“Oh, no way!” He leaned back.  “That was a serious party foul!  I thought you were… I was worried… dammit, woman!”  He sulked for a few seconds, but the grin on her face just widened.

“Awww!  You were worried ‘bout lil ol’ me?  How sweet!” She made a little kissy-face at him, then picked up the granola bar and opened it.  “I’m so hungry!”

“More like worried I was gonna be stuck with a brain-dead third wheel, dragging down me and Fuzzy the rest of the trip.” He grumped at her.   She didn’t answer, other than to make a few exaggerated nom-nom sounds as she chewed her snack.

When she was done, she looked at him, all innocence and puppy-dog eyes.  “You’re not really mad at me?  I mean, I forgive you for telling me to run over that creature from hell.”

He chuckled.  “Okay, you have a point.  We’re even.”  He got to his feet then reached a hand down to help her up.   He pulled a canteen from his ring and handed it to her.  “You need to drink to help you heal up.  You lost some blood.”

As she drank deeply, Allistor heard a curious sniffing noise.   Looking through the passenger window, he saw a pile of brown fur scrunched down behind the driver’s seat, with a just a nose sticking up above the back seat.

“My hero!  Come on out, Fuzzy.  The monster’s dead.  You were a big help!”  He opened the door, and the bear cub stared at him, in no big hurry to leave the safety of the truck.   “Come on!  Out you go, oh fearless grizzly companion!”

Fuzzy attempted to move, but couldn’t.  He looked at Allistor again and huffed.

“What?  Are you stuck down there?”  Allistor reached in, pushing his hand between the back of the driver’s seat and the bear’s shoulder.  He tugged gently, but the cub was wedged in there tightly.

Moving forward to the driver’s seat, he reached underneath and triggered the release, sliding the seat forward.  A grunt from Fuzzy, and the cub freed himself.  He tumbled out onto the road as Allistor moved the seat back again.

Looking down at his bear cub, he said, “You grew!  Fuzzy, you must have leveled up when we killed the snake!  No wonder you were stuck down in there.”

Fuzzy mostly ignored him, strolling over to the snake’s corpse and growling the whole way.  When he reached its head, he sniffed it thoroughly, then licked some of the exposed and burned flesh.  He took a tentative bite, pulling away some stringy bits with his teeth.

Rolling his eyes, Allistor motioned for Helen to follow him.  He touched the snake’s head, looting it.   She followed his example and her eyes went vacant as she reviewed her loot notifications.  “This is cool!   And I leveled up to six, by the way!”