Spear of Chimes [NK] [Private]

Shouhei never thought he would spend this much money on food until his eighteenth birthday, but here he was smuggling several kinds of beef, roasts, and steaks into his room to serve this ravenous honey badger he had known for maybe a couple of months now. He might even add that all this food for Zviad wasn’t even part of his tribute, but payment to make him tell him where this super-duper mega awesome spear he had told him about were located.

As he put the last plate in front of Zviad, Shouhei could still hear the description of it in his head.

“So you are afraid you that your paper cutters of kunais might not be enough? Well I might be able to help you but it will cost you a sum. Food as usual but five times the amount. Don’t worry about me not being able to eat it. I have my ways.” Zviad sounded confident in what he said as he sat there curled up in one of Shouhei’s chairs in his quite generously sized room.

Shouhei knew that Zviad was mostly honest with what he promised, and what he left out was not necessarily fraud, but definitely something that made life harder for you than it had to be. In any event, there was usually a payoff so Shouhei decided to play along. “That’s quite a lot, you will have to tell me more about it before I say yes to anything.”

“It is this about six feet tall spear ingrained in gold…and” Shouhei cut him off. “Not interested in a pretty trinket.” To which Zviad finished up with an annoyed look on his face. “With the ability to extend itself far and wide. I’d give you a history lesson but I only know the name of it – that’s the Ringing Golden-Hooped Spear by the way – and it is said to have been wielded by priest and warriors alike. However, should a king take it their kingdom would fall or something.”

Not quite sure if he was making the history part up – he did tell it quite lazily after all – Shouhei was still interested in it if it indeed had that ability. “Sure, it’s a deal. However, I can’t keep feeding you, so how about we stop with the tribute from now on?”

The honey badger thought for a moment. “Sure, but only if you defeat Nio first. Don’t worry I believe you can do it soon with how fast you grow.”

And that’s how it went and the deal Shouhei had accepted to. Zviad seeing the last plate in front of him hurried himself a bit as he saw Shouhei was getting impatient with him. It was a bit funny to Shouhei as that was one of the few times Zviad had been considerate.

Time passed as they got past the village and had walked far into the country side. We were only speaking hours, but Shouhei had still packed his ninja tools, as well as some food and water for himself. He also occasionally reminded himself that he had to be careful about bandits. Zviad he hadn’t accounted for. Not only was he an animal and knew how to get food, he was almost trying not to puke every time he took a step. Such a glutton got what he deserved and was too proud to be carried so it wasn’t a problem Shouhei should involve himself in.

“We’re almost there.” Zviad noted as they entered a ravine. Fortunately, at the foot of it, so Shouhei didn’t need to worry about keeping his balance on the edge as to not fall down into a very painful and early death. But that aside, Shouhei hadn’t spotted anything odd but the occasional animal or bush blowing in the wind as he was lead inside a small cave.

Looking around he didn’t find anything odd about the cave. Okay he did, it looked like it has been inhabited by humans several times, but looking at the rotten wood and what would be leftover of rotten food, he could only think none have been there recently. Not that he could take the sights in for that long before Zviad knocked on some old box somewhere in the cave.

“There’s a weapons cache here. I don’t want to do any effort in opening so feel free to do so yourself.” He said walking away.

Shouhei walked over to the box and kneeled down. “Well you weren’t wrong.” Shouhei said as he opened chest and found the golden spear inside. Taking a grip on it, he felt how it was a bit heavy but not unwieldy.

“Now if it only could…“ Cutting his words to silence the spear extended itself on his wishes and hit the wall on the opposite of him. “Seems like it can.” His voice sounded surprised which caused Zviad to respond. “Of course, it does. Would I lie?” To which Shouhei just looked at the honey badger with a disapproving stare, but removed his gaze as he concentrated on pulling the spear out of the rock of the cave walls. His ears peeked as he heard the bell on the spear ring its sweet little song. Though a sweet song it was when he finally pulled it out. Though now that he thought about it, was a bit loud when he did that, so just to be sure he inquired Zviad about something very important.

“Say Zviad. Would there be any bandits nearby that would be able to hear that and I'd need to be guarded, or can I safely thread in the ravine foot still?” Shouhei leaned himself up against his newly acquired spear. It was nice how it didn’t even bulge or have its elasticity compromised from his partial body weight being supported by it.

“No I will always be fine, and bandits out here are few and far between. Most of the mines have been exhausted you see, and after things got so dry due to a couple of springs drying up, no one really feels like settles here anymore and trying to get agriculture up an running. I remember it like it was yesterday”  For once Zviad sounded very informative, but it didn't take him long to follow that up with some new words in a more cocky tone. “But you might be able to practice with that new spear of yours if you want." Zviad smiled, but Shouhei didn't really catch that as his ears peaked as a sound got closer, and his eyes casts upon its source. "Especially if you don't get out here fast enough.” And with that a large figure in the back of the cave made its presence known. Shouhei couldn't really see yet what it was, but as it walked closer to the light of the cave roaring deeply from its lungs in a way that sounded similar to a bear.

Notes wrote:Word Count: 1159.
Claiming 1000 words towards the spear

Approved.

There are those times in movies when a character would investigate a commotion by the garbage bins. When they saw the monster there, they would come to the realization that walking outside was a bad idea. Those scenes – if the character survived of course – were usually underscored by them telling another character that whatever that was, it was definitely not a bear and how they should feel bad for suggesting otherwise.

In this like case Shouhei were in however, it was definitely a bear. Well at least some kind of bear. As it walker closer to the light, Shouhei could see its features, and that is where the some kind of bear addendum came in. For you see, it was huge, like larger than those dogs bread to fight to protect their owners against those bears living in the frozen wasteland of the country of Snow. Or he at least thought they were from that area. For all he knew they could be from further east, beyond the territory of Hoshi. Other features included these weird chitins scaled around vital features protecting it from most spears. It made Shouhei ponder whether this bear even was a natural accruing creature or not, or if it were made up by someone with way too much time and money on their hands.

“Well it didn’t have to be that,” that was another thought that came to his mind as he realized that the bear could be the works of a nature spirit too. As for why that came to mind? That was because of wise words from his grandfather. Those were, “Man is of nature. Tells you a lot about nature, doesn’t it? If you need more than my words read up on parasites, Shouhei,” which he had done that day; almost beelining for the library. He didn’t sleep well that night as one might have expected from how scary parasites can be.

Shouhei stopped leaning against his spear and instead holding it in his hand, his grip tightening around the haft. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, but his instincts did make him take one step backwards. Not to run away, but to prepare for an attack so he could counter attack. Some people fled, some people fought, and Shouhei did this. Was a bit weird but it had its uses as it didn’t make him look that weak all things considered.

It would appear that Zviad had other ideas however. An idea or two that Shouhei had no idea what the honey badger would do until he yelled the following. “That’s something nice you have back there in the cave. A nice small snack for me!” As he charged at the bear fearlessly his jaws wide open and prepared to chew on some bearly chewable meat.

Normally going just by what Zviad was yelling just now to guess what he was doing would be a fool’s errand. However, something he had told Shouhei a week ago, made the puzzles fall easily into place. Not that Shouhei had time for a flashback that gave a painful amount of details of what that was, but the seconds he did have gave him enough time to remember the overall theme. Zviad supposedly loved the taste of bear and dog cubs finding them quite delicious and wanting to eat them whenever he could. Which were also one of the reasons he had gotten the honey badger out of the city and into the reservation, so he didn’t have to worry about the honey badger hunting dogs.

The bear seemed to understand what was going on, that it was dealing with more than just a hungry beast. It made sure to shut him up with a swift swing with its paw at Zviad before his teeth could connect with its hide. Shouhei was impressed by how fast the bear swung its paw. It was almost incomprehensible to him that a bear could have such fast movement. His amazement almost made him not notice Zviad hit the cave wall to the left of him, but one could think him as forgiven for this as it only took about seven seconds to play out with the majority being Zviad saying something which Shouhei had already forgotten as the bear took its judging and vengeful sight towards him. It made him glad that he was already in a position to counter attack or flee.

Zviad on the other hand, had finally realized that gravity was a thing and he fell down from the wall the red on the wall being a clear indication that he was bleeding. His last words before disappearing in that recognizable puff of smoke summon animals appear and disappeared in was: “Sorry about that kid. No more tribute… now good luck.” And he was gone.

Shouhei took a second to curse his foolishness as the bear took its attentive and hostile gaze towards him. “Ayi for the hells.” Shouhei could just had unsummoned Zviad and the bear would have been less angry knowing its cubs wouldn’t be involved, and it would just be a regular angry bear. At least he now knew that he didn’t have to use his money on fine meats anymore which was nice, but if only it hadn’t come at the cost of having to fight or flee from a large, angry, dire bear.

His body started to shake in such a way he only experienced before when he trained with Shina. The feeling of stress overtaking your body. He had to calm down and Shouhei was about to do some breathing exercises to do so, but then the bear leaped at him. Panicking, he ducked bearly dodging the swipe coming from the bear paw. That wasn’t the only thing that went into his favor however. The tip of his spear was just at the right place to stab the bear in the heart, so he did so. But the spear tip wouldn’t penetrate the hide, so he panicked and activated the ability of the spear sending the bear flying backwards the back of the cave. It wasn’t bleeding so Shouhei knew he had to do more.

Seeing this stunt worthy of a circus bear and how it bearly pulled it off landing on its feet – get it? – almost made Shouhei laugh, but he didn’t have the luxury of time to do that. For it didn’t take long for the bear to get back on its feet after doing a pretty impressive roll backwards that made Shouhei crack a smile. However, as it came charging he had to think quickly. As cold as it might be to do so, he had to polarize himself and the bear to make sure it couldn’t get any closer. After all, if he turned around to let it, he would have some nasty tattoos engraved on his back. So, he placed his newly acquired spear under his chin and held it in place so he had his hands free to do hand seals. On a side note, the spear didn’t smell weird in spite of having been lying in the cave, preserved for so long. Just smelled a bit metallic.

His hands formed into the dragon, tiger, and finally the hare hand seal. Shouhei could feel the familiar feeling of water building up in his stomach before getting expulsed in a steady torrent out of his mouth and in front of him. A feeling he haven’t felt in his stomach since he helped put out a large house fire back in the village. As for how effective it was, it wasn’t. The its charge was hindered, but only to a slow walk as it forced itself towards Shouhei. Well that was he got for trying to stop a bear a size or two larger than him, which also kind of reminded him just how large the cave was. If Shouhei didn’t have his mouth full, he would have tested the echo like a gingerly kid.

In any event, things were turning grizzly with how that plan didn’t work as he had intended. He had to come up with something else, and what he came up with was simple enough. It all had to do with the speed of his staff and the hopes it could extend fast enough. Well also that it could extend from the foot of the haft. He calculated that he had about two second lead on it if he broke the technique.

Channeling his chakra through it, it somehow extended inspire of him not holding it properly, but having it held under his chin. Swiftly he put his hands on the haft, breaking the technique and flying off with the speed of the staff. As things would have it, he was right about being two seconds ahead, but he winced greatly as he learned that he would need one more to get out unshaven. And by that I meant he cried out in pain as the claws of the bear ran over the surface of the skin of his chin and angle causing a bleeding mess. But he succeeded, and flew out and got the light outside entrance sneezing as his eyes came in contact with the sunlight. On a side note, if he had been more lucid and less stressed, he would note how cool it looked that his blood flowing behind him like a stream of water.

Notes wrote:Word Count: 1569
Total Word Count: 2648

After what took forever, he finally landed on the ground outside of the cave entrance, Shouhei noticed a handful of things as his spear quickly shrunk back to normal size. He was still bleeding, and from what he could tell, the bear hadn’t hit any arteries so that was good. It was pretty bad however, and his head got as bit woozy just looking at the blood spill. It was clear he needed to clean the wound and bandage that up soon. Oddly enough, his sandal had come off without any scratches. The last thing he noticed before he heard the bear roaring in the cave and coming closer was just how much his foot hurt now that he looked at it. But as the bear came closer he had to test if he could still run.

Taking a quick peek around the ravine he noticed that were only two routes out. The path he had come from – which would take a while even if he ran – or up the cliff wall itself. Any normal person would be screwed here, but Shouhei while some might not call him a real ninja knew the art of ninjutsu so scaling the wall of the cliff without equipment was as easy as walking down the road. Well as long as his chakra reserves were high enough, which they were as the only thing he had really done to drain it was using the water trumpet technique before.

When it came for the time to choose – or about ten second later as he would like to call it – he took his spear in hand and used it extension ability to shoot him up to the wall and grab on. Having thought a little ahead for once, he used all his four limbs latch on as he guessed his foot would be able to support, and even if the foot was physically well enough to do it, he was sure his pain resistance wasn’t.

To his surprise, his senses weren’t dulled by the pain in his foot – one day he would laugh at himself over how much he had a focus on his foot but today is not that day – as he could still feel the temperature of his surroundings and hear things. Like the heat coming of the sun exposed cliff side he was now latched onto and hear the occasional gust of wind caressing the rock formations. Thinking he was safe he pulled his spear back towards him. He would have probably enjoyed the sight of the gold covered haft coming back towards him. However, as he looked back to make sure the spear didn’t get caught in something – it did after all have a sword guard that could get caught in one of those stones sticking out of the wall or one of the many roots and that one tree stump he passed by just now – he saw the bear climbing up the ravine wall. Using its claws to climb up the cliff side, and it was going fast surprising Shouhei and ticking a great deal of annoyance in his mind and maybe also a bit of anger.

“Why? Why is it still following me,” Shouhei thought aloud as his jaw muscles started to tense up, “Am I still in your damned territory? Are you hungry, or have the mind of some damned vengeful barbarian?” His voice started to raise as he started to anthropomorphize the dire bear more than he perhaps should have.

By now his spears had come to him by now and was back to its original size. Shouhei had noticed that, but it would appear something else had noticed that too. “You know what? If you push that beast down now, it will all over for its insignificant life. You could basically skin it and wear its skin as a sign of your preeminence over it and other animals.”

Shouhei wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from – as there was no one but Shouhei, the bear, and the occasional critter on the ground – but time seemed to slow down as the voice spoke. “Do it. Do it while you still have the time.” It was weird how the pain disappeared as the voice spoke to him. Moreover, the what it spoke of felt really tempting. Like punting someone down from a flight of stairs if they are being too slow. However, it was a bit different for Shouhei than how such a feeling normally pan out. He actually wanted to do it, and the voice of reason telling him to cool down struggled to be audible. He had a few ideas how he could fight it actually, and knew that he would have an advantage fighting it on the ravine wall. It had to use its claws to climb around so it would be very slow as opposed to those swift charges it had showed in the cave. However, as soon as he stood up and used his chakra to cling to the wall that voice of reason came back as the pain from his foot shot through him. So instead of doing a twist to face the dire bear in battle, he instead started to run up the hill and kept going in spite of how much it hurt to do so.

Not that he would know until he reached the top, but when he did, Shouhei looked back to see that he had gotten a big lead on the dire bear who were limited to physical strength to climb upwards. It just didn’t seem to have the ability to use chakra to walk up the ravine. That wasn’t to say that he should underestimate it, especially with how fast it had run inside the cave and gotten to the ravine wall in the first place. Shouhei had only gotten out of that pickle thanks to his new stabby tool.

His eyes suddenly widened when Shouhei looked at his hands and noticed changes to his left hand. It had been covered by some grey substance. At first, came off as some kind of fluid coming from his sweat pores – where else would it come from? – then as it solidifying, into a solid substance that registered rough like sandpaper and chalkstone as he ran his right hand over it. Lifting up his pant leg he noticed how it covered his wound too. “Is this why the pain was numbed?” He thought aloud as he also noticed how the pain became insignificant to his senses even as he focuses his mind on it and its presence.

Now Shouhei had forgotten the presentation that Kyousuke gave him – or at least the texture of his cannon – so he couldn’t use that as a contextual device of what was happening to him right now. Well it was not like he could think about it for much longer now. For unlike when the voice spoke to him, time wasn’t slowing down right now, so he turned around and started to leg it before the dire bear could climb up fully.

On his way to the ravine, Shouhei and Zviad had encountered an abandoned village about one and a half mile away. A clear memory of Zviad responding, “Nah the spear is not here. We have to go down to the ravine itself. That’s about 3 miles away if we don’t want to break our neck. No I am not letting you carry me and climb down the ravine wall like a ninja,” when he had asking about the place. It wasn’t a good place to stop for water either as its well had run dry along with the nearby rivers turning this place into a dry land. However, it was Shouhei’s destination as he could hide there, and tend to his wounds. It might not be bleeding bad, but infections could still be a problem.

It might have been five minutes or so later, and all one could hear was the heavy breathing of Shouhei as he ran with the dire bear follow him in tow down the dry plains of mostly dried up dirt and stone. The distance between them being about 50 meters. The fact that it was still following him gave Shouhei the impression that the bear wasn’t going to give up. He had hoped he could outrun it with ease, but as he couldn’t jump forward like ninjas usually do when they travel far. The reason being that every time he did, a smart of pain shot through him from his foot and up his leg.

“It deserves to be skinned. Just do it and get it over with.” The voice came back came back along with a shot of anger into Shouhei’s state of mind. It was right, but Shouhei had to try something first that had come to mind when he had noticed the stones around him. He needed to try to make this grey stuff on his skin harder – that for some reason were still there –to increase his chance of survival by being more armored. Putting the spear in his mouth to leave his hands free, Shouhei did the tiger seal and tried to concentrate with manipulating the grey stuff to make it denser. While it was hard to concentrate – between running for your life, and the pain in the foot – he still pulled it off, and with his spear in his hand he struck it to hear some metal like sound.

With that he turned around – there still being about twenty meters between them – Shouhei saw the bear looking tired which reminded Shouhei that bears weren’t really made to chase like a cheetah or even in the enduring way humans do that tired out prey. His spear ready and raised, Shouhei charged at the bear to meet it halfway (okay more one-third the way as it was faster than him). The bear raised its paw, and Shouhei slid underneath it to get a clear strike at its stomach. He figured he could just slide underneath it as it was only fast when it charged, and it was tall enough that he could stand between it legs and stab it in the stomach. He had a hunch it could work now as the grey stuff on his left side made him much more energetic.

Yet withal his movement being fluid, and Shouhei was able to get underneath its stomach and was able to stand up, something happened he did not expect. When its paw attack had failed, it was able to take a few steps backwards and place that paw on Shouhei’s chest who was knocked down by the force. He was lucky enough that the air didn’t get knocked out of him. Nonetheless, he cried out in pain and he was just happy that none of his rips broke, nor that his spine got hurt.

“You jive ass bastard!” Shouhei yelled as he thrusted his spear at its chest with tears in his eyes from the pain of the stomp to his chest. At least his positive hunch from before was right as the spear did seem to draw some blood causing the bear to take another step backwards so it could reach its teeth around the haft of the spear and stop it from doing further damage. It was curious that it could do that, but what took Shouhei by surprise was how it just ripped the spear out of his hand and then swiftly placed its paw on Shouhei’s throat. Shocked so strongly that his pupils became twice as large as their normal size, Shouhei turned his neck saving his Adams apple from being pushed in. Now he was just getting strangulated, which wasn’t as nice either, and distracted Shouhei from thinking about why it hadn’t just slashed his throat. He had other things on his mind, like taking out a kunai out of his sealing gloves so he could stab the dire bear in its offending leg.

The bear cried out in pain, but it didn’t lift up its leg like he had hoped, so he jammed another wound into its leg with his kunai. It still didn’t help, but he kept on trying as he knew one of them was going to give up at some point, and he wasn’t the one who was going to. One of the few things he noticed before his eyes started to show stars, was the time his wrist watch showed. It was two minutes past two pm, but after that everything went black.

Notes wrote:Word Count: 2110.
Total Word Count: 4758.

It didn’t take long for Shouhei to wake back up, and thank the gods he woke up. It could be a lot worse, or so he guessed after he had looked at his wrist watch. It was only three minutes past two pm, so that meant he had at max been out for a minute, but likely only for seconds, which told him his brain should be fine when it came to brain damage. He would have to pray to his family’s tutelary deity – or kami if you will – some often, and provide it with some gifts.

Other than being able to tell time, what he noticed when he woke up was the smell of blood. Leaning up and looking around, he felt really fast as if his body was moving faster than his mind. He had definitely been chocked out, and seeing as he could sit up, his throat hadn’t been hurt which made him send an actual prayer of thanks to his tutelary deity instead of just thinking about doing so. As for the blood, it didn’t seem to be his, as it dragged across the dry dirt towards the ravine. “At least now I don’t have to track it down.” He noted with some humor, although his voice did not come out as clear as he had expected, but sounded slurred from the blurriness him having been chocked out caused.

Then it struck him. “That baster ran off with my spear.” He cried out as the grey stuff covered his left side again. It didn’t harden like before, however. It didn’t matter that his body felt weird right now. Shouhei fought his body and mind, and just stood up. Discard his leg pain, discard his ribcage feeling like it was about to burst – but not really – and finally discard any sense of humanity or fair play.

Little did he know – not did he care – that he looked crazy. He likely also were as he sternly ran back towards the ravine and not able to keep up with time as it seemed like only seconds had passed when his eye caught up with the bear who were walking down the pathway at the foot of the ravine towards its cave.

Looking around, he noticed a large boulder. “That would cause a large amount of damage to that Poisonous bunch-backed toad!” The voice who had before spoke in his head said through his mouth as the anger he experienced from the humiliation and then getting his newly acquired hardware stolen made the two become of one voice and a shared lack of reason. Or sort. His lack of reason right now was more a form of rage where he wished nothing but pain and mayhem upon his target. Not a random display of actions.

In any event, he pushed down the boulder then rid it down the ravine wall like he was surfing on a wave out on the ocean. And wouldn’t you know? The god of convenience allowed Shouhei to hit the dire bear on its side sending it flying a few feet. Though funny enough, the boulder had hit the top of the bears back and somehow bounced off and hit the wall far to its flank. Shouhei who had jumped off just before collision started to laugh on how much it looked like the laws of nature was no longer in effect. His wooziness from being chocked probably not helping either with his senses.

“Hahahahahahaha” the laughter bellowed out from his belly as he grabbed his spear, and walked away. “That was great.” He noted to himself still a bit hotheaded from the little stunt there. However as he cooled off in the few steps he took away from the dire bear, he noticed how it had stropped bleeding a while ago. He just shrugged thinking that was none of his business, but then Zviad’s words came back to his mind. “That’s something nice you have back there in the cave. A nice small snack for me!”

“Oh yeah. It got cubs, and it’s a mother bear… I think.” He noted. As for the last part, he did walk among its legs and didn’t get a surprise to his head so it being female was his best guess.

Well now he suddenly had feelings of regret – and the grey stuff had disappeared but he hadn’t noticed that yet – and he thought of what to do. He could take cubs to the newly opened reserved, but then they would have to be raised by something or someone which would be troublesome. He signed. “I guess I will have to try and see if my healing techniques works on animals too.” Then looked back at the unconscienced bear. But before he did anything, he performed the hand seals Ox → Tiger swiftly healed his own leg with the Mystical Palm Technique and the blue glow it laid over his legs through his hands. He wished he had done this way before as the pain went away fully before he could even draw another breath.

However, this wasn’t about him but the bear, so he walked back to its side to analyze how much damage he had caused. There was of course its leg he had stabbed repeatable, but other than that he had a hard time finding anything. That was until he looked a little higher and saw its back was twisting a bit, and upon further inspection he made the following proclamation to himself. “Oh it broke its spine. That explains why it is unconscienced. The neurological shock would cause a temporarily cut off from the airflow to his brain and spine.”

He started to feel how far down the spine the damage was. “Now let’s see how bad this is.” And came the realization that, “okay so it has lost its use of its hind legs. That explains why it is still alive.” As for how Shouhei could walk around it…well he was careful, and he didn’t weight that much yet when it came to muscle mass. He was just a skinny kid in his young teens who carried himself at a healthy weight.

From here on this was how things went, he got off the bear, and adjusted its hind side so it was the right way, then he mended its spine together, and finally he took care of the leg so it couldn’t get infected. He made sure not to heal too much of the fatigue it might have experienced from this altercation – he wouldn’t want to chase him after all – but still enough that it could feed its cubs. To all of his luck, the dire bear didn’t even wake up as he operated on it, and made sure it came out alright. Before he left he made sure to leave some of his rations by the cave entrance then get the heck out of there.

He took his spear next to the bear, and as soon as he was far away from the bear, he opened one of his water scrolls above him to make sure he didn’t have any sent it could recognize. “I should probably find a town to sleep in before it’s dinner time,” he noted to himself before he disappeared into the distance. He had a lot to think about on the way, but he was too tired to think about any of it before he was safely in a bed somewhere in the small and quaint town he found a few miles away. It was large enough however to have a marketplace that farmers could take their goods too, and bordered one of the minor countries around Hoshi, so he was able to find several taverns, but specifically one that fitted his budget.

[EXIT]

Notes wrote:Word Count: 1306.
Total Word Count: 6023.
Already claimed words: 1000 (for the spear).
Words left: 5023.
Claiming stats: 25.
Jutsus claimed: Mystical Palm Technique (983 + 1779  + 1238 = 4000/4000).
Skills Claimed: Jugo Sage Armor (3000/3000)