Chapter 324: At a Loss
Elmo felt at a loss for what to do. First, Sonya was unresponsive even since she crashed into the trees. Then when she landed, she turned sideways and threw Heather and Elin. Elmo had barely held onto the spike in front of him, so he'd escaped rather unscathed in comparison. Though, if Sonya had come to since then, he couldn't say. He'd left Elin to care for Heather and Sonya, even though he had no idea if he shouldn't have insisted on Elin accompanying him in case Kim needed help.
Second, the plan for what to do if Kim entering the bear's mouth proved effective, had been hazy at best. It hadn't been clear to Elmo what any of them were supposed to do, although he did admit that none of them really knew what the situation would be like or what to expect from the bear afterwards. Though, Elmo figured that it would have been helpful to have at least had someone officially in charge, despite the fact that he wouldn't be surprised at most everyone pushing to be the one in charge.
Third, when he returned to where he knew the bear was, what he found was something that still boggled his mind. The bear looked like a regular bear, aside from being so massive. While he suspected that most of whatever had protected the bear was gone, he was pretty sure that it still had some magical qualities of its own, since he was pretty sure the air was too thin for it to be able to get in enough oxygen to survive at the moment. At least without any magical assistance that is.
And fourth, while he'd seen Jonas and Patrick climbing the bear's fur, he wasn't sure what he should do himself. Even as Elwin and Thomas did the same, or at least where they could reach the bear's fur, while Owen, Frank, and Stanley shot arrows at it, Elmo felt like all he could do right then was just watch. Though, when Patricia started to send ice blasts at the bear, Elmo wasn't sure if the bear even noticed. Yet, it still made him feel that he needed to at least try something. Even if it wasn't anything that was effective. He didn't know where Kim was, but that was beside the point since he couldn't imagine he'd be able to do anything to help her in this situation anyway.
However, when he first launched his brimstone fire spell at the bear's face, that's when things went south for him. He hadn't expected to see the bear react in such a way where it turned to the south of them and started running.
By the time he'd recovered from the surprise, he could see that the bear was well out of his range for most of his spells and the rest ran the risk of hitting one of those who were likely still climbing up the bear's fur. Aside from Thomas, that is, and Elmo noticed him getting thrown off when the bear had started running in the first place.
Elmo wasn't sure if it was the fact that the spell he'd used had a fire attribute to it, if the bear didn't like the brimstone smell, or if there was something else that had scared it. All he could be sure of was that it had run off and he couldn't do anything about it now.
His mind felt like it had either crashed and needed to reboot or was still processing what had happened. In a way, it felt more like a video game cut scene. Where he would be able to watch events go by and didn't have any control over anything. Not even the characters until the video playback was over.
Yet, while he was pretty sure that it was 'over' at this point, he hadn't a clue as to what there was to do. Naturally, they'd need to head towards the bear, but at the same time, he wasn't sure how long that would take. It might still be early in the morning now, but with everything that had happened, he was ready to take a nap.