Authors note: Sorry, but this chapter is a bit shorter than others and I will probably post the second part of this chapter only on Saturday.
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Alexander currently was researching how to use traps on the Internet. Setting up traps requires a lot of time and energy, but can be very efficient.
Most of the currently used traps can be divided into different types: foothold traps, snares, cages or even other kinds of traps.
The foothold trap is probably the trap most associated with trapping. It is made up of two jaws, one or more springs, and a trigger in the middle.
A deadfall is a heavy rock or log that is tilted on an angle and held up with sections of branches (sticks), with one of them that serves as a trigger. When the prey moves the trigger the rock or log falls, crushing the prey.
Snares are anchored cable or wire nooses.
Trapping pits are deep pits dug into the ground, or built from stone.
Cage traps are self-explanatory and are designed to trap the prey alive.
Using the information he managed to gather, Alexander designed traps that could be easily and quickly made.
Logging back in he immediately went to work on his ideas. He started by directing the various animals, especially the wolves to start digging out deep trenches. They were wide enough to let a person fall inside, but not wide enough for the wolves and lynxes to not be able to jump over them.
Inside these trenches he then put sharpened wooden spears to impale someone falling inside. The construction of these spears even increased his blacksmithing skill minimally.
They built many snares that would each trigger a deadfall. The deadfalls that Alexander built were set up with the help of the bears, boars and wisent, since they were the only ones able to move the huge logs and rocks.
He also used specific foothold traps that would also trigger rains of arrows from above, since the arrows were tied up high in the trees with a rope that would snap, when the foothold traps were triggered. The arrows were just made out of wood, since Alexander didn’t want to use much iron on them.
He also made many snares that would leave their victim hanging upside down in the air, thus being easy prey for the different animals.
Since not all the animals could jump over the trenches and many other traps were being installed, the leaders of the different animal species came up with the idea of smearing a certain fruit on them, which gave off a very nauseous smell for the animals but couldn’t be detected by humans. With this smell they could navigate through the traps without getting trapped themselves.
Alexander luckily had the son of the elder as his guide for the same purpose.
He also forged special greaves for the leaders. Greaves are the part of a medieval armor that covered the shins and since the animals here, ran on all fours they only had legs, so Alexander decided to call the armor he had made for their legs, greaves. These greaves had blades on them to extend their attacking abilities. These blades would essentially provide more sharp claws with which they could attack.
Using the left over pieces of leather, which were numbering more than 600 pieces, he created some sort of leather vest fitted for the different animals. He managed to make 150 intact ones. The animals wearing these would be on the front lines in the upcoming war.
The foxes and animals unfortunately couldn’t participate in making the traps that were located at 200 meters to 500 meters near the edges of the forest, since they just didn’t have enough intelligence to understand what he intended and thus didn’t approach him.
Wolves in small groups were left patrolling the borders of the forest to prevent players from seeing all the activity of different animal species building traps all around the city.
For food he had to hunt rabbits or eat fruits and nuts. The predatory animals participating in this event also had to hunt for food, but this all was part of nature’s cycle in contrast to what the human players were doing.
Working almost non-stop for three entire weeks hey had finally set everything up, including using the dirt to create elevated positions, so that they could defend and attack from a position bringing advantages.
Because of his elevated stats and skill proficiency Alexander killed the rabbits or foxes he hunted for food by only using one precisely aimed arrow to achieve a critical hit. He aimed at their eyes, their throat or their hearts to kill them quickly without pain. He had researched the anatomy of various animals online to place such critical shots.
Stolen story; please report.
Many animals had been hurt during this time by humans, since they still had wolves come out at night to prevent the players from becoming suspicious. These wolves however never ventured out fully alone. Two other wolves that were waiting in the shadows to see if the other wolf needed help always accompanied them. Healing these animals and himself after having fallen into one of his traps, receiving a long gash down his entire leg, he gained a skill.
You have learned the skill First Aid
First Aid(Lvl. 1: 0%)
Used to apply bandages and gauze.
Enables one to stop the bleeding.
Increases life of the wounded when tended, depending on your skill level.
Effects: Increase life: +2%
Since the animals that were willing to receive his help after being hurt during these three weeks only were about two hundred, he only increased its skill proficiency to Beginner Lvl. 3: 29%.
He had also gained another skill
You have learned the skill Trapping
Trapping(Lvl. 1: 0%)
Can create various kinds of traps.
By using traps to kill or weaken monsters, you will have an increased experience gain, depending on your skill level.
Attack power of traps increases depending on your skill level
Effects: If trap helps kill prey: +1% Extra Experiences given
Increases Attack Power: +5%
Can disarm various kinds of traps in a certain time, depending on your skill level
Effects:Can disarm Beginner Level Traps in two minutes.
Can disarm Intermediate Level Traps in twenty minutes.
This skill however he had managed to increase to Beginner Lvl. 7: 4% for making thousands of traps of many different kinds and gained skill proficiency in the skill crazily even though he had received much help from the animals.
Now however Alexander had reached the limit of having learned ten skills and this limit would only increase to fifteen after reaching level 100. He was however curious to see what would happen if he successfully completed this quest and be rewarded with the skill Taming.
For having made the hundreds of traps his blacksmithing skill, which was needed to for example make the arrows and spears used for the traps, increased in proficiency to Beginner Lvl. 6: 34%, while his tailoring increased to Beginner Lvl. 3: 47%.
For constantly having run around and working on different things various other stats had improved a bit as well.
Now Alexander was slowly walking to the edge of the forest with three-dozen wolves and a dozen Lynxes. The other animals stayed back inside the forest, since tonight the only thing they wanted to achieve is quickly dispatch of different groups of players without being noticed by other groups. They chose tonight to start since there was no moon up in the sky, thus enabling them to use the darkness and shadows much better to hide themselves and sneak around.
Alexander could see only around two hundred people. These players were brave enough to fight against monsters with a nighttime bonus just to have the increased experience provided during the night.
Just a few days ago Alexander noticed that at night, maybe because his skin changed colors to black, he also had a 15% increase in attacking strength. He never noticed before since 15% increase didn’t really mean much when his attack strength had been in the low digits.
What he had also noticed and it had shocked him extremely was that at night his Alignment changed to ‘Pure Dark’, which didn’t sound good to his ears. He was lucky that he had chosen to hide from players and NPC’s during nighttime.
Alexander divided the animals with him into four groups of ten animals each and his group with eight animals.
“Let the war begin!”
Alexander whispered before letting loose an arrow perfectly going into a players neck.