They say that when a leopard eats its meal, it will drag the carcass up into the tree with them and eat it leisurely. I imagine they evolved to do this so that they could keep their hunt away from other scavengers of the Serengeti.

But this is not the Serengeti, it is a forest on one side of a mountain range. So, a simple question, why is there a skeleton hanging high up on the branch of a tree?

Hello once again, it is I, the wandering skeleton. Today, I will show you my hunting techniques. Some may say that my ideas are barbaric, but they are still effective. First, place your bait, which in my case are the carcasses from my last hunt. The squirrels in this forest are meat eating scavengers, and although they won’t outright attack each other for food, they will still feed of the corpses of their brethren. Nature is a messed-up place.

Next, climb a nearby tree. Ideally, you want your bait to be directly below the tree, so that you can sit up on a branch, out of sight from your prey. Step three is the hardest, but it is just a matter of patience. Because I don’t have to use a restroom, sleep, or eat, I can stay hidden for several hours. But you must wait for prey to arrive and take the bait.

Once your quarry approaches your bait and begin feasting, jump down from the tree on top of them. Do this as quickly and quietly as possible, as not to alert your hunted. Luckily for me, a couple squirrels are coming towards the trap now.

The final step of this plan is the most intuitive. You take your trusty weapon, and kill the prey. For me, I have my beloved stone, Dwayne. I’ve used Dwayne many a time to bash in my opponents’ skulls. I will demonstrate it for you now.

I leapt from the branch I was hanging on using my body to trap the squirrels, catching them unaware. I then proceeded to beat them to death with my stone. A few seconds of bashing pass before I am satisfied, and I pick up the pair of new corpses, and move onwards to a different part of the forest to replicate this plan.

I’ve been working quite hard to hunt down monsters in this forest. My patented method may only work about 75% of the time, but thanks to it, my growth has been much faster over the past couple days.

I reached level 3 yesterday, and my Dexterity, Speed, and Attack increased the most this time. My Defense and HP increased more than the standard as well, mostly because my hunting requires suicidal divebomb tactics out of trees. And for my magic stats, well, they increased too.

I was also pleased with my skills so far. [Hiking] increased a level over the past few days, so navigating the forest was even easier. [Blunt Weapon Mastery] also grew to level two. I used [Presence Detection] a lot while waiting, but it has yet to grow a level. But the important skills were the ones I gained. I gained 3 skills, total. They were as follows:

[Sneak]: The ability to camouflage or hide oneself so that enemies cannot detect you. If you attack an enemy while still in [Stealth], the attack will be a [Sneak Attack] and will gain extra damage. This action breaks [Sneak]. [Climbing]: The ability to climb objects, be it buildings, mountains, trees, etc. [Trap Making]: The ability to create traps for enemies. Creation success rate scales with [Dexterity].

Did the gods give me that last skill out of pity? All I did was place some bait under a tree and then jump onto the animals that went after it. Does that really count as ‘trap making’? I guess technically there was a setup to let the animal’s guards down and then they died as a result, but in my opinion, this set up could hardly be called a trap. Well, I shouldn’t complain.

With the goal of getting stronger, I finally found an enjoyable task to spend time doing.

I continued to trek through the forest, scanning for the next spot to set up. Then I spotted something special. I found a small river that split through the woods.

Water! After all this time, a source of water! Water means life, and life means better hunting! I may even be able to steal some actual tools and weapons from humans if they ever camp out here. I love my stone, but there is only so much he can do.

But before work comes something else. A bath! My bones are covered in dirt, blood, and leaves, and frankly, I feel if I don’t clean myself not only will I lose an important part of myself, I may even begin to decay a bit more.

I’ve just started to have fun again, I’m not going to return to the ground that quickly. Unfortunately, I had to choose between being clean and retaining my bait, as I was unsure what would happen if I ended up leaving it on the shore. There was a higher chance of finding animals along the shore, but it was still a mystery to how long it would take to encounter prey I was sure to defeat again.

But, I have been working very hard, and to be honest, I want a small break. I’m just going to have to rely mostly on luck in this case. I meander over to the brook. The body of water is about five people wide, if you had them lay shoulder to shoulder, and goes about waist deep. The river flows east, and the water is fairly clear with a tough, rocky bottom. I left my belongings on the shore and began taking handfuls of water and scrubbing my bones.

It took an extremely long time for me to scrape off most of the leaves and other debris, and even longer to begin removing the mud and blood off. Without soap, the whole process was inefficient.

I spent a few minutes soaking all my bones as well. I would just lie down in the middle of the river and let the current run over me and through me. I didn’t need to breathe, and I sunk easily to the river floor. Occasionally, I would check my belongings, and I was lucky enough that nothing had come to steal my bait while I was washing myself.

Because [Presence Detection] was low level, I wasn’t sure if it would work all the time, but I didn’t feel any presences whilst I was underwater, either. At least there weren’t any presences that were outside the river.

I climbed out of the water and began gathering my belongings again, two squirrel carcasses, one large branch, and one stone. Rivers in woods like these remind me of some pleasant memories of camping trips I had with family and friends. Canoeing down peaceful waters, sleeping in a tent outside, and bonfires.

I felt lonely. I have been struggling through this forest for about a week and a half now, and I want someone, anyone, to interact with. I’ve done nothing but monologue to myself and narrate my hunting because I’m so deprived of contact. This is probably the most human aspect of myself left. I just wanted a friend.

If I didn’t find anybody soon, I may just end up drawing a face on my stone and talking to it instead, like some survivor on a deserted island. I have already given him a name.

I just was not confident in my ability to keep my sanity for much longer. But even if I found someone, how would I communicate? I can’t speak, and I never learned something convenient like sign language while I was still human. Though that probably wouldn’t work considering I’m quite far away from home at this point.

I slowly moved down the bank of the river eastward. I was about to place that thought at the back of my mind and distract myself with hunting, when I heard something.

‘He… ee!’

What? What was that? It sounded like it was directly in my skull, but at the same time, I could tell where it was coming from. Was it a call from some bird or something?

‘Help ..eee!’

I definitely heard ‘help’ that time. Something is communicating. Something needs me. If I save some human from danger, maybe they’ll become my friend? It’s a gamble, but I’ve had good luck so far today.

‘Help meeeeeeeee!’

Before I even realized it, myself, I was running. Running eastward. Running with the river. Someone was in danger. I’ll save them. I’ll risk it all. I was almost about to get crushed by my own loneliness. But I have a way to escape it now.

I soon found myself above what seemed to be an odd cove. Steep cliffs about 30 feet high (9.1 meters) surrounded a pond. There was a split in the rock was on the side opposite of me. The pond itself was about 50 feet (15.2 meters) in diameter. From my position, the pond emptied into another river on the left side, one that flowed under the rock. In the very center of the pond lie a small island with vibrant green grass and filled with bright pink orchids. In the middle of that island, a pedestal with a pink gem placed firmly onto it.

As I ran along the cliff while staying out of sight, I spotted two men. One was keeping watch at the split in the rock, making sure nothing was following them, while the other was wading through the pond slowly to reach the gem.

I couldn’t see whatever was asking me for help, maybe they had them tied up somewhere outside? But I knew it wasn’t either of these men, because the voice was somewhere between childlike and feminine, and neither of these two looked like they could have that voice. Neither of them were in trouble, too. While using [Stealth], I made my way to the part of the cliff above the watchman.

It was time to demonstrate to these two bandit types my hunting techniques.