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An incident with a questing beast
Apr. 4th, 2016 02:20 pmIt started when the cow got out. Well, it started a long time before that. But the important part is the cow.
Okay, no, the important part is what was chasing the cow. Since when did they have yao guai at Milliways? Let alone yao guai that big?
(They had bears that big in Zion. Not that Ellen knew this.)
It wasn’t a Deathclaw or a fire ant queen, just a bear, an oversized one. She didn’t need help for a bear. Not when her cow was in danger. Best to take what she was wearing- her Gauss rifle, her sword, her stealth suit- and go after it. Nobody at the Bar needed a monstrous yao guai surprise.
The cow got away. That was a good thing. There was a chase and a few tricks and a diversion of paths in the woods and the cow went down the left path while Ellen drove the bear down the right. So that was good.
The bear kept running.
(The Sorrows could have told her this would happen.)
She should’ve stopped, maybe. Should’ve let the bear go, gone back, warned the patrons. Let people who knew forests and trees find it. Maybe someone could chase it out of the world, back to where it came from. Someone who wouldn’t get lost.
There really were an awful lot of trees in every direction, and even with the goggles the bear’s trail was incredibly spotty.
… come to think of it, when she turned around, so was her own.
Go far enough into a forest and you are supposed to come out the other side. The mountains at Milliways only have one side- get to the top and you’re going down the same way you came up. The forest gave the impression of working the opposite way. Get to the middle, and the middle went on forever instead.
That, or she was going in circles, following a scent trail that drifted over the ground like it was made of smoke.
The forest ended. There was rock. It went up.
It wasn’t the mountains. The mountains slanted. This was just rock and it went up. It went up to the left and up to the right and up and up and up and up.
(The rockface Evergreen Mills was carved into was her only point of reference for the concept of ‘cliffs’. It didn’t help.)
There was a hole in the rock, at least. A cave mouth. Looked bad, smelled worse.
But the trail led in, so that was something.
Bears are bad news. Giant bears are worse. Lots of giant bears are even worse than that.
Giant bears behind you are no good at all.
Giant bears made of fire-
A lot of things about the Brotherhood of Steel aren’t well known, even to its oldest members. Mostly they’re to do with the beginning. The Founder didn’t write that much down. Some things needed knowing, some didn’t, is how the Scribes see it these days. Maybe he thought things needed forgetting.
But he started with ordinary soldiers, and then the fire from heaven fell, and when the dust settled and the black rains were over he’d made knights and paladins of the fighters, and scribes of the others. And that was the end of anything expected, or even ordinary.
(It started, after all, a long time before the cow got out.)
The thing with Gauss rifles was that they were loud, and not really made for fighting for your life in close quarters. If you didn’t get kicked back into the enemy or the nearest wall by the recoil you’d get knocked deaf by the echo. Swords, now, those were something else. Especially the kind that crackled blue with electricity at the slightest provocation.
Like hitting an only partially real bear made of fire, and making it disappear.
Or like hitting a very real bear made of fire, and making it roar so loudly the cave walls shake.
Or running the aforementioned bear made of fire through. . .
Oh. Now there was a way out of the forest.
Okay, no, the important part is what was chasing the cow. Since when did they have yao guai at Milliways? Let alone yao guai that big?
(They had bears that big in Zion. Not that Ellen knew this.)
It wasn’t a Deathclaw or a fire ant queen, just a bear, an oversized one. She didn’t need help for a bear. Not when her cow was in danger. Best to take what she was wearing- her Gauss rifle, her sword, her stealth suit- and go after it. Nobody at the Bar needed a monstrous yao guai surprise.
The cow got away. That was a good thing. There was a chase and a few tricks and a diversion of paths in the woods and the cow went down the left path while Ellen drove the bear down the right. So that was good.
The bear kept running.
(The Sorrows could have told her this would happen.)
She should’ve stopped, maybe. Should’ve let the bear go, gone back, warned the patrons. Let people who knew forests and trees find it. Maybe someone could chase it out of the world, back to where it came from. Someone who wouldn’t get lost.
There really were an awful lot of trees in every direction, and even with the goggles the bear’s trail was incredibly spotty.
… come to think of it, when she turned around, so was her own.
Go far enough into a forest and you are supposed to come out the other side. The mountains at Milliways only have one side- get to the top and you’re going down the same way you came up. The forest gave the impression of working the opposite way. Get to the middle, and the middle went on forever instead.
That, or she was going in circles, following a scent trail that drifted over the ground like it was made of smoke.
The forest ended. There was rock. It went up.
It wasn’t the mountains. The mountains slanted. This was just rock and it went up. It went up to the left and up to the right and up and up and up and up.
(The rockface Evergreen Mills was carved into was her only point of reference for the concept of ‘cliffs’. It didn’t help.)
There was a hole in the rock, at least. A cave mouth. Looked bad, smelled worse.
But the trail led in, so that was something.
Bears are bad news. Giant bears are worse. Lots of giant bears are even worse than that.
Giant bears behind you are no good at all.
Giant bears made of fire-
A lot of things about the Brotherhood of Steel aren’t well known, even to its oldest members. Mostly they’re to do with the beginning. The Founder didn’t write that much down. Some things needed knowing, some didn’t, is how the Scribes see it these days. Maybe he thought things needed forgetting.
But he started with ordinary soldiers, and then the fire from heaven fell, and when the dust settled and the black rains were over he’d made knights and paladins of the fighters, and scribes of the others. And that was the end of anything expected, or even ordinary.
(It started, after all, a long time before the cow got out.)
The thing with Gauss rifles was that they were loud, and not really made for fighting for your life in close quarters. If you didn’t get kicked back into the enemy or the nearest wall by the recoil you’d get knocked deaf by the echo. Swords, now, those were something else. Especially the kind that crackled blue with electricity at the slightest provocation.
Like hitting an only partially real bear made of fire, and making it disappear.
Or like hitting a very real bear made of fire, and making it roar so loudly the cave walls shake.
Or running the aforementioned bear made of fire through. . .
Oh. Now there was a way out of the forest.