During her exploration Zalia started paying a little more attention to her surroundings. She found a few herbs and berries that she actually did recognise, which was good. However, she also found quite a few she did not. Still, she took a select few with her as she went, wondering about their possible uses. Once her small herb pouch was full she looked at all the bits she had collected.

Lavender - Tin rank

Thyme - Tin rank

Rosemary - Tin rank

? - Iron rank

? - Iron rank

? - Bronze rank

? - Silver rank

"Quite a haul," she thought

Zalia also took and ate the berries she recognised as she went, not really having anywhere to store them. While it did slow her progress down, it was worth it in the end to hold off starvation.

Zalia had decided to head towards the single landmark she could see above the trees, bushes and snow. A large mountain reaching up into the sky, one she very much didn't recognise and would know about if it were near her home.

Along her way, Zalia had seen various tracks and prints of creatures walking through. Testing her 'Hunter's Sight' ability and her already formed foundation in tracking, she could very easily determine the number of creatures and the size of and number of legs each creature had. Some of these were quite concerning to her. A pack of a dozen four legged creatures had passed through one location, wolves she would have thought except they were ginormous. Much larger than they should have been, making them stand almost twice her height. After a few times using the ability, a notification popped into her head.

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Congratulations! Hunter's Sight has reached Tin 2.

"Oh cool, rank up. Visible and audible notification of rank up. I can see that getting addicting, the very noticeable affirmation of progress," she thought.

Eventually, as Zalia was travelling she was almost at what she would call the base of the mountain. At this point however, she heard a loud, resounding roar close behind her. She looked behind herself to see a few hundred metres away the giant monstrous bear creature charging in her direction. The thing smashed through a tree, slowing only slightly at the impact, the whole tree toppling as it did so.

Zalia panicked. She put her Hunter's mark on the creature, dropped the deer and sprinted away as fast as she could manage. She had a relatively big lead on the creature but it was huge and barely hindered by the snow, let alone even the trees. Her heart pounded in her chest as she ran, desperately looking for anything that could pass as an escape from the beast. She didn't think climbing a tree would help.

Zalia ran for what felt like forever, hearing the groan and crash of toppling trees, the pounding from the ground caused by the beast matching the pounding of her heart. She could sense the creature gaining on her as she ran through the spell she had cast. She flew out from between two trees into a sparsely vegetated area at the base of what was a small cliff face reaching up into the sky, the base of the mountain. Desperately looking around she spotted a crack in the face of the stone wall that looked like it led in at least some distance.

Zalia bolted for the crack and slammed her body sideways into it, pushing further in as quickly as she could. The bear creature slammed against the mountain face with a resounding boom. She came into a small cave-like space, the crack reaching upwards to the sky above her. There was barely enough room to stand, maybe a metre in each direction of space before the crack narrowed again further into the mountain. Deciding it was far enough in, she was breathing hard as she watched the bear scrambling and crashing against the entrance. She saw with some concern that the creature was actually managing to rip apart the stone, digging further in.

After a few seconds of the creature's efforts, Zalia noticed a growing sound. The sound of stones tumbling and falling. The damn thing had caused a landslide. Mere moments later, a veritable flood of stone, snow and wood came crashing down on top of the creature, crushing it underneath. Dust and snow fell down the crack as the world went dark.