Backwoods Dungeon

Chapter Forty-Three

A Cop and a Grizzly

Theo

We all just stared at each other for a few moments. I did try to break the silence but the only thing that came out was a series of growls. Having a snout was downright weird. My mouth couldn’t move like it normally did. It could bite, though. It felt like I suddenly had steel teeth. I could feel the excess power that would allow me to bite through things that my human teeth never could.

Disorienting, but… kinda cool. Having a gun pointed at me wasn’t, but it was somehow harder to be afraid in this form.

Rio and Dane were still gaping at me. They’d seen the cop and his gun, but apparently watching me turn into a bear took precedence.

It didn’t take long for me to notice that the cop was wounded. He had a mildly crazed look in his eye. His expression was hard, and not at all impressed by the sight of my transformation. He was holding his gun propped up on his arm with a flashlight in the other. It wasn’t necessary since it was still daylight outside, but I felt he’d been underground for a while based on his appearance.

How long had he been down there? A trail of blood had long since soaked into his hair on its way down the side of his head. He had sharp blonde hair and looked to be between twenty-five and thirty. His clothes were torn and ripped almost everywhere that they could be, and I could see a white t-shirt beneath the ragged remains of his dirty uniform.

I turned to glare at Rio, and she blinked as she realized I probably wouldn’t be able to introduce us as I was right now.

“Oh! Uhm. We’re… we’re Theo, Rio, and Dane. We’re going down there to look for some lost people,” she said, growing more confrontational with each passing word as she realized this man might try to stop that. “Who are you?”

“Officer Dancer, Miles City police,” he responded.

“Well… uhm. Officer Dancer. Any chance you could lower the gun? The bear won’t hurt you, and neither will we,” she said calmly.

I tried to nod my head. Even the tense cop barked an eyebrow at that.

“You’ve… been down here before. You’ve got abilities,” he realized as he lowered his gun by a fraction.

Rio nodded. “You do, too? What class did you choose?”

She was talking to him like he was a wild horse that might buck at any moment. I wanted to revert to my human form but didn’t dare make any sudden moves with that weapon trained on me. My head was fighting with my instincts in a strange way. I wasn’t as afraid of the gun as I knew I should be. Why? It was a fucking gun.

“P-Paladin,” he replied. “I’ve… been down there for… shit I don’t know. My phone died on the first day, and I think my watch broke on the second. Is this really the surface?” he asked.

I shifted, unable to stay still as bugs began to congregate on my furry body, and Officer Dancer’s gun snapped right back to me.

“Paladin. That’s great! I’m a Rogue. The bear is my husband – he’s a Druid,” Rio said pleasantly, almost like she was talking to one of her clients. “You said you were from Miles City? Could you be more specific? I haven’t heard of a Miles City in Missouri.”

“Missouri?” He asked, looking genuinely confused. “Miles City Montana. I’ve been down there for a while, but I certainly haven’t walked far enough to be in Missouri.”

More evidence. The cave was… smaller somehow. Connected with branching exits that all met at a central place.

“We’ve… run into a little bit of that ourselves,” Rio said. “I met someone from Montana, when they had me trapped down there. A girl named Emily. She’s… one of the people I’m hoping to rescue.”

“Emily!” he shouted, shocked. “Emily Miller?”

“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t get her last name,” Rio said. “She had blonde hair and a thick New England accent. I remember being surprised when she said she was from Montana.”

“So… so she is down there!” he said, hopeful.

“She wasn’t the only one. At least three others from Montana were in the group I was with,” she said before glancing over to me. “Is… it okay for my husband to shift back? We aren’t enemies. We’re hoping to fight the imps and break them out. All of them.”

He spared a moment to look around. He was eyeing the plants. The rocks. I saw a perplexed look cross his face before he turned back to Rio.

“This is Missouri? Like… Cardinals, Saint Louis, the Arch? That Missouri?” He asked.

She nodded a bit impatiently. “My husband?”

“Oh! Uh. R-right,” he said, finally lowering the gun.

I breathed a sigh of relief that came out more like a shrug. Was this form affecting my personality? My sense of danger? It wasn’t like I didn’t know that the gun was dangerous, but it was as if my body couldn’t feel the panic that I should’ve.

Unlike my wind armor, I didn’t need to keep feeding mana into the transformation. Once I’d become a bear, that was it. No more cost required. Turning back didn’t seem to cost any either. It was as if the mana required to change back was built into the initial cost. I could remain a bear forever if I wanted, or I could turn back in moments. I only had to pay more to return to the large creature form.

Fortunately, my clothes morphed back into being as well. Strangely, so did everything I was carrying, including the gun. My weapons seemed to morph into the bear form with me somehow. Awesome.

“That… is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen,” the cop said.

“Try doing it yourself,” I said back, happy to feel my chin back in place. I felt all over my body, making sure nothing had drastically changed.

I blinked. I could see my shoes when I looked down. My stomach had covered them for almost as long as I could remember. When had that happened?

“So… listen. We’re going back down there,” Rio said, interrupting my train of thought. “You… look like you could really use a rest though. Do you want to go to the police station?”

He shook his head, but hesitated, looking over at me, before steeling his nerves. “I… can’t let you do that.”

Dane and I blinked. Rio did too, surprised, before she frowned. “You’re going to stop us?”

“It’s my job. You all look like civilians, and it’s dangerous down there. My… my whole squad… Look, going down there is practically suicide. Congrats, you got a level or two, and picked a big ability. That won’t save you down there.”

Rio scoffed. “You don’t really look like you’re in any position to stop us, and I don’t think you’re going to shoot us for just walking by you.”

“I could subdue you,” he said.

Rio just raised an eyebrow. The implied ‘you think you can subdue a fucking bear’ might as well have been a neon sign across her face. Her eyes brightened a moment later though.

“Well, if we’re going down there, aren’t you duty-bound to come with us? We could use a Paladin, and another gun never hurts,” she said, her eyes twinkling.

The man’s eye twitched. I could tell that all he wanted to do was go to sleep. He was lost, alone, a long way from home, and the last thing he wanted to do was go back into the dungeon. It was a clever ploy, but this man wouldn’t go back down into those caves willingly.

Rio seemed to come to the same conclusion when I did. It was made blindingly clear when the man holstered his gun and pulled a damn shield off his back, as well as a baton. The ancient metal shield beside the modern baton was absolutely ridiculous, but the look in his eyes was anything but.

“Are we really doing this?” Rio asked. "You barely look like you can stand."

He shook his head, eyes filled with conviction.

“I only barely survived down there, and I’m trained for this. Kind of. No offense, lady, but you barely look like you’ve ever held a gun, and your husband doesn’t look much better. I’m not going to have your deaths on my conscience,” he said.

“Well… that’s rude. We’re going down there, though, and you can’t stop us,” Rio said before turning to me.

The man’s eyes narrowed, which looked particularly intimidating, with his face covered in blood. He then began to glow with radiant light, adding magic to the mix.

“Holy fuck…” Dane said, “I… I’m not sure. I didn’t sign up for this, you guys.”

We both ignored him.

“Baby… are we really doing this?” I asked, mimicking her own words. “He’s a cop.”

“I’d like to remind you that attacking a cop is a felony,” Officer Dancer snapped. He seemed a tad annoyed at this point. I think he expected us to be intimidated. I was, but I’d gotten pretty good at hiding it over the past few days.

She looked back at me, eyes pleading. “I… have to go. I can’t sleep at night. I can’t live knowing that I…”

I nodded and then smiled. She beamed. We didn’t need more words, but… well. How often did a husband get to prove just how far he would go for his wife? I loved her; if she needed this, she'd have it.

We were going hunting. No beat cop from Montana was going to stop us, either.

“Vines?” I asked.

“Vines,” she agreed.

Credit where credit was due. The cop was living up to his oath and his class. But he was woefully unprepared for the branches of overhanging trees to suddenly leap out and grapple him.

He dodged to the left, but his foot landed in the rocky sludge of the creek bank, allowing the second vine to wrap around his shield. He swung the baton and managed to knock the vine away, but I just cast another one. My mana wasn’t nearly full, but the vines weren’t expensive. I could do this all day with my improved intelligence and healing aura turned off.

“What the hell is your class!” The cop screamed as he batted away vines. They caught him and snared his leg, tripping him to the ground while we walked past him into the dungeon.

“S-sorry!” Dane called as he scampered into the doorway behind us. The sharp thud of a club smashing into vines followed us down. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t catch him, but I was equally sure he wouldn’t be following us back in here.

His warning lingered with me, though. What else was down here that could kill a whole squad of cops? The imps and their Booyagh’s?

“Fucking hell! Dammit, watch for the giant worms! If you feel the ground moving, run!” The cop shouted after us as he beat down my skill.

I decided that I liked Officer Dancer. I really hoped we didn’t go to jail for this.