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CAVE STATUS
QUESTS/EVENTS
Torrential downpours cause localized flooding and many upset cats. Along with these frequent rain, from gentle drizzles to heavy rainfall, there seems to be a flux of Magicka drawn in particular to water sources. Occasional jet streams of warm air make narrower tunnels harder to navigate. On occasion, the rain intensifies, becoming howling storms with sleet or large hail. However, the temperatures overall are a little warmer, with snow and ice in temperate caves somewhat receding.
The cub watched in fascination, but when the bear turned he acted bored and uninterested. Dispite his hunger Almos didn’t move to get the food.
But the fish the bear had caught was not offered to him. Furrowing his brow in disappointment he put his head down on his paws and looked at the bear.
A plan formed in the young gembound’s mind. If he could get the large slow animal to catch another fish he could run and grab the previously caught food and eat that one!
”Again!” Almos said his head lifting and round little ears moving forward feigning interest.
Unfortunately for Almos, the greedy bear showed no sign of abandoning his meal. Instead, he grunted, glancing sidelong and with instinctive suspicion at the cub. It wasn't that he thought, logically, that the cub was planning anything--he was just a hungry bear, food at his paw, with another predator nearby. It put him on edge, and made him just a little more aggressive.
"You try," he answered bluntly, not in an encouraging fashion. It had been, he felt, generous enough of him to show the cub how fishing worked. Now it was the tiger's turn to make an attempt.
His tone was not rude--but it wasn't all that friendly, either. The bear's demeanor was relatively indifferent. It could probably turn aggressive if pushed, or become friendlier once sated--if it ever was sated. He shook himself, and went back to peeling the fish apart with his teeth, eating pieces. It clearly wasn't large enough for him--it was no long, broad salmon, but rather something smaller and silver. He'd need quite a few of these to fill himself.
Jan 23 2019, 11:58 AM (This post was last modified: Jan 23 2019, 12:02 PM by Almos.)
MAGICKA LEVEL 100% RESTORED TO 100%
When the bear didn't go for another fish Almos rolled his eyes before standing and stretching. Slinking over to the water he waded once again out into the shallows.
The bear obviously wasn't going to help anymore than he already had, so Almos just ignored the large creature for the time being, finding that he was of no real help. The young gembound would actually have to work to get what he wanted.
'This is getting tedious' Almos said as he looked into the waters to find a fish.
The small little shimmering creatures flitted this way and that causing the cub's eyes to grow into black voids. Crouching down Almos didn't feel the water on his hind side and slowly wiggled back and forward, preparing for the catch.
With a quick pounce Almos plunged his head into the water and bit down, the fish wiggling in his face. The said fish was slightly larger than his body, and it's wiggling caused Almos's head to whip back and forward with the force.
Going as quick as he could to the shore Almos dragged the catch to the shore before it began to rapidly bounce around. In his confusion Almos chased after the fish pinning it against a wall and dragging it back to the rock he had previously been on.
Pinning his ears down Almos glanced at the bear, making sure he didn't get near his own food. It seemed the only thing the creature did was eat, and he wasn't about to eat Almos's meal.
The bear's eyes certainly peered up, small and dark under heavy brows, to look at the other fish. The cub had caught his own, and Sergei was tempted by it, but didn't try to take it. He had his own, and his was his, and Almos' was Almos'.
Still chewing on bits of his own, he spoke.
"Hold tight. Sometimes they flop. Flop back into the water, away." Another strip of meat from his dead fish, carefully-pinned between incisors. Then he pulled the entire remaining scrap into his jaws, chewing, his ears rotating idly as he looked back along the shore. Everything was still calm, empty but for the two of them, so he glanced back to the cub--and then turned back to the water.
"Some are big. Some are smaller. Small. These are small." Sergei had little in the way of any parental instinct, and felt no responsibility for Almos or his training. But he spoke nonetheless, indifferently, of what he knew. He had no reason to be hostile, and had already forgotten the cub's attempt to take his food.
He lowered his head, lifting a forepaw to slowly scratch behind one ear, and licked his lips. Dark eyes travelled back out over the water.
Slowly he waded back in, standing chest-deep and watching the depths for any sign of fish.
The cub bit hungrly into the fish his mouth filling with scales. Before he ripped the meat from the body he spit it out using is paws as much as he could to get scared off of his tongue.
’That’s horrible! They are small and everywhere!!’ Almos thought to himself as he used his paw to scrape off the remaining scales like he had seen the bear done.
The tiger looked at the bear wondering who taught him how to live and eat. If there were groups that taught others how to live and survive. The cub pondered this as he continued to bite into the meat. Filling his belly.
”Where from?” Almos asked his mouth full of fish. He swallowed the large hunk and cleared his throat. ”Are others?”
With his belly full Almos felt his eyes become heavy. But he remained awake. He wasn’t going to fall alseep and let just anyone get him. No sir! He would follow the bear to where he came from. They must have protection there right?
Many Gembound could have given Almos more direction. Most would have, perhaps, encountered groups, or even call themselves part of a family in some part of the cave or other.
Almos was unfortunate in this regard, with Sergei. The bear had had exactly three encounters with other Gembound in his life. The first was a horse who had helped him a little, helped him learn to fish when first he hatched. The second, however, had been a black creature approaching him in a wall of whispering shadows--and he'd fled; the third had been a white snake who promised him safety, but vanished he knew not where.
After that he had made his own way--reason enough, perhaps, for his reticent and somewhat feral behavior. It wasn't that he was aggressive, exactly (though of course an adult, male brown bear would be a little snappy, from time to time). He just had little experience with others.
For awhile, standing staring at the water, he thought about Almos' question. His gaze drifted.
"No," he answered, at last. Then seemed to change his mind, hesitating. As if confused. "Yes? Met a--horse, once. Far from here," he added, and then--perhaps the only guidance the cub was liable to receive--he nodded his shaggy head off toward the tunnel that led from Fornax.
"Long tunnel. Hard to climb. It can kill you. Cold. Hard." He remembered Tunnel M, remembered traversing it as a half-grown bear. It was a mile or more long, steeply-sloped, bitter cold and full of jagged outcrops and overhangs. It had been quite like climbing a mountain, and it was the reason--well, that and the warm water and plentiful fish--that he hadn't left Fornax since.
"Other caves, past there," he went on. Then he seemed to become distracted, lowering his head again to nudge around in the water.
The bear shook himself, water spraying from his thick coat as he pulled himself fully onto shore. The strange, white cub hadn't answered, and so--with little more than a half-absent glance back--Sergei turned and made his way off.
He felt no need to force conversation, and if the cat did not want to speak, well, so be it. He had food to find. With a thoughtful rumble he paced away, loose stones shifting underfoot, water streaming from his fur.
The brown bear ambled slowly away, off over the shore of the island, and out of sight.
