Dungeons & Disappointment

Chapter 32: Hunting

The moment the ship hit the ground in the large pine forest around us, I jumped off the side and landed nicely, drawing my bow and holding it at the ready. The forest around me was rather dark, but I was still able to see in the dim light of the moon that was shining down on us.

"Alright, I'll be back soon." I said. "See yall."

"See you. Bring back something big, and try not to die!" BahnBarr yelled.

I shook my head at BahnBarr's comment, then forged into the forest. For the first couple hundred feet, I didn't see any animals, but after about five hundred feet of moving rather stealthily, I heard a sound from up head, and I dropped to a crouch, staring out. Thankfully, I had left my armor back at the ship, so I was much more stealthy,a and boy was it going to be useful as the fastest black bear id ever see lumbered through a bush. As I stared at the large creature, I felt a little sense of fear. While I had faced down giant spiders and other monsters, I had never done that alone. Now, I felt fear creep up my spine, and I just decided to go the other direction. I took a right through the forest, stealthily moving along the floor of the forest and trying to find some prey that might not fight back as hard. I looked around, and I saw two squirrels that were hanging off of a tree, and I noticed that they were in the middle of lovemaking.

I looked away, a little bit uncomfortable with the fact that I was about to shoot animals in the middle of mating, but my stomach rumbled. And with that, any lingering thoughts flooded right out of my mind. I strung an arrow in the bow and fired, and the arrow pierced both of them though the head, pinning them to the tree.

"YES!!!" I hissed, then walked up to the tree and ripped the now dead squirrels down, hanging them on my belt, and I moved on.

A couple hundred more feet, and there were still no animals, despite my best efforts to remain stealthy, so I just crouched against a tree, waiting for an animal to lumber into my path. I sat there for a while, listening to the forest and humming to myself a little bit, trying to pass time, but suddenly, and almost unbelievably, six elk ran right in front of me, none of them seeming to notice me as the stopped and started grazing. Their heads periodically looked around, scanning the environment around us, and I notched an arrow, pulling it back and getting ready to fire. I aimed at the back of the head of one of the elk, and I fired, letting the arrow whistle through the air and pierce the elk through the heart. It cried out, then, I notched another arrow and took aim at another elk, this one not running, and I fired, piercing it right in the buttocks. The elk screamed as the other one dropped, and it tried limping through the forest. The rest of them ran away, and I got out of my hiding space, drawing my knife and walked up to the elk as it collapsed. It huffed and puffed, trying to put up a fight, but I knelt over it and held the knife to its throat.

"I'm really sorry, but we gotta eat you. I hope this isn't too painful."

I slid the knife right into its throat, and the elk stopped moving as blood pooled on the ground. I felt a little bit bad about it, having to kill the rather harmless animal just to eat. This wasn't like the spiders, who were a threat, or the displacer beasts, which ambushed us, or even the Warg, which was a rather evil creature. However, I sat back, thinking over my actions, and my stomach grumbled yet again.

I grabbed both elk, and I hoisted them over my shoulders. Honestly, I thought that the elk would be super heavy, being rather fat, but I was able to lift and hold them with no problem, and I made my way back to the ship with almost no difficulty. BahnBarr came running over to the side of the ship, and she pumped her fists in the air.

"HELL YEAH!!!!!" She yelled.

"I'm not done just yet. Gonna try some fishing. Maybe I can find a stream or a pond and get some fishing done."