brought to you by Tow
- winner: ‘Bearish thoughts’ by Julya (winnning 5 credits and a bear necklace)
- runner up: ‘SCT - Serial Cub Tester’ by Tow
Bearish thoughts.
Tendrils of mist wound their way through the trees. The big regal trees casting long shadows as the full moon rose. Brown was sleeping peacefully in his cave, curdled up tight in his favourite patch deep in a crack in the back.
Blue lightning crackled through the sky and seemed to strike home close by.
Brown opened a lazy eye. A bit disturbed by the noise he listened intently to the sounds in what usually was a very silent Eleusis.
Nothing...
Another bolt struck close by.
Brown peered into the dark outside his cave and there it was. A rustling in the brushes that concealed his safe cave. A silhouette emerged from the dark, the moon behind it clearly defining its outline. It scurried to the left side of the cave and held close to the wall as if to keep it from caving it, no, that's not it. It was trying to be inconspicuous.
Brown rose slowly and silently from his spot. No one was to disturb him in his sleep. He was beginning to feel a little grumpy by this intrusion and was going to have his say in this.
After all this was HIS cave. He was entitled to his undisturbed sleep.
Winter was approaching, his need for sleep was increasing anyway.
He slowly moved towards the cave-mouth and raised himself to is full height behind the now small creature that was holding on close to the wall and was intently peering outside.
Brown inhaled deeply, ready to let out a big roar.
Then the figure turned its head and looked into the cave straight into his hairy legs. It gave a start and followed the legs upwards to his torso and up to his head, just when he was about to roar at it. The dwarf, that's what the figure was, looked at his face and produced a wide grin. "Oh hello, you must be the bear my daddy told me about". The voice was small, feminine and kind of jolly. Brown blinked. He gulped and let out a long breath.
The figure pulled on his paw to shake his hand.
"I'm Galena and I'm working on my Sentinel Cub test, I need to walk all the way across Sapience and find out how to get from one town to another.
What a scary lightning was that eh? Did you see it?"
Brown worked his mouth, quite an inquisitive little dwarf, what to do with this, he did long to get back to sleep, yet his inner voice was, as always, wiggling its finger telling him to be polite.
"Ehm, well yes I saw the lightning little girl, I'm Brown by the way, Brown Bear."
"Well met Brown, my name is Galena Lashyr, but I have to be 'Sentinel Cub Galena' till I finish this test. I was going to Hashan, but the lighting got me scared, do you know where to go to get back on track?"
Brown pondered the situation. This little cublet was seriously easygoing and he was of two minds on this. He wanted to get back to sleep, yet, he also felt pleasantly obliged to help this little girl. His grumpiness had evaporated by the lack of fear in this little one and the cheerful way she addressed him. Grudgingly he gave in to the little voice in his head and his mounting cheer.
He sunk back on all fours and addressed the little dwarf. "If you like, I can take you to Hashan, though only a little way off, I don't like that town at all, too smelly and stuff", Brown wrinkled his nose to give his opinion more weight. This reminded him. He sniffed the dwarf girl and was pleasantly surprised. She didn't smell bad at all, a whiff of pine, some earthy smell, that which most dwarves have and something that smelled like stew, he'd tasted that once when he had chased a man away from his cave a few years back. The stew was lying around and well, no need to let good food go to waste.
"Oooh, really, that'd be wonderful", the little dwarf squealed with delight. "Can I sit on your back?", then Galena blushed, she might have been to forward.
Brown chuckled a little, he was in a good mood now and he didn't feel insulted at all. "Sure" he enthused and lowered his torso to allow her to get on his shoulders. Galena giggled and gingerly mounted him. She scratched his back absently and Brown closed his eyes in pleasure. "A bit to the left", he said. Galena didn't respond immediately but apparently she understood it and a wonderful scratch at the right spot had Brown utter a rumbling purr.
When Brown’s itchy spot was cleared he set off towards the smelly town.
Hashan is easy to find for brown bears, its smell emanates from the centre of the woods and the trees seem to lean outwards from it. Galena made the trip pleasant with a soft hummed song and some accompanying scratching. The trip was way too short. But they arrived soon at the gates. Well, a way off, Brown didn't want to go too close, the smell would linger in his nose too long.
Galena reluctantly climbed off him and gave him a kiss on the nose. Then she waved happily and shouted some more thanks.
Brown watched her leave with a bit of sorrow. He even followed her a little closer to town to see her safely off. He regretted that later, the smell stuck with him for a day and this led to annoying questions by his friends, but the truth is, he didn't care.
He'd be nice to cubs. He was sure of that. Whenever they came by, Brown Bear would stay polite and helpful.
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SCT - Serial Cub Tester
All I seem to be able to remember is that he was looking quite innocent, weak and feeble. But sometimes the outside can be treachery. That’s all I can remember next to falling rocks, claws and blood... the rest is nothing but darkness. But let me start at the beginning...
On a sunny spring morning I wake up looking in the beautiful eyes of my sweet siren wife Julya. Which man wouldn’t want to wake up with sweet lips kissing him awake on a lovely morning in spring? I’m sure what followed next would be a more interesting story then the one I’m about to tell, but I better move forward a bit to begin the story I was trying to tell. Those sirens always make your mind drift away...
So on a sunny spring morning I was working on my cub-notes to see what new meat we got. Then this friendly looking Sentinel cub asked me if I could do his SCT, the Sentinel Cub test, his second test towards becoming a full Sentinel Housemember. He did tell me he tried it some months ago with another Cub Aide but they didn’t get far as it seemed he wasn’t quite ready yet. He assured me now it would go better. I told him to meet me at Vixen, our House tutor in the House estate.
He had me waiting a bit but finally he arrived. We swung up in the trees were I checked his first requirements. His level was over 20 and he did have a mentor from within the House. His mentor was already dormant for quite some time, but the cub couldn’t help that. Then I checked his required herbs. There the trouble began, he was missing one kind of herb and from a few others he didn’t have the right number. He claimed some monster afflicted him and he needed some of the herbs to get cured. He overlooked the missing kind. But he did have some gold so I sold him what he was missing, even giving him a little discount. Then I checked his knowledge about some of the herbs. His answers wear a bit skimpy and with some he took quite some time to answer but he ended up finding the info he needed.
I tested many cubs where this first part went much easier and more fluent, so I asked him he was sure he was up to the test. In response he looked at me with sad puppy-eyes and pleading me to continue the test, he didn’t want to fail but didn’t want to hear ‘try another time’.
So we went on after I made sure he understood if he would screw up or not do well enough he would fail and be cast out of the House. I checked his vials, at least he had them all, but his knowledge about them was only average. For their test the Sentinel cubs also need to have the harvesting-laws in their journal. He didn’t copy them exactly and let out some little details but I shrugged at it as it did have the essential things and he wasn’t of an harvesting class. Then we came to the essay answering the question What does being a Sentinel mean to you? I sighed, it wasn’t good at all, way to short to start with and it looked like a collection of lines from the House’s help-scrolls. I told him he would have to rewrite that, it needed a personal touch. I was starting to fear he was going to fail. It already was his second try and he could have done a bit more preparation. But he really wanted to continue and complete this test so I decided to move on. He better will do a great walk and show me he knows his way around Sapience well or I will have to fail him I said to myself. So we came out of the trees and went on our way...
We started walking to Hashan and we crossed the river Zaphar but then he took a wrong turn. I was barely able to stop us from falling through the trapdoor at Forestwatch that would drop us in the tentacles of the Slugbeast. We finally arrived and went to Ashtan. On the way there he took a detour around Petra but we got there in the end. The Flame of Yggdrasil he didn’t find so I told him to forget about it and take us to Cyrene. Again one of those days, I don’t like to fail them, but sometimes it is necessary. He wanted to climb the mountains but I told him this path would only lead us into the claws of the lions. I shook my head and told him it wasn’t looking well. But he really wanted to get to Cyrene. But again he took a wrong turn and we ended up in the Southern Vashnars. I told him to stop and listen to what I was going to say...
But then it all starts to get blurry... I remember getting a tell from another cub and all the sudden I get pushed and feel the rocks slide down the mountain beneath my feet. I try to hang on but the Sentinel Cub had sent me tumbling down the mountain. When I finally hit the ground with a big smack I heard this ferocious roar. A mountain grizzly came charging towards me, angry from the rocks hitting him from above. Raking his claws across my body causing a lot of bleeding damage the bear killed me fast and everything went black...
Luckily a watchful Sentinel saw me die on deadsight and my brother Eski was the first to arrive and grab my corpse. With the help of a friendly druid I was rezzed quickly. I didn’t loose much but I never was able to fill in the holes in my memory. We tried to find the Sentinel cub that pushed his tester down the mountain in the claws of a hungry grizzly. At the time all this happened we had about 6 Sentinel Cubs and they all seemed to have an alibi. 3 of them had gotten an extra chance to pass their test. We even lined them all up, but I really couldn’t remember which one it was. We never knew the identity of this evil cub...
Therefore one of the first things I did when becoming HoN was installing a system where all people working with the cubs log in and out at the start and the ending of every intro, interview or test they start. The only thing I fear is that somehow this Sentinel cub became a Forestwalker and that the same thing might happen again. The forestwalking department doesn’t log the start of a test…