly is Grimm’s Gift again?” Jo asked. She looked equally disturbed by the bears, though she had not reached for the sword or the daggers to slide into an emotionless state yet. Instead, her fingers tapped against the thin crystal vial of potion she’d secured in her belt. She so obviously wanted it that Thomas hadn’t asked to put it in his backpack for safekeeping. The two of them might be largely united against Twitch, but firm trust hadn’t been built between them.

“He can see where people are hiding treasure,” Twitch said. “Gets an idea of the value too.”