Having water to drink wasn’t the only benefit of holding up by a river, it also came with other animals that frequented the area to drink. Over multiple days, I’d set up snares of varying sizes along the river and in the surrounding woods. Gix and I would patrol the forest, hunting what game we could find, mostly squirrels, frogs, and rabbits, difficult to shoot, but not impossible to chase into a snare. We ate what we needed to stay healthy, but now that I was away from a human settlement, I had time to start stocking up for a long journey. I collected as much excess meat as I could and cut it into thin strips, which I strung up to dry in the sun during the daylight hours. Finding a spot that would get constant sunlight took some time, even in a thinner part of the forest, but after some good long hours of searching both sides of the river, I found an opening in the trees on the other side and rode Gix through the shallowest part of the water. I climbed a tree on either side of the clearing and looped the longest rope I had from a branch on each tree across the gap. With the rope tied in an elongated loop, I could pull it from the bottom to make the top of the loop go forward and carry the strips of meat to the middle of the gap.

Between the meat suspension and the snares, I’d used up all my rope, so when I wasn’t hunting, I was harvesting sinews from my kills and making more rope. When the meat finished drying, I kept it in my backpack, ready to make the fullest use of the extradimensional space in the bag I was given off the body of an adventurer a good while back.

Even with the river nearby, I couldn’t always count on animals showing up to the water, especially when they got wise to the fact that other animals were dying by that river. Every night when I prepared my spells, I would bring my mind to the animals, prey and predator alike, and concentrate on how they found the plants or animals they fed on, but instead of cloaking myself from their detection, I focused on attaining some detection of my own. With my Detect Animals or Plants spell, I could detect the presence of my prey over a distance and speed up my tracking. Gix and I set out into the forest in search of bigger game, and before using the spell, I let Gix’s nose lead us to a trail so I’d know what to look for.

After taking his time to sniff around the forest, Gix found a trail of trampled foliage and began to follow it. I stopped for a moment to take a closer look. The tracks consisted of two toes with pointed hooves separately pressed into the ground, deer tracks, small enough to be either a doe or a young buck. I rode after the tracks and activated my spell to detect the presence of deer. At first, I didn’t detect anything, but I kept riding and cast my gaze around until I picked up the auras of a handful of deer at the edge of my detection’s range. The auras winked in and out of sight as I passed by the trees that stood between us and interfered with my magic sight, but I kept moving toward the deer. The closer I got, the less trees there were to stand in the way, and the clarity of my detection spell strengthened, revealing the presence of a dozen deer, all in a relatively healthy condition.

I dismounted and used the entire length of my newly made rope to set up a snare. It wasn’t easy, a snare strong enough to hurt a deer needed a thick strong branch, and whatever the dragons had in mind when they made us kobolds, it sure wasn’t heavy lifting. I had to climb the tree, tie the rope to the end of the branch, then slide down the rope to attach it to the peg in the ground while I still had all my weight on the rope. After setting the loop of the snare off the ground with some plants to make it easier for an animal to snag itself, I hopped back on Gix and approached the deer slowly, riding around them so I was on the other side of them from the snare.

Gix lowered his stance to keep behind to foliage, and I exited the saddle to hang on to his side and lower my own profile. With my crossbow in hand, I peaked over the plants to get a better look at my prey. All of the deer were either does or fawns, and only one doe was awake, casting her eyes and ears around, ready to warn the others of danger. Killing her before she noticed me could give me time to kill another deer that was still asleep, but there was a good chance she’d still be able to let out a cry to warn the others if I shot her. With the possibility of being spotted at any moment, I decided to attack the lookout doe and only go after another if she wasn’t in good enough shape to run.

For a moment, the lookout doe turned one ear in my direction. I signaled Gix to stay still, and the doe kept her ear on us for a few more seconds. When she heard nothing more, she continued surveying the rest of her surroundings. The moment she had her attention away from me, I lifted my crossbow and loosed a bolt into her flank. She squealed in pain and darted up, running half a dozen meters before stumbling and collapsing to the ground. The rest of the deer jumped at the sound and scrambled to get away. I rode after the nearest doe and Gix swiped at her with his front claws, cutting long streaks into her flank and back. The doe kicked at us with her hind legs, and one hoof hit the side of my lower chest. I yelled in pain but kept to the chase, riding the doe away from the herd and toward the snare. The doe turned to the right, and Gix instantly turned to block that direction. We turned again to speed up after the deer and force her back to the snare. She dashed away from us at full speed, and I did my best to steer her in exactly the right direction.

The doe neared the snare, running just to the left of it, so I rode just to the left of her. The doe’s ear twitched back at us, and she moved to the right when she figured out our position, just as planned. Her right hoof landed right in the snare and pulled it off the peg when she lifted it. The snare yanked the deer’s leg and she tripped with a scream. Without stopping, Gix leapt on top of the fallen deer and used one of his toe claws to slit the animal’s throat.

With two deer down, now came the matter of taking their bodies back to the trees where I strung meat up to dry. I certainly wasn’t strong enough to pull a deer by myself, let alone two, and Gix was no beast of burden. With an entire team of rangers, we could hitch them up to multiple raptors and have them drag the carcases to a more desirable location. I could try taking down the snare and using the rope to tie one deer to Gix, then work with him to pull it to our spot near the river, but even in the best scenario that would take over an hour, and who knew how many scavengers could feed on the other one before I came back for it? I dismounted and slid both hands under the deer and tried to lift it to see if maybe I could lift one of them into a tree. I clenched my teeth as I strained my body against the weight of the deer, but even with the full strength of my arms, back, and legs, I couldn’t lift the carcass more than an inch. There was no way I’d move both whole deer away, so I took out my knife and started skinning the deer.

As I skinned the deer and harvested all the meat, I dug around in my backpack to find my hide blanket, which required a bit of sifting through all the strips of dried meat I already had in it. I spread out the blanket and kept the raw venison on it, and when I was done harvesting, I wrapped it all up to keep it from touching the jerky and stuffed it in my backpack, then walked over to previous deer I shot to harvest its meat.

I pulled out the crossbow bolt I used to kill the lookout doe. It was still in good condition, having landed right between the ribs. I was lucky to have killed the deer so quickly in one shot, the bolt must have penetrated its heart, or else she might have gotten away and I’d only have one deer. Once again, I laid out my blanket and gathered as much venison as I could fit on it, and when I ran out of room, I gathered as much as I could in my arms and let Gix eat the rest. I’d already been soaked up to my elbows in blood from skinning two deer, now I had blood all over my hide tunic. I wouldn’t be trying anything like this again, not only was carrying an armload of raw meat while covered in blood unsanitary, it also carried a strong scent.

As Gix gorged, I watched our surroundings, ready to drop the venison and ride away at the first sign of danger. Luckily, nothing came out of the woods, and when Gix was done, we rode back to camp, where I strung up all the venison and cleaned off the blood in the river. The cold water, mixed with some fat I harvested from the deer, was enough to wash out my tunic and blanket, both of which I hung in a tree to dry. As the sun began to rise, I went to sleep in the hollowed tree with nothing but Gix’s feathers against my bare scales to keep me from losing heat into the bark of our shelter.

...

The next evening, I woke up to the sound of claws scraping against bark. I gently shook Gix awake and tried to pinpoint the source of the sound before leaving shelter. It came from across the river, and with my luck, whatever was making it was probably trying to get to my strung-up meat. I strung my crossbow and strapped on my quiver and backpack, then slowly stepped outside and walked toward the riverbank. On one of the trees where I strung my game from, I saw a massive creature, the size and shape of a bear, but with feathers all over its body and longer hooked talons on its front feet. It had the head of a great horned owl, and stood on its hind legs, trying to dig into the trunk and climb up to the meat. It hadn't gotten anywhere so far, but I wasn't going to wait and see how long it would take for its muscle to overcome its weight.

I already had the river between me and the owlbear, but if the slow-moving waters weren't too hard for me and Gix to cross, they wouldn't be too hard for a big and strong animal like it, either. I mounted Gix and rode up the nearest tree, then I climbed out on a branch and took aim.

Before my exile, I hunted with a kobold named Kargin, who had a knack for lining up his attacks in just the right spot to cause incredible damage and profuse bleeding. If he were here, we could kill the owlbear quickly and use less ammunition doing so. Knowing I couldn't deliberately land such a shot even if I were close enough to be picky about where I aimed, I simply loosed a bolt into the owlbear's back.

The bolt didn't go very deep, but the owlbear screeched in surprise and turned its head all the way around to search for its attacker. I wrapped my tail around the branch to keep balance as I slid my crossbow's stirrup over my foot and pulled back the string with both hands to reload. The owlbear spotted me and turned away from the tree, then ran into the river. I aimed for its head, now that it was in front, but the bolt sailed to the owlbear’s right and landed in its shoulder. The owlbear screeched in pain again, but continued paddling through the water with only the slightest sign of difficulty moving it’s injured foreleg.

I turned to Gix, wondering what his chances against an owlbear were without a pack. My crossbow bolts didn’t seem to be doing much, and the owlbear looked like it could easily rip apart anything in its way. At this rate, it might start climbing to me before I could come close to killing it, so perhaps it would be best to kill this beast quickly by getting it from behind with some swift attacks. I used hand signals to direct Gix into the nearest tree on the right. He got up and leapt through the branches until he was soundly perched in the other tree and waited intently for my next command.

The owlbear was now over halfway across the river, and its eyes had followed Gix’s movement through the branches, but it stayed its course toward the obvious threat that was already causing it pain, me. I made sure I kept its attention by shooting another bolt its way, which missed its mark by less than half a foot and was lost in the running water. By the time I reloaded, the owlbear had reached the river bank and was charging toward my tree. As its sturdy legs propelled its mighty body across the ground, it released a loud and deep “Hoo, hoo!”, a strange but still intimidating combination of an owl’s elegance with a bear’s lumbering body. When the owlbear reached the base of the tree, it jumped and dug its long talons into the bark, then climbed while releasing a string of angry hoots, and the more it did so, the more the hoots sounded like they belonged to this powerful beast.

I loosed one last bolt into the owlbear’s back, which only seemed to make it angrier, then blew my whistle to signal Gix to attack. The raptor jumped down from his perch and sprinted behind the owlbear, then jumped onto its back and sank all his claws into its flesh. The owlbear’s pained screech filled the air as Gix repeatedly slashed at its skin, spattering blood and tearing off feathers. The owlbear loosed its grip on the tree and fell back to the ground, jumping and turning to shake Gix off, but my raptor was dug in too deep. The owlbear turned its head and snapped its beak at Gix, forcing him to pull away his front claws, but it wasn’t enough to make him lose his grip entirely.

All traces of anger gone from its cries and replaced with fear, the owlbear turned to the left and ran. I blew my whistle to order Gix to break off, we’d already won. Gix returned to the bottom of my tree and looked up at me patiently. When the owlbear was out of sight, I climbed back down and we crossed the river to examine the supplies drying on the ropes. My tunic was ready for use again, but the meat still needed more time in the sun before it was ready for travel. While I donned my hides, it occured to me that if there were owlbears in this land, I’d need better preparation to face them. I couldn’t count on the next owlbear, or any other monster for that matter, appearing in a way that allowed me to prepare for a fight. The best way to guarantee survival in an unexpected fight would be to increase my level of Experience by pushing myself and beating greater challenges. With more Experience, I’d be able to cast more spells, boost my skills, and unlock new talents. Hell, even just increasing my health would give me more time to escape an encounter I couldn’t win. Better yet, travelling alone meant I wouldn’t have to split the Experience of every fight. I even had an opportunity to gain a good level of Experience now by tracking down and finishing that owlbear.

As I prepared to mount Gix and track the owlbear down, I paused. Did I actually need to kill the owlbear, or was getting it to run away enough? I never could tell when I gained Experience, not until I noticed a kind of growth when I reached the next level. Deciding my best bet was to not take chances and kill the owlbear to be sure, I knelt down to prepare a spell to help trap it. As my mind slipped into the ground, I entered the plants and focused on a desire to make them move. The idea of moving was foreign to plants, so I let my mind get closer to them to introduce my familiarity with moving, and most importantly, with gripping. I let the plants soak in this idea and grasped it when it finally solidified, then returned to my body and mounted Gix.

On the other side of the river, Gix picked up the owlbear’s scent and followed the trail of blood. It took about an hour to find where the owlbear had stopped to lick its wounds, and when we did, I dismounted and kept low in the underbrush. The owlbear was in a thick patch of the woods, surrounded by trees and foliage, and it was sitting still to avoid disturbing its injuries. I slowly crept back and ruffled through my backpack to find a carving knife. The entangle spell would slow the creature down, but I’d need sharper traps to cause damage. I walked away from the owlbear to stay out of its hearing range and started cutting branches down and sharpening their ends. It took a few hours of carving, along with some careful trips back to the owlbear to make sure it hadn’t walked away, before my spikes were finished. Despite my distance, I couldn’t help but wonder if the owlbear could hear me scraping away at the branches, but every time I snuck back to check on it, it hadn’t moved, though it did have its head up high to survey its surroundings. If it did hear me sharpening the sticks, it was too dumb to figure out what was happening, and with its wounds, it may have even been too scared to investigate.

Since the owlbear was in the open, there was no guarantee as to which direction it would go if attacked. I didn’t have enough spikes to surround it, and the more time I spent making them, the more time the owlbear had to catch on. I quietly went about planting the spikes underneath the bushes in four narrow rows, each spaced about my height apart, then rode Gix over to the owlbear to get its attention. We snuck halfway around our quarry, and through the gaps in the underbrush, I could see that it was following our movement, patiently waiting for our next move. Despite the shiver this sent down my tail, I realized this played into my advantage. A creature that wasn’t scared would chase me into a trap.

I spurred Gix to jump out from the cover of the brush and shriek at the owlbear with his claws outstretched. The owlbear reared up, held its forelegs wide, and opened its beak.

“Hooooooooo!!!” its cry filled my ears, and even though the beast was bleeding and stuck with multiple crossbow bolts, its quick willingness to attack now that I was on the ground stiffened my tail with fright. I steered Gix to the right and rode to the first row of spikes, and the owlbear bounded after us. When we were just two steps away from running into the spikes, I commanded Gix to leap in the air, sailing well over the trap. When we landed, I spurred him on and prepared to leap the next row without looking back. By the time I heard the owlbear’s pained screech, I was already preparing to jump the fourth.

The owlbear cut and impaled its front paws as it broke through the first row of spikes, and the momentum of its charge carried it straight into the second. It was visibly trying to slow down when it broke the third, and the fourth practically served as a buffer to stop it for good. The owlbear reared up again and hooted angrily, but now it looked more like it was trying to use its immense size and loud call to look scary despite its bloody forelegs and broken claws being too badly injured to kill anything with. It stood in place, staring me down from a distance, but didn’t seem willing to move, perhaps fearing another row of spikes. I held out my arms and brought them up while making a grasping motion.

“Entangle!” the grass and bushes sprouted up and wrapped around the owlbears legs and body. It struggled in vain to escape before the plants were fully tightened, then strained to break them. It’s powerful muscles were almost enough, but the pain of its injuries made it too difficult to snap the plants. I brought out my crossbow and loosed a bolt into the owlbear’s chest. It screeched and continued struggling, finally managing to break its bonds and press forward, only for more plants to sprout up and hamper its charge. I remained past the edge of the spell’s radius, calmly reloaded my crossbow and shot the owlbear again as it inched toward me. The bolt pierced its flesh under the left shoulder, and the owlbear stopped. It stared at me with its furrowed gaze for one last moment before slumping over and letting the tangling plants claim it.

After a few minutes, the entangle spell wore off, and the plants shrank back and returned to their natural shape. I slowly approached the owlbear’s corpse, circling it twice, carefully watching for any sign of movement. When I saw none, I moved in closer and jumped on its back, then drew my dagger and plunged it into the side of the owlbear’s throat to be sure. It took me hours to skin the beast and harvest its meat, which I decided to cook on the spot. As Gix and I ate, I cut off its claws and plucked some feathers, then put them in a pouch on my belt. The skull would have made a real trophy if I had a permanent home to display it at, and while I could perhaps carry it in my backpack, the extradimensional space would be put to better use storing food or other essential supplies.

When Gix and I were full, I wrapped up as much leftover owlbear meat as I could in a blanket, retrieved my spent crossbow bolts and returned to my campsite. There wasn’t much room left in my pack, so I had to leave most of the carcass intact. No matter, I’d accomplished what I set out to do, and I was one step closer to my next level of Experience, and if I could kill an owlbear on my own, anything else coming my way had better watch out.