• Solo • In re: Hover Bear vs. A Special Committee of Pigs [Mature]

[Oram Mednix]

13 Vhalar 721

A resentful committee of vultures watched from branches overhead while Oram examined the bear carcass near the base of the tree, from which the traveler had -not without difficulty- evicted the carrion birds just bits before. Even though the carcass had been skinned it was not hard to tell that it had been a brown bear, and a large specimen at that. The hunters -and ample signs around the site betrayed those hunters as being thwarthides- had taken only the pelt, much as the wild man Argua had described to Oram last season; otherwise, the carcass, all its meat and lard and other bits, had been left in all their now-rancid, stinky glory for scavengers to eat. The bear, Oram noted, was female, and thus had not been handled as had been the first bear he had found trial before.

Suppressing that last thought for the moment, Oram, looked up at the tree beneath which the dead bear lay. There were some claw marks on the trunk close to the ground, though not as extensive as one might expect from a large bear trying to climb. Looking up farther, the hunter saw to his surprise that there were far more claw marks higher up in the tree than at the base -nearly twenty feet higher up, in fact, up where the buzzards no congregated and glard down at him, with few claw marks in between. Had this been a bumble bear? he wondered. Was that how the thwarthides were hunting them? Argua hadn’t mentioned anything like that, but then, interrogating the man about thwarthide hunting methods had not been Oram’s focus then.

The traveler rose to his feet and looked at the surroundings. The tree, a wide-stretching maple just starting to redden with autumn, had easily attracted his notice not only because of the large wake of carrion birds that had flocked beneath it, but because it stood isolated in the middle of an otherwise clear field. There was not a single other large tree within a hundred feet in any direction. On a hunch, and based on what he had found yesterday, Oram decided to investigate those surrounding trees. As he walked away from the carcass and the maple tree, large black forms flapped to the ground behind him, to resume the feeding the mortal had so rudely interrupted.

Once among the larger trees, Oram began to search the ground carefully, making as full a circuit around the maple’s clearing as feasibly. The thwarthides had waited here, hidden. Oram counted three sites around the perimeter, at each of which perhaps three to six of the pig men had poised, waiting for their quarry. Signs showed they had waited there a while. Based on what he had learned yesterday, the hunter had little difficulty figuring out what had happened next.

[Oram Mednix]

12 Vhalar 721

Oram had searched several den sites that trial. Bears, he knew, visited various potential sites throughout the hot cycle, and into early Vhalar; they would know of several places they could use for denning, enabling them to vacate their chosen site if need be for an alternative. Bears had, in fact, visited several of the sites the hunter had examined: fallen trees, low-overhanging rocks, hollowed out mounds of vegetation or earth. The beasts had not stayed there, though. It was still too early and warm; there was more eating and fattening to do before winter fell upon the Sweetwine.

The thwarthides had found a couple of these places earlier, as well, from what Oram could tell; however, the hunting bands had not found any bears there, apparently leaving empty-handed. There was an oh’deer skeleton at one of the sites, but it had obviously died long before, most likely from causes unrelated to either bears or thwarthides. Oram took his hatchet and smashed the pointed teeth out of the skull, as well as the antlers, both of which, he hoped, might be of interest to alchemists. It was too bad there was nothing left of the hide, as this was the most valuable part of the animal, being unusually tough, and making for especially strong leather.

The hunter searched the forest all trial, inspecting as many as a dozen potential den sites, yet frustratingly he found no sign of thwarthide hunters crossing paths with a bear. It was not until dusk that he encountered a bear carcass, by accident and in an unexpected place. It lay in an almost unrecognizable heap in the middle of a clearing, next to an upright pole or stick. The carcass was almost a tentrial old and quite decomposed and scavanged. The only readable tracks and scat were those of the raccoons, vultures, and various canids that had done the scavenging; there was, however, a broken stone skinning knife nearby, which answered Oram’s questions about how the bear had died and what its hunters had harvested. Prodding the carcass with his spear, he found that the underside, which had been in contact with the ground, still had a lot of meat and lard on it, although this was maggoty and quite unusable by now. Its presence indirectly confirmed what Argua had told him and Sh’ron last season: that the pig men were hunting bears for their pelts and nothing else, leaving the rest to rot.

There was little else for Oram to learn from the bear carcass itself, but that left two things for him to inspect. The first was the upright stick next to the carcass. When the hunter tried it with his hand, he found it embedded quite firmly in the ground, suggesting that it had been hammered in. The top of the stick had some sort of sticky residue on it that had attracted ants. The residue was amber-colored, and it lay atop yet another residue that coated the wood, this one white and waxy. The second was the stone knife.

Ralaith had lately blessed the hunter with, among other things, the ability of psychometry. This enabled him to see things connected to the past of objects Oram held. Thus far, he had not used it. Not knowing what to expect, Oram calmed himself and cleared his mind, trying to focus and tune out his surroundings while he held each of the two objects to read impressions from them.

Those impressions were moderately strong, yet confusing in their content and import. Images of ham-fisted hands hammering the stick deep into the ground with a flat rock, accompanied by emotional impressions of greed, expectation, eagerness, also some fear. Something round, maybe the size of a man’s head, was mounted on the stick. It was not, to the Shirvain’s relief, a man’s head at all, but instead a large chunk of beehive, holding a goodly volume of comb dripping with honey.

Oram felt mentally drained after doing this, so he put off trying to read anything from the knife until later. He took it back with him to his camp and tried to read on it some time after he had eaten, once night had already fallen. The knife itself probably had a short history; thwarthide tools were not very durable, and frequently replaced; moreover, the impression Oram was interested in was a recent one, less than a tentrial old. Still, it took him nearly half a break to form the impression he wanted -or rather, the one he had thought he wanted before he actually saw it. Before that, the impressions he got were a similar mix of the feelings he had sensed earlier, but with one addition that Oram couldn’t immediately pin down, one that struck him as more subtle and complex, more an attitude than a simple emotion.

When at last Oram got a visual impression from the knife, he found himself wishing he hadn’t. The last thing the knife was used for before it broke was removing the bear’s penis, something the hunter not only saw, but felt as did the thwarthide who had done the deed. Oram quickly dropped the knife. He had been a hunter all his life, and was not squeamish, yet there were some things he preferred not to look at longer than necessary. However, the thing that unsettled him -and confused him- the most was that feeling he had earlier not recognized. As the thwarthide had performed the operation with the stone knife, that feeling flared up keenly, and Oram realized what it was:

Ambition.

[Oram Mednix]

14 Vhalar 721

The thwarthides had not returned to either one of their previous hunting sites; however, the scavengers had, and the traps Oram had set the night before had bagged him a couple martens to add to the furs of the rabbits he had caught for food the trial before. The thwarthides’ absence confirmed a suspicion that the hunter had: the fact that they were simply leaving the carcasses where they lay, rather than hauling them off to dispose of them, suggested that the pig-men weren’t planning on re-using the places any time soon. This puzzled Oram, it seemed that suitable locations for what they were doing would not be trivial to find.

That morning after breakfast he had tried to read the knife again, for a bit longer than before, though not much. Oram simply hoped to find out more about how the thwarthides were actually hunting. His efforts repaid him with visions of a bear in the clearing, sniffing at the honeycomb mounted on the stick, followed by thwarthides emerging from the surrounding bushes in each direction, grunting, squealing, bellowing for all their voices were worth while brandishing their spears. At last, Oram caught a glimpse of the pigmen standing in a circle, looking up at a bear hovering in mid-air, perhaps twenty feet overhead, snarling and roaring down in anger and frustration at its persecutors.

The bear had certainly been a bumble bear, and not just any brown bear, Oram realized, and the thwarthides had known that. They had come up with a clever way to hunt them: lure the bear into a clearing, well clear of any surrounding trees that the bear could float or jump to, then attack it from all sides, surrounding and cutting it off from retreat. Bumble bears could only levitate up or down, according to the book Oram had read last cycle in the Scholar’s Nook; to move horizontally through the air, they needed to push off of something, to “scud” as the author had called it. The first site Oram had found had no trees at all in it, the second just the one. The surrounding trees hadn’t been close enough for the treed bear to reach.

These thwarthides were more resourceful and cunning than people generally realized; they had a tactic that had proved effective. What was more, Oram thought as he recalled the ambitious feeling he had picked up from the broken stone knife, they had a goal they were working towards, a goal more socially-pointed than just food or bearskin coats.

Oram searched around the second site to see if he could figure out where the thwarthides had gone. The second site was northeast of the first, and heading northeast took one both deeper into bumble bear territory and also closer to where the thwarthides were known to to be most active. The hunter found the most traces of activity at the northeast edge of the second clearing, so he guessed that they were indeed going that way.

Even with a large hunting party, and notwithstanding his skill Oram would have been hard pressed to keep pace with a band moving at a brisk pace. He found himself wishing he had Choir with him, but the poor song wolf had had his skull crushed by Kata not twenty trials before; he had quite a bit of healing yet to do before he was recovered enough for the rigors of the hunt. Fortunately, the thwarthides were not marching home just yet; they were looking for more hunting sites as they went, and that meant they moved slowly. And once they found a good ambush, they would wait there to catch a bear, giving the traveler time to catch up with them.

It took even less time to do so than he had anticipated. It was not even sunset when he heard a commotion up ahead, punctuated by sounds all-too-familiar to him through his psychometric impressions: the angry roars of a bumble bear, answered by raucous responds of screaming boars.

To be continued...

[Pig Boy]

Player Name: Oram Mednix

Points awarded: 10
Magic xp: none

Knowledge:

[Combat: Axes & Cudgels] Smashing apart a deer’s skull with a hatchet
[Hunting] The angry roar of a brown bear.
[Hunting] Bear denning behavior.
[Investigation] Psychometry can be a useful tool for investigating a crime or event scene.
[Meditation] Trying to focus while performing a psychometric reading.
[Psychology] Thwarthides can form the notion of ambition

Renown: n/a
Loot: oh deer teeth and antlers, a marten skin and a couple rabbit pelts.
Injuries/Overstepping: n/a
Wealth Points: n/a

Skill Review: All Skills used appropriately to PC's level

Notes: This story is very detail-oriented, from the hunting methods that the Thwarthides are employing to his actual investigation and correlating facts he's discovered, such as the bumblebear's ability to only levitate up and down. That turned out to be a very important fact for Oram to discover, as the traps for bumblebears are solely in clearings. I can almost imagine in horror how the bears would float up to the honeycomb, only to be unable to jump over the Thwarthides and find purchase on another tree. It's almost sad.

Psychometry is a very useful ability for Oram, in this instance, as he uses investigative prowess to uncover the history of the tools used to butcher the bear. I almost winced when Oram 'felt' rather than saw the bear's penis being torn off. That was quite a harrowing description.

The thread ended in a very interesting and suspenseful way, with the raucous screaming of bears and boars. Hopefully, Oram can get to the bottom of this, and start his conservation efforts in earnest.

I very much enjoyed this thread, I think it's great that you used a hook from the forging and a little consequence I gave you to find thwarthides, and married them into this story about conserving the bumblebears for Ralaith. Well done.


If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this review, feel free to PM. Enjoy your rewards!