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I creep through the forest like Robin Hood, stalk like Legolas, and prepare to shoot like William Tell. Well, not really, but with my strung bow in one hand, a ‘quiver’ of arrows on my back, and my eyes on the animal tracks I’m following, I feel pretty badass. Spike hadn’t exactly leapt at the chance to come out, but seemed happy enough at the idea of going out together. As I search for animal tracks, he’s foraging for food. We stopped by the river for him to have a drink, then I’d picked up some tracks which seemed promising. He’s not next to me every second, but he’s close enough that I could get to him within a minute or so. Or vice versa, if another of those black blobs attacks.

As for Bastet, she’s at home with the cubs since I didn’t want to be carrying them on this test-run. I’ve been thinking about Kalanthia’s offer, but haven’t yet got around to asking about the ‘price’ that she mentioned. Anyway, hopefully Spike and I as a combination will be able to face anything we encounter.

We’re in an area that’s completely new to me, having followed the tracks from the river, but I haven’t found the animal yet. Last time I checked my status screen, I spotted that the Energy absorption has actually increased. Not far – only by one percent per hour – but it’s enough to make me a bit wary since I guess that the higher the Energy density rises, the stronger the opponents I’ll find in it.

I mean, it’s a rule of thumb, clearly not an absolute: Kalanthia, for example, is a glaring exception. But from what I can tell, the animals in Kalanthia’s area are generally more dangerous than the ones I fought when I first arrived – often bigger, and usually more intelligent. Anyway, I’ve tried to take my time in choosing my prey and hopefully it’s not too much for me to deal with. I am on my own after all.

The beast I pick is single and looks to be about as high as my waist. I figure that if my bow doesn’t work the way I want it to, I can always just pull out my mace – I’ve got it hooked onto my belt with a few delicate strands of bark fibre. The attachment is strong enough to not simply fall off every time I move, but weak enough that in need I’ll be able to just yank it off.

Stalking through the forest, I have both Fade and Stealth active. I actually asked Bastet what I looked like with Fade on, since I can’t see it working on myself. The images she sent showed that if I move at full-speed when walking, Fade has very little impact. The slower I move, however, the more effect it has. First a distortion around my edges takes place which makes it a little unclear as to where my flesh begins and ends, blurring my outline. Next, the distortion covers more and more area, my body ‘fading’ out from the edges inwards. By the time the edges are completely faded out, the rest of my body looks a little insubstantial as well.

Once I’ve stopped moving entirely, I’m completely invisible. Of course, all these effects are only as long as my stamina lasts, which is longer these days, I’ll admit. It’s a cool Skill and I look forward to seeing what happens when it crosses the threshold into Initiate. It seems like Skills gain new effects or are transformed into something better when they cross a threshold, so I wonder what will change about Fade.

As I’m wondering that, I notice that the tracks have started to become fresher. It’s not long after that that I notice that I’m approaching my prey. I slow down and use the natural foliage to help me hide from my target even when I’m moving. It’s not long before I’m actually able to set eyes on the creature I’ve been following for so long.

Like with most of the animals I’ve come across so far in this world, it’s a reptilian type of creature, vaguely reminiscent of an anteater in shape, though with a long, thin tail that matches its snout. Actually, in diet as well, I notice as it uses a long tongue to scoop up some insects below. Perfect!

There’s a very quiet rustle of leaves right next to me and I almost jump out of my skin before I realise that it’s Spike. He looks at me and there’s a very faint questioning feel down the Bond. Is he starting to communicate with me like Bastet? That would be great if he could learn that. It takes me a bit of time to work out that he’s asking if I want him to be involved in this battle.

“No, you go and eat,” I whisper to him in the end. I want to test out my bow, but don’t have the confidence in my own skills to want my Bound anywhere near where I’ll be shooting. “I’ll call if I need help,” I promise. Without another ‘word’, Spike turns and trundles away, moving more quickly and more quietly than I would have expected of a creature with his build. That decided, I focus back on my hunt. The creature hasn’t detected us, it seems, but has shifted a little further away.

Moving slowly and carefully, I pull an arrow out of the ‘quiver’ on my back. Before leaving, I’d made a rough quiver out of a jumper tied crossways over my back with the arms so that the arrows stick in the neck hole and the bottom is tied closed. It’s awkward to put the arrows in, but they pull out easily enough with only a little snagging. I could have put them in my Inventory, but I decided that it takes too long to pull them out that way. Still, a proper quiver is definitely a priority. Nocking it, I pull the string back, my muscles already struggling a little with the powerful draw of the bow.

My arrow looks pretty good. Badass, even. The pitch adds blackness to the top and bottom of each vane, and holds the head in place. Actually, the contrast between the white tooth and black pitch is rather awesome on the aesthetic side of things. Not that that really matters, but… It’s not such a contrast on the ten flint-head arrows, but they look pretty cool too.

As for the feathers, they’re a bit of a hodgepodge. I’ve tried to keep a pale-coloured feather as the ‘cock’ vane so that I’ll be able to tell at a glance the direction of the nock, but the other vanes are mixed in colours.

I suddenly have the nagging feeling that maybe I should have actually tried firing the bow earlier today rather than leaving it to a live encounter...ah, too late now. Worst comes to worst, I’ll have to go back to using my knife and mace. Drawing the string back just a little more, I aim, and then release the arrow. Fortunately, I don’t have a painful repetition of earlier when the string returns to its original position: I’ve tied a doubled-over shirt around my forearm to cushion the blow. Later, I want to use the crocodile skin as an armguard, but that’ll require a bit more processing so I don’t have rotting flesh tied to my arm. Lovely thought, that.

My arrow sails smoothly through the air...to land three feet away from my target. Damn. Of course, this has alerted the animal to my presence and it leaps around with surprising alacrity, rearing up on its hind legs and making a menacing hissing noise. What would probably be fairly intimidating for other animals just ends up presenting a better target for me. I pull out another arrow and draw the bowstring back again, but this time the arrow lands even further away in the opposite direction. I think the adrenaline is making my hands shake… The beast is still making that hissing sound and is swaying menacingly from side so side, so I figure I’ve got time for at least one more shot.

This one ends a bit closer, but it still misses my target by a wide margin. Making a snap decision, I quickly slot my bow into my Inventory, resisting the urge to throw it down in disgust. Frankly, I’m rather disappointed with myself, but taking out my anger on my bow is just going to mean I have to spend more time later repairing or recreating it. It’s not the bow’s fault I’m a rubbish shot. With a bow at least.

The anteatilion is confused a moment later when a rock comes out of the surrounding trees to smash it in the skull. It leaps towards me and I dodge sideways, once more surprised at the turn of speed this seemingly slow creature can put on when it wants to. It seems like it can only be fast when leaping forwards like that, though, and as it moves towards me, it lumbers rather than dashes. The slow speed enables me to grab my other new weapon out of my Inventory. Leaping has also forced it to go back to all fours which reduces the target size for me; fortunately – for me – my new Dexterity has made my general accuracy much better and I strike at it with my spear, hitting it in the neck. My spear is certainly more accurate than my bow. I grimace again at the thought.

The range on my spear keeps the creature at bay so by the time it slumps to the ground, bleeding out from multiple wounds, I’ve managed to get away without a scratch. I have to admit that I’m feeling a bit sorry for it. Although I wish my bow had worked, I don’t think it would have made much difference to the battle. Or slaughter, really. I could have put the creature out of its misery earlier if I’d been more accurate with my arrows. All I can say to that is that I was too excited and Spike was too hungry earlier. Clearly, archery is just like everything else: I might have the memories, but I’ll have to work at it to be have real muscle memory.

Here, standing over the body of a creature I’ve brutally stabbed to death after my shooting skills proved wanting, I realise how much I’ve changed. The first time I killed in this world by bashing in the head of a bird, I felt guilty. But at least that one had attacked me first. Then, the first time I actively went hunting, I felt terribly guilty at killing the sneleon, and couldn’t even make myself attack the porcupig family, seeing them as innocent animals.

Now...even though I attacked this creature, I don’t feel guilty. I might have killed the antelion for target practice, but I’m going to take its corpse back and feed it to my Bound and her babies. If I hadn’t killed it, something else probably would have. I feel sorry for prolonging its death longer than I should have, because of my own failings, but that’s it.

What am I going to be in a year? The thought drifts into my mind as I stare at the still-bleeding corpse of the antelion. Will I be unrecognisable from the person I started as? Suddenly, I miss other humans with a strength of longing that surprises me. It’s strange: I used to spend a good portion of each day wishing other humans would just disappear and leave me be instead of coming and loading my already-full plate with their own issues. And now I’ve got my solitary life without other people’s problems, I miss them because along with other people’s problems come other people. I suppose this is what they mean when they say ‘be careful what you wish for’.

Kalanthia and Bastet are great. Honestly. It’s been almost a month since I arrived and I’d have probably already gone insane from isolation if I hadn’t had them: humans aren’t meant to be completely alone. Still, for all that their presence has meant my sanity has remained, I can’t help missing humans. The nunda and raptorcat are just too different from me. Their mindsets aren’t the same.

They don’t care about the whys of a situation, just the whats and hows. They live in the concrete, in the tangible present. When a threat appears, they deal with it efficiently, and then return to enjoying the moment. In some ways it’s laudable, but in others it just makes me feel very, very alone.

There’s a reason humans sent a rocket to the moon: we’d spent centuries, millennia wondering what was up there, and why something could hang in the sky when anything we tried to put there just fell immediately. We are dreamers, thinkers, philosophers, and I find myself missing conversation which is merely for the sake of conversing, rather than with an end in itself. I bury myself in a book most evenings to try to feed my need for the abstract, but it only helps temporarily.

I sometimes imagine going back to Earth and being able to share lunch with my co-workers again, going to a bar and having an in-depth conversation with a complete stranger. Never mind the fact that I rarely accepted my co-workers’ invitations to share lunch with them because I was usually having a working lunch at my desk, and that after a time the invitations stopped coming. Never mind that I never took the time to go out to bars, and that if I did, I’d have probably spent the time sitting at the bar itself and nursing a drink, silent and alone. Those truths are beside the point: I could have. And now I probably would.

But at the same time… I don’t think I would fit back in that world. I’ve seen too much, done too much. My previous life just seems so...shallow. Without the threatening edge of death, how do you know you’re living? Looking back at myself in my HR job feels like remembering a dream; like I spent years sleepwalking. It seems odd to think that I’m getting used to all of this. I’m becoming accustomed to living in constant danger, to killing others and risking being killed.

I feel like I should be more traumatised than I actually feel. I think I should wake up the next morning and not dare to set foot out of Kalanthia’s cave. Heck, not set foot out of my own cave, since it’s guarded by a giant leopard. But...I just get up and get on. Is it some sort of psychological defence humans develop in times of trouble? I need food; I need water – I can’t just hide and hope everything will turn out alright. Something which I think I was doing when I started on my bender after being fired.

Or maybe it’s something to do with the system. It’s indisputable that the feedback mechanism of gaining Energy by risking myself and then gaining points to protect myself and reduce the risk to my life is highly engaging. Sure, getting points is difficult, but it’s significantly easier to improve myself in a measurable way here than it was on Earth thanks to the Energy making up the shortfall. And it’s just so satisfying to receive messages saying this or that stat has increased. It’s motivating if nothing else.

My musings are interrupted by a sudden sense of urgency which grips me. Thinking I’m in danger, I quickly leap sideways and stare around myself wildly, my hand immediately going to my mace. A moment later, I realise that the feeling is coming from one of my Bonds. Worried that something is happening back at the cave with Bastet, Kalanthia, and the cubs, I’m already moving in that direction when I realise that the sensation isn’t from Bastet’s Bond. I stop suddenly, my heart suddenly beating faster: it’s not Bastet who’s in danger; it’s Spike.