The bear's cave was huge, it extended a few meters down it had to fit 9 Thornback bears, after all. And as Curtis went deeper, he noticed the lack of noise, there were still 4 adult bears inside and 2 younger ones. Surely he should have been noticed by now, he was after all deep within their home.
Curtis wanted to try taming the sleuth of bears. Wild groups of Thornback bears were pretty rare. Back in Candelabra, he had only seen a couple of domesticated Thornback bears, they were mainly used by the army, either for transporting supplies or for battles.
The bears were a treat to see in battle but only if it was on their side of course. The hordes of Chaos would stand no chance if the Bear squadron was deployed, they cut through them like butter. The only problem was, they had too few of them, and maintaining them was expensive.
Their fierce nature prevented the city from letting normal residents handle them, they were a pain to train. The hardest part to grasp was the feeding, if they were overfed they would lose interest in the training, and if they were underfed, they would be irritable and aggressive. With years of breeding, it was solved, but normal people can't really be expected to fight one when the bear acts out.
Hjilmar himself had kept one as a pet. The giant's size prevented him from taking normal pets, he once had a dog, but the poor thing had to dodge the giant's steps every time its master wasn't paying attention, and so Sally had saved the dog from its dangerous life. And so he took a bear as a pet, the bear was kept in a trainer's home, as it wasn't suitable to be homed in a residential area.
As Curtis got a generalized curriculum as his education in Candelabra, he had some ideas on how to tame it, but first, he would have to check if it was, even for a tiny bit, amiable to humans, if it wasn't he would have to scratch that plan.
Most wild beasts were naturally in-line with Chaos, it had something to do with their exposure to the outside world.
Life in the untamed wild was harsh.
It was a dog eat dog world.
It was where the term, Survival of the fittest, fits so perfectly.
As he observed the bear's home, it was untainted by Chaos. That was another factor he had to consider, if the bears had been infected with Chaos, he would have to put them down, it didn't matter if he wanted to train them. Once something has been infected with Chaos, there was only so much you can do to save them. And it was such a difficult process that Curtis didn't even have any idea how to do it.
After they entered the portal, Curtis tried to find any traces of Chaos in this place but he had found none. It was as if Lady Luck was smiling at him, as Curtis walked on he encountered a bear. It wasn't an adult bear that found him, it was one of the younger ones. If he had to make a guess, it was only about a couple of months old, 8 or 9.
It didn't attack him outright.
"There was a chance!" he thought.
"How are you." Curtis kneeled as he called to the cub, making himself look smaller as to not look like a threat. It had to be its first-ever encounter with a human. He had to at least make himself not look dangerous to it. He of course didn't forget to tune his senses with his surroundings. The cave was dark, the only source of light was the flame in his hand. He would be hard-pressed to dodge if one of the adults suddenly stumbled upon him.
The bear slowly approached, it's fur had already been replaced, it was young but its thorns had already fully developed, it usually grew the thorns after it's first year, Curtis was surprised, the young bear was developing at a rapid pace.
Unless he was mistaken about its age, and it was actually above a year old, and it just had difficulty in growing in size, or. In a harsh environment like this. With a Razorfinned snake in its vicinity, the threat of it dying an early death had accelerated its growth. Forcing its thorned hide to grow early to adapt to its surroundings. It was much more likely to be the latter, after all, the snake had even been able to kill their Alpha, it was a testament to its strength.
Now, where are your elders, Curtis thought as he stood to find the other residents of the cave. He would have to find the other cub.
*arrrrrr*
The cub suddenly growled, it moved deeper into the cave, turning to look at Curtis before moving forward, only stopping again to look at Curtis. It was as if it wanted him to follow it.
*arrrrrrrrr*
With another growl, it seemed like it had read Curtis' mind. As he stepped forward, the cub didn't even bother to check, the sounds of his footsteps were proof enough that he was following it. Once he stopped, the cub would look behind it and growl once more.
After a few twists and turns, they arrived at a wide space deep in the cave.
Curtis was speechless, he was now in a wide cavern, and within the cavern were a plethora of crystals, the crystals shone a bluish light inside the cavern illuminating the whole place. In the middle of the cavern were the remaining bears. The biggest crystal had been embedded in the middle of the cavern's ceiling. And under it's light the cavern had been lit up.
Two of the four Thornback bears were fighting, while the other bear cub lay atop a piece of crystal. The cub that had led him here had moved to observe the fight. It laid down beside the other bear cub.
The two bears who were fighting circled the middle of the cavern as they swiped and bit at each other.
But why were they fighting?
Curtis didn't even need to think as the answer came naturally to him.
They needed an Alpha.
The biggest of the group had just died outside, cut in half by the Razorfinned snake. They needed a new leader, and so the two bears were fighting to gain control of the group.
They were so immersed in their battle that they didn't even notice Curtis. The middle of the cavern had been dyed in red. Both of the bears were injured but no one wanted to back down. The two were determined to beat the other so they could become the leader of the group.
Curtis had an Idea, it was a stupid idea but it was an idea nonetheless. Initially, he had planned to slowly connect with the bears. He would visit and feed them, get them to accept him within their ranks through an emotional connection.
But his other, newer, stupider Idea had won over. He would fight with the adult bears for the position of Alpha. Now he knew bears were different from wolves. But bears were social animals, they loved to socialize with their group and they would even form structured relationships with each other.
Curtis walked towards the two fighting bears. He dropped his ax and let loose a beastly howl. He would fight them hand to hand. Two on one if need be.
*AWOOOOO*
That had gotten their attention, the two bears looked at the audience they had before they turned to look at Curtis.
He marched like a challenger that wanted to fight for the trophy. The Thornback Bears responded with a roar of their own. They were angry that he had disrupted their contest to become the leader. Who wouldn't be? They had duking it out by themselves when suddenly, a random guy pops up to challenge them.
As he approached the two, for some unknown reason, they backed away. Now, with the nature of these bears, eleven out of ten times, they should have launched an attack on Curtis. But that was not all. As the two adult Thornback bears who were fighting backed away, so did the two who were observing.
They left Curtis on his own as he stepped into the middle of the cavern. It was, to say the least
Weird.
4 Adult Bears and 2 smaller cubs were looking at him, no- they were observing him as he stood before them.
A minute passed with him standing alone before they made any sound.
But, it didn't come from the bigger bears.
It had come from the cub he had met earlier.
It stood up from its lazy position and strode towards Curtis. Under the blue light that the crystals gave, it's fur and thorns shone a beautiful white color.
Now, Curtis wasn't knowledgeable enough to be able to identify every single animal, plant, or beast in the world. But one thing was for certain. The bear cub wasn't just a bear cub.