Silver Ranked Nightream

Moose Hunt

Chapter 1

Thrush

Smoked brisket. Smoked pork butt. Smoked turkey breast. Smoked Elodon ribs.

My experience in Omes Arbor stuck with me. The food. The smoked meat. I wanted smoked meat more than anything in the world. But there were no pigs around. No turkeys. No long-tusked Elodons.

I had the information I needed for a proper smoke. The seasoning. How to manage the fire. The smoke. The time. The temperature. The stall. And I owed all this information to the chef I’d interrogated in Omes Arbor.

So off I went, north through the Mist Hidden wall in search of meat.

The autumn leaves fell in numbers like rain. Their colors streaked the world. Great sweeps of wind came in and raked the leaves across the forest floor. The smell of decaying leaves and wet earth filled my senses.

Other smells filled me. Smells of the sea. Of pines. Of the wilting touch-me-not flowers. Distant birds, bird’s nests, and eggs. Rodents. Beasts.

Among the beasts, I smelled turkey. Bear. Moose.

I wanted them all!

My belly did too, because it seemed to lead me forward. I followed the distant smells through the wildlands. Birds scattered when I gained ground. The sun seemed to keep its golden distance as I followed it eastward until it leaped over me, out of my way.

Sunlight lit the way before me through an undulating terrain of broadleaf trees. Then through a valley of reeds and cattails. After crossing that valley, I came upon a meadow where the grass was nearly yellow. Brittle. The grass sounded like scraping paper in the breeze.

I stopped there because I could smell the turkeys. I patiently peered through the grass and slowly put one foot in front of the other. My ears switched with every soft noise. The leaping of a grasshopper. The little feet of a ladybug. The raucous wings of flying insects. The sudden gobble of a turkey.

Without hesitation, I ripped through the land. I sped through the land. I barreled through everything in my path and caused a tremendous crash of earth and grass. I ignored the damage and propelled myself toward the turkeys. I came upon them not a breath later. 6 of them. Full grown.

My attack was swift and sure. Then they were stacked into my inventory. My sweet, sweet inventory.

What a difference my inventory had made in my new life. Eons of my life had been spent without it. I couldn’t imagine going back to a life without it. Again, thank you, Hawkin. For the smoked fish. For helping me secure a Fable Stone. And thank you to Merkul too for the Merchant quest path.

I didn’t know how much fun being a merchant was going to be. Trading. Selling. Expanding my inventory space—that was the real fun. Being able to slowly store more and more!

And I still had a lot of room to store more beasts. So I put my nose to the air and inhaled the scents of the wild. The strongest of the myriad smells was that of moose. I smelled trails of moose scat, only a few hours south. Smelled their hide. Their breaths of earth and twigs. Their hide. Their velvet gore.

I followed those scents at a leisurely pace. I hummed as I went, but my humming was more of a discordant mumble of gravel. Like a cavern closing its mouth.

When I came to the moose scat, I smelled them near. I saw the herd through the trees, rising to their feet as one. They groaned. Chewed their lips. Snorted. Gathered themselves together. All of them glanced around. Paused to listen. The youngest ones trembled. The strongest walked the perimeter of the herd and escorted them swiftly through the woods.

I rushed them. The herd panicked and leapt away, but the strongest took up defense. And although their defense earned the herd time to evade me, I gained 8 moose carcasses in my inventory.

A few courageous moose charged me, but I leapt clear of them and simply walked away. They charged me again, of course, but I grabbed their wide antlers and stopped them in their tracks. This went on for sometime until they eventually turned back and disappeared back through the forest.

On my way home, I dressed the moose and plucked the turkeys. I ate all the gore. The antlers too.

Satiation:

140%

Composition:

42% Dreambon

39% Moose

04% Fish

03% Turkey

02% Human

01% smoke

09% World mix

I felt the changes suffuse me. The color of shedding antlers filled the sponge of my eyes. I imagined my eyes looked like sliced, pulverized meat. My fur changed. Lengthened and lightened into a bronze-brown. My nostrils opened up to make room for wide holes. Antlers sprouted from my head and broke the skin. Blood ran down my head, around my eyes. Over my teeth. The antlers widened like webbed, reaching hands. I was almost mostly moose.

My belly was full of moose and my Satiation made me instantly tired. It was too far over 100% which meant I needed to sleep if off. I had no choice.

I walked on anyway, even though my eyes drooped. Then my eyes closed. Still, I continued. I crashed through trees. Ripped through bramble. Crushed rocks beneath my paws. I went on until my mind started to drift into the world of dreams. I felt the cool forest floor on my fur and face. Heard myself snoring.

Two days later, I woke abruptly. My Satiation was at 99%. It was morning and cooler than it had been this season so far. My body was covered in leaves and I shook them off. It was then that I felt my antlers still there. They’d grown a bit of velvet and felt smooth.

I let the forest fill up my senses for an hour before remembering why I’d been out here. What I’d been doing. I was delighted to find the turkey and moose meat in my inventory and couldn’t wait to return to my smoker to celebrate.

Another few days of travel brought me back to Hawkin’s camp. Barnacle-eyes was frightened of my new appearance, and Abigail was visibly perturbed. I gave her my best smile to assuage her.

Hawkin was busy brewing, so I immediately prepped the smoker with some oak and brought it up to temperature. Then I partitioned the moose, quartered the turkey, and seasoned the meat with a salt and pepper rub. The turkey breasts went in first and I placed half of one moose beside them.

The turkey came out after 2.5 hours. It was left to cool and then shared amongst friends. Hawkin couldn’t get enough and sheepishly asked for more. Said he couldn’t help himself. Abigail was impressed and though full, could not turn down a few more servings.

10 hours later, the moose was done.

That’s when I fell in love with smoked meats all over again.