Session 42. (19/2/10)

At the end of the bear tracks the heroes find a bear. In fact, two bears, a mother and cub. Kokuma manages to manoeuvre the party into prime position when Kachamaru asks, "Should we put out the nets or just shoot them?" The others look at one another. "Shoot them," they chorus in reply. Miyoshi begins the barrage but misses with his first shot. Yoshi, Kachamaru and Mineo score hits on the she-bear but Kokuma misses. The bear lets out a roar and charges at her tormentors. With her arrival imminent, the warriors switch to melee weapons. Unseen, the cub slips away. Haku fires four Arrows of Soil, all of which hit the mother bear but only one does damage. The bear arrives, reaching Miyoshi's spear first and takes 3 damage. Kokuma's tetsubo is next in terms of reach, but he swings and misses. Then the bear is in range of the swords - and their owners in range of her claws! The bear goes for Kokuma, but in a common theme of sentences including Kokuma, swings and misses. Mineo also misses, Kachamaru hits and Yoshi gets a critical hit. Miyoshi defies what he calls the "katana bias" and hits the bear again for 10 damage, killing it.

At this point everyone realises that the bear cub has run away. Kokuma finds and follows its tracks and deduces that it is travelling at some speed. He and Yoshi run after it, joined by Haku in Form of Bird who thought he could find the bear in this form but can only see trees and has a hard enough time just spotting Kokuma and Yoshi. The others follow behind, slowed down by the nets and their trackers' bows and arrows. Kokuma manages to keep on the bear cub's trail, but soon realises that far from catching it up, they are falling further behind (the cub made three critical speed saving throws!). However, it is just a matter of time and eventually they track the bear to a cliff face with three cave openings in it. They name them arufa, beeta and gama. They decide to explore beeta first. Kokuma collects some twigs from the forest and makes a large arrow shape on the ground pointing at the middle cave. Haku flaps up and regains human form. Haku casts Light and together they enter the cave. The cave turns out to be very shallow and they quickly determine that it contains exactly zero bears. The three emerge again and decide to explore arufa. Kokuma puts a cross of twigs over his arrow sign and makes a new one pointing at the leftmost cave. This turns out to be a much larger cave. Haku and Kokuma explore part of it; Yoshi's eyes are slower to adapt to the low light levels. There are signs of bears but no actual bears. They go further into the cave. Yoshi still can't see anything and Haku finds he has gone in a circle. Kokuma finds more signs of bears but estimates that it hasn't been visited for several days. They finally arrive at the back of the cave and confirm that it is empty. When they emerge from the cave they find the others just arriving. They shout to Kachamaru to put down his bow. Miyoshi and Mineo are puzzling over the arrangements of twigs and figure that the bears have been practising their kanji.

Mineo and Kachamaru fix the nets into a semicircle around the mouth of cave gama. Yoshi realises that the nets will be much less secure than usual, as they are usually fastened to trees, so he and Mineo draw their swords and stand holding the nets up at the weakest points. Kachamaru, Kokuma and Haku ready themselves to enter the cave. Miyoshi stands back from the nets, ready to shout orders. Kokuma and Kachamaru creep quietly into the cave, Haku just behind them with the magical light. Kokuma's eyes quickly adapt and he can see that the first part of the cave is empty, but he can hear something breathing throatily. Rounding a buttress of rock, the three find the missing bear cub - and an enormous male bear right behind it. Kachamaru quickly casts Stage Smoke and disappears, reappearing right behind the huge bear. Kokuma uses his bear-whispering to control the bear cub and gets it to go outside. The male bear goes to bite Kokuma, but somehow misses and dislocates its jaw. Haku adds injury to injury by hitting it with four Arrows of Soil, but the bear shrugs them off. Kachamaru hits the bear from behind for 10 damage, but before it can turn round Kokuma bashes it for 8 damage knocking it back and dazing it. Kachamaru has to step back quickly to avoid having a 900lb bear on his toes. He hits the dazed bear again for 11 damage. Kokuma swings and misses and Haku fires four Arrows of Soil but misses with all four.

Meanwhile, the bear cub appears to the others at the cave mouth, but out of Kokuma's influence it hesitates. Miyoshi quells an instinct to shoot the cub.

At the back of the cave, Kachamaru makes room for a big swing of his katana and connects for a critical hit, doing 21 damage. Not to be outdone, Kokuma swings and hits critically, doing 18 damage and knocking the bear down - right on top of Kachamaru. A muffled "will someone get this big walking carpet off me" is heard between the bear's roars of annoyance. Kokuma does his bit by hitting it again and Haku gets an Arrow of Soil through its thick fur to silence it once and for all. Kachamaru, who suffered 11 subdual damage from breaking the bear's fall, is now trapped under a 900-tog duvet and suffers 6 suffocation damage. He tries to push the bear off him but he isn't even close. Kokuma tries to roll the bear off but he isn't strong enough. Haku adds his puny weight to the task but seems more likely to pull a muscle than a bear carcass. Just then the bear cub runs back into the cave, frightened by the nasty men holding the net and the even nastier one standing behind them. He runs into the back of Haku and grabs him in a hug, possibly mistaking Haku for its mother. Haku suffers three damage, turns and fires two Arrows of Soil into the cub and point-blank range. The cub suffers 12 damage and lets go and runs to Kokuma, no doubt mistaking him for its father. Kokuma and Kachamaru synchronise their efforts to get the dead bear off Kachamaru and at the third attempt roll it clear. While Kachamaru gets his breath back (and starts healing the total of 12 suffocation damage), Kokuma uses Control Bear to take control of the bear cub. He gets it to walk to the cave entrance and calls for the nets. Miyoshi, Mineo and Yoshi advance with the net, which is about sixty feet long. "I need more slack," shouts Yoshi. "Aargh, you're pulling me over!" complains Mineo. "Just take three steps left," calls Miyoshi, calmly. "No, your left!" he shouts, less calmly. "No, your other left!" he yells. Like a drunken centipede, the net with six legs lurches past the bear cub and into Kokuma. He rolls his eyes and tries Control Bear on the three "shaved bears", but it doesn't work. Miyoshi tries to marshal them again, but he and Mineo fail to hold the net up properly and it passes over the little bear's head. Finally Kokuma has to use Control Bear to get the cub to walk into the net and wrap itself up.

The hunting party returns to the village with the cub and they send other Ainu off to collect the two bear carcasses. With none of the party members having had children recently, the cub is given to one of the other families in the village to raise through the year. A feast is held, dances are danced, the bears' spirits are returned to heaven - but in the following weeks it is evident that the problem of demonic game has not gone away. Still the hunters are scared off by weird creatures, and little of the meat they do gather is edible. Koshamain calls the heroes and asks them to build more squid boats. Miyoshi argues, saying they should trade with the Wajin at Kumaishi; Haku says they must placate the kami; while the others are in favour of looking for the source of the demonic possession in the woods. Miyoshi agrees, so they go to do this. Koshamain is not pleased.

Haku organises some dances and rituals to placate the kami, but this seems to have little effect, so he flies off into the forests to see if he can find a big evil spirit. Kachamaru talks to the Ainu hunters and makes a map showing where all the demonic encounters have occurred. Unfortunately, the encounters seem to be spread all over the map, concentrations only showing where most hunting is done. Mineo considers whether the Kitsune are behind their troubles, but comes to the conclusion that this isn't their style. He changes to fox form and goes scouting in the forests for a big evil spirit. Miyoshi and Yoshi consider whether the Ghost Cat might be behind their troubles, but come to the conclusion that the prophecy of a small curse to the family referred to their having to give up a daughter for the cat's rewards. Miyoshi decides to go alone into the forest to see if he is the centre of the problems. Yoshi follows at a distance to wash watch his back. Kokuma and Kachamaru can't think of any investigating they can do, so they go to build a squid boat.

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