Summer 82 124
Sjal was riding along on her horse when she saw a curious sight. A man that was dressed like a farmer, pitchfork and all, was pulling a creature down the road. The creature had a rope wrapped around it but yet it still seemed to follow along without a care in the world. It looked content with its current predicament, which was the strangest part to Sjal.
She rode alongside the man and creature, saying, "managed to catch one, I see."
"That I did. A right pain it was too," the farmer said with a toothy grin. He looked to be middle aged and was balding. He wore very little and Sjal thought that he probably wasn't that well off. He was probably a farmer working for one of the aelves in the area… that or he was independent and sold to a larger town nearby. Either way he wasn't the sort that she usually interacted with, but it'd been forever since she'd seen someone on the road. She wanted to interact with someone.
"Planning on butchering it? I hear they're tasty."
"Butcher? Heavens no," the farmer said with an aghast look. He pulled the rope closer to his chest defensively.
"Oh calm down, if I wanted to kill the thing and steal it off you, I could have done so by now," Sjal said with a roll of her eyes. Her general demeanor had become a little more aggressive as of late. Getting ambushed by bandits tended to do that to a person.
"I was only making an offer. You don't have to take it," she clarified.
"Oh thank goodness," the famer said, relieved. "Lots of people want to kill these fine creatures. I want to save as many as I can."
"Isn't it better to let them roam free? I doubt they'd want to live on a farm where they couldn't move around as they pleased." The thought of trying to keep an animal from running around made Sjal's head spin.
"Eh, these ones are smarter than they look. I give them food so they know not to wander too far off. If they want to leave, it's fine by me. I'm not making any money off them. If I can breed them then maybe I'll consider selling them for their meat."
"I see," Sjal said pensively. She could see how people might want to breed them, but she doubted that breeding creatures would work out very well. She was about to signal her horse to speed back up again to continue on her way when a loud screeching came from behind some trees.
"Damnit, another one?" the farmer said angrily as he hurried over and tied his rope to a tree.
"Hey, hold on!" Sjal said, hopping off her horse and tying it to the same tree. She jogged after him as he disappeared into the brush. "What's going on?"
"Damned hunters laid traps all over the place. That's how I get them – I rescue them from traps."
"And they don't care that you're taking their kills away?" Sjal asked amusedly when they came across an animal that was wrapped in netting. There was destruction everywhere from when it'd tried to escape.
"What they don't know won't hurt em," he said, hurrying over to the net and slicing it open to give the animal some more wiggle room. When the creature tired itself out the farmer cut more of the net to let it out all the way. He soothed the thing by giving it something to eat and patting it lovingly. "There there, you're safe now."
Sjal shook her head. Someone had gone through great effort to lay this trap and it'd been for nothing. She sighed when she saw him struggle to wrap a rope around the creature and went over to help. She helped hold the creature steady while trying to ignore how bad her surroundings smelled.
"Thanks," he said. He started pulling the animal back to the road. "Keep an eye out for more, would ya? I can't bring more than two back with me at once. If you find any more, my farm's only a few miles down the road and to the left."
"Sure, will do," Sjal said, feigning an honest smile. Her intentions were not to save these wild animals, but to take advantage of these traps to kill some of them off. The farmer easily saw through her lie but there wasn't anything he could do about it except give her a glare.
Left to her own devices, Sjal went back to her horse and started back down the road. She kept her ears open for any smiliar sounds. Sadly, she didn't hear any more screeches even when trying her best. Her efforts weren't for naught, however.
Several miles later, she saw an animal disappear into the trees. She grabbed her bow and hopped off her horse, intending to rush in and get a quick kill. As soon as she knocked an arrow, there was a loud snapping sound and the animal shot back out of the trees.
Sjal quickly drew her arrow and fired it through a portal, surprisingly hitting it square in the chest and sending it spinning down to the ground. She shot another arrow at it while it fell, missing it, but she doubted she needed to hit it again anyways. "Yes!" she cheered, running up to it and slashing it open with her sword.
She cut it several times as it was good practice, but it soon became clear that she was being a little excessive. It was only after this realization did she feel bad about what she'd done, especially with the farmer watching her in the distance. Her shame turned to anger when she realized she was limiting herself. There was nothing stopping her from killing the farmer's animals and all the ones on his farm except for her sense of morals.
"This is what boredom has done to you," she said to herself, "they've gotten you willing to commit crimes and slaughter innocent animals."
Be that as it was, Sjal's ears finally picked up on a screech in the distance. She left the dead body of the creature on the road as she ran after it, hoping her horse wouldn't wander too far. The clearing she ended up in had two animals in them. One was trapped in a net and the other had a some sort of claw-like mechanism dug into its belly, preventing it from moving without tearing itself apart.
She moved to kill the animals, but when she got up close to them, someone else appeared at the other end of the clearing. He eyed Sjal then shouted, "these are my traps! Go away! Are you the one who's been messing with my traps?"
Sjal's first thought was to shoot him as he'd surprised her and she already had an arrow nocked. But, she resisted. Not wanting to get into a fight with this man, she ran back to the road to see that the farmer had finally caught up.
She thought about whether to warn the farmer or not. It was the nice thing to do, but she felt some tension. She pushed aside her pride and said, "You should probably hurry onto your farm. I encountered a hunter and he didn't seem all too happy that I was poking around his traps." The farmer grumbled something rude but picked up his pace.
Sjal gave up on searching for traps. She instead turned her attention to the sides of the roads. The animals she was after were not too common, but they passed by every once in a while. She held her bow at the ready as she continued her journey, shooting at them as they passed. She often missed but on occasion she would land a lucky shot.
She felt as though she was getting better at shooting targets. Having to adjust for a target that could move in any direction it pleased was a nice challenge. She also picked up on her mistakes. If she missed, she knew why, whether it was her posture, the wind, etc.
She shot down her third animal, this one from a branch as it moved from tree to tree, expecting it to fall down to the ground like the others had. She still couldn't shoot worth a damn but she used portals to compensate for this. It was hard to miss when she opened a portal right next to it to fire at. It was like shooting at things point blank, sometimes.
Anyways, this one went through quite an ordeal, crashing into a tree and hitting nearly every branch on the way down. By the time it reached the ground, it was long dead. Sjal hated that it had to suffer but she was pleased to see that she had gotten some decent practice in.
"I think that's enough hunting for today," she told herself. She noticed how tired she was and the urge to portal her way to a nice inn was overwhelming.
