The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

"We need to kill a [Formosan Boar] around here for the Hunting Lodge quest," DicingDevil said quietly, "and it sounds like there's a large creature coming out of that den. Get your nets ready, and a cage for safety."

As a creature grunted and tossed loudly inside the large, grass-covered hole, DeathGang members surrounded it silently with a large [Hunting Net].

"Are you sure it's a boar?" Starfighter asked uneasily.

"It should be, they marked this part of the map as the boar's territory."

"Well, it's clearly a large creature. We should prepare more nets, just in case it's something else," Crucis said.

"Chain the cage to a sturdy tree or two as well," Starfighter said. "Some animals will just pull it along with them, or topple it."

He pointed at a heavy cage that was placed on its side next to the den, ready to be lowered over the den entrance.

"Got it," DicingDevil said, and arranged further precautions.

As the creature sauntered casually out of the den, the group saw that it was not a boar but a large, bulky level 65 [Draimsa Brown Bear] with sharp claws. Its shoulders and back scraped swathes of dust off the edge of the den as it exited.

However, as it adjusted to the light in this familiar terrain, it found itself caught in the DeathGang net. Angrily, it scuffled against the net with its massive shoulders and claws, tearing the net comfortably.

However, another net descended over it, as Crucis and DicingDevil relayed nets to the players surrounding the den entrance. Grisier cast [Breath of Ice] on the bear, to prevent it from escaping as a thick web of nets tangled around it.

The bear angrily lunged at a level 37 DeathGang member who was desperately trying to hold onto the nets, and while the nets held it back from leaping onto the player, it still struck him two times with its claws before pawing the DeathGang member roughly to the ground.

DicingDevil kneeled down to help the fallen member up, but the level 37 player, named [Iwabo], did not respond. He was dead.

As DicingDevil reared up, he saw that another DeathGang member had been killed, but the bear had been trapped in a heavy, iron cage which Akshel, Dionarcy, and a strong warrior named [Gracus] had lowered hastily.

However, the bear was spared the loneliness of solitary confinement. One unfortunate level 39 DeathGang member had been too caught up in struggling with the bear, and hadn't cleared the area quickly enough. He was now trapped in the cage with the bear, which leapt with two paws onto his chest and slashed at his neck, then smashed him against the edge of the cage hard enough to kill him.

The cage shuddered violently, but it was fastened to a large, thick tree nearby with a chain, so it mostly remained in place. The bear shoved hard against the bars of the cage, and dragged it a few yards across the leafy undergrowth before it jammed due to the tree anchor.

Soon, DeathGang members had surrounded the bear again. Most of them used spears to strike the bear inside the cage, while Crucis wielded his sword like a spear and used [Lunge] and [Rising thrust] to wound the bear through the cage. This steadily eroded the mighty creature's HP until it was hovering near 15%.

Vladimir and Konstantin were perched in a tree nearby, and watched the situation carefully. They called out a warning when the bear's strikes caused the cage to shake treacherously, and Grisier responded with [Breath of Ice] while the melee class DeathGang members used their strongest strikes to force the creature away from the cage bars.

Two Geomancer Mages had gradually wrapped the soil around the four corners of the cage, to fasten it in place and hold it steady.

After two minutes of confinement, the bear was at 6% HP and had only managed to strike a few DeathGang members as they got too close to the cage. As the DeathGang members tired, however, their strikes slowed. The bear made a last, desperate lunge at the cage, and toppled it, with one end of the cage flying into the air in spite of the Mages' protections.

As the bear stormed out, most DeathGang members fled. However, the bear was harshly wounded, and inflicted with bleeding and poison. Starfighter leapt at the bear's neck from behind and struck harshly with a gritty [Overhead slash], then backtracked up a steep part of the grassy soil beside the den entrance. As the bear slowly climbed towards him, he used a [Slash] at the bear's snout, which caused the bear to recoil angrily backwards. DicingDevil and Akshel joined in with blunt [Mordhau] blows to the bear's head, disorienting it.

As this scuffle occurred, Crucis had leapt up to grab the cage, which was lying on one side. He held onto the bottom bar of one end of the cage, then dragged this violently downwards. The cage fell heavily, and one side of it landed bluntly on the bear's head, giving a ringing blow.

Vladimir joined in using a small bow from a tree branch, and carefully fired a [Poison Arrow] at the bear. He tried to fire a few more arrows, but gave up because he started to lose his balance and a few shots deflected off the branches around him.

BlazeKeys approached the bear to finish it off, but due to nerves his strike was weak and skewed off the bear's back. As the bear, now on only 2% HP, lunged towards him, he tried helplessly to punch it away, but it merely slashed across his extended arm, which got caught up between the bear's claws, and reached out towards his face.

Starfighter killed the bear with another rough strike to the neck, but not before the bear had killed BlazeKeys as well.

The bear's drops were divided among party members who had taken part in the fight.

Checking his inventory, Crucis saw that he had received a valuable [Draimsa Brown Bear Pelt], expensive [Draimsa Bear Bile] and [Draimsa Bear Claws], and some bear meat which could be consumed. He saw that the DeathGang members were giving each other exhausted high-fives, and walked over to join in.

Vladimir and Konstantin descended the tree beaming and joined the rest of the group, and Gastlem greeted them.

"Too many of our guys died there, they should have joined you in the tree," Gastlem laughed.

"Have you never seen a bear climb trees?" Vladimir said quizzically.

"He has a point, if a bear is pursuing you then you can't simply hide in a tree," Starfighter said.

"So they were in danger? Why are they smiling, then? I'm still trying to relax," Gastlem said.

"Vladimir got bear meat, because he shot bear," Konstantin grinned. "Now we can have good meal."

"That's great," DicingDevil said, "did you get anything else?"

"No," Vladimir said. "Only hit bear once or twice, so only basic rewards."

"How's bear meat?" Gastlem asked.

"Sweet at first but mostly rough, greasy and a bit sour, from what I tried in a village here," Starfighter said. "In this game, it tastes almost like seaweed once in a while, but outside the game I've tried bear and didn't notice that as much."

"In Russia, we only eat bear," Vladimir joked. "Will be fine."

"Ha. Anyway, you can probably get it cooked in Kaxil," Akshel said. "If we don't find better, we can always have some bear this evening in Kruxol."

"Good idea. I have two stacks of bear meat, I can join in if I'm at the celebrations," Crucis said.

Thus far, he had mostly made do with eating bread, combined sparingly with meat from the labyrinth's boars or with cheap, bitter marmalade. At present, the representation of fire in a virtual reality environment was still considered too unstable and liable to, say, explode or form vast infernos, so players were forbidden from directly handling it outside of the diluted, mostly cosmetic variant used in things like Pyromancy. Further, an American politician named D. 'Nigfy' Raùl had launched a motion to strictly regulate fire in virtual environments, after his son's head exploded in a private virtual study room as he tried to light a candle to deal with dim lighting. As such, cooking in this game was slightly limited, especially at this stage, and players visited NPCs to get their food heated. Crucis just ate simply, when he had the time.

However, after the war and a hunting expedition, some meat would be a nice respite as he recovered for tomorrow.

"Sure, we'll all pitch in and have a feast of awful, gamey meat," Akshel smiled.

As the DeathGang members gathered to look for a way ahead, Crucis walked up to talk quietly with Starfighter.

"So, I got some [Draimsa Bear Bile], what is that good for?" Crucis asked.

Starfighter responded enthusiastically. "Bear bile is highly valuable. It typically goes for, say, 30,000-40,000 in town, but if you go to a village named Arkett, South of Mokra, you should find an apothecary. The village is famous for it. They'll pay 100,000 or more for bile, maybe higher since this boss is quite high-level. I use that place to exchange many odds and ends I find in the wild, also a good place to sell undamaged bear paws."

"Sounds good. Were your drops decent? You attacked it quite fiercely, so you probably did good damage."

"I'm lower-level than you guys, but I try. I did pick up a bear paw, some of the pelt, and a [Bear Head Trophy] because of the final hit. Bear paw can be exchanged in Arkett as well, it doesn't seem to have been damaged much."

"Alright. What about bear claws?"

"I'd guess those are used for crafting, maybe a necklace or talisman, or a small weapon. If you improve your crafting, and get some more items to test out various combinations, you can probably make something interesting."

"Yes. At higher crafting levels, the bear claws could be used to create a mould of sorts, and this could be used to make other items? Some sort of claw weapon, like a bagh nakh, would be useful and unexpected, but I don't think the game includes one directly, perhaps it would allow you to use a metal weapon based on a claw mould?"

"I believe that you can craft moulds, but I'm not at that level yet. My hunting skill is much higher than the rest. It is definitely possible to make moulds, some of the village craftsmen use them. I saw one blacksmith out there, he made bronze swords and spears with a high-level mould, maybe a crafter lent it to him. It might take a while to reach there, though, so you'll have higher-level bears to hunt by then."

"Understood. So it's not worth keeping these around till then, I'll try and craft something from them earlier. By the way, hunting is your primary tradeskill?"

Players were allowed to become adept at up to four tradeskills. One of these tradeskills could be chosen as the player's primary tradeskill, allowing the player to develop it without limits. Once a player reached level 150, they could also choose a secondary tradeskill, which couldn't be developed infinitely but could be mastered.

"It is for now," Starfighter replied. "Though I could change primaries at this point, since it's not even at Mastery level yet - that's much later, at about the point in the tree where Falconry unlocks? But since I tend to stay in the wild, it's probably a useful primary skill, especially since it has useful stuff like tree-climbing and survival skills attached."

"That's reasonable. I'm not sure about primary skill yet, either, it's not useful to decide until you research the skill trees and the later items of each skill. Like, blacksmithing is useful, but at endgame the best weapons are mostly from raids, world events and out-of-the-way bosses. So maybe not as a primary skill."

"Smithing is great, but yeah, it will lack longevity slightly. Crafting skills are nice because of the utility items, boxes, etc., but smithing here is mostly weapon-focused."

"True. Anyway, Dicing is calling us."

They hurried to rejoin the rest of the group, and saw that DicingDevil was holding a map while scouting the path ahead. DicingDevil seemed slightly impatient, and Crucis guessed that he had seen something up ahead.

"Alright, so this Area seems to have three major subdivisions, according to the map from the Lodge," DicingDevil said. "We should quickly scout out each of these areas, to see which ones have decent quests or buildings up ahead. That way, less unfortunate surprises. Any takers?"

Most of the group were reluctant, after seeing the bear encounter. Dionarcy volunteered, but DicingDevil turned him down, saying that he would prefer Assassins to scout because they could cover more ground and attract less attention from the wildlife or other players.

On hearing this, Crucis volunteered.

"Alright, I'll take the area straight ahead, to the North. Where would you like to go?"

Crucis chose to scout the path to the right, North-East, because he saw that it was the least travelled path and had few signs of any earlier players passing it. Since DicingDevil's sword was drawn, it seemed likely that DicingDevil had seen a valuable or quest-relevant creature moving in the path up ahead, and wanted to try his luck in killing it.

However, if Crucis went by the undisturbed path then he was likely to find some useful items, chests, etc., which were unclaimed. He could claim this for himself during his exploration, and call DeathGang after he was done. So his path was likely to be the most advantageous, if he looked around carefully.

Akshel volunteered to take the remaining path. DicingDevil addressed him quickly, saying, "This isn't like Area B, where we hunted last time. There are strong predators roaming around freely here, because there haven't been many groups coming through. So be careful."

Akshel nodded, and DicingDevil began to set off Northwards.

"Akshel and Crucis? Keep in touch, and meet back here in 10 minutes," he said as he left.