The first thing Anika noticed when her vision returned was the system messages in the corner of her view;

You have gained a skill point: Accuracy 3/50

You have gained a skill point: Accuracy 4/50

You have gained a skill point: Accuracy 5/50

You have gained a skill point: Accuracy 6/50

You died

Fatigue 28%

She felt fine, but it took a few moments for her surroundings to come into focus. She recognised this place; it was the same cabin she had found herself in earlier that day. So that was what happened when you died; you returned to a safe place. But what about when she travelled further across the world? Would she always come back to this place if she died? That would be annoying.

There were so many things she didn't quite understand about this game, the stuff you could look up in a guide or tutorial. She hadn't taken the time to do this before jumping straight in, but now she made a mental note to spend some time to at least learn the basics when she got the chance.

One thing was a slight concern. What was that fatigue score and why was it at 28%? She had a look at her character screen, and sure enough above the label which said Hunter - Level 1, there was a yellow bar marked Fatigue. A helpful information box popped up when she focused on a little 'i' next to the yellow bar.

You will be logged out automatically when your fatigue level reaches 100%. It is not recommended to continue playing at high levels of fatigue, and we suggest that you log out of the game and return after sufficient rest.

That all made sense. This was one of those measures that the game designers had put into place to prevent players from continuing to play beyond the limits of their physical bodies. It was also a measure that had been put into place to avoid liability over the health concerns she had been reading about. This way it seemed fair enough, at least there was some connection and warning system in case her body needed to take a break.

But what about toilet breaks? Would she get some kind of warning about that? Perhaps the fatigue level would increase as her physical discomfort got higher. She imagined the embarrassment of having an accident in her white haptic suit and hoped that she would be given enough warning to log out and take care of business before it was too late.

Back to the task at hand. Her quest progress still showed only one of ten grizzly bears killed, so there was more work to do. She had a mind to ask the Hunter trainer about setting effective traps, perhaps he had something sharp she could use or at least a few tricks to teach her.

At first sight he was nowhere to be found, so she decided not to waste any time and made her way back towards the area marked on her map. When she left the cabin, she had a good view of the brook and thought she noticed someone down by the rocks. As she got closer, she saw that the Hunter was busy at work cleaning what looked to be animal hides in the water.

"Excuse me. Do you have a few minutes to spare?" Just then she realised that she didn't even know his name. It hadn't seemed important until now, but she felt it was impolite not to address him by his name, even though he was just an NPC.

"Why certainly. How are you getting on with those grizzlies?"

"Well, I took one of them down. Then I faced two of them at once and they got the better of me." She recalled the experience to him and explained her attempts at disguising herself and the makeshift trap she had created.

"By the way, I don't think I caught your name earlier today. My name is Anika."

"Ah Anika, well it's a pleasure to know your name. I'm no good at remembering, so please forgive me if I have to ask you again. My name is Ralph."

Anika asked him if he had any advice or tricks to share about setting an effective trap. She could see the value in being prepared for each encounter she would face and asked him if this was not a standard part of a Hunter's toolkit. Ralph explained that many hunters did specialise in trapping but that the sophisticated tools and techniques they used were beyond her understanding for the time being. He encouraged her to learn by trying and recommended sharpening a couple of sticks and placing them in the sort of ditch she had worked out how to cover up.

Ralph encouraged her to focus on camouflaging herself and getting the perfect shot to start with. He also suggested that tracking things in the wild would be a useful skill to develop. Apparently there was nothing to it, other than looking for tracks on the ground and following where they might lead her.

"Do you have anything sharp I can use? I'll have a go at sharpening sticks for a trap and I could also use something to defend myself with in case running away from an angry bear is not an option."

"Certainly. You can borrow my skinning knife, I'm done with it for the day." He handed her a small sharp knife with a slightly curved blade, it had a good weight to it and what looked like a very sharp edge.

"I'm sorry I didn't think of that sooner, everyone should have a blade of some sort on them at all times. Tell you what, if you do a good job with them grizzlies, I'll let you have that knife for keeps. Deal?"

"Thank you. I'll try to make good use of it."

You receive item: [Skinning Knife]

She inspected the knife which had been placed in her bag and noticed that it had an interesting stat bonus.

Skinning Knife - Weapon

A curved, short blade with a sturdy handle. Often used for skinning animals.

Damage: 22

+5 skinning

"Just a thought my friend. While you're out there, try to see if you can bring me back a couple of skins. It's hard to get a decent cut without the proper training, but I don't have time to teach you that right now. Have a go, try to bring back large undamaged skins and I'll buy them off you."

Anika wasn't sure about having a go at cutting the skin off a dead animal. It would not be easy and she doubted it would be at all pleasant. She then thanked him for his advice, equipped the skinning knife by focusing on the main weapon slot in her character sheet and set off to find the bears to complete her quest.

She went back to the area where she had failed so miserably a short while ago. With any luck those bears would be close by and they would already be injured, so she might not have so much trouble this time around. When she arrived at the spot where her first encounter had been, she didn't see the bears anywhere around. The carcass from earlier was still lying on the ground further away, but as far as she could tell there were no predators around.

On the ground there was a fair amount of blood. She didn't think it could be hers, from what she could tell she had been transported straight back to the hunter's cabin as soon she had died. No loss of blood. This blood had to be from the bears she had injured. Then she remembered what Ralph had told her that tracking was a useful skill for her to practice. With this in mind she activated her Tracking ability, picked up the trail and followed it.

It wasn't easy. The drops of blood were hard to spot on the forest floor and there would often be several places where she had no idea where the trail led to. The longer she kept at it, the easier it got, and she noticed the familiar system messages in the corner of her view.

You have gained a skill point: Tracking 1/50

You have gained a skill point: Tracking 2/50

...

Her tracking skill reached 12/50 before she spotted her first target. The grizzly bear was lying on its side, likely breathing its last breath. She couldn't be sure if it was a danger to her or not, so she circled it to get a view from the side and decided not to take any chances. She felt she could get close without putting herself at risk, and when she was close enough, she pulled out her bow and sent an arrow straight into its skull.

Grizzly bear dies

Experience gained: 50

Quest progress: 2/10 Grizzly Bears

That was easy enough, but she knew she only had one more easy kill before she would have to take more precautions and kill an uninjured one again. Before moving on, she figured it was worth having a go at skinning the bear. As far as she could tell she didn't have any money yet and if the skins were worth something it would be wise to get a bit of money together for her journey onwards.

There was enough skin to get at, but it wasn't easy figuring out how to separate the hide from the muscle and bone. It made her feel sick, cutting into an animal that had been alive only a few moments ago. She tried telling herself that it was just a game, it wasn't real and that she would just have to grin and bear it. She eventually got a decent chunk off the old bear and placed it in her bag.

You have learned a new ability: Skinning

You have gained a skill point: Skinning 1/50

Although she could have stayed and got another couple of pieces off, she figured that her primary aim was to get this quest done so she could get on with her real quest; to find her son who was out there somewhere.

It didn't take long for her to pick up the second trail although she had to track back quite far towards the original destination. The second bear was not much better off than the first, so she finished it off in a similar fashion. Three down and seven to go. She knew that the next encounter would have to be prepared, she was not planning on repeating the episode from earlier. This time she would prepare a ditch with some sharpened sticks and make sure she could get more than two shots off before the beasts could get to her.

Everything went according to plan initially. She spotted a large concentration of bears on her map and scouted the area for a while before she found the perfect spot for a trap. Digging a ditch took a little while longer than she hoped, but she wanted it to be extra deep, so she used her hands and made a note to acquire a shovel for digging with at some point. She then sharpened sticks and placed them firmly in the ground before covering it up with branches and leaves.

In front of the ditch there was quite a large clearing, so she could see any bears that approached from quite a way off. The only drawback was that if she ran in the opposite direction, she would run through thick bushes and uneven ground. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. She was planning to attract the attention of a bear and then make it back to her hiding place. This time she had created a small tent further away from the ditch than last time. This would allow her a few extra seconds to decide whether to keep shooting or to run for it. The only remaining challenge was how she would find her next target and get it to run in the direction she wanted.