Cold, sharp winds blew through a valley deep into the north of the world. There stood a forest of towering trees coated in a thick gathering of snow, the lands silent except for the whispering of the winds.
Within this forest stood a small log cabin. The cabin wasn't a well appointed house like most in this world would live in, instead containing only the bare basics necessary for survival. The cabins owner was a short woman in her mid thirties, her hair naturally grey with threads of white peeking through. Her eyes were a cold blue, her face some would perhaps describe as too sharp for conventional beauty. This woman wasn't large but neither was she thin, simply having a healthy amount of muscle gained through her daily life living in the harsh northern lands.
Amongst other things, the woman was a hunter. Skilled in many ways, she knew how to create and set basic traps, track various animals and, using a large hunting bow with broadhead arrows, she knew how to hunt well enough to keep herself fed. The skill was a necessity in the harsh environment she lived in, especially taking into account she lived alone. The woman was named Zalia.
"These are definitely deer tracks," Zalia thought, smiling.
She had run out of meat from her last catch three days past after she had fallen sick. She had been living off various foraged berries since then, slowly recovering her health and while it was enough to live off for a short time she was now starting to feel the ache of hunger quite painfully. Two days past a snow storm had come through and wiped out any tracks, drastically reducing her chance to find any prey to hunt but her bad luck over the past week turned to good as she found these tracks now,
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"Best get to work then," she thought, settling her mind in for a long hunt.
Three quarters of an hour later, Zalia found the animal she was looking for. It was a black-tailed deer, the only type she'd seen where she lived and the only type that lived there as far as she knew. It would make for a good catch if she could get off a decent shot.
Zalia was currently wearing a very thick snow jacket coloured in mottled white and grey, its hood up to keep out the cold and a scarf wrapped over the lower half of her face underneath. In matching colour she also wore thick pants and a pair of black, heavy duty boots. In her hands she held a longbow with a draw weight of thirty kilograms, aimed with very slight tension on the string at the deer in front of her. The bow wasn't the most advanced weapon in this world but it was definitely her preferred one.
Exhaling as she drew and stood in a smooth, practiced motion, Zalia held for but a moment before noticing something quite strange. It was like a warping of the air, the fabric of reality itself moving and rippling in a small hovering ball. The deer seemed to notice it in the same moment too as three things happened at once. Zalia released the arrow, the deer dashed away in a sudden movement and the warping ball expanded in a rush enveloping her, the deer and a large chunk of land.