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 theHunter: Call of the Wild theHunter: Call of the Wild, imaginatively and uniquely titled, is what you might guess; a hunting game. That should, if you know nothing else, be where your guessing stops. theHunter is not a big hoo-rah game of being a big ballsy bastard, speeding around, blowing the crap out of animals. Unless you set out to deliberately break the game it is a rather chilled and serene experience. If you do set out to break the game you can rack up kills quickly and easily (or at least you could, according to some.) That, however, is against the spirit of the game, and you’re only cheating yourself, because if you play within the spirit of the game theHunter is a beautiful experience, visually impressive and mentally relaxing, about tracking through a huge open map where you will, after a challenge, find an animal worthy of your hunt.  Some people have described theHunter as a walking simulator. And you will do a lot of walking, as well as crouching and crawling. This isn’t a problem. The maps included with the base game are stunning examples of slices of a world that’s interesting and a joy to be in. The animals you shoot are a way of offering purpose and keeping score in a game that’s about slowing down and experiencing what’s around you. You won’t die. You won’t lose. You’ll continue on for as long as you like. The Mechanics The basic mechanics are you shoot an animal. To shoot an animal you have to find an animal. To find an animal you follow their tracks (often for a very long period of time, sometimes frustratingly in circles,) you listen for their calls, or you learn through exploration where their feeding, watering and resting grounds are. As you play you earn cash from harvesting animals and XP from successful kills. This allows you to purchase better weapons that better suit your play-style and for taking down more difficult prey, and better equipment to give you more of an advantage. The XP allows you level up skills that allow you to track better, shoot better, and learn more about what you’re following. There are missions, but they’re very loose. At most they’re encouragement to explore the map and widen your range. As with most “walking simulators” a big part of the game is it’s very much what you make of the experience. It’s possible to kill some animals (once you’ve figured things out) quite easily. However, to get bigger, more unique, higher score animals you’ll need to really work on your tracking, your knowledge and your patience, and have some luck. But that’s not that point, not really. It’s very much about the journey. Spending one hour at the beginning of the game tracking an animal as you’re starting out can be just as rewarding as finding a rare animal late in the game (not that I’ve ever got that far.) Everything along the way has meaning for you, because it’s your doing, in a beautiful world, with your skills and determination. The Narrative LP I like writing and creating and I’m not a big fan of games telling me what to think. I like games that are rich and deep enough that you create the moments of importance yourself, not because it’s written that way, but because of the effort you put in, where your triumphs and successes are your own. I suggest you buy and play the game to get that experience because I will be creating the moments of importance writing this as a narrative LP from the perspective of the character in the game, with her own backstory, thoughts, issues and hopes informing what she, as the narrator, says in the LP.  Do come along for the journey with your star, Eimear Fudd.
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Sep 18, 2021 23:18
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Chapter 1 Dear diary, That’s a joke, you see? Growing up I was convinced you read my diary. You always seemed to just know. Really I should say, “Dear Granda.” Even if I said, “Dear Granda,” this won’t be written to please you. I know you always said I have a talent for putting words together but equally you said I should include more car chases and shoot-outs. That’s what all your buddies want to read. That’s what you want to read. Car chases sell, Eimear! Adventure, excitement, guns! Well now I’m in Germany, the one place you said you never mastered, and I have a backpack stuffed with all the gear you taught me to use. It will be an adventure, and I’ll show you I am fully capable of all the things you say I gave up on. And more. This will be a story for you. It’ll be a story for all your hunting pals. It’ll be a story for Conni, the “Wildhuter” of Hirschfelden. But it will be told as I see fit.  I don’t know if you ever met Conni but she was on the radio to me the second I got within the limits of the hunting reserve. Maybe it’s my situation coming through, what I’ve been through these past few years, my failure, but again it seemed just like you were reading my diary and you’re still the one in control. You’d set this all up. You knew I was coming, you readied the reserve and Conni for me, you said, “Let’s see how badly she let’s me down, as always. Let’s see how she ignores me and fucks up again,” and you were ready to pull one over me. This isn’t to gripe, not at you, we’re long past that. I went my own way. And that’s something we’re past too. You know full well my dreams didn’t work out for me and you didn’t say a thing. Well, now I’m going to try what worked for you. I’m doing the things that make you tick. As I said, I’m not griping, but maybe there is a bit of bitterness. Conni was onto me within seconds of my arriving. On the radio, phone, HunterMate, whatever you want to call it. A simple start, with a little bit of help from her.  — Locate a track — Shoot an animal — Harvest an animal As if it was that simple. The first thing I had to do was find a vantage point. Maps are great but if you can’t situate yourself in relation to the lay of the land, or even just landmarks, a map’s not going to do you much good. Luckily, just a few hundred meters ahead of me was a nice lookout point. It’d be perfect spot for me to climb to the top of, look out, then realise that what I’m doing is entirely loving stupid and I have nothing to prove to you.  So that was the plan. Climb that little tower and realise this is all bullshit. Of course you hosed that up. As you always do. You see the little dip in front of me, right in that picture? I get to it and what do I see but the smallest little deer, standing right in my way. I can’t give up, can I? I can’t just let it go. No! I’m already feeling defeated by a miserable, rainy, foggy day and you make my first kill the easiest thing on the loving planet.  I didn’t even think of getting my camera out, or my binoculars. There was no point. The stupid thing was standing, waiting, as if I was Abraham, the deer Isaac, and you were the god, but one who would never save anything or anyone from the slaughter. You expected me to do this. You put the deer there. And what I’m doing now is a test of my faith in you. I’ve lost faith in myself, and for a long time you and Granny were all I had. Now, like I’m seven again and you know everything about me, I have to find faith in you. This is why I’m here. I have to find something. You’re the last part of me that’s good.  There. I did it. I’m doing what you’ve always asked of me. Not killing, no. Using my skills. Listening to you. Except this was too easy. This isn’t what you want to show me. This was the stage being set. The question being asked. Now, every time I bag a kill I’ll doubt it. ”That one doesn’t count. It wasn’t a true challenge. A real challenge...” Every time I think I’ve proven myself to you I’ll think back to this, my first ever kill, and just like this one I know it won’t have proven anything. It wasn’t a proper test. That’s why I’m writing this, I guess. It’s the process, isn’t it? Maybe I’ll learn and find a way to be aware of what it is I’ve learned, over time, and maybe you’ll learn that I’m not idling but I am constantly, loving constantly striving. So I go on. After I harvest the deer (it was loving tiny, innocent, but you don’t care,) I continue with my plan to hit the lookout tower. You’ve trapped me.  I don’t know what I was thinking at the top of the tower. I don’t know if I was thinking. I read the little information sign at the top, favorite region, fallow deer, history, etc. but it was in one ear and out the other. I took this picture, almost on autopilot. Pretty view, take a picture, memories to cherish, and it’s only after looking back at it now, a few hours later, I realise how oblivious I was.  I kept walking, right into that forest. All those trees. Except it didn’t even occur to me, “Eimear, there’s a lot of loving trees!” I thought I’d spot an animal, far enough away that I don’t spook it, then kablammo! It’s dead. I’m done. No. It didn’t occur to me that this would actually be difficult. That if I’d spent more than ten seconds going through the most basic of performative actions I’d realise this wasn’t just a view for a picture, but something that would ready me for what was to come. I did keep in mind that I was walking into the wind so my scent was being blown behind me not to alert any animals. I’m not completely stupid. Maybe I had no choice but to walk into the forest? I just wasn’t aware. I was no sooner back down the tower when Conni, the Wildhuter, was onto me again. Telling me about the tracks she’d seen earlier that day and how I could follow them. I had to think back to all you taught me, knowing it’d take practice, practical experience, to remember what I’d forgotten, and even learn the things you couldn’t beat into my thick skull.  I tried to remember how you told me to follow the footprints, the general direction of the animal, and to gauge whether they’re sprinting, walking or anything in between.  Off I went, following the trail of what I think were some deer. It wasn’t two minutes before I got into the real nitty gritty of what it means to be a hunter: poo. There was some deer poo poo right in front of me which of course meant it was time to get my hands dirty (this is a figure of speech. I did not touch the poo.)  The crap was ancient. This was you pulling the strings again. Set me up for an easy kill, get someone to do your bidding and set me up with easy tracks, set me along a path, and then gently caress me over with some old shite. I could be tracking that deer for a day, going in circles, never finding it. But you’re not going to get me that way. I’d spotted a little camp while I was walking and decided to check that out before heading deeper into where the animals might be. I wasn’t going to follow your tracks.  It was a pretty little red hut, somewhere to sleep and restock if I need it, looking after myself being very much important, ignoring your rubbish almost as important. And what do you know, from ignoring the kind of psychic bullshit you pull? I heard an animal right close by. A red fox screeching.  Off I go. I follow the direction of its cries, into the wooded area. I’m down low, creeping along, just waiting to get to some high ground so I can see far enough to get a shot. This is when my troubles begin. I keep inching forward, always getting to the next little rise, and there’s always more in my way.  It’s occurring to me this might not be as easy as I thought it would be. I’ll never get a clear view, into the distance, with my sights straight on something. At best I’ll have a bit of a gap, hopefully with me downwind of what I think might be out there, and I have to bring the animal in close. It was into my bag I went and out with the caller. This one makes a sound like an injured jackrabbit, hopefully well enough that it’ll bring a predator like the red fox in for what it thinks is an easy meal.  I had my little bit of a gap in front of me, my binoculars at the ready for spotting, my choice of rifle, shotgun or pistol ready to hit the little bastard with, and I start blowing on this ridiculous piece of wood that somehow mimics an injured animal.  I blow and I blow and I blow. Then I remember something, you’re not supposed to shoot tiny animals with big guns or big animals with tiny guns. I have no idea what gun I’ll shoot this fox with. I don’t think I can get him in close enough for the pistol or shotgun, and if I could the shotgun would destroy him, while the pistol seems like I’d need a perfect shot. The rifle has the scope but if your buddies taking my kills out of the reserve see I’ve blown open a tiny fox with an oversized rifle they’ll laugh me out of it. I won’t have shown anything, proven anything, or found anything in myself other than I’m completely unprepared for this. I should probably check up on all this, there is phone signal here, but instead I’m blowing on that caller and as I go on and on, determined to show I can do more than kill the deer you gifted to me, I realise nothing’s coming. I’ve ruined my chance all with my own initiative. Story of my life. Eventually, I give up. I decide it’s back to the basics, and if you really are pulling the cosmic strings, I’d better do what Conni says and find some tracks to follow. Part of all this is recovery for me. Something to set my head straight. I’ve tried so many different things that didn’t work I might as well try your way. I justified it in small ways to myself, as well. I liked being out on hunts with you even if I didn’t want to shoot anything. I liked the peace, quiet and nature. I thought I’d find that here, at the least. I didn’t.  There are birds screeching flying overhead. There’s what seems like a thrum to the air around me. There’s my big stupid feet making far too much noise. As I’m walking and walking, thinking this is not at all what I expected, or wanted, I come across a loving road. It was engines I’ve been hearing. That really showed me. I’m not away from it all, I’m not in the wilderness, my phone signal should have confirmed all that. But then it does go quiet, eerily, and I feel like an eejit all over again as there’s an opening and closing of noise and silence and I can’t find any comfort in where I am. I’m beginning to realise I really have no clue what I’m about, what I’m doing, and I have to keep going. For the first time since I arrived here my thoughts aren’t with you, about what you do to me, but about what I can do for myself. I keep on going. Just keep on loving going, and I find nothing. I see no tracks, I hear no animals. I do see a big rocky hill, and checking my map I realise there’s another watchtower on it.  As I get closer I see the hill is more of a bastard than a hill, and really a mini mountain. Still, I try to find my way up. I scramble up what looks like climbable terrain, only to get so far I come to unclimbable terrain. I keep circling around passages I can’t make it up before I look at the map again. There’s a path leading up to it, but it’d mean going a long way out of my way. Which is when Conni messages me again. Apparently she also saw tracks around here.  I have no idea how fresh they are but they’re for a red fox. I figure I heard a red fox earlier, so maybe all this is some kind of sign from a trickster god. I keep following them.  It’s definitely a trickster if I’m expected to follow him up the mountain I couldn’t get up before, taking me further and further in a loop, eventually leading me to a realisation I’m fecking useless.  Which I am. I am fecking useless. You might not be able to see, the pictures are all low resolution if I’m going to back them up on the cloud from a forest wireless signal—albeit far from from 4G—but it is there in all its pixelated glory, an orange blurry bastard running past me just below that pine straight ahead. I didn’t hear it or see it, I had no clue it was there until it had me well sussed out and was sprinting away from me. In that instant I didn’t know whether to say gently caress it and throw in the towel, to go for a rest and a smoke in one of the sleeping areas, and type this up for you, or to be boneheaded and keep chasing after it. I decided to continue on after it. Except it wasn’t boneheadedness, it was something small beginning to form.  I followed its tracks, and when the damage of its trail showed it had slowed from a run, to a trot, to a walk, out came my caller. There was a clear area just ahead of me, the wind was in front of me, and I was crouched down. If the fox got curious, popped up and stayed still for just a few moments I could better it. It didn’t pop up. That didn’t stop me. I inched forward.  Then I saw what you see. Or some version of what you see. What you saw when you did stuff like this. It isn’t beers with the boys, it isn’t shooting or killing, it’s not even the chase, although it is some kind of chase. It’s chasing this view. Things being picturesque isn’t what I mean but rather some kind of beauty, something real and true, and solely yours, the moment that’s only yours. I’d been so thoroughly beaten by the fox, then picked myself up, then focused on finding it again that I didn’t see what was coming. When I realised what was before me I just stopped. When I finally saw what was out there: it was all of it. It was a bit of sense to the world where I wasn’t worried about anything. I wasn’t cursing you for tricking me. I wasn’t trying to best anyone. I was simply doing my thing, and I had to keep doing my thing if I wanted more moments like this: the world opening up for me. The view isn’t important, my realisation wasn’t important. Spirituality sounds like absolute bollocks so I won’t say that. It isn’t even spiritual. It’s human. I didn’t know at that point if I would catch the fox or not. I just knew all I was doing represented continuing on for something like this event to happen again.  I was back in the brush. You were running from me. It really was just you and me.  You were heading towards the trees. I didn’t care about making a trophy of you, at that point. I wasn’t really thinking about a kill. It was just a story that didn’t really need to be told. I was creating, for me, out of all of this. I still haven’t quite got around to how I justify shooting you. Ending your life. My Granda shot animals, his friends shot animals, I was there while he shot some of the animals, I ate some of the animals, some of the animals are mounted in his lodge. I don’t think about it, at best. That’s my superiority. I am hunting you. I get to kill you. I do know it doesn’t feel unjust. If I think about it I think of what my former friends would say, what other people would say, other humans. “What would people think?” You just keep trotting away from me. You and me just are, just is. I don’t know what it is. I know I’m not making sense, maybe that’s what I have to figure out. There’s more to this. We were among the trees and I was following your tracks. I went into the woods. I went, what felt like, went into you. I heard the bleat of a deer. A bleating from nearby. I could ignore it and keep following you, but you’re a speedy bastard. I didn’t quite give up on you, I just took a moment. I moved maybe fifty feet from the last of your tracks I’d spotted. I had my deer caller out and was going at it. I could always go back to you but this seemed like a confluence of moments. I called a few more times on the deer lure. There was no real ledge, no vantage point to spot a herd, no clear ground to get a shot across. Still, a doe, without me realising, had walked close to the right of me.  It was as innocent looking as the deer I’d shot just those few hours before but this seemed more honest. This wasn’t a gift to me, by my Granda delivering through some scheme, this was my own. This was my doing. My making. I tracked the deer from behind some bushes into a little space next to a tree. I wasn’t certain on my shot, but I still took it. As I walked to where the deer was, to find her blood trail to begin tracking my bleeding quarry, I didn’t know how far this would take me. My first real shoot. I hoped I didn’t merely wound it. I feared it would continue on for days or weeks, with me never finding it, in pain. That I would never find my results. Walking up to where it stood I saw the body in the ground. It had dropped instantly. The shot I wasn’t sure on must have been perfect.  Now it’s getting dark, and I’m writing this up, to you. I don’t even know who the you I’m addressing is any more. It started off with you, Granda. There was a bit of me in that you and some of your buddies too. Then in my hunt, there was frustration, annoyance, a steadiness growing. Then there was you the fox who brought me so much even if you’re now so far away. There was the you of serendipity in the doe appearing. There was the mostly-chance of my shot being true. Now, I’m addressing all the yous, but especially you, Granda. I don’t know what your game is. I don’t know what you want from me or want for me. I do know, for a while, there was just me in existence. Purely, solely me, with all of you not mattering. I’m not sure if hunting is yet something I’m comfortable with, all I know is it has given me something I didn’t have. You could never give it to me, but you could help me get some way there. I’ll rest, for now, then I’ll continue on.
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Sep 18, 2021 23:29
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i havent followed many lps but this is an interesting twist on a game i like but cant trick anyone into playing with me.
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Sep 19, 2021 05:07
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Well this looks fascinating.
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Sep 19, 2021 09:08
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The game's name bothered me so much that I stumbled into the thread 
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Sep 19, 2021 13:21
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Chapter 2 Sleep is important. I always had trouble sleeping when I was doing my thing, sliding into that hole, getting worse and worse. As darkness was setting in I wondered what sleep would be like out here as I made my way back to the little red hut I found. There’d be nothing to block out my thoughts. No podcast to play as a distraction as I tried to shut down, or maybe, more accurately, block out my mind. I didn’t want to bring a phone full of audiobooks with me, or videos: you never had that when you hunted. It isn’t the point of what I’m doing. I have to take this seriously. The little red hut was clean, the bed actually quite comfortable. I could imagine meeting another person here, us both contented in ourselves, making small talk but not small talk like things that don’t matter, making noise for noise’s sake, but small in the realisation that most things, especially the important things, are minor.  It was early enough, not my 2am desperate-to-just-rest, somehow, please, just sleep. This was well before 9pm, dark but ridiculously early. I fell asleep easily. I think I remember the idea of beauty in challenge going through my mind, recalling the images I saw earlier that day, imagining what beauty I’d find the day after. I set my alarm for 6am, waking as peacefully as I’d nodded off. I’d made some credits for the services in the reserve with my harvests the day before, and proved I was capable of using what I wanted to buy, so I bought some polymer-tip bullets for my rifle. I knew I got lucky the day before. The animals were small, young, stupid, whatever. They came right up to me. I’d had easy shots. The soft-points I was using took them down instantly, but if I hadn’t hit a vital organ, or if the bullet was on line for a vital organ but hit bone first, the soft-points would shatter, wounding rather than killing. The animal would die, but it could take hours, and I might lose their trail. The polymer means more penetration, probably through bone, and with bigger animals they should make it into their core.  Some of the info on the box also told me these bullets were fine for the red foxes. That settled my quandary from the day before over whether I could use the rifle, or should use the pistol, however difficult that may be: the rifle is fine.  Conni wanted me to find a lookout tower. I’d already been to one but that was so close by to where I arrived I’m not sure she counted it. I’d been near one the day before, right where I got my kill, but I was on the wrong side of the hill, then I was a little turned around and didn’t know where I was, then it was getting dark. This time I was going to follow the road, then the path, and get to where I couldn’t before. Sometimes the long but easy to follow route is the best. I don’t need to be a commando. I think part of all this, the not-hunting, but exploring—just walking—was that I was a bit apprehensive starting the day. Yesterday had been difficult. I’d tracked, badly, I’d made efforts, and failed, then I continued, just kept going and found some success. My work paid off. My apprehension was that I had a full twelve hours of light making me think, A.) I wasn’t sure if I could manage such effort for twelve hours, and B.) I didn’t know if I’d get the same payoff. Yesterday really was special.  With that in mind I decided not to hunt. I would just follow along the road. I would do my little bit of exploring. I would satisfy Conni. I would build into my day, with some low stress, low energy simplicity. Of course nothing is that simple. Before I knew it I was looking at a roe deer standing right in the open, a hundred or so meters ahead of me on the road. I hadn’t planned on hunting anything, I was set on going to the lookout tower and seeing what was around this area. But when a deer is standing right in your path, and you’ve spent half your day before desperately tracking animals to little avail, you take these opportunities when they crop up.  So I shot. I knew it was a bad shot. I knew I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I walked to the spot the deer was in when I hit it, and there was the blood splatter on the ground. It was the polymer bullet that saved me, I knew, when I saw such a significant amount of bleeding. My hastiness wouldn’t cause excess cruelty.  This was all confirmed when I found the deer’s body. It was an intestine shot. The hollow point might have done damage, it probably would have killed it, but if I made another shot like this, out of pure opportunity and not consideration I’d end up with an unhappy result, especially with a bigger animal.  That kill, tracking the shot deer, lead me towards a ledge. It was above what appeared to be a river, something I knew presented the opportunity to find a drinking ground, somewhere I could return to once I’d figured out the animal’s cycle. I wouldn’t know what animal drank there until I got closer and examined the markings and impressions the drinking animals left, but as I approached I heard vocalization. And it was loud. It was definitely a bigger animal than I’d seen until that point, probably a red deer. I crept up to the outcrop and spotted maybe fifty meters beneath me a fine looking buck. The wind was behind me, blowing my scent towards him. I had to take my shot. Thinking about how I’d been hasty before I was worried, but the animal was standing perfectly side-on to me, presenting his boiler room even if there were a few leaves hanging between us. I didn’t want to waste this opportunity. Previously I’d been rushed, taking a shot I was fortunate to get away with, but with my rifle already out this seemed all right. I fired. The animal startled, but didn’t move. For a moment it stood stock still. Then a smaller, female deer bolted, then the animal I was certain I’d hit ran, then, from all around me I heard hooves. It seemed there were deer throughout the forest, even closer than the deer I’d just shot. I didn’t see any of them as they fled from the crack of the bullet.  When I got to the blood splatter my heart dropped. I was certain of this shot. Absolutely certain of it. But the blood the deer left behind didn’t lie. It was bleeding at a very slow rate. My morning was not shaping up well. I’d set out not to hunt but to explore, then I took a stupidly planned shot I happened to luck out with, thankfully. Now I’d taken what I was sure was a good shot that turned out to be actually a shite hit, casting doubt over my own ability to judge anything. At that point I wondered if I’d be tracking this deer, my hardest quarry so far, for hours, to get another shot so it doesn’t spend weeks bleeding-out slowly. My initial bit of tracking went fine. I was in an area with a lot of brush and the trail was easy to follow.  I was setting myself to my task, gearing up for an arduous hunt, when I saw who I’d shot, lying, unmoving, a few feet in front of me. I was tilted. I didn’t know what to make of anything any more. The day before I’d worked, strived, tried to make sense of what I was doing and it came good. All I’d done since waking was make mistake after mistake, shadowing what I’d discovered in doubt. I was flowing with pure chance, keeping me good for the moment, but this would surely run against me at some point. I couldn’t set my mind straight. My easy walk along a road had led me to two easy kills that I really didn’t deserve after ill-judged action. I went back to the road. The thing with stupid mistakes, at least for me, is that noticing them doesn’t necessarily stop them. If I’ve started a slide into idiocy, heart racing, I get a little worked up. I’m telling myself things, talking to myself, just demanding I sort myself out. That’s not the best state to be in when you’re trying to address issues. You need clarity, time, and, yes, willpower to halt your fall. A big idiot brain yelling at itself does not afford such things.  That’s why, when I saw the fox, two thoughts went through my mind. “Don’t shoot the blood foxy!” and “You’ve not got a fox yet! SHOOT!” You’ve seen enough of how the morning has gone so far to figure out what happened next.  Which is why, 45 seconds later, I was standing at the spot the fox was at when I shot, desperately hoping I didn’t see blood on the ground. So, yes, I did shoot, but I was so hosed up doing so, perhaps my subconscious pulling the shot deliberately, that I missed. And I was very thankful for missing. I checked around the surrounding area looking at the fox’s tracks. There was no thought about following it, none at all. Really. I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed any blood droplets. That I really didn’t hit it. I don’t think I did. I don’t think I missed any blood. And my missed shot, the panic of thinking I’d compounded my gormlessness, really did this time force me to readjust. It was back to walking the path, climbing the hill, getting to the lookout Conni wanted me to see. Each step I told myself, “Don’t go chasing things.” Each animal call I heard I told myself to simply perceive them, to observe the sounds, to let the whole natural world continue on around without my blundering in. I told myself this, repeatedly, and it worked. As I a came around a turn, a steep one, what I’d been looking for since I’d arrived the day before opened up before me.  It was only a small plateau but still it was clear ground with lush green grass. This was the image I’d had in my head. An open space in which to see clearly. I decided to hunt.  My walk with my mental cajoling worked. Whether this was me receiving from the world what I’d put out I don’t know. What I do know was that I had barely taken twenty steps when I saw a deer standing, at the end of the clearing, right in front of me, completely oblivious to me. For the briefest of moments thought after thought bounced around my head. What if I miss, losing the animal? What if I hit, but, again, it isn’t a good shot? Do I need to get closer? Are there bigger, more valuable animals waiting to come into view? Am I denying myself the opportunity to discover something more just over that ridge if I take this animal down? Will my scent, being blown towards it, alert it just as I take my shot? Like I said, these thoughts were all in an instant. Maybe they weren’t even thoughts but a feeling. I held my breath. My mind emptied. I pulled the trigger. The animal jumped. I knew I’d hit it. I lowered my rifle and kept my eye exactly on the spot the deer had been standing before it fled. I’d need to find its track and follow it for what I was sure was my most satisfying, if not my most prestigious kill. My mind stayed clear until I was about twenty meters away when something started nagging at me. Fifteen meters away I realised I was so focused as I shot I didn’t see, or couldn’t remember, which direction the deer had run, and there were no obvious tracks I could spot the closer I came to its former grazing spot.  Checking the blood it had left on the ground from the impact of the bullet was a bittersweet moment. I couldn’t pinpoint the direction it had gone, and so know where to start looking for its tracks, but the amount of blood confirmed I’d hit a vital organ. Surely it couldn’t have gone far? Or, maybe, the luck saving me from my previous three cock ups had run out?  Thinking about my own inclination I imagined I wouldn’t run towards the cliff face, where I’d be trapped against a wall, I would run towards the cliff edge. Either way represents difficulty but the edge at least has the feeling of an escape. I walked towards the pines, despite not seeing any tracks to follow. Looking out from the plateau I wasn’t thinking of the view or the world below, I was thinking of the animal. What this shot meant to me. After floundering and ignoring my own plans, getting caught in a series of mistakes, then digging deep into myself as a way to settle this felt like the culmination of a small, error ridden first half of my morning. Perhaps that too was part of the issue? I’d been moving so quickly my day didn’t seem right, but coming to this field after forcing myself to keep focus was a reward. Now I just needed to find the deer I shot. It wasn’t long, amidst the few tall pines, that I found the trail I was looking for. The fallow deer startled, ran one way, the turned back on himself. Turning myself around too I saw I had to navigate some boulder drops. I hoped the deer, in its panic, didn’t fall from the height, but it was only moments later after crossing some rocks that I found its body.  It wasn’t a trophy. It wasn’t even my most valuable or biggest kill. It is my most significant, so far. It is the kill where I feel like it wasn’t luck (although I know there was a lot of luck involved) rather it was some display of my determination and skill, my battle with my own doubts and getting over them with proper healthy thinking. It was the world and me sharing in a moment where I can acknowledge that some things do come right. I didn’t spend long with the downed animal. It wasn’t a celebration, it was a brief bit of time that just made sense. I knew what my purpose was and that was always to climb to the outlook, as Conni had instructed me to do.  After a few minutes walk, up and up, along the small worn path, I had the viewpoint in sight. I was expecting a similar tower to the one I’d previously been on, like a construction that represented the significance of what I’d been through in getting there, but it was already the highest point for miles around so it was only a wooden platform, with some benches and information signs...  ... and a view. I can see all across the forest. I’m here now, writing this, and I will say I didn’t spend too long looking out from the platform. It’s not an awesome sight. I feel no sense of wonder at what I see. What it is is something that is just right and just proper. This is what’s natural. In my life, when it was all going wrong, I was looking for signs, significance, meaning, and something to tell me what’s important. Today, here, I feel there are no grand moments. There were no grand moments to my morning. Intense moments, sure, and significant moments. There were times I felt lost, wild, hopless, times I felt in control, times I felt control slipping from me. In the city I was looking for a purpose to all of those things. Right now I know all of this is just living. I’m going to sit here a little longer. Maybe someone else will come up here, maybe Conni will contact me. At some point, in a few minutes, in an hour, I’ll walk back down that path I came up and keep on living.
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Sep 19, 2021 23:02
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CremePudding posted:The game's name bothered me so much that I stumbled into the thread You really don't realise the extent of the silliness of the name until you start talking to people about it. Either writing it up, or worse, saying it in real life. It's got big straight to video movie vibes. I've seen people say the silliness is for trademark reasons, which makes sense, but equally a lot of hunting style game players probably want the confirmation, "Yep, it's about hunting!" when they see it. I can't imagine it's good for enticing yer average gamer, but it is a niche game, albeit one that's built a fairly strong fanbase by being really quite good and extremely chill, which is perfect for the type of older "gamer" who just wants an easy hour of nice views and walking around enjoying things. I do hope you stick with the thread, after stumbling in through annoyance. And the same goes for anyone else. A silly name, but hopefully not a silly LP, for what I think is a really pleasant game.
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Sep 20, 2021 02:15
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I spent a lot of hours with Call of the Wild, never entirely sure what I was getting out of it. There's moments of intensity, but only for a few seconds at a time and usually only two or three times in an hour. The rest of the time is spent walking from place to place, either scanning treelines with binoculars or following tracks or vocalisations or just wandering. If you get impatient and start jogging from place to place you start spooking animals before you ever see or hear them and the parks start to feel entirely unpopulated. So you have to slow down to a pace that feels agonizing if you're insufficiently zen. Unless you're really good at hitting moving targets, you only really get a single shot at a target - by the time you work the bolt and resight in they're halfway to the horizon and accelerating. And that's if you do everything right, because it takes very little to spook something and make it start running. So every encounter becomes a series of choices where you try to gauge how clear a shot you can get without spoiling your chance of getting a shot at all. Do you get closer? Do you get a better angle? Do you find a good place to hide and try to call it in? And then that shot becomes very important, as you try to gauge wind and bullet drop and the animal's anatomy to try to line up a shot on the heart or lungs without being blocked by a shoulder blade. And once you take that shot, unless you manage to down it immediately you don't get any feedback at all at how good your shot was until you get to the blood splatter, and you don't get the CSI model until you find the body. So by the time you're seeing the results of your shot, you can easily have forgotten what exactly you might have done wrong or right when you took the shot. It makes it challenging to get better at the game when the crucial test of skill happens maybe two or three times an hour, and you don't get feedback on how well you did it until minutes later. But despite all that - or because of all that - I kept coming back to it. 48 hours played, according to Steam. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because the game isn't afraid of letting you fail. If you run everywhere, if you don't pay attention, if you shoot without thinking, the game will let you spend hours without getting a kill. This LP is reminding me a lot of that feeling and process of learning and eventually earning success, and it's probably going to make me reinstall it again.
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Sep 20, 2021 04:05
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Tehan posted:But despite all that - or because of all that - I kept coming back to it. 48 hours played, according to Steam. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because the game isn't afraid of letting you fail. If you run everywhere, if you don't pay attention, if you shoot without thinking, the game will let you spend hours without getting a kill. I'm really glad you might reinstall it again. It means I'm doing something right by the game even if I'm very much a beginner at it. I've watched people play it more than I've played it myself. I think I had about ten hours clocked on the other base-game map before I wiped my progress and started this LP, but for me it's very much a game where the process of getting better is a really big and enjoyable part of it. Unlike some games like that it's not from constant pressure from the game, there's no threat to deal with every moment. It's not get better or die! You improve by taking it easy, enjoying the setting, and slowing down and thinking. And if you're saying "if you don't pay attention ... the game will let you spend hours without getting a kill" now, then boy howdy do I have an update coming for you! I played for a bit yesterday while really tired and grumpy, and wasn't putting my best efforts into it, but I figured I could use that "not my best efforts" in an in-character way by putting it into a chapter that really explored some of how the game plays.
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Sep 20, 2021 04:30
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Mrenda posted:Unlike some games like that it's not from constant pressure from the game, there's no threat to deal with every moment. It's not get better or die! You improve by taking it easy, enjoying the setting, and slowing down and thinking. I think that's what it comes down to. The primary gameplay loop here isn't the gunplay, it's walking and looking and listening, and the graphics and maps and audio and weather systems are all absolutely beautiful. That can be very relaxing if I'm in the right headspace for it, and there's still all the usual video game trappings - money, XP, levelling, quest - to keep the player engaged.
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Sep 20, 2021 05:42
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Mrenda posted:You really don't realise the extent of the silliness of the name until you start talking to people about it. Either writing it up, or worse, saying it in real life. It's got big straight to video movie vibes. I've seen people say the silliness is for trademark reasons, which makes sense, but equally a lot of hunting style game players probably want the confirmation, "Yep, it's about hunting!" when they see it. I can't imagine it's good for enticing yer average gamer, but it is a niche game, albeit one that's built a fairly strong fanbase by being really quite good and extremely chill, which is perfect for the type of older "gamer" who just wants an easy hour of nice views and walking around enjoying things. It's not even that! The way they stylized it like "theHunter" is just infuriating for repenting typo criminals like me  I was expecting the game to be shovelware cheese hunting though, but this looks to be a far cry from it. It's really nice the game proper isn't going all "you are the apex predator now, establish dominance and shoot all the animals!", despite the name.
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Sep 20, 2021 12:02
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Chapter 3 Once I’d finished up at the outlook I made my way back to where I’d slept the night before. That area had been bustling with animal life in the morning but going back it was as though I was in a daze. I seemed to arrive at the outpost as if I was barely conscious for the walk back, just appearing there. Conni, too, seemed to be aware of this, and set me a task through the integrated radio/internet/communication systems on my HunterMate as though she was worried I’d be tempted by a nap.  A woman named Gerlinde Jäger, a local expert on fallow deer was looking for more photographs of them for her second book on the animals. I was already happy taking photos, as you can see, so this didn’t seem like too much hassle at all. I presumed, as well, there’d be some reward: cash for the facilities scattered around. It was all coming across like a big family here. People vitally interested in the reserve, sharing the ability to survive and make a living from the area as long as you weren’t some gobshite blasting everything you see, doing damage to the environment and its balance. I was happy to accept, but thinking back now, bad-thinking, I should have realised her name Jäger, a big old omen calling for me to do Jägerbomb after Jägerbomb, which, hours later—useless, useless hours later—is all I really want.  Gerlinde said there should be fallow deer to photograph around the outpost but I’d hunted that area earlier in the morning. I could absolutely hunt here some more but if the animals begin to sense an area is a severe danger to them they might abandon it. As well as that, animals don’t stay still all day. They’ll have their own routines, places to eat, drink, and sleep and rest, so even if I didn’t scare them away with my presence and shooting they’d probably have traveled to another area. With that in mind I decided to head south of the outpost, especially with my map showing there were areas of interest to explore down that way.  One thing I did notice around the outpost was a cast-off set of antlers. I got onto Conni who told me people definitely collect these. In fact many people have vast collections. If I was to find any more she’d be happy to take them off me, for museums, the people who’d like the casts the deer abandon as they grow, even for curious kids. Again the support being shown to me from others in the reserve was coming through loud and clear. I was buoyed at this point. I was to explore, just bumbling through the Rathenfeldt area of the reserve, and I knew good things would come to me. Which, really, shows how little I do know.  Still, I did my checks before setting out for what I was sure would be a superb late morning. As I examined my rifle—an ounce of prevention and all that—I noticed some of my old skills, at least from the rifle range when I was a kid stalking you, Granda, were starting to come back to me (I guess you are useful.) My muscle memory seemed to have actually remembered. I was now apparently able to ready multiple shots, not having to drop the rifle once I’d taken my first shot. I had no plans on downing multiple animals, blam-blam-blam, one after the other as they panicked when I shot one of their pals, but it was good to know my abilities were coming back to me. Off I set. When I arrived to the reserve, walking out of the first outlook tower I came upon, I simply went north, i.e. straight ahead; which you can make out from one of my older photos. This was fine because the wind was ahead of me, and in the range of choices keeping going straight is an easy one. That brought me to the camp I’d stayed in, so the reserve must have figured this is what most people would do. That path took me skirting the edge of the reserve, keeping its boundaries and an island to my right, but I’d ignored a whole section of the reserve off to my left as I made my first foray yesterday. Now I was heading into that realm.  I walked towards the deeper parts of Rathenfeldt and was immediately rewarded with a warm sun, clear skies, and a vast space that could offer me a clear shot on any animal I saw. Of course, as this chapter will show, things weren’t that simple. My prior wondering whether I’d used up my luck in the early part of the day would have an answer.  Still, I didn’t quite know that at this point. Not only did I have a wide open space—stunning space—to gaze upon, I also quickly found a resting area for some deer. I didn’t see any animals around but this is the type of information that benefits you long term. It’s not possible to simply wander around and stumble right into animals. They’ll see you, hear you or smell you long before you spot them with your binoculars no matter how sharp an eye you have. Getting to know their routines, the spaces they travel through, the places they rest, drink and eat will allow you not to have to blindly search for them, but to anticipate where they would be when you need them. I figured even if I didn’t find any animals with my late morning efforts it would be a real achievement if I built up the knowledge that would help me understand the ways of this part of the reserve, so with increasing amazement at just how capable I am I trucked on.  Part of the outdoors life is dealing with the weather and not fretting when it gets a little bit uncomfortable. However, I’d spent the past two years or so of the pandemic ardently avoiding things like the weather by keeping myself locked away from the outside. Which is why I’m here, dear Granda. I know you warned me, years ago, that I shut myself away when things get difficult. I know you know well, now, two years of locking myself away had a disastrous result. That meant I dug deep and simply acknowledged the fact it was getting a bit foggy, it was getting a bit damp. I wasn’t going to ascribe meaning to a bit of rain coming in behind me because this isn’t a Greek tragedy. I was happy in my gear, proper waterproofs, warm clothes, and I was going to see the site Conni marked on map that she said was of interest.  Arriving there I remembered what Conni had said when I first arrived and thought, “Yep, it’s a burial mound.” I read the information sign which basically said, “Yep, it’s a burial mound,” but adding the information that it’s bronze age. To me it looked like a little hill, nothing more. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to link up the idea of this land having a long history, and at one point there were ancient peoples just making do here, even hunting like me. I would have been more impressed if it was a glacial feature, a drumlin, or an accrual of strange mounds like sometimes happens with moraines. I think all this was because I wasn’t thinking of people, of society, but of things like glaciers. Slowly moving impossible forces in the world is more my bent at the moment, not people, who are idiots. Idiots like me. I don’t think I even spent time honoring the dead. I looked. I left. It was onto discovering more of the features of the reserve, the nature, not the dumdum or even ancient, quite smart humanity.  As is the way of the world my desire to meet with nature was, as should be expected, met with the needs of people. Straight away I found a road. At least, as you can see, it was small, and I was following the dirt road running off it rather than the concrete or tar, or whatever the main part was constructed with. I traveled north, for a while, and once the point of interest I was looking for was directly off to my left I broke away from the path and made my way through some scrub and trees. I didn’t expect what I found.  It was a seeming natural wasteland. It looked like fire had destroyed it, lightning maybe, even a flood, or at least I hoped so. I hoped it wasn’t human caused destruction. The stump made it look like this was an area that had been tended to, after the damage occurred, but with the greyness overhead, the barrenness in front of me, boulders from god knows where, it was not the most pleasant or encouraging of sights. At most I could think it was the beginning of a renewal. Given time, and luck, one-hundred, two-hundred years from now this area might have a new, vibrant lease of life started from this upset.  Past that rocky waste I arrived at the point Conni had marked on my HunterMate finding stacks of prepared wood. I knew these were scattered all over the reserve, ready to be built into something. Someone, maybe Conni herself or people working for her, had decided this was a point to build a blind. It’d take sponsorship from people hunting here and if I wanted to spend my cash I could pay for this to be a hideaway to shoot from. What it told me was, according to the local experts, this should be a place to observe animals, at least in their opinion. You don’t set up a blind in an area animals don’t frequent so I knew there was a chance of this being a familiar ground, or near to it, for deer, or boar, maybe. I decided to look around. I walked gently and quietly through the trees that were at the bottom of the view from the prospective blind but there was nary sight nor sound of anything living unless you count the midges. Midges told me there might be some water nearby because I’m fierce smart at figuring things out like that.  And there very much was water nearby. I investigated the area for evidence of this being some animals’ drinking spot but could only content myself with taking a photo. This was the point where I felt the day turning on me. Unlike earlier, when I saw a resting area for some deer, I couldn’t find any examples of animals, at any point, being present here. This did not mean they didn’t come here. I think, no, I’m sure, this is a case of me forgetting most of what you taught me, Granda. Of my brain atrophying from two years of lockdown laziness, isolating myself from friends, relationships, the world, and any stimulation. Two years of increasing detachment. No matter how I searched, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t search that hard—I’d given up because it wasn’t easy—I didn’t find anything. I left, annoyed with myself. Annoyed with the reserve turning on me. I’d said I’d be happy bumbling around, exploring, even if I didn’t find any animals to engage with, but that was naive.  As I went north the sun came out again but did nothing to change my worsening mood. I found new land, open fields of cut crops, bails of hay, or straw, and more blinds I could sponsor to be constructed. As is the story of these hours of non-adventure I didn’t find a single animal.  I ventured past the open fields, again without seeing or hearing anything, and found my way back into a wooded area. Finally, I did hear something other than the wind rattling grass, growth and leaves; one of those red foxes that had eluded my efforts so far.  The combination of the fox’s mating calls and the tracks showing it was moving at a walk told me maybe there was one of the little tricksy bastards nearby. Out came my trusty little jackrabbit caller, a big deep breath, then that stupid sound was whining out into the air around me. I knew I’d finally found something on my southerly travels. Except I didn’t. I may have, if I’d been a bit more patient, but I was getting pissy. I don’t know how long I spent there, five, ten, fifteen minutes, but when the fox refused to come right out in the open, despite my stupid little lovely recorder/flute/jackrabbit trumpet, I gave up. I stood straight up and walked out into the gap making a hell of a lot of noise. Even if it was just a wave of petulance I had no opportunity to change my mind now. I’d thrown such a strop that any animal within half a mile would smell the stroppy pheromones erupting from my pores and think, “There’s some nobhead ready to murder me there, best gently caress off elsewhere.” And I knew it. I was the nobhead. So while all the animals hosed off I did as well. I stomped about realising I was getting nothing from my day, and then the day gave me the finger.  After Conni told me people were look for casts, and I’d be rewarded for finding them, what did I find but a cast in the middle of a loving fairy fort. It really summed up how lovely my morning had turned since I walked mindlessly from the outlook of my previous entry and started off this new chapter of my adventure. If any of your buddies don’t know about fairy forts then all they really need to hear is they’re cursed. I’m not religious, or spiritual, but even then a loving fairy fort will give me reason to pause. Maybe it’s a childhood thing but superstition is far more powerful than faith. Despite all that, being tormented or stolen away by fairies would be about right for my day. So, after snapping the picture of what would lead to my demise, I trudged right in and picked up the cast.  Even though I was doomed from entering the fairy fort, and despite my grump, I tried, I really tried to round out those few hours by putting some shape on the day. I decided to head towards another outlook Conni had marked on my map. Like the last one I’d been to it wasn’t built tall rather it was on top of a hill. So up I went. The last outlook I’d been to I had to follow a path after not being able to find it through simple discovery. Being in a foul mood, and totally bloody-minded, I said, “gently caress you world!” and decided to get myself into a jam. The path to the outlook skirted around one small hill next to the bigger hill the outlook was on, with a dip between them. Instead of being sensible and following the path I decided I would blaze my own trail and go between the hills, to save me a whopping five minutes. If I didn’t get lost.  It worked! One thing worked in my day, although it wasn’t enough to cheer me up. I might have grunted approval when I saw my way open up but I was still having a pisser of a midday. As was expected, and true to form, there were still no animals to be found even if I did get my shortcut.  From the top of the outlook I could see all around me. There were some new interesting areas to discover, plotted into my HunterMate map from the information point up there, and best of all I discovered there was a rest lodge nearby.  It only took few minutes walk until I was finally at the end of my self-inflicted morning ordeal. I was somewhere comfortable, somewhere new, and most tellingly, somewhere bigger with more places to bed down than the first campsite just inside the entrance to the reserve. I was really getting deep into all this despite my mood. My problem—these past few hours—is I thought, ”what comes, comes”, and I’d be happy with whatever was delivered to me. But that’s not how the world works. I’m not some rich failson. I don’t have a trust fund, or oodles of wealth and connections to fall back on. I’m not totally broke, I had enough cash to get here. Living like a hermit for two years during lockdown while fooling my employer into thinking I was working means I do have some savings, plus there’s what you’ve given to me for this adventure in hunting, but I’m not someone who gets an easy living just because. I had the wrong attitude on my latest outing. I tried to convince myself that I was some zen master, that simply being here was a reward in itself, but I want things from here. I want to prove myself. And to do that I have to put effort in. So how do I put that into practice? If my lack of noticing tracks and bedding spots, my failing to find the signs of animals having been drinking at the lake I’d found earlier in my morning tell me anything it’s that not only will things not come to me just because I want them, but the effort I have to put in is in remembering all my skills, and improving on all I’ve forgotten. Animals won’t simply present themselves; I have to build up my experience and learn how to better understand their ways. I have to understand myself, and my moods, and better my-self most of all. I’m constantly learning, but if I have a bad attitude like this morning I’ll get nowhere. Which means I’ll have a coffee here at this outpost, something to perk me up—no sad-feels Jägerbombs for me—and try, I hope, I really hope I can, to put the hard graft in. Once I’ve had the coffee and a bit of a sit down I think I’ll head back to the first outpost, then maybe try the island I saw on my map. Naturally it’s enclosed by water, so there could be a resident, isolated population of deer. Maybe I’ll get Gerlinde Jäger’s photo, and maybe I won’t turn into a pissy mess again if I just do things properly. Maybe I’ll see a red fox that isn’t just a distant blur? Maybe I'll even shoot one of the bastards...
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Sep 20, 2021 16:08
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Chapter 4 My morning hadn’t been the best. What do you do when that happens? Pick yourself up and dust yourself off. I traveled back to the first lodge, feeling a little more familiar with the area, feeling like I had more of a chance of figuring out the area, and began with a new found determination. There was a bit of a fog in my head, like a hangover from annoyance clouding up my thoughts, but after the evening I had I can barely remember it being a factor.  My plan was to head east to that island you see there. It seems close by on the map but I’ll tell you it’s not. Not really. Not with what’s in between. The area there seems to be teeming with life. Except it’s not just animal life alone. There’s every drat kind of plant, bush, hedge and tree to get in your way. I think even the rocks have grown legs and tried to walk in front of me.  Looking at that picture you might say, “Well Eimear, if you stuck to your plan, which I know you won’t because you’re you, you’ll make it to the island. There’s a path right there! And you are right, sticking to plans is not my strong point. Something I just have to laugh about now.  Conni, helpful as always, sent me the details of some tracks following along the very path you mention. It didn’t take long piecing them together before I found a rest zone for the red foxes. Red foxes have tormented me since I got here, earning the name, “little blurry bastards,” and they would continue to make a fool out of me as the day, and night, wore on. You’re to blame for that, as well. A little bit anyway. The main problem I’ve found with the little blurry bastards is that they’re horny as anything. I can be anywhere, tracking anything, and they’ll be screaming out, “lookin for sum fuk!” Dirty bastards. It’s probably my own fault for being distracted with wanting to shoot them when they just want to get it on but if they stayed a bit more on-the-down-low I wouldn’t go after them. Not that I’ve had much success in hitting one yet. Anyway, it was a rest zone, so I knew where I could find them once I figured out their schedule a bit.  I gave a few blows on my jackrabbit caller, for good measure and to see if I could coax a little blurry bastard out if they were still around having a post-coital fag, but the only thing that responded were some roe deer. I could have gone after the roe, but first off, my scent was what alerted them. My big stinky stink lines were being blown right into their schnozzes. Secondly, I had to get Gerlinde pictures of fallow deer, not roe deer. A kill would be nice, but I’d become single-minded on this. The kind of single-minded where I completely ignored my other single-minded-ness to go to the island for a new single-minded-ness that just occurred to me. I don’t know what you’d call that. I’ll figure it out at some point. I decided to head in a general northerly direction, what with the wind at my back. I picked up some tracks for some fallow deer, and some old poo, so I just blundered ahead.  That was a mistake. They must have gone in circles because within a minute or two I heard warning calls from them. They were nearby.  I crept ahead, trying to make as little noise as possible, and soon I sighted them. They were resting in the middle of the woods here. I took a photo, sent it Gerlinde, but she needed something closer. The problem for me was that there was tall grass and bushes all ahead of me. If I got down on my stomach and crawled I wouldn’t be able to see them. If I did what was necessary to get a photo they’d see me and be off within a second. I felt like I had to get high ground on them.  I turned away from them and slowly began to move up to a little raised patch. The problem was I lost sight of them completely as I did. Rest zones are great, all animals have somewhere they go to chill out, but that’s not all they do in their day. It seemed I’d caught them just as they were moving on; I think, at least. I didn’t hear any new warning calls once I began to crawl but still they were gone. The worst thing about this type of movement in chasing them is they move faster than you if you’re trying to be quiet. If you’re not trying to be quiet they get spooked and move even faster again. The other worst thing, and I think I know now why you say you never mastered this area, is that animals moving a little bit faster than you would be fine in most other places. In most other places there aren’t so many bumps and dips in the land, there aren’t so many trees at random places, the grass isn’t growing high, then bushy, and there isn’t fallen twigs and branches. Hirschfelden isn’t just a case of finding animals without them noticing you. You can find them. You can know they’re there. But if you don’t have any way to get a shot because there’s a warehouse of nature in your way you’re screwed. I’ll give you a bit of an image dump to show you this. Although I’m sure you well know I bet you’ll get a kick out of it happening to me…  A track! Easy peasy! Just follow it.  I’m close by with a big shouty bastard shouting. Does this mean I can see him? Does it gently caress!  Not only are the red foxes getting horny but so are the fallow deer! Big ol’ horny yelps! Will he be distracted enough for me to sneak up on him? I think you already know.  Another track. And it’s leading towards where a hide is planned! Now I’m thinking I might be blessed with some clear lines of sight to actually spot the fuckers.  Do I get that clear line of sight with the direction he’s walking? I do in me hole!  Now night is falling. With the trees in my way I can barely see poo poo. With the darkness I can see less than that. Which gets me thinking about why they’d have a hide when the animals are walking into a forest you can’t see into? Sure, the animals might come from the opposite, clear direction, but they won’t stop for you to pick out the best target. I know I’m just shooting what I can but some people, people like you, will only take the proper trophies. You won’t care about taking out the small ones, in fact you’ll leave them grow and establish healthier herds. Even still, I wondered about why put a hide in a place that doesn’t have much space around it? My injured-jackrabbit caller has been loving useless so far but my roe bleater worked, I think. At least once, anyway. Maybe. Maybe what I need is a fallow deer caller? Maybe that’s what this hide is for? The deer go into the forest and you call a few out as the main herd mills about just out of sight.  I do a quick check with my HunterMate and they have what I need; an antler rattler. It works on fallow deer, reindeer, caribou, lesser kudu and more. It’d be great if I ever hunt anywhere else, with all those animals. This would be the first bit of gear I get for myself, not the stuff you gave to me. Except, despite how lovely Conni has been, she thinks I’d be better off learning more traditional skills. Prove myself a bit more, that I can cope without the toys, then I can get the toys. gently caress! It’s dark. The deer are impossible. I can’t get a photo let alone a shot off. I need to take a break. The idea of Jägermeister rears in my head again but really I’d just like a strong glass of wine. Something to soothe me and slow me down a little. A little relaxation. I head back to the lodge for a little while, deciding whether to sleep or not, but I don’t want to end this day with gently caress all to show for it. I decide to head out again. Now I’m really suckin’ diesel, even if I’m a decrepit auld banger of a hunter. The wind is blowing from the north so I decide to head south and slowly search my way up through the part of the reserve I’m already familiar with.  This actually works! Soon I find a herd of fallow deer traveling through the corn fields. I’m too far away for a picture, and they’re moving too fast for me to catch them, but I know the direction they’re heading; back to the loving forested area!  It takes painstaking work to follow them. Mostly of me convincing myself they’re moving north and east, not any other direction, because south would lead them to me and south-east would bring them to where my butt is smelling out with the wind.  Somehow, despite my steady pace, I manage to find them without them getting scared off. They must be getting snoozy. However, I’m still not close enough for the zoom on my camera.  I creep…  And I crawl…  And eventually I’m close enough to a tree, and the animals, that I can get off my stomach and at least be on my knees with cover to break up my silhouette. Forewarning… This doesn’t quite work out, but the thing I’m taking from this is that I found an area both roe and fallow deer rest in. This is all adding to the results of mission to get the lay of the land. Despite me being mostly useless I might, eventually, be able to tell other people how to hunt Hirschfelden, even if I’m not the best at it myself. But I wasn’t thinking of that at the time. I had a mission. I stood.  I get a picture of a fallow deer. It’s not the most impressive picture. The doe is small, she’s lying down, there’s branches across my view, and more shrubs than a garden show in the foreground, but Conni seems to think it’ll work. Maybe Gerlinde Jäger will like that I’ve managed to get a night-time photo of a fallow doe at rest? Maybe Conni thinks, “Better not keep that eejit out all night, she’ll just wake me again!” Who knows? I’ve done my bit for the reserve and Gerlinde—after Conni put me forward—so now it’s time to shoot something. The one thing I have noticed is that there’s no big bucks around here. Maybe they like to stay a little way away from the does, maybe they like a little more cover. That’s why my shot is so important. If I can bring in some more harvests it’ll show Conni that I’m not a total chancer and it’s OK for me to use the likes of antler rattlers around the reserve.  I line up my shot, waiting for the doe to stand. The problem is I’ve gone most of the day without success, not hunting-wise anyway, so I get impatient. The deer could gently caress off at any moment leaving me to yet more hours of tracking. The doe does stand but as you can see, even with her presenting herself perfectly, I don’t have a great view. Does that stop me? No. Because I’m a loving idiot. I shoot. She runs off.  When I get to the wound splatter it tells me what I already know: I am a loving idiot. An impatient loving idiot. There’s no sign I hit an organ. At best it was a flesh wound. The doe will be upset, hurt, in pain. Maybe the wound will get infected. I know I won’t be able to track her down. This is on me. I want to give up on the day but I also don’t want to give up on the day. I want to throw in the towel but equally a single photo isn’t enough to show for over twelve hours of effort and two chapters of writing. I begin my stalking again when I hear a roe deer bleat from the forest line ahead of me. I move to the stoutest tree and hunker down. I get out my roe caller, the one toy I’m allowed have, and I give it a tweak.  Not even a minute later a roe walks out into the open. She’s coming straight at me, and I don’t have a good shot. I think of what just happened with the fallow deer. I use the roe caller again, hoping the noise of it will cause her to look around, maybe even turn side-on where her shoulder blades aren’t protecting her lungs. She walks right at me.  I have a shot. It’s a tough shot, she’s a small animal, I’m not sure of the range zeroed in on my .243, and I have to place it right between her legs and their sturdy bones, below her neck, into her centre. I ignore all that just happened with the fallow doe and take the loving shot. I’m an idiot, but a hopeful one. I keep my eye on where she was standing so I can run up and have the blood splatter confirm that yes, I am that idiot and I’ve hosed up again.  Except she’s dead. Not even ten meters from where I shot her. The bullet must have absolutely ripped through her chest. Now it’s late, and I’d be right to call it a night but I’m not the right kind of person. I’m so kicking on potential the only thing I can think of is running around the forest short of drinking half a bottle of wine, which I don’t have.  I go down to the river, figuring something might need water and what do I hear by the little horny, little blurry bastards having one of their dalliances. I track them around and this time I’m determined to make use of my jackrabbit trumpet.  I’m up on a rock, overlooking the area their cries were coming from. I can be patient this time, and I am. I blow every few minutes, never so relaxed, never so certain of something.  And, eventually, a red fox (completely ignoring my headlamp) walks right into view.  Now look at this! It’s the perfect shot you might think. Except I’m documenting this for you, dear Granda, so I was futzing about with cameras and link ups and all manner of poo poo. Instead of taking the shot I was pressing buttons and the fox turned around just a split second after I took this picture. Sure, foxes are pests, but I was thinking about the fallow doe I gave a flesh wound to. The fox was so small that a flesh wound would be a serious flesh wound. It could survive for weeks, but it’d be in horrific pain. That’s why I got out my jackrabbit bugle and went to give it another blow. That’s when the fox turned around again, before I had the pained-rabbit-tuba out. I rushed for my rifle; and this is the result.  As I snatched between camera, caller and gun I was all in a mess. Picking up the gun I, somehow, managed to fire blindly into the air. The fox darted off, I’d missed my chance to shoot the blurry bastard that really wasn’t that blurry this time, and the only thing I could do was laugh at myself. Which is strange… After a morning of annoyance and anger my travails since then have not been easy. I am missing some things I need that others feel I shouldn’t be relying on yet. I am upsetting things when I’m too close, and blundering into opportunities by happenstance. Most of all, I am having fun. I enjoyed today, at least once I got over my morning funk. I got Gerlinde Jäger’s photo and I bagged one roe deer. I haven’t had the most amazing of kills but I’m making slow progress. And I hope you’re enjoying seeing the progress I’m making.  After a few minutes trying to entice the red fox back (it’s far too smart for that) I just decided to lie on that rock overlooking my missed opportunity and laugh at my idiocy. Rather than damning myself, or using self-deprecation to deflect, this laughing was more at the tumble around the washing machine that is life. Eventually I took out my HunterMate and with my focus since the photo I realised I missed a message back from Gerlinde Jäger. Normally she’d take care of herds destroying crops grown here by the owners of the reserve but with her book she doesn’t have time. She’d like me to do it for her. I guess she really liked my photo and must have some confidence in me.  I guess I’ll be traveling north to the Petershain Cornfields for some reserve management just as I was getting a small handle on this small section of land I’ve been frequenting. But that’s what this all is, right? It’s about discovery and learning; whether about me, you, or the game of hunting. I don’t need to prove myself by over-working a small area right by where I started out. I can get the tools and toys that help me by helping others. Others who seem to have some belief in me. Others who I can prove myself to by assisting them when they need it. I’ll get a bit of a sleep now, but, honestly, I’m ready to keep on with my learning. Whatever happens it’s been a bit of an adventure. My story must be tame for you, with what you’ve done, but think of me as you did thirty years ago, when you took me in, and I think you’d agree this is all good. At the very least I might be entertaining. At the very least I’m doing it for me, which seems to be working out fine.
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Sep 22, 2021 07:30
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Foxes are a pain, in a lot of the terrain they don't stick out of the grass. A bunch of times I've tried to call one in after hearing a mating call and eventually given up and started tramping off and alerted the fox that had been apparently approaching the entire time and was only like thirty meters away at that point, and by the time I've got a gun out they're behind a bush or a tree and accelerating. The calls make for a good barometer of how well you're moving around - if you're hearing more warning calls than mating calls, you might need to slow down and watch where you're stepping. It's not just speed that affects how much noise you make, but also the surface you're walking on and if you're moving through tall grass or bushes. It takes a while to get a feel for how careful and quiet you need to be when hunting different prey.
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Sep 22, 2021 08:01
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I love where this is going so far. I can tell that this is a game you let breathe and... I'm fine with that. What's Eimear doing with the deer carcasses, etc.?
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Sep 22, 2021 08:05
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Quackles posted:I love where this is going so far. I can tell that this is a game you let breathe and... I'm fine with that. Definitely a game you let breathe, but also, I am not a young and spry elite gamer. I'm not that old, just about forums average I guess, but I'm not going to be dominating in a Counter Strike clan or spend hours perfecting my skills in any game. I'm here to bumble about and get the enjoyment I want from being useless in game and then telling a story. I think it's working fine for, and actually with, the LP so far. As for the carcasses, the game kind of hand waves it away.  You can see there, on the harvest screen, you get three options. Accept just means the carcass disappears magically and you get cash for it. Taxidermize is if you want to preserve the animal's body. There's DLC for "Trophy Lodges" where you can mount and display your kills, in various setups. People usually only do this with the really impressive kills. The ratings go from nothing, through bronze, silver, gold and up to diamond all based on the difficulty of the animal you've shot, along with its size and weight. For deer stuff like their antlers and how impressive they are—antlers have their own procgen system where more detailed, tine-ey and bigger ones appear on some animals—and other factors; some other animals have other trophy body parts. If you bag a good kill you might want to display it. Most of mine have had no rating so far, but I think I've got two silvers. The red deer by the river was a silver, as was the deer on the plateau by the lookout. "Save Harvest" is just that it puts it in the game memory if you don't have the cash or are undecided about taking the taxidermy option.  As for my story-reasoning behind what happens to the carcasses it's vague but so far I'm justifying it in two ways. First off, Conni—the Wildhüter—has a team that helps with it. You tag it with your HunterMate and they'll haul it out for you. In that sense you get kind of lore things like in the image about using the meat and what it's good for. When CremePudding said... CremePudding posted:I was expecting the game to be shovelware cheese hunting though, but this looks to be a far cry from it. It's really nice the game proper isn't going all "you are the apex predator now, establish dominance and shoot all the animals!", despite the name. ... the game really shies away from that blast-em-all! kind of play. The devs know hunting is controversial, so they really lean into the idea of making hunting as ethical as it's going to be, ideas of land and animal management, and keeping things in balance. Using the meat for food and animals for education is all part of that. Another way I'm writing it is that Eimear's grandfather has buddies all around the world he'd go hunting with, and when Eimear was young she'd join him. She knows these guys, and they all like her, so when she comes around to their local area trying hunting 20+ years later they're all, "This is my pal's granddaughter! I remember when she was cute-as-a-button. drat right I'm going to help her if she wants to do what I loved doing when I didn't have to deal with a hip and two knee replacements!" So the story reason is they're all supporting her getting in some hunting time and are happy to haul carcasses out, sometimes provide gear (this might come up later), and use and sell the meat for her. Anyway, thanks for the engagement Quackles (and Tehan and everyone else,) it really helps with the drive to keep doing more.
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Sep 22, 2021 18:29
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It was only a quick nap I took. My first night here I slept from 9pm until 6am, a more healthy sleep than I’d had in two years so I must have been able to make do with a slim few hours shut-eye after that. The plan was to head north towards an outpost marked on my map that’s just across the river. From there I’d explore a little and head north-west towards the Petershain corn fields where Gerlinde Jäger wanted me to clear out some of the deer population. The chances of finding deer there straight away is slight, but even with my still-recovering hunter skills I might find a feed zone for them, or something, especially if they’re doing serious damage to the crops. Deer like a free lunch as much as anyone. No sooner had I stepped outside the door of the lodge, after struggling into my gear and loading up my backpack, did I hear one of the little blurry bastards howling from nearby. I’m not sure if it was alertness from a rest, the night making everything close in, or my senses attuning to the wild but the howl seemed on top of me.  This, of course, meant my plans were interrupted straight away. I crawled back against a fence near the outpost, lay on the ground, and tried to call them in with my jackrabbit bugler. I was so confident this would work. It’d have to work. This is the kind of blessing right on the starting of your day the stupidity of it all ensures it’s a sure thing. Reader? Did it work? It did not work. I didn’t hear a sound for the next fifteen minutes. The problem with those little blurry fox bastards is you just can’t tell what they’re doing. They’re so small and light they could be standing ten feet inside some scrub and you wouldn’t know, unlike red deer, or even roe deer, which will come to you and you’ll hear if you don’t have a thirty a day smoking habit like some people. Looking at you, Granda.  I set myself north, after giving up on the red fox, and followed along the road that had brought me so much success on my first morning here. With only a nap in the middle of the night I wasn’t quite sure what morning it was… This morning? Yesterday morning? I’m not even sure what time it is now. That’s the great thing; I’m learning time doesn’t matter here. If you know where to look, if you keep your senses alert there is life and wonder everywhere waiting for you to discover it. Presuming you don’t chase it off with your heavy footsteps.  I decided I wouldn’t leave the road if I heard any animals. Unless I could spot them with my binoculars I wouldn’t be distracted from my plan to get the outpost, and then onto the cornfields. I needed to prove I could handle those deer antler rattlers, and that means helping some of the reserve’s long-standing friends. When I heard a roe deer I kept this in mind and kept to my plan. I continued on.  This seemed to work out for the best, stick to the road, and it wasn’t long before I heard a red deer calling from straight in front of me, on the road, at least I hoped. I did say I felt my senses had improved, but not to the point I can decipher precisely where a call is coming from. It’s going to take a lot more before I’m able to do that but this call did give the impression it was ahead of me. I took myself a little away from the heavy tarmac of the road and onto the slightly softer surface of the grass but only a few feet from my path. I walked on, hearing another call soon enough. I wondered how far I’d actually gone.  It was out with my map and I saw I wasn’t far from the drinking ground I’d found earlier. If madness is the doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results than first off, I hadn’t learned anything from it, and secondly, I must be having fun being insane.  So, you guessed it, it’s into the forest for me. Plans? They’re made to be broken. Which is why I’ll never get anywhere, something you often said. Wandering around with you as a child I was always wondering and imagining while you tried to teach me to focus. I guess your buddies like my dopey dreamy state, which is why they’re happy to help me here and why I know they’re all reading this too. The thing is I lost the dreamy imagination I had. As I grew older it just seemed to depart, and these past two years, as I got worse and worse, my mind grew emptier and emptier. I had no motivation, no way to envision a future. I couldn’t even imagine winning the lottery as I used to to lull me to sleep when I was a college student. I had nothing inside me for the past two years. Now, even if I am breaking my plans, even if I’m not focused like you want me to be, I am dreaming and imagining. I’m thinking about the big animal, the great red deer, and, you know, it’s fun! I’m having fun! This might not be what you want but it’s big for me. I came here to recover and I can feel my recovery beginning.  I headed east for a while, just to ensure my scent wasn’t being caught by the wind, then I turned north. I was now back in the forests that had caused me so much difficulty. Trees in the way, uneven land, grass, twigs and branches, both dried and wet, varying from being silent to cracking under my feet. I slowed down.  It was then I saw a roe deer up on the hillside above me. I didn’t know what to do. I had come for red deer, the bigger game being the reason I left the road, but a doe right in my vision and a clear shot would mean I had at least something to show for departing my plans. I took the shot.  The deer ran. I walked up to the spot it was when I shot it and immediately saw blood trails. Roe are small and a .243 with polymer-tipped bullets is almost too much for them.  It was a short walk to find them, dead on the ground. I was right to take the shot, I thought at the time. I had, at the least, bagged one kill.  Then it was onto the drinking grounds I’d found for the red deer the day before. It was right within their schedule, so I snuck up, making as little noise as I could manage. Even crawling at points. That there was a hide nearby told me this had to be a good spot.  Except it wasn’t. Either my shot for the roe deer had scared them off, or something else did. Maybe I wasn’t entirely correct on their routine, or maybe my hunting there previously meant they weren’t going to return so quickly. I stayed for about an hour, getting more and more impatient before giving up. I have a lot to learn about red deer and was feeling like me getting one the day before had been pure luck. Even then, unlike the roe deer, the .243 is verging on small for red deer. It can take them, but I’d have to be good. I don’t consider myself good yet.  With no easy way back up to the road, a steep cliff being between me and it, I made my way along the river, low and slow, hoping to find any animal drinking. This was far from my plans for a quick trip to the outpost north and then onto the corn fields to prove myself. But, you know what I said about my imagination coming back; another thing coming back to me is my freedom. I have to be free to take these side-trips and not punish myself for them. I’ve been fired from my job, and luckily nothing more, I have time and enough money, with you and your friends supporting me—and the people I met at the reserve—I can take this opportunity to simply indulge myself. I know it’s what I need. I know it’s what right to fully regain my health and my strength. I still can’t fully do it. There are moments of anger and annoyance but that’s all part of it, I know that, accept it and I’m coming to believe in it. I’ve been here less than 36 hours and there are times, sometimes even a whole sixty minutes where I forget the real world. After that hour forgetting I realise I am fully immersed in this even realer world.  Following the river I found another drinking zone for more red deer, and despite it being the correct time for them to be there there were none around. I wondered if this meant these deer travelled quickly, maybe solo, maybe they only drank for a few minutes before continuing on. Either way I did find some tracks, and thinking the deer might have just moved on I decided to go after it.  I made it all the way to the road to the north while following it at which point I had a decision to make; I’d ended up where I’d intended to go in the first place, but I was also on the tail of a deer, a big one. I’d put a lot of effort into this, even if I had no real choice with the cliff keeping me by the river, but I had to make my mind up whether I’d follow after the deer or go back to my original plan. I was getting tired of following this pain in the rear end deer. I was giving up hope, or just getting impatient. I’d heard literally nothing from him or her all these past minutes. I’d heard no other animals either. I was wondering if my skills in identifying drinking grounds, at least for these impressive red deer, weren’t quite what I thought they were. I thought to myself continue on a little way, see if there’s any evidence they’re around, but if you don’t come across it don’t commit to going deep into the forest away from the bridge to the northerly lands. Of course my writing should tell you where this type of firm thinking leads me; wandering halfway around the world, at least in steps taken.  Except my lackadaisical thinking couldn’t drat me this time. Not even a few feet after crossing to the opposite side of the road I found some of the deer’s scat. I’d been following a red deer that hadn’t been around for hours. So much for my drinking grounds!  It was across the bridge and into a new area of Hirschfelden. I was still far from the cornfields and had to check out the outpost if I was going to spend time here but one thing immediately struck me... [img]https://lpix.org/4124467/thehunterC05P20.jpg][/img] … the lands here were far more open. I couldn’t count on it. I’d discovered the terrain is variable here in Central Europe, at least this part. Beautiful, sure, but you can quickly go from sweeping fields, to managed arable land, to thick forest, to undulating wooded areas and cliff-faces with no sight on anything within loud-talking distance. And the less said about the weather the better.  It was quickly onto the outpost, just two small buildings, all while I noticed how incredibly quiet it was. It was a quietness that gave me time to address whether I was really making progress or just fooling myself into thinking I was. It would have been easy to sit down at that point. I’d been walking for a while but the parts that tired me wasn’t the mere distance travelled but the moving slowly, crouching and crawling on my belly, and being constantly aware of the noise I was making as I tracked a deer; a deer it turned out was miles away.  Like I said, it would have been easy to sit down and take a rest, but I’d spotted on my earlier looking at the map there was a point of interest right nearby, just at the end of a smaller path. I thought what’s the harm in just checking out the area a little, to know what I’d be dealing with after I had a snooze in a comfy chair. I really hope there’s a comfy chair. I’m glad I did take that path.  The trail lead to something I hadn’t seen in a long time: confirmation that yes, this reserve does have more than a small field of open space like the south-ease. In fact it has vast open space in sunlight, with trees bracketing it for deer and animals to walk through.  And what do you know? Not fifteen minutes later, after some scanning-the-treeline-time with my binoculars at my eyes I’m looking at this; tracks in the open. I’d found a deer, far easier than anywhere on the southerly part of Hirschfelden, and I had and took my clear shot. It wasn’t just tracks in the open, it was tracks with blood from a deer I had a straight view on. Now, it wasn’t the best shot, I’ll admit that. I was surprised at the opportunity presented to me—and to make excuses the deer turned just as I was firing. But I’d shot something, in a restful situation, with no cursing under my breath, or self-damnation and doubt after.  Like I said, not the best shot; confirmed by examining the body, but already I was in love with my decision to venture out, to follow this little route. It wasn’t even five minutes later, as I sat back against a tree thanking what the open ground had provided to me, that I heard a deer bleating; a roe deer. A deer I’m actually entrusted with a caller for. I dabbed the caller and waited for the roe to come into view.  I caught glimpses of it, as it came closer and closer, behind little mounds and the trees. This one, specifically, is a deer I loved. It was being true to itself. Despite an open space between me and it, and my horny deer caller filling the air, it still stuck to the treeline. It was curious but cautious and shooting it wouldn’t be an easy task for me. It knew its own mind and wasn’t willing to rush headlong into things.  Eventually it did come out, and I got my shot.  Through his spine. If my former friends are reading this, knowing this blog is about me—it’s not, really, it’s for my grandfather, firstly, and his friends who are helping me, secondly. It’s not for the people who abandoned me but if they know I’m doing what I refused to do as a child, actually shooting animals, then know there’s a huge amount of respect beneath it all. My grandfather’s friends will use every part of this animal; his life won’t be wasted. More, and going back to spirituality I mentioned in a previous post, this isn’t gratuitous. This isn’t chickens eating each other in battery farms. This isn’t pigs in pens with no space to move and developing sores. I don’t think I’ll die out here. I don’t want to die, don’t worry about that, but there is some truth to all this. At most I can respect the animals, and I do, I am the one killing them and they’re unlikely to take me out. But, like I said, it isn’t gratuitous. I’m not Rambo. I haven’t fully worked it out but I feel it all, if not slotting into place, then coming near to its purpose. That the roe challenged my for so long, a simple idiot roe, by never giving me a clear shot until I worked and worked is an example of this pattern of life; this pattern of respect. Something I didn’t have for me, something you sometimes hid from me, Granda. Something my past friends couldn’t even begin to contemplate.  As I walked towards the outlook I came across another roe. It was an easy shot and I felt like I’d truly found some meaning here. This was making sense, food was being provided to other hunters, life was in balance.  I didn’t think of any more shooting or any more animals as I finally got the tower in sight. I hadn’t even known I’d decided to go it. Just ninety minutes beforehand I was thinking of sitting down and resting but then beauty and life came together, for me at least.  Up here I read back through my first bit of writing. My first blog; my first post. All I can think of is beginnings aren’t always the easiest. When I arrived at the reserve I presumed they had it setup so they’d slowly easy you into more arduous and treacherous land. That the far south, with an outpost immediately along your first path, with somewhere to rest just by the entrance was a place for the day-trippers. That I hadn’t found my real reason to do the more difficult things, to go deeper into myself. I know full well from years of writing, years of trying to convince myself to just loving start, the first sentence is often the most difficult; putting pen to paper; finger to keyboard; thumb to screen. Just summoning the courage to say what you have to say. Now I know that the entrance to the park was my difficult beginning. These past two or three hours, in the middle of the reserve, I’ve found my way by putting one foot in front of the other, but it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t begin. I don’t know if things will get difficult again. I presume they will. I know they will. I also know I was difficult on you, Granda. I blamed you for things. I called you things, at least when I began my adveture in Hirschfelden. That was my difficult beginning in even coming here. In doing what I have to do, what I need to do. There’s so much I never said to you that I’m only saying here, in this writing, that I’m sharing with everyone who’s someway part of all of our lives, however distant or forgotten. I know you’ll find pleasure in seeing me discover the passion you had all your life but there are still issues between us. Not everything is beatific. I still have to put where we were into where I am now, and where we could be in the future. I was harsh on you when I started writing, accusing you of all manner of conspiracies. The beginning of my hunting—in the south—the beginning of my writing, my decision to come was all difficult, maybe even angry. You were that difficult beginning, of which we’ve had many. You’re that present I struggle with, at times, and accept, at times. You’re a future I really don’t know. Now, like my hunting, writing, and journey north I can see the tough start was worth it. I hope you accept that from me because, from this outlook, it’s the beginning of meaning. Harsh words and all.
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Sep 24, 2021 06:15
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 This is like... the exact opposite of Heart of Darkness, somehow. The deeper in Eimear goes, the more of a journey it is. I love it.
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Sep 24, 2021 06:53
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The missions go a long way to making the game a lot more palatable to people who aren't familiar with hunting. Not only are these managed and sustainable parks, you get drawn in to helping them function as a sort of deputized park warden. It gives you a direction to go in (and inevitably get sidetracked from) which is great from a gameplay perspective, but it also gives you a sense of purpose - a balm for any qualms the player might have for shooting pixel deer, which might sound silly if you haven't played it but it is really easy to immerse yourself in this game and start feeling a sense of familiarity and even attachment with the animals.
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Sep 24, 2021 13:47
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It seems some of you are actually reading this, and by you I mean Granda’s old friends. It was always the intent that you’d learn more about me, and our relationship; a way for me to chart my recovery, and for you to see my learning to hunt, and about him seeing me finally learning some lesson in my life. A few of the locals have been taking my harvests out of the reserve—thanks for that, I’m not telling you about this blog—along with his old pals, but it was only when Dai contacted me to say, “Let’s meet up!” that I realised this was more than just my ramblings into the void. Dai said he had something for me, or more precisely his grandkids gave something to him that he wanted to give to me because, “he’d no bloody clue how to use the stupid plastic machine!” He’d read about me missing the red fox with my bumbling about with cameras and he had a present that might, just maybe, sort out my problems. “If you can figure out which buttons to press because I haven’t the foggiest.” It was a GoPro. If my photos look any way different now it’s because of that. Dai has the head-strappy thing and everything. I just walk around with it on my noggin and it takes everything in. I don’t think I’ll be doing a video with it, I prefer words, but that’s where the images are coming from. It’ll leave me focused on what I’m doing—the results of which you should see—instead of tripping myself up thinking of this writing and what pictures it needs. Of course Dai wanted to talk about you, Granda. He is one of your closest friends, but I think he could see the emotion on my face when he mentioned you; that our relationship is still unresolved, so he just let it go. Then he gave me a big, British “Ta-ra!” and it was into the reserve for me.  I set some waypoints on my map to help me get to where I planned on going. I didn’t think I’d be able to bag any fallow deer in the place Gerlinde wants me to protect, not without the antler rattler, so I figured I could show to Conni I understand the reserve by doing a bit more exploring. There’s an outpost I could head to. So that’s where I set off.  Of course I hadn’t gone barely any distance before I heard the call of a red fox. So far this part of Hirschfelden had blessed me and I figured it was worth a shot trying to call it in, to get my first of its kind. Which, pretty much, was a waste of twenty minutes.  Quickly it was back to following a road with another bit of telling myself not to go chasing anything unless I knew it was nearby. It went on and on. And on.  It wasn’t actually that far, it was just that it was another road with little signs of life and a lot of trees around me. Until I heard some roe deer nearby. Again I have to point out my sense of hearing hasn’t quite keyed in yet; they weren’t nearby. They were down a steep hill, through the forest, past some buildings that weren’t on my map and right by a river. My binoculars could barely make them out much less the scope on my rifle. But we’ll get to that. I just marked the need zone on my map as something to note for later. Then it was back to the road. And on and on. And on. Until the road bulged out. It swept wide and in a loop and looking at the contours on the HunterMate I didn’t think the shortcut over scrub was impassable.  It was going through that scrub that I heard a red fox’s warning call. For the first time in a long time I was on their land, but with an advantage: I could see for a little while. I stopped dead in my tracks, so as not to alarm the fox further, whipped out my injured-jackrabbit caller to give a few blows, and then crept up to a tree that would break up my silhouette.  The only thing not in my favour was the wind. I sprayed on my scent-killer like I was a fourteen year old boy going to the teenage disco. I kept on with that caller, knowing this was my time, also knowing I’ve thought this is my time plenty of times before.  And this time it was. At least for sighting the fox.  I could have waited long for the shot, I know that, but you know how I am. As soon as I had it sighted with my scope I just tried to line it up. Thoughts of how it could all go wrong sped across my mind like the first fox I saw, so you’re drat right I pulled the trigger without a second’s reconsidering.  And as the law of averages would say, eventually it has to work out for me. My first red fox kill! The thing is, if I’m going to have any chance of getting trophy kills I can’t be this hasty. It just won’t work out for me. For now it’s tolerable. That won’t last. Maybe I have the patience while stalking and tracking? I need to develop it for the crucial moment of actually firing—a work in progress.  I did manage to bag another roe deer as I walked on, probably my most straightforward kill, to be honest, a sign I’m advancing that I can even think of it as straightforward, but mostly I was thinking about a place to rest.  I set up a tent just before I came to the corn fields. I knew I’d have to wait for the right time to get the fallow deer in those fields for Gerlinde, and if Gerlinde was right about the fields being abused it should be a rich hunting ground, so, the tent serves two purposes. First off, if I discover the deer come to the corn fields at certain times I can rest in it until it’s time to hunt. Secondly, if I need to get to the fields in a rush I can run all the way to this tent, then recover inside it without looking like a sweaty pillock and without alerting any animals nearby.  On that map you can see a road running to the west, by the south of Gerlinde’s marked out area. At the path running south off that there’s an outlook. A few more of those discovered, and some more points of interest, and I figure it’d be enough for Conni to trust me with the antler rattler. It’ll show I’m at least willing to put in the leg work.  As I walked I scanned the corn fields. They were certainly more open than anything else I’d seen before which presented me with a new problem. Where once I had to worry about a clear line of sight, now I had to worry about getting close enough, or my scope not being powerful enough. I knew I’d need the antler rattler so it was back to exploration for me.  And by exploration I mean following along a road. But roads play tricks on my mind. One trick being that I don’t particularly like being on them unless I’m exhausted and in need of a rest, another is that animals seem to make mega noise from nearby as I’m walking along them. They’re like Sirens, luring me into wasting my time.  Much like this one did. Or not this one as you can see by there being no animal. So no animal did anything, other than shriek from a distance and get me spending an hour on the wabbit-kazoo playing a song I think I’ll have stuck in my head even at my own funeral. What you might notice, although I’m not certain with Dai’s GoPro, is that the light here has changed from bright sunshine to a moody evening tone. And I was getting moody, with nothing to show for my efforts.  Or I would have been if a bored sweep of the corn fields with my binos didn’t reveal a whole herd of deer travelling along them. I’m still not at the point where I can 100% I.D. a deer from a distance, the kind of quick thought the top hunters have, but after I left my eyes over them for a few seconds I was certain they were fallow deer.  I picked out the biggest buck I could find and that’s where the new issues started to crop up for me. First off they seemed far away and I had no way of judging just how far away they were. I’d need a rangefinder for that, or better yet a rangefinder/binoculars combo, but that’s way down the list of items the Wildhüter will allow me to use before I’ve proved myself adept with the basics. Secondly, with little coverage, I wasn’t sure how close I could get. This, then, ties into proving myself. If I’d had access to the antler rattlers I could call the deer in. Sure, the big looking buck might not have come, but I only need two of any of the fallow deer to satisfy the person who was asking me to cull them while Gerlinde is busy writing her book.  I did try and get as close as I could, but it wasn’t far enough. I took my shot at the big male. I was certain I’d hit but I’d been certain about many things before. And even being certain the buck was very small in my view despite the maximum zoom of the scope.  He came back, which is extremely unusual if you’ve actually shot them successfully. I shot again. And again.  All in all I shot three deer, the buck and two does before the herd scattered permanently. I guess with me so far away, downwind, and in the coverage that was already far away they didn’t quite know what was going on. Even without antler rattlers I didn’t need to keep calling them in (although them being closer would have meant less shots.)  I wondered how often I’d actually shot the buck, and whether he’d be riddled with my bullets, but when I examined his body it turned out I’d only had one successful hit. The same happened with the other doe, one shot and a kill, but I couldn’t find the second doe’s body for love nor money, and I was certain I’d hit both. I must have spent two hours searching out all three carcasses before giving up with just two.  I was going to head straight for the outlook post, before hitting the sack, when a roe deer called out from the other end of the field. Stupid as I am I took the shot. And being stupid I couldn’t find any evidence of her being around.  What I did find was, or to be more precise, heard, were rabbits thumping the ground in tiny aggression with their big rabbit feet. This seemed to be because they were afraid of my big eejit feet thumping around their burrows. I tried to spot them, and I think I got a glance of a few, but it took so long for me to remember I had a shotgun on my back that I realised I was far too tired to even contemplate hunting any more.  There was only one thing I could do, go to bed, but I can be stubborn at times, and I was getting a little delirious, so decided a mountain walk in the moonlight would be just right for me and I’d make it up to the outlook I’d set out for hours before.  Where I saw sweet shag all. So it was with a thick mind, foggier than the fog I’d found here in Hirschfelden that I made it back—without incident—to the outpost I’d met Dai at earlier. I was planning on a big kip. Dai, however, wasn’t. Dai, who, somehow, was still there after he dropped off my new GoPro toy (I really hope it works out when you see these images.) He explained he’d heard there was a roaring trade in “Gold” standard fallow deer, and I’d just provided one to the market. I knew little about how these ratings are calculated so he droned on, in that Welsh lilting accent of his, about what each means (true, a droning lilt is an oxymoron, but he somehow managed it.) At the end of his speech he cracked open a beer, and tossed me another, and said soon, if I stuck with it, I’d be thinking about going for the rare Diamond rating, which would take a lot of hard work.  It was at this point, after some silence and gulps and now mid-second-beer, that I received a message from Conni. The man who owns a lot of the land on the reserve likes hunting himself, but in particular he likes bow hunting, and he’d set me a challenge; if I was up to it. Harvest a red fox with a 60lb bow. I said this to Dai, explaining I’d just got my first red fox that afternoon. He threw me the third beer. He told me he and his buddies were all impressed with what I was doing for my Granda, and it was good I was taking the legacy of what he achieved while hunting seriously; something they never banked on me doing. I was about to explain this was all about me, and not really about my Granda—a lie, but I didn’t want to talk about you, Granda—but he shushed me and said, “If someone’s building up a speech that ends with giving you a present you keep your yap shut.” I don’t know how I’m supposed to know a speech is ending in a gift, but I did keep my trap shut; he’s old and hunted all over the world so he’s earned it. Apparently he hadn’t stayed at the outpost all day, but travelled outside, picked up more tents for me, and portable blinds, and brought them back in on an ATV. And they were mine to use, ”Just as long as you keep writing all this up. It’s like we’re living it again.” With that Dai broke out his hipflask and we passed it around for thirty minutes or so before he admitted he’d been drinking beers since he got back, just enjoying the sounds, and was looking forward to falling asleep to them. I agreed that my head needed to meet a pillow. As we said our goodnights the last thing he said was to take things easy, buy myself a bow and if the opportunity presents nail a red fox from one of the blinds he brought, but if he ever considered himself a friend of my Granda then all he wants is for me to get over what he knew had been a troublesome few years. Despite being exhausted my mind turned over almost as much as I did that night. I think I’ll need a good day, a very good day, to clear my head.
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Sep 26, 2021 10:38
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Interesting. So why call red foxes with a jackrabbit, uh, horn, as opposed to a horn that makes a horny fox sound?
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Sep 26, 2021 11:50
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Mrenda posted:I must have spent two hours searching out all three carcasses before giving up with just two. The game raps your knuckles hard for hitting an animal and not ultimately harvesting it - not only do you lose out on the XP and payout of that animal, you also get penalized on (IIRC) the next five kills you make until your 'consecutive harvest' multiplier builds up to 100% again. It's a good bit of game design, a mechanical incentive to follow hunting ethics and only take shots you're reasonably sure of and to pursue and finish wounded animals, and it means I've spent a lot of time in the same situation, trudging around in the dark looking for blood splatter and second-guessing myself - "I could have sworn I hit that deer but I can't find blood, did I really hit it? am I sure I'm looking in the right place? do I give up or do I keep looking?" Spending fifteen minutes searching because I didn't spend fifteen seconds lining up a better shot really hammers home the lesson. Quackles posted:Interesting. Horny fox sounds just attract horny foxes, distressed jackrabbit sounds draw in all sorts of predators. From memory most of the lures in the game are multispecies, I'm pretty sure the coyotes in the US park are lured by the jackrabbit caller too.
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Sep 26, 2021 12:34
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I woke up after a few hours restless sleep right on the cusp of dawn. I didn’t know if Dai was still around, I didn’t see his ATV anywhere, but with my sleep being so poor I know if he drove off it’d have been certain to wake me. I didn’t think of bringing pain pills with me, I had no intention of drinking out here—my usual reason to take some—but I guess it did show a lack of foresight in not having at the least a first aid kit for what is an at-times dangerous wilderness. Marching out and up into the hills, then down to the lake or river, a tough hike, would quickly sweat the booze, or its remnants, out of me.  I had to decide what it was I was going to do. There were two thoughts running through my mind. Falling asleep the night before I was certain I was going to head west, to the river, and follow along it hoping to pick up some long-sighted animals I could take down. I even packed up a few blinds the night before thinking I could set up something permanent to shoot from; I was that sure from seeing the roe deer drinking as I marched onwards the day before. Now it was morning, though, and I knew Gerlinde had asked me to take a picture of some fallow deer with the lake in the background. It was an honest request, one that would have me standing in esteem with the people here, so that, to me, seemed like the best move. Being honest, right now, I know it was the hangover of all your weird paternalistic, pessimistic, self-built, self-isolating, self-reliance, delusion-of-self self-sense taking over me.  There were other calls on my time, like hunting a red fox with a bow. I looked through the store to see what was available to me; two 60lb bows, and I couldn’t really tell them apart. I have recollections of someone telling me the Razorback is the better option, just because it’s that half pound or kilo, or whatever, lighter, and it could make a difference when I’m carrying around a whole load of gear trying to meet all the various requests made on me in the reserve.  However, I had limited amounts of money and knew I had to get the antler rattler if I was to be any way successful with these fallow deer. The problem is the antler rattler costs 6k, the bow another 6k, and then there’d be arrows on top of that for the bow. With all that my finances would be completely cleared out. I wanted to, I really wanted to get the bow and go all out on proving myself-to-myself, with a difficult hunt, but your voice reared up in my mind. Telling me not to indulge so much. To take things one at a time and really prove my mettle before rushing headlong into what I want. I just bought the antler rattler, leaving the bow for once I’d built up a bit more of my cash reserves. Then I headed off, in the dark soon-to-be-dawn light and began looking for Gerlinde’s photo of the fallow deer with the lake shown behind it.  I head off in the still-twilight, down towards the edge of the lake, with nothing in sight. No animals were calling and there were no signs of tracks or feed-zones. I guess it was so early the animals could have been resting.  Down by the lake there were no signs of life, completely unlike my first foray into this area. Afternoon, admittedly, but I was hoping to be similarly blessed in this early morning to counteract the curse of blood vessels of pure rye coursing through my body. I continued on with my head pounding and a fuzzy feeling around my brain, not to mention my tongue. I found a few roe deer need zones but my abilities can’t yet tell whether many roe use them, or if it’s just a solitary loner.  I did, eventually, hear a roe deer call out looking for a mate. Your words again came to mind; set yourself to something and see it through. Whims and fancies come quickly and leave even faster. The real achievers in life know what’s merely a distraction. I ignored the roe and headed northwards hoping to find the fallow deer for my photo.  I headed to the west, up the slope, so I could get a clear view all the way to the lake with the morning basked in a beautiful dawn light. There was nothing in sight.  I went through a small wooded area at the top of that hill and finally I heard a fallow deer calling out. This was typical. As soon as my view is obscured I get a break. Except it’s not a real break because it only came once a new challenge is in my way. Thirty seconds earlier I might be able to see the deer with my binoculars but life isn’t that easy, not for me, or anyone who isn’t you; to be truthful—and petty. But as you say, it’s how life keeps you honest. I knew the deer was to the east, but I didn’t know if they were to the south east of the copse I was in or the northeast and it was no time to be guessing but absolutely the time to get out that antler caller I’d worked so hard to prove I was justified in using.  And I fiddled and fuddled, looking here and there, but there was no sign of my precious, sought-after, expensive caller. I’d bought the bugger, set out to use the bastard, but in my fuzzy minded, drinking-with-Dai state I’d completely forgot to pack the rattler with my big brain wail; the one thing I needed to call in the fallow I needed to photograph. It was all the way back to the outpost. My whole, patient, past hour of slowly moving, slowly searching had found me no fallow deer need zones, and just as I’d found one fallow deer I didn’t have the bit of equipment my past two days had been focused on getting.  Once I was back at the outpost I went into my store. And what did I find? Not the antler rattler. Then it dawned on me, after an hour of searching, then an hour of trekking back, I did actually have my antler rattler with me. It was buried beneath my other crud, all re-organised while I got rid of pistols, and thought of bows, and remembered your words about doing one thing and doing it well. I looked around for Dai’s ATV then, for him, hoping to blast his ears with my annoyance, but I couldn’t find it. I went into his hut, to see if he was still asleep, but he’d already left. There was no-one to whinge to, no-one to release onto, except for you. Except I didn’t do that. I sat on the ground—Conni, I you ever read this, your outposts absolutely need a comfy armchair where people can just sit and be at peace, or like I was doing, fume—and my mind ran over all you’d ever said to me, what you mean to me, what you, my Granda, decades older than my father would have been, have done to me. I didn’t quite realise what that meant. Eventually I pulled myself out of my funk and restarted my hunt for the fallow deer photo. But rest assured I now know what you do mean to mean to me. I know, at the least, the differences of generations.  I’m back from the hunt for that fallow deer photo, I won’t tell you what happened, that’s for another update. I do want you to read this, and worry, and steam. Because ho-boy do I have things to say to you, dear Granda. Things I should have said when I had a chance, when it would have made a difference and not damned me to the poo poo I’m currently going through. But I’m just going to upload this and let you worry. It’s coming, I say. I don’t think my mind will change. I will have a nap, maybe. Maybe that’ll make me less angry, but I’m saying now… I don’t know what I’m saying other than it’s coming. I know who you are; what you were all my life. I couldn’t say it before but now I’m following your path, the way you went, it’s revealing itself to me that we are very different. You always wanted me to listen to you and that meant I never listened to myself. It meant I could never listen to anyone. Now, for once, you’ll listen to me.
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Sep 29, 2021 02:42
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Phew. The character work in this is impressive. I'm rattled.
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Sep 29, 2021 09:42
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Tehan posted:it is really easy to immerse yourself in this game and start feeling a sense of familiarity and even attachment with the animals. It's happened with roe deer and me. They're the easiest deer to come across, and they're small and cute. I have a caller for them and they'll just walk into view. I was very impressed by one using a tree-line as cover. Really, though, they're kind of like the pals that have been with me since the start (and they are very cute.)
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Sep 30, 2021 00:03
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Chapter 8 Instead of making another mistake, and fiddling about with all my equipment, I put my antler rattler close to hand before I headed back out. This was after I sat and stayed miserable for an hour. It could have been the hangover, maybe this is all the hangover, but I have to say I’m loving annoyed. All I wanted to do was reach for a bottle of wine—a bottle of wine I didn’t have with me, another stupid decision I made—get pissed, and run into the wild singing; probably singing made up filth I came up with in my head cursing you.  After stewing for a little while it was back out into the open, I have to continue don’t I? DON’T I? hoping to bag both a photo of a fallow deer, and to harvest it after. At that point, even with the sun rising and the light flowing across the land all I wanted to do was complete my task. To do what was asked of me, like I was always supposed to do. That’s the problem, isn’t it? If I’m always doing what I’m supposed to do I can’t make it meet up with my own ideals. I can’t align ”supposeds” with my own failure-instincts. Yet you would always force, encourage me most of the time, never indulge me; unless you thought it was cute when my parents were still around or funny when I was with you and Granny.  Doing what I was supposed to do in photographing a fallow deer I skirted around the westerly forest running parallel to the lake. It wasn’t all the way to the west of the area Gerlinde Jäger was happy with but it was the best spot for a sightline to capture the lake in the background.  As the morning warmed, then chilled, with the weather changing all the time I continued north going through a far-less-impressive-in-the-mist range of trees. I ran across a roe deer’s tracks and knew if I was going to achieve what I set out to do I’d have to ignore them.  The weather changed again as I kept going north. I headed towards the lake a little to get around an outcrop of rocks when I heard a red fox cry out. It knew I was close. Of course, not being complete in my mind, not fully committing to one thing or the other—not saying gently caress you! I’ll follow my own path! I thought I could edge my way a little into the forest and keep the clearings in my eyesight for the fallow deer.  I managed to find a red fox rest zone but I knew, before, I’d stood around for ages before anything happened, something I couldn’t do now if I was going to be focused. My mind drilled, as though pressure was coming for it in a tightening, boring-in, encompassing circle. It was your presence closing in on me, Get on with your task! No time for messing when there’s a job to be done. So I did. I ignored the nearby red fox calls, despite it being a time for their need zone and continued north.  All the way north. Right to the edge of the area Gerlinde wanted me to find the picture in. At this point I fully figured out it had all been a waste but I hadn’t quite given up yet. I made my way back south. I figured the animals weren’t by the lake, as I’d already checkout as much as I could with my binoculars from my clear northerly spot, and decided to see if I could pick up tracks of fallow deer walking to a new destination.  Halfway back to the outpost I heard a fallow deer cry but wasn’t quite certain where it was coming from. Worse was that I was right out in the open so if it came to the treeline it’d see me and spook immediately.  I crawled into an outcrop of rocks and positioned myself right into their deep corner. The whole time I did this I’d been racking my antler rattler hoping that if the deer was called it’d have pinpointed the call right to the middle of the field and walk to the spot the call emanated from, all while giving me my photo with the lake.  I heard another deer cry, coming from the southwest, and then another, as though it was going into the forest. I knew if I was to get a photo of the deer with the lake in the background this was no good. I’d have to move deeper into the trees to have any chance of making this picture.  I retreated and about twenty meters behind some trees there was a rock making a ledge with a view towards the water. I crawled on top of it, all with my antler rattler going.  Eventually it came. My precious deer that if I was to listen to you I’d have known was always coming, as long as I put in the work. Of course, if I listened long enough I’d also know there’d be some twist to this. I snapped the photo and sent it off to Gerlinde hoping it’d be right. That it’d be close enough and even if the lake wasn’t showing the correct lake-side terrain and flora would be enough. It wasn’t. Maybe I should blame Gerlinde for that but she set me a simple task I didn’t realise would be this difficult. You, however, filled me up with ideas of setting your mind to things and completing tasks given, at the expense of all else. Gerlinde was in no rush for this picture. She’d set no date for it and would be working on her book for a long time yet, yet my Granda’s voice rings out, doesn’t it? That’s what you do, you cry, ”Do what’s asked of you!” Except I was drinking last night, and all I wanted to do when I fell asleep in that floatey-headed, dreamy state was head to the river to the west where I’d seen animals the day before. That’s all I wanted to do, and sober me, or at least hungover me, wasn’t drunk enough to ignore your bullshit.  When the first shot wasn’t good enough I took a different kind of shot; out with my rifle, let the animal complete its turn or two, hoping it doesn’t wander off, then BLAM! I hit it with a .243 Polymer Tipped Bullet.  It wasn’t the shot Gerlinde was looking for, but to me it was good, if bittersweet. Flesh, lung, liver stomach; my first kill of the day, except it took far too long doing something I didn’t particularly want to be doing.  I walked back, thinking all I did want was a rest and to finally have some words with you. You might find some challenge with that, me rising up in voice to meet you so you could instead offer wisdom, basically telling me how I was wrong. But instead I heard a roe deer calling and decided to act. Roe deer aren’t the smartest, they don’t earn me a huge amount of money, but even though you’d say nothing is worth doing unless it’s a challenge, then I’ll say this might not be that difficult but neither was it a guaranteed hit. I still had to work at it. And most off all, trying to get that deer is something I wanted to do.  I repeated my past idea of using my caller, this time the roe caller, while out in the open and then retreating back to the rocky outcrop. Soon the roe deer was in my sights.  And, you know, Granda, it wasn’t even one of the females you call easy, that you feel aren’t worth hunting, it was a male. A fine one. And I dropped it. Right on the spot. So, you know, gently caress you. I knew there’d be bollocks all animals about with my past two gunshots ringing out, but if I headed back to the outpost I’d still be seething. Which is why I’m writing this in two parts, the first part, Chapter 7, I did while I was waiting for another hunter to bring some supplies to me. Now I’m writing this up with an easing hangover, a little bit more clarity, even if the clarity is wild-sense brought on by a few starting shots of whiskey and as many beers as it takes to type it all up, dear Granda. But before then I hadn’t decided to order in some booze. I knew I couldn’t find animals, so all I could do was walk. Anything to stop the fire in mind.  And what did I find on my walk, out on a little bit of land that stretches into the lake, but a falling down castle and one of the casts Conni has me looking for.  Then it was a quick few minutes back to outpost, emptying my mind in preparation for all I’d say to you. I know you’re dead, Granda. I’m sorry I missed your funeral. I’m sorry I refused to break covid lockdown rules while you were in the hospital. I know you’d arranged with your buddies to get me through the controls, and to fudge paperwork, but even though I was in a bad way, maybe because of it, I’m not going to be the person who expects others to do things they won’t comply with themselves; that’s not who I am. It might be fine for you but I am not you. All this morning I’ve had your thoughts competing with my own. Every time I’ve thought of striking out on my own and doing my own thing I had your memories telling me what to do. My history of all that you’ve said to me stays long with me. Worse, it’s too easy to blame you for everything I do wrong myself. You’re a curse and a crutch and I can’t keep going with them. Maybe it’s your death, my ignoring you and not seeing you before you died that’s brought all this into focus. I know I had an absolutely shite past two years and I’d been ignoring you as those months got worse and worse, and I’m to blame for where I’ve found myself.  Now, it’s time to end it. I’m out here, hunting, listening to the parts of what you said that make sense to me. I have to do the things that make sense to me, and part of that is sorting out what’s you, what’s me, what’s my own failing—and goodness—and what the positive parts of you are that I know are scattered throughout my life. I can’t keep on like you’re an always-presence. I can accept you’re gone and were a vital part of rearing me. You were the most immediate, the closest hurdle in my life to get over, and you’ll crop up again and again, but now, all I can say is I miss you, I really do, and I don’t blame you for the way you were made. I do, to some degree, blame how you made me. Now, however, it’s time to allow myself make me the way I want to be. And, for the time being, I’ll do that by hunting. I have a long way to go before getting over all that’s happened to me. And I don’t know what I will discover other than more wilderness, by more walking through this reserve. I hope there’s more to come.
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Oct 3, 2021 01:23
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Wait, why didn't the photo qualify?
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Oct 3, 2021 08:36
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Quackles posted:Wait, why didn't the photo qualify? I don't know. It could be because it didn't show the lake in the background, it could be because I wasn't close enough, I've also heard the game is just funky with photo missions. If I knew the last one I'd have tried a few more photos, but I didn't, so I didn;t.
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Oct 3, 2021 08:48
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Mrenda posted:I don't know. It could be because it didn't show the lake in the background, it could be because I wasn't close enough, I've also heard the game is just funky with photo missions. If I knew the last one I'd have tried a few more photos, but I didn't, so I didn;t. Ah, got it.
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Oct 3, 2021 08:55
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Chapter 9 It was a few beers that did it, really, my last post. Unleashing on you. It was justified. I’m all awash with your memory telling me to do this and to do that I can barely listen to what I want to do myself. I don’t know what my own internal voice sounds like. That meant I had to do what I dreamt of the night before and head west down the river. That snoozey-dreamy state came after drinking with your buddy, Dai, and the anger came with a hangover, so the only thing I could do was get someone to bring me in some booze to fight off that snakey feeling. And I was feeling better. Anxious, a little, that I was striking out on my own, but generally ready to live my own life.  I headed down the western path and soon was looking out over land I hadn’t seen before. It was beautiful. A slight spit jutting into the river, the river journeying onwards, with some foliage as cover and a sandy shoreline at its beginning. I camped out for a few minutes, actually a lot longer, bleating the roe caller and just enjoying the view. Despite the beauty nothing was coming to me. I stayed and admired for as long as I liked; I know I have to take time enjoying things and not punish myself if it doesn’t amount to anything, but the few nips from my hipflask really helped.  Once I was ready to move my new calm mode of operation paid off immediately. I quickly found a fallow deer down the slope, along the flood plain, in the open land. A big buck seemingly all on his own just waiting for me to take a shot. It was quite a distance, longer than my usual, but I felt confident. I held my breath to settle my shaking and fired off when I was sure.  It was a bit of a trek to get to where he was standing, all the while knowing if I hadn’t made the shot—if he was merely wounded—it could take half the day to track him down. As I walked up the blood splatter on the ground showed the distance wasn’t a problem; my shot was good. Even still, I couldn’t know how far he had run. My rifle is kind of small, it is the correct ammo, but it doesn’t have the power, I think, to be completely effective at a distance. Especially with the big buck.  I tracked him up a hill and into the forest wondering if he’d survived a little longer than I anticipated but soon I found his body. It was a great shot and one of my best kills since I’d been in Hirschfelden.  After that came a bit of a surprise. I’d presumed if I followed the river it would give me a clear path to see a distance ahead, and so see animals, but it quickly turned to forest.  Moving to check out the opposite shore, between the gaps in the forest’s trees, it seemed it was the same out there. Little outcrops of tree-less space, but no long, clear sightlines.  I moved further and further into the forest, wondering if this would be the same as my starting day where I couldn’t spot anything for all that was around me but quickly found a roe deer. A few calls on my roe deer bleater and she came right up in front of me. Even at the lowest zoom level of my scope she was nearly centred in my view.  She was slightly turned to me but being so close the extra flesh the bullet had to travel through made no difference. She dropped right in the middle of her need zone, her fallen body plain to see, as other roe deer, deer I hadn’t spotted, fled.  Following the direction of the one, two, I don’t how many roe deer—not many, they were just blurry—up the hill I came to a clearing and heard some red foxes calling out. I set up a blind, hoping the noise wouldn’t scare them away, and continued on with my patient, sip of whiskey, take-it-easy, no stress day. I blew the little wounded jackrabbit caller a few times, many times in fact, as I just relaxed in my hideaway. The red fox cries came and went, then went completely. After I while I realised they’d moved on completely and I had only heard them as they were travelling. I left the blind, up to the top of a hill and there was a wooden hide I could sponsor the construction of. This, at the least, told me it was an area teeming with animal life.  This was confirmed when I went over the topside and down the slope. I heard animals calling, especially deer, and when I backed up against a tree I spotted a fallow right in front of me.  I waited for the right shot, aware of how close it was coming, until I eventually felt I had no choice but to fire. It wasn’t a rushed shot, it was just one that I had to take on the balance of everything; the animal coming close; maybe soon to hear me; maybe soon to smell me; maybe it already had sensed all that and was getting ready to run. I wasn’t quite at the point where I could figure out an animal’s mood just by spotting them.  Whatever brought me to take the shot as I did, once I got to the point it was when I hit it I saw with some relief a vital-organ-hit blood-splatter on the ground.  It ran back up the hill but it didn’t go very far. Soon I was looking at a small fallow deer’s body, dead by my hand. At some point I’m going to have to focus on getting bigger animals, those considered trophies, but I’m still proving myself around here so any control I can show over placed shots, brought-down animals, and clearing out destructive herds brings me further to becoming fully kitted out and fully accepted by those who carefully manage the land.  I’d more or less given up on this area, walking onwards towards some points of interests when I spotted a buck standing through a gap between the trees off just a little way. I don’t know if this was a result of my decision to just go with whatever came my way but I felt like I was really getting into a flow. Animals were appearing before me, I wasn’t frightening them off with heavy or rushed feet, and the shots I was taking were good.  The deer was a definite hit. I could see it drop to its knees as the bullet impacted, then try and recover. Again, it was a case of the bullet potentially not having enough penetration to really down it instantly but the animal stumbling told me it had made some connection. I didn’t really think of what I was doing at the time, but it was quick dip into my whiskey, Jameson, that told me I was enjoying myself. I was at peace, in a way, and easing into my new mindset. I was happy. Whatever that may be. However temporary that may be. However shallow it may be. I followed the deer’s tracks—it serendipitously it went in going that way—along the direction I had been intending to walk, towards a point of interest that seemed to indicate there was a crossing over the river I had always been following.  I went edgeways, one foot below the other, along an incline, then along the same incline but skirting some trees the wounded deer ran through where I could make out the tracks but not examine them. I spotted my downed foe. Examining it I saw it was a reasonable shot, at an oblique angle and through some flesh, and I began to think that if I ever encountered a big buck I’d need to be absolutely zoned in with the .243 to get through all its protection. I do have that celebration gun of yours, something I had never intended on using, just holding onto it for a keepsake before I made my own way through the world, but now, with the Jameson thinking for me I figured why not use at least some of the advantages you’d given to me. You don’t need my blessing, you’re dead and only a memory; an influence. I never wanted your successes, although maybe something else, but I did benefit from the way you always pulled survival to us, and all we could reasonably want, at least at times, most of the time. It was never hard on me for school shoes, or dinners or books. At the end, your end, my recent end, you tried to force these things on me, like I wasn’t... I don’t know? Like I didn’t matter. And we went our separate ways. Now there’s no forcing me. There’s no conditions to it. I may just very well use your Stradivarius rifle at some point, the .270 for slightly bigger game and better penetration. It is mine. You gave it to me so long ago that I can barely remember getting it. I just have to show Conni, with a few more kills, I can be trusted with taking on the more challenging animals. That I won’t be reckless.  As I walked towards what I thought would be a crossing I’d mostly given up on the afternoon. I was going through dense forest and didn’t want to get involved with stalking animals through unoredictable woodland where I wouldn’t get a clear sight on anything. That was until I heard a red fox call out. I got down on my knees and began to move slowly, hoping, maybe, to coax it out.  I never found that red fox, they’re the bane of my existence (and when I try to hit with one with a bow for Mr. Sommer I know it’ll do my head in) but I did manage to spot a fallow deer, what do you call it? Frolicking? She, or he, was jumping sprightly through some trees.  I predicted its path, from the way it was running, and set my eyes to follow along to a copse of trees blocking off a field. The fallow deer was using that outcrop for cover but I could still just about make it out between the thicket.  I found it between my sights, drew my breath as I’d become accustomed to do as a hunter, and with it being only a small thing it had no idea I was there. Or maybe it did? Maybe it saw me, or heard me, but wasn’t so protective of itself to run away or hide, or be wary, with any worry. A mistake. I shot… I hit… Then I saw deer flock through my view just as I was returning my rifle to its natural carrying position.  As you can see, or more honestly, not see from this image is that cameras are barely able to pick out the quick movement of these animals. It’s only from memory, not reviewing the video, that I can tell there was three, possibly four deer in this herd, maybe even more just a bit further away. I’ve blown up the image from the GoPro as best I can and you should be able to see two deer who scarpered at the sound my firing when the first went down. That’s something I’ll have to work on. The first deer you see will often be the youngest, and the dumbest; the one not-quite-aware. If you’re holding out for trophies then you can’t feel like you should take the first animal you see.  But I did. And this is the result.  At this point I was really close to where I intended to end my foray. I had a third, just about, of a hipflask left but if I was going to stay at a different outpost for a while I didn’t want to gulp down the last few shots I had. Maybe I needed a bigger hipflask? A big old 500ml one? Maybe I needed to carry an entire bottle of whiskey with me? One that would fit in a small day-pack. It’d make more noise, but-shur-gently caress-itt? A bottle of whiskey and a few cans of beer could fit in a rucksack, and the animals would hear me singing from a mile away, but isn’t the point to have fun? I walked on and on telling myself, don’t you bloody stop for a poncy roe deer or one of those tricksy little bollocks red fox fellas.  When I heard a fallow deer. And I was right in the middle of a field, near just a little blush of trees that’d give me cover, and I could, maybe, call it in.  It was out with my antler rattler, a few turns on it—I don’t know how this piece of plastic fools them—and soon the deer was right in front of me.  You know what they say, when it rains-it pours, and when the sun shines, make hay... That’s exactly what I did.  Honestly, saying it now, I don’t think you realise what I’d gone through at this point. When I say, ”You,” I don’t mean you, Granda, anymore. I more mean anyone who happens to find my writing. People who might be along for the ride. I was taking easy animals; small stupid animals, but nothing had worked for me like this before. I’m sure there’s been times when all of life merged together but to feel like opportunity after opportunity came to me, because of my work, had never happened. There was even a couple of decent bucks. I walked and I walked, and I lucked-out, and I took my shots, and nothing will be this easy again—never again—until it is. These aren’t the moments that pass you by these are the moments that simple are. So I decided to push it, or take it? Maybe embrace? When the chance came.  And the chance came. I was still in, or had just entered a forested area. How can it be those two things? Still in and just entered? Well it seems like wherever I go forests aere always nearby, no matter how much of a clear view I have, even if I get one kill it won’t long before I’m back traipsing over crunching leaves, standing on branches and cracking twigs, right in the middle of the woods. But still, I heard a fallow deer cry out. I cranked the old antler rattler while I crawled up to a tree. I don’t know how I lived without the antler rattler before, just relying on those cute little roe deer succumbing to my little plastic bleater.  It was off in the distance and I could see it through my binoculars. I didn’t have to twist the antler rattler again. It dipped behind some shrubs, reappeared, then, I have to presume, went behind the trees and bushes off to my right. Whatever it was doing I had faith that it would soon show itself again. And it did. I didn’t need to use the caller to draw it closer, potentially scaring it away if it was on edge. It just kept walking towards this mysterious sound, from just a few minutes ago, calling out to it.  I raised my rifle and it was right in my crosshair. I’d managed a few before, but it seemed right for this small doe to go for the quickest of kills; standing right before me; not that far away; a heart shot; instant death.  And it was instant death. Just falling in front of itself. I walked on, getting closer and closer to the edge of this section of the reserve, not thinking about what I’d done to the admittedly vast and well managed population of animals here. It had just seemed right. If it wasn’t right for anyone else, those people who dragged these deer out for food, or for nature or the reserve’s balance, then at least for what I needed! I walked on. I didn’t know if more animals would come to me but I knew these hours were a gift.  When I heard, then spotted, some roe deer on the banks on the opposite side of the river I didn’t need to tell myself I was done. I didn’t have to do anything else other than get to the end of my walk. My day was in balance. I didn’t have to hunt for anything. I was tired.  I reached the point I presumed would be an end-point—marked out on my Huntermate, the point I had aimed for—and found an information sign telling me about a bridge. I read the sign, wishing for more depth in all that was going on around me, wishing for some kind of insight, then contented myself with some of the last of the whiskey in my hipflask. It had been a long few hours, a lot of exertion and walking, definitely drinking water, but the hipflask had kept me from thinking too much. Or at least caring too much...  As I set off across the bridge I’d found I settled into my last bit of booze, tasting the long lasting flavour and nip on my tongue, lips, teeth and inner cheeks, absolutely exhausted and in need of a nap. And I didn’t care one jot about anything or anyone. All I cared about was closing my eyes, even if I didn’t sleep, and letting myself rest for a while.
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Oct 6, 2021 18:08
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Wait, so the rattler is a thing you twist? I thought it was like maracas. Also: interesting narrative parallels to the deer being attracted to the noise and Eimear being attracted to… all this.
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Oct 6, 2021 19:38
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Chapter 10 I traveled southwards for a little afternoon kip, crossing over the bridge and down towards the outpost south of the river. I guess nips of whiskey and then a beer after a long walk will tucker you out, if you’re not already pooped, and even then the booze will welcome you to a little snooze. I awoke a few hours later, refreshed, which was very disturbing. Normally a two hour nap has me zonked, ready to eat gravel as a pick-me-up rather than the actual reality of a very depressing facing the world. It must be my new approach to just blaze headlong into my new, temporary life as a hunter proving her grandfather wrong giving me some get-up-and-go. I might also be still feeling the Jameson.  On my Huntermate I saw to the east was a point of interest for me to check out. I figured it’d be another hunting blind I could sponsor to be built, eventually, when I really get the lay of the land here. However, despite my lack of cash to actually put together these spots it would mean it’d lead me to an area potentially rife with animals.  Of course it was a hunting blind, and not something with a bit of history, or culture, or heritage. Those are the hard to find things here, the human things, rather than the maniac blasting poo poo; however-much the herds need control and however-much their meat gets put to use.  Just over the blind were some trails Conni said she’d spotted earlier. They looked like they were for deer and I had a good view if any traipsed across the field, so I guess Rutger, Hans, and Greta could be dining on venison, if I was lucky. I know this is all closer to nature than most people would like, preferring to get their cluck-cluck chickens via a discount chain from a battery farm where the cluck-cluck chickens don’t have space to get their clucks out, let alone their wings. I just didn’t realise how easy it would be for me to adapt my own views, my own discomfort, once I had a rifle in my hand. Once I had a bit of fire in my heart.  I crept into a copse of trees and bushes and it was out with my antler rattler, the little screwy, whirly, cheap plastic thing that somehow cost me a fortune.  Except after a few whirls it wasn’t a deer I saw but a fox.  I took out my wounded-jackrabbit bugle and gave it a few blows. It can’t come across here but I have to say it’s the most annoying sound I’d heard in days and for the past few days I’ve heard it repeatedly. If I was a fox I’d come at it just to shut it up. Stupid buggers.  The fox came close(-ish) but not close enough for a bow-shot. I hadn’t hit anything with my bow yet and knew if I needed binoculars to spot the fox they were definitely too far away. Other things I’ve learned is that foxes are sketchy. They might come out in the open but at the faintest bit of nerves they’ll dart back behind some trees or below a dip and then circle around whatever it is that has their attention, really sniffing and hearing them out.  It was this behaviour that brought the fox all the way around me and I was very lucky to first hear it, with the now falling rain, and then spot it. I knew it wouldn’t come closer so I had to take my chance. I took out my bow, got up on my knees and aimed. And missed. The fox took off. Despite calling for another good thirty minutes it never came near again. Yet again the fox had out-foxed me.  By that point it was dark so I decided all I could really do was some exploring, maybe stumbling across some animals. Which lead me to a stone mound or pillar-like thing. There was some bullshit note about those rocks I put in my Huntermate but I’m far too tired to remember or call it up. I think it was some shitey thing anyway, not worth the time. The pillar overlooked the river, which I then crossed, and I headed north towards the corn fields I’d been so successful with before.  It was near those corn fields I discovered even more need zones for fallow deer, this time a rest zone, but it was obviously completely the wrong time for them.  Then it was back to exploring and through some sparse forests. At the very least the wind was favouring me coming from a northwesterly direction even if the landscape wasn’t. To get a clear view down a hill I had to head to the west but the direction I needed to go to get to my outpost for a night’s sleep was northerly. I did my best, taking my time, skirting the cornfields hoping to see something across their open-breadth.  Which I did. Far off in the distance was a wild boar. I knew they were around these lands in Hirschfelden but I hadn’t seen any since I’d been here. Maybe they’re nocturnal? Maybe they’re just on parts of the reserve I haven’t visited? Either way I saw one, even if it was too far off to take a shot. Especially too-far-off because my .243 while technically ethical to shoot them with, with a bad shot won’t penetrate deeply enough for a proper quick kill. I needed Conni to sell me some of the .270 polymer-tip bullets, which means a little more proving myself. I debated heading towards the open field I saw the boar in to try and see if there were any rest zones around for them, to come back at a time when I had the better rifle, but it seemed a fair auld trek I wasn’t in the mood for. I wasn’t in the mood for much but getting some rest, or taking an opportunity if it came my way.  And taking opportunities was exactly something I could do. I came to a clearing and saw a deer traveling through the openness. I immediately took out my rifle and had a fine shot on it.  If the red foxes have eluded my bow and I’d just barely spotted a boar, then the roe deer were my good-old, dead pals. It was a quick kill, through both lungs, on a fine, if average, male roe deer. Then it was on towards the outpost; my eyes half closing; my stomach thinking of dipping into a bag of peanuts—for the salt—as I couldn’t imagine the patience of heating anything over a stove. I was in a battle with myself. The need to embrace the slow life with my need to get to bed, with my need for some purpose in what I’d been doing for the past few hours; with nothing to show for bleary eyes. So it was a march onwards and further, through forest, up hills, over rocks.  I’m not sure if the images from my GoPro can show it but you might be able to make out the disturbed vegetation from where an animal was resting. I thought, “Nice one!” I’d discovered another need zone for some fallow deer. A lucky discovery as trudged towards my bed. Another thing you might not be able to make out—at, I suppose, one-to-two-ish o’clock from the disturbed vegetation—is the deer I didn’t realise was right in front of me. When my eyes adjusted and I did spot it I had to move quickly, especially as the wind was blowing my scent right up their schnozz, something I didn’t realise at the time and can only recount having thought over what was happening.  My .243’s scope was right on the doe and I fired without hesitation. I was too sleepy to actually consider things.  Just as my sights returned from the recoil of the gun, rather quickly with the little more experience I’ve built up, I spotted another fallow deer right in front of me. She hadn’t even reacted from the first crack of the bullet going off, so immediate had it been, that I fired again and had taken down two deer within seconds of each other. I was getting closer and closer towards those .270 polymer bullets that’d let me take fallow deer that bit more quickly and even, maybe, wild boar.  After harvesting my kills I realised this was an area for fallow deer and it was right in the time they were visiting it. I knew I could take a few more chances here. My tiredness had temporarily departed, but if this was a waste of an hour I’d be kicking myself for not getting that much needed sleep. I crawled towards the lowest point of the hill, with a clear sight-line uphill, and gave the antler rattler a few twists.  Thankfully, soon a buck came from not too far off to investigate. I had a little more patience with this but my patience was a very much, soon-to-be-tapped resource. So It was another hasty shot the second it turned broadside to me.  It was a bit of an ordeal tracking it but at the least the blood splatter told me I’d made a somewhat decent hit despite the buck being quite resolute with the speed and vigour it bolted with. I had to follow it into some new areas for me, taking me further from the outpost I’d planned on heading to. The outpost I desperately wanted to be in, but leaving an animal out in the open just wasn’t something I was willing to do.  When I eventually found it I saw it was a good impact but it also emphasized the need for the polymer-tip bullets for the bigger gun my Granda had left me. The buck hadn’t been too far away but the angle I came at it with meant the bullet had to travel through so much flesh a double-lung shot just wasn’t possible with the .243. Still, I was happy with the kill.  I took out my map to see how far I’d have to travel to get to the outpost, hoping I hadn’t gone too far after the now-downed deer, and saw the effect I’d had on the area on my Huntermate. Multiple kills. Any more and animals would be avoiding the area for days. It was fine for me to give up on hunting for the night, I just needed some rest, and it turned out the outpost wasn’t a massive distance away, albeit not totally close-by either.  I eventually made it to the outpost, ate some peanuts, settled into bed and began typing. My final act just before I turned in was to check through the store with the knowledge I’d shown the ability to finally use the .270 polymer-tip bullets. As I snuggle into my sleeping bag, putting the finishing touches on this, I know there is a lesson to the day. Firstly, if you want to drink booze at midday, that’s fine, but you’ll pay for it. Secondly, if you are paying for it you have to power through because the opportunities you need in life might come right when you’re demanding rest, and giving up too early, succumbing to misery, succumbing to self-inflicted pain will mean you missed them. Maybe that’s something my Granda tried to teach me. The thing is he never had a drink before 5pm so I’m not quite sure how he could have taught me in such a practical way… So, now, if we’re keeping score, it’s Eimear 1 – Granda 0, and that’ll send me to the land of nod with ease.
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Oct 30, 2021 06:36
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 08:01 |
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Onwards and upwards! Someday, she'll get that fox.
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Nov 8, 2021 08:33
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