Bear vs Beast-god

As Fred sat in the chair, bewildered about all this, a wail broke out from somewhere in an adjacent room.

"Cadgast!" bellowed the mountainman, "Keep that mangy fool quiet or I'll bash his head in!"

"Shut your trap," shouted Bruno. "You haven't one sympathetic bone in your body, have you?"

As Bruno said this, Fred realized that he felt ill, very ill to the point of fainting. He looked up at the bookshelf above him and saw a skull with ruby eyes glaring down at him, its eyes pulsating with sickening energy. Roybal turned to follow Fred's gaze, and upon seeing what Fred was looking at, he clicked a button on his side of the table and the skull vanished.

As Fred slowly regained his composure, he became aware that an astonishing argument had broken out between Bruno and the mountainman. The mountainman, as if to lay all his cards on the table, accused Bruno of being too soft, too kind-hearted, and too easily fooled. That to trust Fred with what they were about to tell him was veritable suicide. Bruno, in turn, accused the mountainman of being too harsh and too violent, with no regard for the common man.

The argument quickly escalated, and Fred watched in horror as the two of them stood up from their chairs, their faces ghastly spectres of wrath, as if a decades-long grievance had finally been awakened from its uneasy slumber. The air crackled with tension as they circled each other, their eyes locked in a deadly stare.

Suddenly, the mountainman lunged at Bruno, his massive fists swinging with the full force of his mighty build. Fred couldn't believe how mighty the mountainman suddenly seemed to be, as if he was a living avatar of the wild gods themselves. In spite of this, Bruno dodged the blows with surprising agility, his fur flying in all directions as he swayed side to side. The mountainman, furious at being outmaneuvered, picked up a nearby chair and hurled it at Bruno.

Bruno ducked just in time, and the chair crashed into the bookcase with such force that the entire structure shattered into a thousand pieces, books and papers exploding in all directions and priceless artifacts crashing into the opposite walls. A piece whirled past Fred's head by less than an inch. More astonishingly, wisps of flame and spark began to crackle between the mountainman's fingertips as he roared with a deafening blast, but Bruno took no notice and charged at the brute at top-speed, his claws bared and his teeth gnashing.

The two of them grappled and wrestled, rolling around on the ground like nothing Fred had ever seen. The mountainman quickly got the upper hand and pinned Bruno to the ground, and the thick hardwood floors cracked in half, then cracked again as the mountainman repeatedly pounded his iron-hard fists into Bruno's head, smashing it into the floorboards. Fred tried to break free from his bonds, but they were too tight. He could only watch in horror as the mountainman pummeled away, blood coating the walls and splashing onto the ceiling.

Finally, entering into a rage beyond the point of no return, his beastly muscles and flesh tearing apart with the exertion, Bruno with a roar that shattered the windows, broke the mountainman's neck with all his might and with all his strength, his arms shredded falling limply to his sides, and that ancient beast of a man, now dead, toppling over him. He threw aside the downed brute, his chest heaving with exertion and body bleeding out onto the ground. The fight was over.

But Bruno's victory was short-lived. As he lay there, panting and struggling to stand up, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his side. He looked down and saw a long, jagged blade protruding from his fur, dripping with corrosive poison. He turned to face Fred and saw the ugly man, Roybal, standing there with a wicked grin on his face.

"You should have known better than to trust a talking bear," Roybal sneered at Fred. "You put your faith in Bruno, and look where that got him" - Roybal kicked Bruno in the head - "a pointless battle and a false objective." Looking down at Bruno, Roybal laughed. "You were a fool to think you could save me. Now, you'll pay the price."

With that, Roybal turned and fled the library, leaving Bruno to die on the floor. Fred watched in horror as Bruno's life slowly ebbed away, his once bright eyes growing dim.

1. Fred spots a vial of bright liquid on the bookshelf titled "Elixir" and struggles to reach it
2. Fred passes out only to awaken within a dark dungeon in chains, with a ghastly Wicker Warden staring down at him
3. Fred escapes his bonds and leaves the building, only to be ambushed by the Reaver

Add New Option

Go Back

View Forward Story Tree
View Back Story Tree