The Orc in the Hole
A tale freshly told of the Beorning
Batruga gets himself stuck in a tight spot, and an elf attacks one of the kin of Grimbeorn
Night has come with--surprise....--yet another storm crashing brutally through the mountains, lightning cracking the sky, exploding as it hits the rocky mountain slope, thunder crashing and echoing through the heights. A party of Beornings and elves is huddled under a rocky overhang, forced to take shelter from the storm.
Alone on the mountain slope is one huge brown bear, patrolling restlessly despite the violence of the storm.
[Batruga(#19026)]
Surprise, surprise? Never is the high pass a safe bet. Not by day, and not by night. Such is the luck of the old one, that he would begin his retreat up the twisted mountain path anew, at twilight, while the scent of man and bear hangs heavy in the air. Rounding a corner along the path, crawling his way up to a narrow perch in a split cleaving a great grey talon-shaped boulder, Batruga\'s crooked nose twitches, and his nostril\'s flare.
\"Sewer-brine and toadstool-logs, curse ye to the sun,\" he whispers to himself, under his breath. In the denigrated speech of his mountain ilk, he swears.
\"Many - many are they. And then,\" adds he, neck craning, pale eyeless head turning to pick up yet another scent on the light breeze, \"...one of the demons, too, perhaps. Pah, \'truga, pah. Nay, says you...nay.\"
He slithers downward, further into the crevice once again, his head shaking back and forth and his gnarled hand trembling involuntarily as he grips the burlap-grip of his crude staff-come-spear.
Abruptly, the bear stops its pacing, sniffing the air. A few growls it gives, almost syllabic in their cadence. \"Now what stalks us on this cursed path? It\'s bad enough a troll...and thunder to carck the very rocks here....\" The bear sniffs the air again, its large head swiveling this way and that in the night. He is brown-black, blending into the dark night and only illuminated when lightning cracks the sky.
[Batruga(#19026)] Deeper into the crack the wretch wedges himself. Growling? Or thunder? Recalling an old orcish campfire joke about beijabar flatulence and storm-talking, he just manages to stifle a chuckle, despite what he suspects about the gravity of his current situation. He grinds his teeth. The skin tautly stretched over his eye-sockets moves erratically, as his malformed eyes roll about within. On the grey surface of his forehead, a large vein grows larger, pulsing wildly.
Again the thunder rolls.
Another sniff of the air...and the beijabar waddles slowly in the direction of the crack that the orc has wedged himself into...venturing close to it, but not so close yet as for the orc to strike him. \"What is that in there??!\" he growls loudly. \"Orc it is I smell! Or the remnants of its foul stench.\"
[Batruga(#19026)] *Snuufle-grumpfh rrrwooowl rrrargh wooooogh! Gooarrrrrkghgk mmmmmm-aaaaaaaooooooo rrr aaaaaah!* (What the orc hears of the bear talk)
Batruga pinches his legs tightly together so as not to involuntarily release a stream of briny yellow. As silently and as carefully as he can, he attempts to wedge himself still further down into the crack in the rock. His chain armor makes this quite difficult (the quiet part), and thus the rasping sound of stones being scraped lightly by metal ring might be heard. Beneath him, his right foot feels strangely...uncrowded by the rock. He attempts to compact himself into his knee, buckling over, lips pale, right hand shoving his spear downward now past his foot, sensing a void beneath him - under this infernal, impossibly narrow crevasse.
[Ranaentaure(#12575)]
Under the strobe-lit sky, a courageous (or simply incautious) elf stalks the mountainside. Ranaentaure has come across the tracks of a bear that he follows with more cautious sense than he displays in being out from under the overhang, his cloak pulled close around him and his form hunkered close to the ground to make as small a target of himself as possible. He\'s still some good distance off when a crack of lightning illuminates the target of his hunt snuffling around a crack in the mountain wall, and he crouches there to peer intently at the beast.
Attracted by the scent of whatever it is that he is snuffling in the crevice, the bear does not notice the elf. Instead it snorts and snuffles some more--no syllable-like cadence to the noises now. And then it reaches a massive paw into the crevice, slamming the paw down as if to hit something!
You attack Batruga with your Beijabar Fists...
[Combat(#13388)->Mobeorn]
Your attack against Batruga badly wounds him!
[Batruga(#19026)] The long reach of the bear is sufficient to scour the orc, Deeply. Knocking his helmet aside, Batruga\'s scalp and upper back is exposed and the ursine dagger-claws rend a long strip of flesh from his body. Involuntarily crying out in pain, the orc wriggles with renewed vigor, struggling to free himself from the restrictions of his armor as he wishes, desperately, that he could melt into the rock itself. Both of his feet are through the hourglass-like narrows of the upper portion of the rock\'s deformity. His spear he drops below him, into the crack where it can be heard to land with a soft clatter just a split-second after it is released from his sweating palm.
ARB: Batruga has \"passed\" on his turn to attack.
[Ranaentaure(#12575)]
The sight of the bear reaching into the crack in the rock followed by a very humanesque cry of pain brings a rapid response from Ranaentaure, who reaches over his shoulder to extricate his longbow from where it\'s lashed against his quiver. With deft speed the elf strings the weapon, then lifts it and nocks an arrow to take aim at the dangerous beast.
There\'s a crack of thunder, ear-splitting, and a flash of violent lightning that hits the ground further up the mountain, sending rocks tumbling down somewhat past this little group. Mobeorn looks up, but it\'s not toward the elf--it\'s toward the rock slide. But the rocks don\'t seem to be coming toward the pass...at least not yet...and the orc in the crevice is bloodied and screaming, and that draws the beijabar\'s attention. With another smash of its paw, the bear tries to bloody the orc.
Batruga dodges your attack.
[Batruga(#19026)]
Perhaps his efforts to tear off his own limbs to save the rest of him are succeeding. The next vicious swipe of the bear\'s paw misses him, and the orc is able to wedge himself further down the crack. Now his hips are bound by the constriction in the stone, and his chain-shirt is up over his head, caught and tangled between rock and limb. He exhales as heavily as he can, and then twists downward anew, violently.
[Ranaentaure(#12575)]
The vicious beast attacks what Ranaentaure has to guess is either an elf or one of their Beorning traveling companions wedged into the face of the mountain for the second time, and this time the elven hunter has his bow drawn and an arrow already against the string. He sights for a moment before letting fly, and his hand streaks over his shoulder to pluck a fresh shaft from his quiver.
Ranaentaure launches an arrow...
Ranaentaure\'s arrow flies wide, doing no harm.
WHAP WHAP WHAP!!! The bear slaps again and again at the rock crevice to no avail--the orc having wedged himself down into it so tightly that he can just barely reach. Bear claws swipe, trying to get tangled up in that chain mail and perhaps pull Batruga up by it. To do so, though, the bear flattens to the ground, and it is this that saves him from the elf\'s arrow, which goes whooshing over his head. But the bear is intent on its prey, and doesn\'t notice his danger still.
[Batruga(#19026)] The beast\'s claws graze the surface of the chain, but fortunately for Batruga they do not catch upon it, at least, not at this moment. Now almost ridiculously immobilized due to the cold grasp of the rock on his narrow hips, the orcs upper torso writhes as he tries to pull the lower edge of the mailshirt up over his head. Part of it is stuck between his belt buckle and a knurled jut of the rock at his waist.
He no longer shouts in pain, nor has he any further words for the animal. This is survival, not a conversation.
[Ranaentaure(#12575)]
The bear seems intent on whatever innocent victim Ranaentaure thinks is trapped there in that crack in the rocks and doesn\'t take note of the clatter when the arrow shatters against the stone above its head. Just as intently the elf nocks his second arrow, sights down on the beast and lets fly.
Ranaentaure launches an arrow...
Ranaentaure\'s arrow flies wide, doing no harm.
\"Filth! Vermin of the darkness! Go back into the void where you belong!\" This time the bear\'s roars have a definite cadence to them, and he punctuates them with a huge slam of a paw, as if trying to now push the orc down into the bowels of the mountain--the bear having to lean far into the crevice to even attempt to do so.
As the bear comes back up, though, an arrow barely misses his outstretched paw, skittering into the dirt nearby. Startled, the bear\'s eyes narrow for a moment at the arrow, and then the beast rolls to his feet, brown eyes seeking for an archer in the darkness. This bear, it seems, can see even if lightning doesn\'t torment the pass--it focuses on Ranaentaure, and roars a challenge. \"What by the Great Bear do you think you\'re doing?!\" Only it\'s a fearsome roar.
You attack Batruga with your Beijabar Fists...
[Combat(#13388)->Mobeorn]
Your attack against Batruga mildly wounds him!
[Ranaentaure(#12575)]
The bear\'s roar means nothing but that the thing is angry, to Ranaentaure. Steadfast even under its baleful gaze, the recently christened Squire sets a fresh arrow nock against his bowstring and grimly draws it back. This bear is a killer of men, or elves, or whoever it is that\'s trapped there in the rock face this bear must be stopped!
Ranaentaure launches an arrow...
Ow! You\'ve been injured for 7 hp\'s by the bowshot.
Arrgh! The arrow is stuck fast, requiring treatment.
ARB: Please RP this injury accordingly.
The elven arrow flies true this time, arrow point hitting the bear just below its left shoulder as the beastly animal turns to look briefly back at the crevice where the orc is hidden. For a second, the bear staggers, and very around it seems to shimmer with some sort of heat...or to elven eyes, perhaps, magic. But the bear\'s tough hide takes most of the impact of the hit, so that there is not a lot of damage, and the bear regains its footing quickly.
Still, the arrow is stuck good--the bear twisting and turning to try to get it out, but unable to do so. \"By the Great Bear, what is wrong with you?!\" it roars toward the elf. It stays firmly planted by the crevice, not moving toward the elf, staying by the orc\'s hidey hole.
[Batruga(#19026)] He is hit again, on the hand. The bear\'s great paw knocks his fist into the wall of stone, almost trapping it, but then he is freed.
Sensing the bear has been distracted, somehow, Batruga redoubles his efforts to unbind his caught armor. With a might exhalation and a sucking in of his stomach to the very posterior portions of his spine, me manages. Frantically, he nudges the mailshirt up his frame, to his waist, his ribs, his armpits. His chin now slips out from beneath, and he grunts loudly - pain of contortion mixed with surprise at his sudden success.
With another twist and the rock gouging a hole in his right hip, the blood-soaked orc wrenches his body further down into the protective armor of the huge stone. Now he must only get his shoulders and misshapen head through the bottleneck, and he is...wherever his feet are. Not exactly free, and not exactly safe (as far as he knows), but not a bear\'s punching bag, either.
[Ranaentaure(#12575)]
The bear is hit and the bear roars again, interpretable by Ranaentaure only as signs of pseudo-success. Someone is still trapped inside that crevice in the rock face, injured and alone and the bear is still nearby that hiding place. The Squire moves up a crouching step and nocks another arrow, sighting down on the beast but holding his fire as it twists and turns in an effort to get at the source of its pain. He waits to see if the animal will renew its attacks or make good its escape.
Stubbornlly, despite the arrow in its side, the bear does not move. Instead, it lowers its head again, snuffling into the hole again, roaring a challenge to the orc hidden there. Again, the roars almost seem like syllables. \"Back into the darkness, foul blackness! The mountains be not yours!\" the elf and its bow are ignored for now.
[Batruga(#19026)]
The orc twists its shoulders and its body falls through the bottleneck. Fortunately, his large potato-shaped skull clears the obstruction easily, and he falls roughly to the cold, damp earth below. A moment afterward, his chain mail slips off the slanted rock and drops similarly onto his lap. Beneath his leg, he feels his spear and thus takes it into his hand, moving its tip about in the darkness cautiously. His senses attenuated beyond any normal understanding by both his species proclivity for undergroung living as well as his congenital defect of blindness, Batruga soon discovers that this lower void below the creft in the great boulder leads upward and inward, deeper into the mountain-skin.
He has found a smallish cave, naturally formed, and leading nowehere. Weakly, he drags himself in a prone crawling postion further into the unexpected refuge, away from the reach of the bear.
The sun rises almost blood red in the sky. A red dawn! The clouds on the horizon mull mysteriously with each other, gathering strength in the distance.
[Ranaentaure(#12575)]
As the bear turns back to roaring and pawing at the cleft in the rock, Ranaentaure lets another arrow fly at the great beast. How could it have seen him and still prefer the prey that\'s trapped in the rock? How could the elven squire, determined on either driving the beast off or attracting its attention to himself, have failed when the animal was staring right at him through the darkness? Perplexed by these mysteries the hunter draws a new arrow to nock against his string, murmuring questions to himself in the night.
Ranaentaure launches an arrow...
Ow! You\'ve been injured for 3 hp\'s by the bowshot.
ARB: Please RP this injury accordingly.
Another arrow is loosed, this one glancing off the bear\'s fur, leaving hardly more than a scratch. The elf gains the bear\'s attention again, brown eyes looking up, and a roar sent that way. It\'s incoherent--even to the Beornings, likely--but full of rage.
But -still- the bear turns its head toward the hole in teh ground, sniffing and pawing. It\'s hopeless--the orc is too deep in the cave, protected by a crevice too narrow for a bear to crawl through. And with that, the bear gives up on the orc, turning its attention to the elf. Standing, arrow still sticking out of its side, dripping blood slowly, the bear starts stalking toward the elf, its brown eyes never leaving Ranaentaure.
The sun comes up--for a second, blindingly behind the bear, the light shimmers around him....
[Ranaentaure(#12575)]
As the bear turns to face him, Ranaentaure has already nocked a new arrow and drawn his bowstring to sight down on the beast. He holds his fire, again waiting to see whether it intends to charge him or flee, and when it starts toward him he lets fly in spite of the sudden and unexpected rise of the sun. Blinded by it, arrow already away, he throws up one hand to shield his face.
Ranaentaure launches an arrow...
Ranaentaure\'s arrow flies wide, doing no harm.
The bear charges forward, right toward Ranaentaure, heedless of the arrow aimed right at it--in fact, heading right toward the arrow as if to break the elf and his bow in two with his massive weight. And as the sun blinds the elf for a moment, the bear springs forward with a roar, massive paws out to try to grab the elf and knock him down. Only in that blinding instant, when the elf can\'t see, the light shimmers around the bear, and the form of an animal melds into that of the man Mobeorn, so that it is a man, not a bear, making this attack.
\"
You attack Ranaentaure with your Beijabar Fists...
[Combat Function Library(#15)] Ranaentaure\'s bow is knocked out of his hand!
[Combat(#13388)->Mobeorn]
Your attack against Ranaentaure mildly wounds him!
[Ranaentaure(#12575)]
Struck with as much surprise as physical force as a familiar man plows into him instead of a ferocious bear, Ranaentaure falls flat on his backside and loses hold of his bow. Sitting stunned, the Squire stares up at Mobeorn with wide eyes as the man curses him for a coward and a fool.
Rage burns in Mobeorn\'s eyes, and the light is shimmering around him in a dangerous sort of way. A large hand reaches to try to grab the elf by the neck and drag him to his feet as Mobeorn stands up as well. \"
You attack Ranaentaure with your Beijabar Fists...
[Combat(#13388)->Mobeorn]
Your attack against Ranaentaure mildly wounds him!
[Ranaentaure(#12575)]
Still stunned by Mobeorn\'s appearance and unexpected assault, Ranaentaure is picked up, shaken, and summarily dropped without a single word or act of protest. Reclaiming his feet and his balance he watches the human stalk away from him, eyes still wide and jaw hanging mildly agape.
\"