Anika had been scouting the area for a while, not wanting to get too far away from her carefully laid trap. She wasn't sure if any of this was going to work, but it was the best plan she could come up with. It was certainly better than just approaching her target, firing off her best shot and hoping to be done with it. When she spotted a small bear cub she crouched down and snuck closer to see if it was alone. This could be an easy kill, but she had a feeling that bear cubs didn't wander very far away from their family by themselves. She was tempted to take a shot. Would a bear cub still count towards her quest objective? There was only one way to find out.

Before she could decide whether or not to risk taking down the baby bear, it made its way further away from her. She followed as quietly as she could. Hopefully, the mother was somewhere to be found and she could complete the bonus objective of taking down a matriarch. As she moved through the foliage, taking cover where she could, she noticed that she had learned a new ability;

You have learned a new ability: Stealth

You have gained a skill point: Stealth 1/50

You have gained a skill point: Stealth 2/50

...

The young bear cub led her to the mouth of a cave far into the woods. She was now further away from the spot she had prepared than she would have liked, but she felt she had hit the jackpot. The mother bear was surrounded by three other cubs. That made four in total if they would actually count towards her objective in spite of being so young. She looked back from where she had come and figured that she had a good idea of how to get back again. Luckily, the way back would take her through that clearing and all she would have to do was dodge the trap she had prepared. Then hope that the animals wouldn't be smart enough to figure out what she had in store for them.

It wouldn't be a problem to get their attention. The question now was whether to shoot one of the cubs first or the matriarch herself. She figured that getting a good hit on one cub would result in an instant kill, so that seemed the better option. In case she ended up dying again at least she would be one bear closer to completing the quest. Depending on how the matriarch would react, she figured that she might buy herself some time by injuring or killing one of her babies.

She lined up the shot and fired an arrow straight into the nearest cub. It only took a few seconds for the matriarch to spot her so there was no time to wait around and to figure out if she had been successful with a kill or not. It was a mad dash running back through the woods, but she got to the clearing and had enough time to get behind the trap before she spotted the matriarch pounding through the woods and into the clearing. There was no point in hiding now. She was better off standing up and focusing on her target. The breathing and relaxing came easier now although she could still feel her pulse racing and her breath out of control from all the running.

The matriarch was enraged. Anika got three arrows into her shoulders and neck, but she kept running at full speed. This was it, make or break. If the trap didn't work, she would be in a lot of trouble.

The trap was somewhat of a success. It slowed the matriarch down enough for Anika to take a few steps closer and aim for its head. She could count seven shafts in the matriarch's neck and head by the time it was dead.

Her quest progress showed 4/10 grizzly bears and 1/1 matriarch. That meant one of those little cubs did count, and that the one she shot must have died almost instantly. Her immediate thought was to find the other three little cubs, they would be easier targets than the full-grown adults she had faced earlier today. She couldn't believe she was being so practical and heartless about things. Bear cubs were cute, they had done nothing to deserve this. She shook the thoughts out of ahead and focused on completing the quest. The longer she spent playing around in the forest, not getting anywhere, the longer her son would be stuck in that immersion pod. Who knew what damage it would do to him.

As she made her way back towards the cave where she had first spotted the matriarch and the cubs, she checked the system messages. She had received 50 XP for the little cub and a whopping 250 XP for the matriarch. On her character sheet she could see an experience bar filling up from left to right, it showed 55%, so she was halfway to level 2 although she didn't have a clue about the implications of that. She knew a big part of the game was to level up your character, because at max level many new areas, skills and options would be unlocked. Once again, she wished she had paid more attention to the things Ted had been talking about in the past. He had once stayed up all night to level his character and wouldn't stop talking about it the day he reached maximum level.

Her fatigue rating was at 60% now, so she figured that she still had time to complete the quest and get back the Hunter trainer before logging out.

The remaining three bear cubs were not too difficult to find. They had been wandering around the area of the cave and were probably trying to find their mother. After she shot the first one from a short distance, the other two had scattered. She spent a long time trying to find them again, but was pleased to notice that her tracking skills were improving. She wasn't sure, but she felt as if her intuition and ability to read the forest improved with each additional skill point. It was quite a gradual improvement, but thinking back to the first time she had tried to track the injured bear's blood, she was having a much easier time finding the bear cubs now, and they had not even left a physical trail. It was as if she could spot leaves and branches that had been walked over and she followed the signs without giving them much thought. Ralph was right, this was proving to be a useful skill.

After taking care of the remaining cubs and checking that her quest progress showed 7/10, she checked her fatigue levels again. They were now at 72%. With three more grizzly bears to go, she wasn't sure if she was pushing her luck trying to get it all done. She was also concerned about the consequences of pushing the limits of this fatigue, and since this was the first day of playing the game, the wisest decision was to log out soon, and to get some rest. She thought it must be early evening already, but she didn't have a watch and there was no way to check how low in the sky the sun was this deep inside the forest.