The first day after leaving the village was kind of exciting for Luna. Sadly the novelty wore off pretty quickly. Jurgen really did not make for pleasant company, as he kept on complaining about everything. The road was too rocky, there were too many potholes, someone needed to cut back the trees from the road, dinner was not seasoned well, Luna and Martha were talking too much and those were only the beginning.
After three days of travel they arrived at the main road, which was following the river from west to east through the kingdom. The last two nights had been exhausting, as Martha had insisted on two person watches through the night, apparently the Everwood had a reputation for vanishing travelers. Luna said that it was news to her, as long as you did not walk into the forest nothing was going to happen, but nobody cared much what the bumpkin village girl was telling them.
Since they now had Luna to pair up with Martha, Jurgen had stubbornly refused to take a watch. As the caravan master it was his privilege to sleep, or so he said. Thanks to that, nobody had slept more than a few hours and everyone had been looking forward to a proper night's rest.
Along the major road they met other traveling groups, mostly people from small mining or logging villages near the mountains, who were bringing the last goods to the river for transportation elsewhere. Those little outposts of humanity were even smaller than Creek Springs and would often be abandoned throughout winter. Only the people with proper classes traveled out here in spring to work throughout the year and return home when winter came. Those settlements were more work camps than villages and no place for children to grow up.
Traveling on a major road had a few advantages. It was a lot better maintained, some parts even paved with rough stone or filled up with gravel. While those stretches of road were rare, the rest stops along the road were not. Those consisted of a wooden wall with a single gate, a well and a fireplace. They provided a safe place to rest during the night and with nobody else but them inside for the night, Martha decided to not even bother with a night watch.
On their 6th day of travel they reached a massive bridge spanning the Esting. Luna had taken some time to process the size of the structure. The river was easily 50m across and the bridge went across it in just 3 mighty arcs, leaving enough room for the ships to pass below. Martha had just laughed at her and told her to get used to everything being bigger than in her village. After crossing the river the road started to climb steadily, the river disappearing down into a steep gorge. There was no way the road could follow the river down there and the opposite side looked even worse, with steep granite cliffs rising directly from the water.
For three full days they climbed up the hills until the ground finally started to even out again. The river had long disappeared from view, but Luna had other things to think about. According to Martha they would arrive at another village, called 'Thunder Falls' and Luna was very curious to see how different this village might be.
Towards evening they finally came in sight of the village and what a sight it was. From where they had crested a last little bump in the terrain Luna could see the village sitting right next to a small river that came down from the mountains in the north. But it did not just flow by, it dropped down a cliff into the Esting River below, which had turned into a bit of a lake at this spot.
The next thing Luna noticed was the lacking wooden stockade around the village. The only thing guarding the village from anything seemed to be a snoring man under a tree at the village entrance. Martha told her that with no creepy Everwood around, there was no need for any type of wall. The kingdom was taking care of dungeons swiftly and without those there were no monsters around. The only monsters they had to fear were the greedy kings of Zollan and Demholt who had refused to acknowledge the rightful ruler of all the human lands. The last part Martha told with more than just a little tongue in cheek, as everyone knew the other kings were saying the very same thing.
Luna had been constantly hunting during their trip and Martha had told her to look for a few extra rabbits over the day, as she would be able to trade them in at the village. When they finally entered this village Luna quickly realized that there must be a lot less people living here than in Creek Springs. Most buildings close to the river seemed to be storage sheds of some kind.
Only a few fields were being worked next to the village as the soil was not fertile enough for the usual crops and the amount of fertilizer was very limited. Instead they had large areas planted with apple trees, which would be harvested in late summer and autumn. According to Martha the storage sheds were nearly all filled with kegs of fermenting apple cider at this time of the year, which Thunder Falls was apparently known for. Another source of income were large flocks of sheep, which grazed in the nearby hills up north.
Crossing through they attracted quite some attention, which was exactly as Martha had planned it, before they set up on the opposite side of the village. Jurgen was placed on customer service by Martha, while everyone else prepared their camp. Luna followed everyone's advice to stay with the caravan, as the only inn wasn't good enough to pay money for.
Martha had also added Luna's rabbits to their wares and as foretold, they were quickly bought by one of the first customers. Apparently a meaty rabbit could be sold between 5 and 10 coppers, even in a village in the countryside, with prices only going higher in the bigger cities. Jurgen of course took a cut of her sale, and Luna was too tired to argue over it with him, but when Martha heard about it during their dinner around the campfire, she had him return it. Which made Luna all the more popular with the irritating man child.
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Luna spent the next morning lazing about and resting. She spent about half an hour on watch while Franz was sent into the village to get some fresh baked bread for everyone. After that, around noon, she was too bored to just wait out the day. Grabbing her hunting gear she told Martha she would be out for a while and left the village to the north-west, hoping to find something bigger than just a rabbit or squirrel for a change. While traveling the noise from the carts and wagon would scare away all animals and Luna had not caught more than a glimpse of a few deer while hunting. Today she had half a day left and that was plenty of time to cover a lot of ground.
Moving along a small path between apple trees she finally left the cultivated fields behind and started up a little hill, a small stream was flowing down the hillside and she expected to find deer tracks soon enough. The apple plantations were enclosed by a wooden fence, but she highly doubted that it would be able to deter a determined young buck from jumping it, it certainly had been no problem for her Double Jump.
Hiking up the hill alongside the small brook it did not take her long to find the tracks she was looking for. At least they looked like the kind of track she was looking for, only bigger. Luna did not know what to make of that. Deer but bigger? Well, deer was deer. Trained to be cautious she grabbed her bow and attached the string. A metal head arrow ready in her hand she proceeded to follow the tracks away from the freshwater, along the hill line into a copse of trees. And in that copse she found her deer. The all female group was feeding on the nuts dropped by the trees, only that it wasn't the kind of deer she was used to. These were bigger, more massive. If she had to guess, the biggest female of the group was easily 120cm at the shoulder, a good 30cm more than she was used to. Going by the size difference, Luna estimated they might weigh up to 140kg.
The copse of trees stoop near the top of a small hill and Luna decided that she had a good chance to circling around, climbing a tree on the low ground and have a level shot. If she managed to wound and not kill a deer, they would surely not flee up hill, so setting up there would be stupid. Downhill would lead towards the village, and if she could convince them to turn south east, that would be optimal. Further north west, the direction she had set out in, would be the worst possibility.
Satisfied with her rough plan Luna started sneaking around the deer, using bushes and trees to obscure vision and hoping that her stealth skill was enough. This time Luna remembered, there was another Skill she could try. Searching for and finding the [Conceal Presence] Skill, she activated it, but could not figure out what the effect was. She knew it was active, but could not perceive any change for herself or surroundings. Now was not the time for idle thought and she quickly focused back on her task. She reached one of the possible trees she had picked as candidates for her perch. Slinging the bow over her shoulder to free the hand, she activated Double Jump and easily leaped up to grab a branch. Just a few meters up was an ideal split branch. The deer were still oblivious and Luna had all the time to pick two arrows, draw her bow, activate [Silent Shot] and take careful aim at a smaller deer relatively close to her tree.
[Deer]
Level 3 Deer
The tag for the animal was as informative as ever. She really did not need it to see that it was some kind of deer. Only a blind man wouldn't.
She released the shot and quickly placed the next arrow on the string, drawing again in a fluid motion and releasing the second arrow at the same target, right as the first arrow found its mark. The other deer instantly split, charging in all directions, spooked by both the sound of the bow and a very much dead deer keeling over right in their middle. Gaining those levels in the [Bow] Skills had really paid off for Luna. She mentally disabled the Conceal Presence Skill, still unsure if it had done anything. She could however feel that it had drained roughly 20% of her total Mana pool.
She unstrung the bow again and climbed back down to the ground. When she reached the fallen deer, none of them was still in sight. Sadly Luna now faced a very different problem. The animal wasn't as big as she had guessed. She tried lifting it and barely managed to roll it over. 140kg had been guessed way too low. This one must be near 180kg and she had aimed for a smaller one. Grabbing a rope from her pack she hoisted the animal up to let it bleed out. She had to put all her weight and strength into it, but she managed to lift it off the ground far enough for that to work. The only trouble was tying it off while pulling on it at the same time, but after running the rope around a tree once, enough weight was taken off her to finally tie it down.
She started to field dress the animal, still thinking about how she could possibly transport it. She would most likely have to leave some things behind. Cutting off the head and neck above the shoulders would work best, then cut off the legs halfway down, that would still leave enough leg left to hold on to and then sling the whole thing over her shoulders. Plan made, she got to work. Cutting up the carcass with practiced ease. Gravity did most of the work for her, she just had to cut in the right places and not cut in the wrong ones. If done right, with just a few pulls most of the useless bits would come out. Given the size of the animal Luna decided to be generous with her definition of 'useless' for today, all the intestines had to go. She took her time and after 30 minutes the gutted carcass was back on the ground. Now came the fun part. Grabbing her hatchet she first hacked off the lower legs, then proceeded to do the same to the neck. Only the neck was a lot thicker and the hatchet not exactly meant for hacking through muscle, sinew and bone of those dimensions.
Finally done she put the hatchet back in its loop on her belt, leaned the bow on a tree in easy reach and proceeded to lift the deer carcass on her shoulders. After 2 attempts she finally managed it, grabbed her bow and started the long walk back to their camp. She was really looking forward to going the long way around the apple plantations, as climbing the fence was currently out the question.
Looking at the sky Luna guessed she still had more than half the afternoon to get back, so at least that was in her favor.
It only took her a short while to realize that her idea of cutting off pieces to save on weight had been a good idea, if you only considered the weight part. Right now some still remaining blood kept leaking out of the leg stumps, completely drenching her in blood. Looking like she had taken a bath in blood, it was no surprise that she got a few weird looks from villagers when she got back and Martha had to do a double take when she saw Luna.
After dropping the animal and quickly covering it with a tarp, she addressed Martha. "The deer here are a little bit bigger than what I am used to. Luckily I have the size and weight to carry that thing, it would have been a shame to leave half back there. I am off to find a spot to dunk in the river."