Bear and I III
Chapter 3
It took Rick and Max an entire week to be ready to head for the gap that Rick had spotted on the way there. They had spent the week nearly hunting the area to oblivion. Between Rick's arrows, his traps for smaller animals, and what Max did to the stream that once held fish, that area was now hurting a little. However, that just meant the babies of parents of various animals had a neutral place to move to and make it their own.
It was a lot like cutting down trees but planting seedlings so that they had direct sunlight to help them grow. Less competition for nutrients in the ground. They would grow fast and strong.
It also meant Max's stomach was finally full and Rick had enough of everything he was going to need for over a week, if not more. Besides there would be wildlife on the mountain if the need arose.
It was when they reached a much steeper slope or a much harder rise that Rick had shifted to his Dire Bear form. He was now a match for his best buddy. It was nearly impossible to tell them apart. It was the size of both of them that made early travel easy. All that loose rock and shale was no match for these two.
They traveled all day since Rick saw a plateau that they could use. Also as the day turned to night it was getting colder the higher up they went.
Rick shifted back to human, pulled out his tent, and set it up. "Reduce down, buddy, and go inside." Rick waited for him to use the magic item he had bought just for him. It allowed him to reduce himself in size. It only had one or two limitations.
One was that he could only change between the two sizes. His normal size and that of a normal wolf. Second was that he could only stay in this form for twelve hours out of a twenty-four hour day. So as long as they didn't sleep too long and got back going at full size that limitation didn't present a problem. The only other problem was having Max change size to full size while still inside the tent. If he did that the tent would be permanently ruined. Bits and pieces of cloth might become useful for something, but as a tent? Never again.
"Water?" Rick poured some out for him to lap up and since he was wolf size he didn't need much. Rick drank some himself and got out his stone to light up the tent. "I wonder what's on the other side?" Rick had no idea. For all he knew it was a little green area and then maybe ocean. "Maybe there's a beach."
He listened to his buddy growl. "A beach? A beach is sand with a whole lot of ocean beyond," Rick tried to explain and listened to him snort. "Sand is…sand is..." How did one describe sand? "You'll know it when you see it." Rick didn't know what to tell him.
"It's been a long time since I saw an ocean let alone sand. I think I was five. Pretty sure my parents went the wrong way and ended up on a beach. I liked it. Not sure my parents did." Rick remembered they had an argument about something.
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They were making steady progress. The gap was pretty much staying just like it was save for the fact that they did keep getting higher up. The two Dire Bears only appeared to have a problem with their footing only on occasion. It was the loose shale rock that actually ever gave them any trouble.
Neither of them saw any wildlife worth eating. Even more to the point all vegetation was now below them. So what Rick had gathered before they started to climb was all he had to work with and it was looking like all he was going to have for a while.
Unlike his best buddy, Rick could still talk in this form. Though he could also talk bear talk if he chose to but Rick was used to talking so he kept doing it.
"We're running out of places to pitch the tent so I'm thinking that little plateau up there might be next." Rick tried pointing at it with his big paw. "Except the way it sits has me worried. I don't think it's going to support either of our weights. We're just too big for it so even getting on it is going to be a challenge."
Max snorted his acceptance and they both began to climb. Unfortunately both of them kept hitting loose shale that continued to break loose. It was starting to get scary. If enough of this broke away under their paws, they could find themselves back where they started with a few added scrapes, bruises, and maybe a broken bone or two.
Because of this they were approaching the plateau from both sides so that they weren't sending loose shale down onto each other.
Rick was finally just about even with the plateau and decided to change back to human form. Reaching into his backpack he took out a grappling hook and attached a rope. Now he just needed to hook onto something so he could pull himself to the plateau, hopefully not letting the shale break loose and sending him to the bottom with a broken body.
It took him seven tries till he finally hooked something and started walking across and that soon turned into more climbing up the rope since his footing was shit.
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"Well that was fun." Rick was bent over huffing and puffing and didn't mean a word of it. However, he still needed to get his best buddy up here with him. So he walked over to his side and looked down; it looked like Max was stuck. His weight was a real problem for him. When he adjusted his weight even a little it was like he was about to lose his footing and tumble all the way down.
"Hang on buddy I'm coming." Rick found a rock that didn't move, set his hook and wrapped the rope around it, and threw the other end over to him. "Don't move!"
Using the rope for his support he walked his way down and over to Max. "Now comes the hard part." Rick listened to him snort since Max thought just getting here was the hard part. In fact just staying where he was wasn't any fun either.
"Let me get hold of your leg first. …Now I want you to change to your small size. You'll weigh a lot less and I can get you to the plateau much easier. Ready? Shift." In almost an instant Max was about the size of a wolf.
"Now I just need to tie this end of the rope around you and not choke you to death." Rick got to work while at the same time tried to not lose his footing and send both of them to the bottom.
"There. Now wait right here and try not to move." Rick climbed up the rope till he was back on the plateau. What he needed to do was rest a minute and flex his hands to get the blood moving again.
"All right, I pull and you walk if you can. Just be careful." Rick thought pulling up about a 75 pound timber wolf should be easy enough. Far easier than even dreaming of pulling up an 8,000 pound Dire Bear.
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Rick had Max up with him and the rope off of his body. "We made it! We've got light for maybe another hour so let's look around a little before I set up the tent and we settle in." Rick walked around after winding up his rope and putting it and his hook away.
"What did you find?" Max had growled at him so that had Rick joining him. "Interesting, very interesting." Rick walked backwards a few feet. "What is this thing?" Rick could almost swear that he could see what Max had found going up and around and back down again. It took a lot of imagination but he could see it if he tried.
"We'll look in the morning. We're running out of light so I need to set up the tent."
Granted the tent only took maybe a minute but since he didn't have any firewood up here and he hadn't packed any at all he felt it was time to use his magical cape that was packed away.
The trick of his cape was that it could be transformed into a rain suit to keep him dry including a large hood. Or he could shake the cape out and into a little one man tent. However, right out front of the opening was a little fire pit that never used up the wood but it only lasted for 12 hours before being turned back into a cape.
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Max was chewing on his dinner and didn't need nearly as much in this size than he did as a Dire Bear. It was just he didn't like this size all that much. It felt weird to him.
Rick was sitting in the opening of the little tent and was cooking over his little fire pit.
Now why didn't he use this little tent instead of the bigger one? One word. SIZE! Rick had a problem with really tight spaces. Sleeping in that tiny little tent felt like sleeping in a coffin and he just couldn't handle that. A sleeping bag was fine but this little tent. No fucking way.
He knew it was in his head and not real but he couldn't shake it. So the big tent it was. But it was a good way to cook and not use wood.
Max was munching away just as Rick was checking his meat to see if it was done yet. It wasn't so he put it back over the fire. "What do you think that wall is?" Rick was more than willing to let Max offer his opinion.
Max snorted and huffed out a breath. "A door? Interesting." Rick looked at it again and thanks to his little fire he could see where it was. "A magical rock wall that has a door in it. I don't suppose you're hiding any wizardly skills that I don't know about?"
Max growled at him. "Yeah, yeah you hate wizards." Rick had no idea why he hated wizards so badly. It wasn't like either of them had met that many but he hated them.
"So how do we open a hidden wizard door without a wizard?" Rick looked at it again and took his meat off the fire.
Max, though, had an idea. So he growled, huffed, and snorted out some snot out of his nose. It immediately caused Rick laugh his head off and just kept laughing.
"Sacrifice… Sacrifice a wizard. You're just full of good ideas." Rick sliced off a piece of his meat and suddenly began to chortle.
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Rick had put his little one man tent away last night before going into the main tent. Once in the main tent nothing much else happened that didn't normally happened.
"So where do we get a wizard to sacrifice to get your door to open?" Rick asked his best buddy.
Max's answer had Rick laughing again. "I don't think that will work. First off if I had a wish I wouldn't waste it on teleporting a wizard here to sacrifice to get the door to open. Especially if he could just cast a spell, force it open, and then just go away.
"How about another idea," Rick asked him and listened to his response. "I don't have a hammer to just break it open and before you think it the plateau won't hold your normal weight." Rick shook his head at him and listened to his snort.
"I appreciate your size and strength just not on this plateau," Rick told him. "We may be here for a few days. Is that okay with you. I'm thinking it may take some time to uncover what might be there. After that we can decide."
Rick listened to him growl his response. Rick knew he was going to have to search his black hole that was 10 feet x 10 feet x 10 feet to see what he had to work with. He didn't want to damage it, he just wanted to expose it.
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Kate only knew of two ways out of their valley: through the mountains that surrounded them and kept them safe because they were so tall. No sane person would begin to try and climb them without knowing what was on the other side or just how long the mountains lasted. They could cold climb one only to find another after going down just so they could go back up. They would be dead before they finished.
Once was relatively easy. It was narrow and in some cases incredibly narrow. It was also guarded. Not by them of course but still guarded. Most live creatures would have a hard time getting past them. Kate knew of a way to get past them but where she wanted to go wasn't that way.
That meant they had to do a fair amount of crawling in pitch black darkness. Thankfully Kate had a continual light spell on a stone as did Lanie. All they had to do was uncover it and it would send out bright light for sixty feet and faded light for basically another sixty feet and even dimmer light after that.
Now this trip was not for the faint of heart. It was enclosed and while they never got to actually stand up they didn't have to crawl on their bellies all the time. In a few cases they could at least bend way down and walk.
However, it also wasn't the safest trip to take. Insects, spiders, and any number of things could be down here. Not all of these were the tiny little things found in their backyard.
Some insects could be a foot long to two feet long. Spiders could be anywhere from an inch across to three feet across or bigger and even those had a mommy somewhere, meaning several feet wide and weigh maybe three hundred pounds, and since all of these things could crawl where none of them could and come from anywhere and then leave just as fast if you presented an unexpected danger.
"AAHHH!" Roz screamed and since she was crawling with a dagger in her hand she hacked at this giant bug that was crawling up her leg and prayed she didn't cut her leg off.
"Are you okay?" Lanie was right in front of her with Kate right in front of her.
"I HATE BUGS!" Roz told everyone within range of her.
"Take my light." Lanie threw the stone at her feet for Roz to pick up. This meant the light from these two stones would travel just a little farther.
"Thanks." Roz snatched it up and tried to hold it up high while she crawled on her belly, her dagger still out in her other hand.
"Remind me how we're going to get dead goats through all this," Lanie called ahead to Kate who was out in front.
"We gut them, skin them, and wrap up the choice parts in the skin. Then sew it closed and drag them behind us. Simple." Kate was hoping it was easy since she hated crawling on her belly.
What she didn't need was for something down here to smell or detect the blood and come looking for an easy meal and add them to that meal.
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They finally reached a cave where they could at least sit up and look around. Kate got out something to eat and watched the others do the same.
"How much further?" Roz was done with crawling on her belly.
"We're about halfway. It will take all day to reach the exit. Then we can set up camp and go hunting the next day. If we're really lucky this will only take us four days," Kate told them yet again.
"Remind me why I volunteered for this?" Lanie questioned her.
"Because you're my best friend. Because if we don't do this Gina will make my life miserable. And if I'm miserable because of Gina I'm going to make everyone else's life miserable starting with my best friend." Kate grinned at Lanie.
"Remind me again why I'm your best friend?" Lanie grinned back at her.
"Because it's either me or Gina and no one likes Gina," Kate responded.
"She's got a point." Roz began eating what she had brought.
"Abby could be my best friend," Lanie countered. "No, not Abby. Asia, maybe and why am I stuck on the A's?" Lanie's worry about being down here was starting to affect her.
"Because you're a loser and only Kate puts up with you." Roz did her best to say it with a straight face till she finally lost it and began laughing, getting Kate to join her in the laughter.
"You're starting to look like a goat to me, Roz." Lanie grinned impishly at her and now Kate was really laughing her head off. She knew they were all friends and suddenly this was actually a little fun.
Till they went back to crawling on their hands and knees before finally getting to stand a little again.
It took them hours to finally see daylight which was actually the sun setting fast.
"We need to set up our tents fast." Kate started searching for hers.
Roz froze and stood there looking at the sun setting behind the mountain. "Tent?"
"Roz?" Kate asked, not believing her. How could she forget to bring a tent?
"I forgot my tent." Roz gave Kate her best Please don't be mad and hurt me look. "It was an accident."
"Lanie?" Kate gave her a look.
"I forgot my tent, too." Lanie looked really, really sorry.
"How can you…?" Kate didn't know what to do with these two. "Please tell me you at least brought your sleeping bags or you two are going to freeze to death."
"Of course I brought my sleeping bag! How stupid do you think I am?" Roz asked indignantly. "Don't answer that." Kate had opened her mouth to say something but closed it.
"Lanie?" Kate glared at her.
Lanie rolled her eyes. "Of course."
Kate wasn't sure how all three of them were going to fit in her little tent but it looked like they were going to find out. "You two better not snore," Kate threatened them.
"US? What about you?" Roz retorted.
Kate exploded. "I'm not the one who didn't bring a tent!" She glared at them. "Just help me set mine up." Kate still didn't believe them. "And I'm going to snore on purpose!"