Chapter 108: Retrospect

The sheer anger of the Prata was so intense that it was almost solid and touchable in the air. It snarled, paced, and looked as angry as Arthur could imagine any animal being.

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” Arthur said. “This isn’t what it looks like. He brought me here. To help, I think?”

Whatever persuasive power his soothing tones might have had were fully lost on the mother. That was at least partially because the little bear was now more or less in full wail mode, and the mother was interpreting that as an ever escalating distress signal.

But as angry as it was and as hard as it was trying, the mother Prata was powerless to get out of the hole it was in. It would scramble several feet up before slipping back down in a spray of dirt and rocks, then howl and try again. Its fur was scratched and bleeding from multiple spots.

“Stay where you are Lith,” Arthur called out. “I’m trying to think up solutions here.”

The first solution that Arthur came up with was to just chuck the little bear down there, but he pushed that thought out-of-mind for a couple of reasons. First, the little guy might get hurt, and as terrifying as all of this was, Arthur was far from immune to the cuteness of the bear cub. He didn’t want to accidentally scratch the baby Prata up or break a bone, especially when doing so might make him an enemy-for-life with a much larger, more lethal Prata.

There was also the fact that neither of them would probably ever be able to get out of the hole. Pratas reminded Arthur an awful lot of bears, sure, but those similarities seemed to stop at the climbing-up-things category of sameness. If he put the baby down there, it might calm down the mother for a time, but there was a good chance that they’d both starve down there. Arthur didn’t want to die over this, but he wasn’t heartless. There had to be a better way, if he just took the time to think of it.

Arthur went just far enough into his thoughts to wonder how the mother had managed to get so very scratched up by a simple tumble into a hole before the sound of a bow twang and an arrow piercing into flesh snapped him out of his reverie. He wheeled around to see a large reptile in its death throes, followed closely by several of what Arthur’s human instincts swore were very fast crocodiles.

The bow twanged again, followed by instructions.

“Arthur! There’s too many of them! Run!” Lith yelled.

Arthur hesitated just a moment, glancing down in worry at the cub. It was a moment too long. The not-crocodiles had spread out far enough that he couldn’t get around them. And as they got close, their legs tensed. They were going to spring. Almost in slow motion, Arthur did the only thing he could think of. He grabbed the cub around the waist, lifted it into a hug, and tipped backwards into the hole.

As he slid down the steep wall of the pit on his back, Arthur saw the crocodile things spring after him, landing on the wall and chasing on their weird lizard legs. Mamma Prata was somewhere behind him, snarling in rage.

Well, in retrospect, all of this was stupid.

The crocodiles closed the gap fast. Arthur held the bear close as long as he could, then threw it behind him as he struggled to get to his feet. There wasn’t any time. By then, the crocodiles were already in the air again, their spiky-toothed jaws wide open in anticipation of eating some transplant-to-the-demon-world meat.

They never got there. Arthur didn’t know how it was possible, but he had somehow underestimated how mad the mother bear was. He saw a blur of fur out of his peripheral vision as a massive ball crashed into the fray, hitting all of the crocodile-things as a group. The bear was big enough and the crocodiles were packed tightly enough that she made contact with all of them to differing degrees, smacking into them like a wrecking ball and sending them flying.

It was clear enough that the crocodiles worked on pack tactics, and the mother bear had ruined their formation. Arthur backed up, the cub following him as he made distance from the fight. The mother bear swatted one of the crocodiles out of its lunge, then turned and sprang towards Arthur again to prevent an attack on him and her cub. She hit the crocodile from above, driving it down into the soil with a crack. It didn’t get back up.

And, better yet, that was when the arrows started flying.

The next shot from Arthur’s invisible rhino ally hit a crocodile halfway down its back, leaving it alive but vulnerable to the mother Prata who came in, grabbed it in her jaws, and crunched its neck into oblivion. The remain two crocodiles seemed to sense that the odds had turned against them, and spun around to flee. An arrow knocked one back down the slope as the Prata caught the other, nearly breaking it in half with an enraged paw swipe before jumping back down and putting the finishing touches on the last of the crocodiles.

The field was clear now, so long as enraged ursine mothers didn’t count. Arthur did, and tried to sidestep as far as he could from the cub, waiting for the next arrow to fly and remove the threat. It didn’t.

Lith knows more about this than you do. Trust him.

Arthur held on to the thought as hard as he could. As he did, the cub looked around, mewled, and ambled forward, painfully unaware of how close it had been to death or how scary the crocodiles were. It seemed just happy that its mother was available for nuzzling again.

The mother Prata eyed Arthur suspiciously as the cub made it to her legs and rubbed against them, then jumped up to nuzzle her face with its baby snout. Whatever wounds the mother had from her previous experiences with the crocodiles were now re-opened, something she didn’t seem to notice as she turned her attention to her child. Arthur’s attention was so absolutely focused on the threat the mother posed that he saw her cuts scabbing over at a pace visible to the naked eye.

The mother huffed as she settled painfully to the ground and rolled over on her side. The cub squeaked excitedly and began rooting around her belly.

Arthur stood still for a long time, watching this happen. He saw no way to get out of the hole without help, and knew he couldn’t reach the edge anyway if the mother wanted to keep him from getting there. For the moment, he was content to sit still.

And yet, I feel bad.

As the small bear enjoyed its lunch, it was unaware that its mom was in pain. Arthur wasn’t. That fact was hard to miss. There was nothing life-threatening in terms of the wounds on the mother Prata’s body, but every single wound it did have was jagged, long, and deep. The mother was putting on a brave face, but she was in agony.

And there was something Arthur could do about that. Because he, being someone who liked tea a little too much, had an enchanted-to-stay-hot flask of water strapped to his side, tea leaves in a pouch, and the ability to pour massive amounts of majicka into drinks that could heal.

His hands were moving before Arthur really thought about it. He could fix the wounds with tea. Somehow, deep down, he really believed he could fix any problem with tea. That belief was probably going to get him killed, but between the shock of the whole situation and the waning adrenaline from the fight, he wasn’t thinking clearly enough to stop himself.

He took a handful of tea leaves and dumped them into the flask, then recapped it as he shook the entire bottle in his hand, focusing his majicka to a goal he had tried for plenty of times before. This time, his level was a little higher, and he was a little more desperate for it to work. The results showed in the product.

Pain Relief Tea (Fine)

Warning: This particular brew is an outlier result. Further attempts at the same brew may or may not reach the same lofty heights of efficacy, depending on the situation.

This particular blend of tea was made for the purpose of dulling pain quickly, with no other factors considered. The brewer channeled every ounce of available majicka in their body towards that goal, achieving a brew that goes beyond normal.

Effects: Provides a medium amount of immediate relief upon consumption.

Arthur skipped the rest of the description as his legs began to wobble. The description wasn’t wrong. He hadn’t done it on purpose but somehow, he had force-fed the tea every bit of his majicka reserves, to the point where he might black out if he didn’t take it easy for the next few minutes. He sat down heavily on the ground, drawing a suspicious look from the mother Prata. He didn’t really have cups, he realized. Or a saucer. But at the bottom of this hole, the ground was so hard-packed and dense, he suspected that might not matter.

Dizzy from the loss of majicka and without even a tiny bit of his normal judgement intact, he wobbled towards the mother bear, identified a small hollow in the ground near her head, and set the bottle down on its side at an angle that, miraculously, turned out to be right for emptying the contents into a natural earthen bowl. The Prata seemed to sense he wasn’t much of a threat in his current state, and neglected to rip him apart. He wobbled back to his former position, sitting heavily on the ground again.

The bear watched him until he had settled, then sniffed cautiously at the tea. Arthur knew she must be thirsty. She’d been trapped at the bottom of this hole for who knew how long, fighting crocodiles and working herself into a frenzy of worry over her baby. Still, it took her several sniffs before she tilted her head slightly, stuck out her long tongue, and took a cautious lap.

Once that didn’t kill her, she drank the rest of the liquid greedily, going so far as to grab Arthur’s flask, puncturing it with her teeth, and sucking what few gulps of liquid remained down. As her baby continued to nurse, she sighed with obvious relief as the pain-nullifying effects of the tea kicked in.

Arthur was suddenly cold. As the adrenaline wore off and the majicka depletion continued to wear on him, he was feeling legitimately sick. He was dizzy even sitting down, his legs and arms so heavy that he didn’t think he could stand if he tried. Still, none of that seemed like an immediate threat, so long as the baby cub was still feeding. Which, of course, it promptly stopped doing, making little satisfied noises as it looked around for whatever fun it could have in its immediate environment. The first thing it found was Arthur.