《The Mage of Calamities》 Prologue Prologue In a dark, nondescript room a hole appeared. Not a hole in the sense of a hole in the floor, the walls or the roof. It was more a hole in reality, in space itself. Most people would describe it as black, but it was not black. Black is the absence of light, but the hole was the absence of more. It was as if the natural laws, that govern our world, were bending around the hole, not willing to try to fill it out. Slowly in the absence of everything that was the hole, something began to form. Its contours first blurry became clearer and clearer, slowly forming the figure of a man. The colour seemed to flow inside his figure as the hole began to fade and the world started to take the space it occupied back. The figure of the man became more and more tangible as finally the hole faded completely away. It revealed a young, handsome man in his early twenties that wore a slightly haughty expression on his face.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°I¡¯m Daichi Watanabe. No need to explain, your goddess already told me about the whole summoning thing. Let¡¯s get right to the world saving I got an awesome ability I want to test out.¡± ¡°You¡¯re from Japan?¡± ¡°Indeed I am. Where exactly¡­¡± The rest was not audible over the roaring of the meter-thick fireball that flew from the other side of the room and accurately landed on his top body. A quick scream was all he could muster before the flames burned through his skin turning it directly into ash as the fireball flew straight through the space his top body occupied, burning his body to nothing in the process. Only two cut-of legs, loosely connected though the bit of skin that was once his crotch, survived the spell. After a quick moment, in which the two legs tried to contact the no longer existent brain, they fell. ¡°Fucking bullshit spell! Can¡¯t even take care of a level 1 Baby.¡± A voice let out, cursing his spell, which was definitely not at fault for his own lack of talent. The voice belonged to a scrawny looking man with an unhealthy pale skin, who now walked out from the shadows in the opposite corner. Only to gaze with a hateful look at the two lumps of flesh, which had refused to turn into ash. Chapter 1 Excerpt of ¡°The summoning of lesser Devils, Volume 4, Chapter 6¡±: One of the more common failures of the previously described rituals is the summoning of a so-called ¡°Japanese¡±. This ¡°Failure of Target-Acquiring¡± is commonly created when the destination rune fails or the targeting rune is too broadly configured. Try fixing your runes by narrowing down the angeles of the Zaxib''s Rune, or if you use one, by changing the sacrifice to something more in tune with your target world. It is not known why rituals, that fail to find an appropriate target, instead of summoning nothing, summon a ¡°Japanese¡±. The most accepted theory (cf Mareins "Primer on integrated dimensional space" version 6, chapter 7) makes an extremely weak space in ¡°Japan¡± (world the Japanese origin from) responsible. The faulty ritual after failing to acquire a target tries to broaden its search, goes to way of least resistance and ends up in Japan. With the Ruger¡¯s configuration as a failsafe, it is possible to stop this symptom from happening, but the author advises against using it. It heightens the cost and rids oneself only of a quick method to determine in which part of the process the ritual failed. In the early days of summoning significant effort was expended to research the origins and possible uses for the, easy to summon, ¡°Japanese¡±. These efforts were proved futile. The summoned ¡°Japanese¡± are all getting a gift, from the automated divine response to peaceful dimensional crossers, but got no distinctive qualities beyond that. Most of them never learned a useful profession, are unable to level and already over 20 years old, so that they got a significant disadvantage against people, who gained experience since their childhood. Their world is controlled one or a group of mind magic users. The summoned ¡°Japanese¡± show the typical symptoms of being ecstatic after being summoned, without being able probably explain why they feel so happy to be ripped out of their supposedly peaceful and wealthy world. Moreover, their memories contain a lot of inconsistencies and unbelievable information. One example is the often-mentioned flying boxes out of metal, which are supposed to be shaped like birds and to fly without magic. Closer questioning reveals that they are unable to fly higher than 15 Kilometers, which any mage, who extensively tested a fly-spell knows, makes absolutely no difference as a border. Their memories are obviously tempered with and any technical information they have is most likely rigged to kill anyone trying to replicate the mentioned deeds. The author advises to just ignore and dispose of the ¡°Japanese¡±, as all summoners do and to not waste time on trying to get something useful out of their professional tempered with memories. I looked down on the lumps of flesh and the, in the darkness, barely seeable black soot, which was once the magic circle of the ritual. I wanted to sigh, but forcefully suppressed it. As long as you do not sigh, you have not yet given up. At least that is what told myself. Almost reflexively, I started to draw the runes for a second fireball in my mind. Only to stop almost immediately as I realized I was out of mana. I did not even want to curse anymore, as my view fell on the six, big mana-crystals I painstakingly produced over the last months. ¡°Let¡¯s just ignore all of this until tomorrow¡± With that thought I turned around, ignored my failure and with careful strides, as to not damage the magical safeguards on the ground, left the room determined to get a healthy sleep before thinking about the ramifications of my second failure. Directly in front of the door to my summoning room was the stairway, on which I dragged my tired body up to the third floor of my untypical square mage tower. The tower was not always mine. Six years ago, my father did not come back from one of his regular deployments with the duchy¡¯s militia. A couple weeks later the news of his death in one of multiple skirmishes arrived. At that time, conflicts about some unnamed hamlet erupted between the duke and one of the neighboring earls. A couple of skirmishes took place in which the earl managed to obtain a couple of small, early victories, but was forced to sign the hamlet away as the duke threatened to raise levies in his much larger duchy and start an all-out war. In the conflict died about two dozen men on both sides, which was about the population of the nameless hamlet. Arriving on the third floor I went straight to my bed, stepping around or over boxes, books, bundles of clothes and the occasional uncleaned plate. This was my bedroom, living room, library and dining room all at once. My bed was located at the north-west corner surrounded by a couple of bookshelves to protect against the cold wind, which blew through the only makeshift stuffed cracks in the walls. The situation only got worse, when the east-side window broke, last winter. I nailed the window shut, but there was still a cold breeze blowing through the room. I was getting quite worried over the humidity damaging the books and did not fully trust the straw on the ground to keep the room dry. Since I got no money to repair the expensive glass window, I probably had to move with all my stuff in the kitchen on the first floor, soon. With the time, the tower started to sink more and more in the ground, which in combination with its location, caused the ground floor to be regularly flooded after rain. Because of that reason, I already had to bring all the stuff, which was originally stored there, up in the kitchen and library. The situation got even more cramped after I started to study summoning and needed to clear out the bedroom on the second floor to make space for the circles. I fell fully clothed down on my bed, pulled my shoes of and threw them away, before climbing under my sheets. The mana expenditure in combination of with the sustained concentration and sleep deprivation of the last days made me fall in a deep and dreamless slumber, almost immediately. The next day I woke up around noon, still not completely recovered. After awakening, I just kept lying on my straw mattress and checked my available classes.
Hedge Wizard
An untrained person dabbling in the magical forces he does not understand and is unable to fully control. Hedge Wizards know a lot of magical cantrips and some minor spells. They are mostly people who despite their lacking talent still choose to pursue a magical career. Most of them are found in isolated villages, where they, like their female version (Hedge Witch) use their power to help the villagers with small feats of magic. It is common for Hedge Wizards to develop their own, small spells in their life.
Very low intuitional feeling for magic. Slight intuitional adjustments, when trying to develop own spells. Cantrips and self-made spells cost 30% less mana. Affinity +0.5, Intuition +0.5, Intelligence +2, free Attribute-point +1 per level Hedge Wizard related skills level faster. When taken gain immediately: Affinity +3, Intuition +3, Intelligence 10, free Attribute- points +3
Hunter
Very low intuitional feeling for magic. Slight intuitional adjustments, when trying to develop own spells. Cantrips and self-made spells cost 30% less mana. Affinity +0.5, Intuition +0.5, Intelligence +2, free Attribute-point +1 per level Hedge Wizard related skills level faster. When taken gain immediately: Affinity +3, Intuition +3, Intelligence 10, free Attribute- points +3
Small intuitional feeling for animals nearby. Animal tracks are easier to spot. Slightly easier to sneak while in nature. Perception +1, Agility +2, free Attribute-point +1 per level. Hunter related skills level faster When taken gain immediately: Perception +6, Agility +10, free Attribute-point +3
Trapper
A specialized Hunter, who forgoes other aspects of the profession, for singularly focusing on trapping animals and sometimes, sentient beings. There are uncountable, different ways and variations for traps and they differ for every Trapper. A lot of planning and information is needed to create the perfect trap, but masters of the trade are able to kill even way stronger creatures than themselves.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Small intuitional feeling for good trap placements. Easier to estimate prey behavior. Agility +1, Intuition +1, Perception +2, free Attribute-point +1 per level. Trapper related skills level faster. When taken gain immediately: Agility +6, Intuition +6, Perception +12, free Attribute-point +4
I choose to ignore the useless or downright insulting classes like Peasant or Homemaker, which were probably shown to everyone, who plucked a random plant or cleaned his own dish. The last progress I made was one and a half years ago, when I unlocked the trapper class, through accidentally managing to catch a wolf in one of my traps. It was not a bad class. Hell, it was even the best I got up to this point, but I was still determined not to take it. I wanted to be a mage, and I wanted it badly. It probably became an unhealthy obsession on this point. The best I managed to get in that direction was Hedge Wizard, but that class would forever doom me to a life in mediocrity, the very same I was determined to escape with being a mage. The lesson, that was my father¡¯s death for another¡¯s cause, was not wasted on me. Being a subject means giving your overlord might over your wellbeing. You always have to remember an overlord is still just a person. A person will always be primarily concentrated on his own wellbeing not on his subjects. This even holds true for priests and monks. There is a reason, that for following the will of the gods, rewards are included in every religion. ¡°Maybe if my father also read the books, his master bequeathed on him, he would still be alive¡± flashed an futile thought through my mind. For the cause of being a mage, I performed the ritual yesterday. It was actually the second ritual. A couple of months ago, in late summer, the first also failed to produce the imp I wanted to summon. The problem was I even knew what went wrong. After the first time, there could still be some doubt, but after yesterday, it was undeniable that, without outside help, my talent was simply not good enough to perform the summoning.
Name Lucius Baal
Class Unclassed
Level 17
Strength 7
Agility 9
Endurance 7
Perception 11
Intuition 17
Intelligence 19
Affinity 5
The last stat ¡°Affinity¡± was the problem. It directly translated to ones talent in magic. Affinity influenced the amount of mana, its regeneration and the difficulty a person had to move it. Needless to say, my affinity was abysmal. A child with the talent to be a mage needed, with the right technique, a week to unlock the attribute and it would be somewhere over ten. I needed multiple years and discovered mine to be two. Every two levels someone without a class gained an attribute point and since unlocking it, I put every single one in affinity. Even with these points, I only managed to bring it up to five. The training methods in the books did not manage to influence my affinity stat a bit. I still wanted to slap myself for every point I spend before unlocking Affinity. Some were necessary, like the one I spent on agility running away from a goblin, which somehow managed to cross the mountains in the south without being killed by a patrol. Or the one spent on perception after I nearly stumbled into the lair of a bear. The ones that irritated me were the ones spend on intelligence and intuition in my childhood, when I still thought me not unlocking the affinity attribute after such a long time made me somehow special. It indeed made me special, especially untalented. In my innocence I somehow believed the words my mother told me, when she came to search for leftovers to turn into money. If I really got the talent, she talked about; I would have had one of the best starts to becoming a mage. A since my birth higher than average Intelligence and an unlocked Intuition in combination with a high affinity would make me a top mage. At that time I already subconsciously started to doubt her, but my books also stated that most mages put their attribute points into mental stats and just trained Affinity up to go with it. However alas it should not be. I was now in the awkward situation of having extremely high Intelligence and Intuition for my level, but not the mana to put it to use in spells. The best I managed was a fireball spell and it took all the mana I had. Without more training, the cost was as low as I managed to get it with my mental attributes and with my current speed of two fireballs per day, it would take me my whole life to master this one spell fully. I needed more levels to raise my Affinity, but it was getting increasingly hard to get them while being unclassed. As an Unclassed individual, I gained a bit of exp for everything I did, but not anything worthwhile. If you got no destination, every step you take is useless. When I took care of the small vegetable garden at the foot of my tower, it would hardly make me a better at being human. On the other side if I were a farmer, taking care of the garden would definitely make me a better farmer. In the same relation would the exp-gains for the farmer be much better, than these of the Unclassed individual. After failing to unlock the mage class with spells, I got no further idea what to do. The only hope I got now was the Summoner class that was mentioned in one of the darker books in the collection my father unwillingly left me. For that cause did I try to conduct the rituals. Apparently, once you managed to summon and bind an imp successfully, you would unlock the class. ¡°Enough brooding over my situation. Let¡¯s get going.¡± With jerk, I sat up, threw the damp sheets to a side and started to feel around for my shoes. I inwardly cursed the Myself of yesterday for throwing the shoes in a corner too far to reach from my bed, before standing up and involuntarily wincing as my warm foots came in contact with the nearly freezing floor. After putting on my shoes and doing my morning tour around and over stuff to the stairway, I went straight down in the kitchen. On the way, I ignored the door to the summoning room, with only food on my mind. ¡°First breakfast, I tidy up in there later¡± After stoking the left embers in the hearth and getting a small fire going, I warmed up some oatmeal and started eating. The winter was coming and it was getting cold, so I sat with my chair close to the hearth. After warming up my inside and outside, I tried to procrastinate facing my failed ritual and tided up the kitchen. A quarter of an hour later, as I was faced with the need to go outside and get water to start to seriously cleaning, I could no longer put off dealing with the failure of yesterday. Standing before the door to the summoning room I took a deep breath, opened the door and after seeing my target threw my fireball at the remains of the useless member of a devil subspecies. The round sphere of warping flames and heat disintegrated the skin and flesh with no problems, but started to shrink rapidly as it tried to do the same with the bones. Only just before the fireball completely went through the target and was about to hit the floor behind it, were last remaining bits of bone turned into ash. The now pitiful, small ball of heat collided with the floor and extinguished with sizzle, managing nothing more than to slightly warm up the thick planks. I thought about the descriptions in the book, that I found the spell in. Of fireballs, that turned metal into liquid and could even penetrate small walls. Of course, if I casted the spell directly on the wooden planks, they would be charred. With a bit more mana in the spell, I could maybe even manage to put them aflame. Nevertheless, to see a fireball falling to set wood on fire was pitiful. Holding my breath, I rushed in the room, ripped the scraps of fabric between the shutters out and opened them. Only after hanging my head out of the window, did I dare to take another breath. Even with all my preparedness, the smell of burned flesh caused me to gag. ¡°You could have opened the window yesterday, but no you needed to let the stench permeate the whole room¡± I thought to myself. About ten minutes later my face was quite cold, but the smell was at least bearable. Pulling my head inside I turned to the destroyed source of my hope. I felt pain in my heart for every cracked and crumbled piece of crystal, each of which I painstakingly produced. Each of the six crystals symbolized half a month of work. More than three months I fed every dreg of mana I could muster into them. It was not enough. I know what went wrong. The mana crystals the book spoke about were supposed to be formed in one single action, by extracting the mana out of your body and compressing it, until it formed a tangible crystalline structure. Alternatively, you could also use naturally formed crystals, which were found in a couple of spots around the world. The second method had no use for me. I knew those crystals existed, but they were not something, a Nobody like me could get. I do not even think the court mage of the duke has one. Therefore, only the first method remained for me. What was exactly, what I did in the first ritual. In the description of the circle, six mana-crystals along with the summoners own mana, were required to power the ritual. These crystals had to have a minimal weight and size. A standard, which the small grain-sized ones, I was able to produce, were a long way from meeting. I compensated through quantity. In the theory, a single big mana-crystal holds the same amount of power, than the same weight in smaller ones. With this hypothesis, I conducted my first ritual. And failed. Miserably. So miserably, I was not even able to tell what the warped thing I summoned was, before half a day of work, putting the pieces together. Every small piece of crystal powered the circle for the fraction of a second, before being out of power. Every time one of these pieces was empty and crumbled to dust, the circle stopped for an even smaller fraction of a second, before another mana-crystal took over. Imagine flying at the speed of sound through the small and winding alleys of a city. The force that makes you fly is able to navigate you perfectly through these alleys, but now imagine this force stopping for just the fraction of a second¡­ After getting smeared across a wall, because the force did not steer you around a corner, you get picked up, accelerated, only to hit the next wall after the force gets interrupted once again. There were 212 mana-crystals. The probably humanoid creature was just a pile of different parts, as it arrived in the middle of the ritual circle. After getting pounded in 212 different worlds, dimension and whatever else was out there, the only two things I was able to discern, was the humanoid outline in the hole at the start of the ritual, and that its blood was red. Yesterday, with my second try, I went another way. I tried to make six big crystals by slowly forming parts of them. Every twelve hours, when my mana was full, I added another part on the crystal. Over three months the crystals began to grow until each one finally got the required size and weight. Alas yesterday my biggest fear was realized. There were small, fine cracks in the crystals. Every time I stopped and started working again, after my mana regenerated, a crack was added and these cracks started to act up, in the ritual. They made for an uneven output of power, as some parts of the crystals were delivering mana faster or slower. The result was the burned out circle and crumbled crystals I saw before me. I went to work clearing up. Chapter 2 Excerpt of ¡°Personal observations of attributes and classes¡± by Grand Magus of Earth, Edward von Lichterberg: It is best to describe the effect of attributes by the example of the farmer and the rabbit. The story goes like this: A farmer¡¯s Perception and Luck lets him spot a small figure in his field and hear crunching sounds. This information gets send to his brain, where his Intuition immediately lets him know, that this figure is a rabbit happily munching on his plants. The farmers Intelligence is low, so he does not even think about setting traps, building fences or getting the hunter of the village to shoot the rabbit with his bow. Instead, he takes his spade and charges at the rabbit intending to beat it to death. However, the rabbits Agility is higher than the farmer¡¯s, so it manages to escape and is slowly gaining distance, while the farmers Endurance is letting him continue to angry chase after the rabbit. The little rodent finally arrives at his rabbit hole and darts inside. The still angry farmer uses his spade and starts to excavate the hole with his high Strength. The rabbit¡¯s Intuition is letting it know, that the farmer is digging closer and that it probably should keep escaping, but the attribute is not high enough to tell it in which direction to do so. Plagued by an even lower Intelligence, than the farmer, it does not take one of the other dozen exits and runs back to the one, from which it came in. Jumping out of its hole, it is hit by the blunt side of the farmer¡¯s spade. Its low Constitution does not let it withstand the blow and the rabbit dies. After that example of two stupid creatures, the reader should be able to discern the reason, why mages will always be superior to warriors. Power used with Intelligence will always beat Power used without it. Warriors are able to sustain their strength in a fight longer than mages, but it is still Power used without Intelligence. In the long run the mage is going to simply outsmart the warrior. The fantasies of the common peasants are nothing more than that: fantasies. The sword-wielding hero with an Intelligence of ten is never going to outsmart the evil Arch-Lich with an Intelligence of two hundred. The fairy-tales are about stupid men with swords killing smart men with magic. The real world is about smart men being killed by even smarter men. The stupid are nothing more than puppets to be manipulated by everyone who feels like it. In the evening, I decided to go hunting on the next day. I desperate needed more Affinity, and I was not going to get it by sitting in the tower. Therefore, I choose to murder other living creatures for it instead. Killing other beings was the fastest way to level up. Ordinarily you would gain exp from working in the profession of your chosen class, with Unclassed naturally being the exemption. Killing circumvented this. Regardless of your Class, once you killed something or somebody you would gain experience proportional to the level of your victim. Theoretically, someone could get hundreds of levels by simply slaughtering low-level flies. Practically, you would need trillions of the small critters. I myself got a fair share of exp from the occasional hare I managed to capture in my slings. The problem was that I needed approximately between 70 and 90 hares to get the nine required levels. I estimated that with an Affinity of ten, I should somehow be able to manage performing a scaled-down version of the ritual. Still 70 to 90 hares was simply something I was unable to manage in a short time. It would take me at least a year and murdering the whole bunny-population in the area, to reach that count. Instead, I de-oiled the hunting spear, I bought after the goblin incident and put together a pack with a small shovel, ropes, ointments, a book and other miscellaneous items, I thought I would need. I intended to take a quite long trip in the woods to find some bigger game, which would hopefully earn me more exp. Correspondingly I put together rations for multiple days. Spoiler: Spoiler The next morning I woke up early and after grabbing my spear and my backpack, stepped outside of the tower. I pulled the heavy door closed behind me and carried out the multiple gestures required to lock it. I went past the small vegetable garden, which was mostly barren in this time of the year, and arrived at the first barrier. Standing still and concentrating, I used the meager amount of mana in my body to connect to the barrier and forced it to open a small hole in front of me. Watching while pulling mana in my eyes, I slowly threaded through the hole, careful not to let a part of me touch the edges. After about two meter, I walked out of the hole and found myself in front of the second barrier. Willing the hole to close behind me, I used the same process to connect and walk through it. Stepping out of the second barrier, I just stood there and took a deep breath. In front of me stood proud, old trees alongside a small trail, which a couple dozen meter away broke out of the thick woods in a green plain, the trees becoming slammer closer to the edge of the forest. Turning around I saw with my still mana-filled sight the red half domes of the barriers, under which my tower stood. The light got slightly distorted passing through the barrier obscuring my home behind it. My father told me the two barriers were made by his mentor, who resided in the tower before leaving it for my father. Like many other things, he never explained to me, why the barrier was tinged red and not the light blue colour mana normally had. He probably did not know himself.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. With a last look at my home, I headed off deeper into the woods. I knew the surrounding area quite well. Setting small traps, treading to my vegetable garden and helping the occasional peasant from the surrounding villages were my main source of food and income. Orienteering myself with the position of the sun I headed east. The forest was quite big and stretched itself from the east to the southwest. You would need at least week of hiking over forest trails and stepper getting hills to get far in the southeast, where the forest made space for a mountain range. The end of the forest marked also the kingdoms border and the start of the territory of independent tribes, which called the mountains their home. A standing force of soldiers regularly patrolled the border, which made the forest relatively safe and to the livelihood of the couple dozen villages, which laid on its edge. I kept being on the lookout for tracks, while treading through the forest. I did not bother with trying to be quiet, as I did not intend to stalk potential prey, but to find animal paths with fresh tracks of some big game. Hunting had pushed any large animal further in the forest, so the results after my first half a day were underwhelming. I saw a single stag from afar, was however unable to find a good spot to hide a sling. The only other highlight was an old track of a wolf, but with the track being weeks old he would be long gone out of the region. The sun was already low, so I decided to make camp. I built an improvised shelter and got a small fire going. After having a hearty meal, I improvised a tripwire with some small rope and tied the end loosely over my hand, before wrapping myself in a sheet and lying down. Soothed by the faint crackling of the fire, I fell asleep fast. The next day I awoke, when the first ray of sun broke through the leaves of the tress above. I wrapped up my stuff and set out. It was noon, when I found the first promising location. It was an animal trail leading to a little creak, with old and fresh tracks of deer and a whole herd of aurochs. Autumn had just ended and there were still dead leaves lying on the path, so a few more to hide my traps should not be noticed. I scouted the path in its entirety, before settling on a bottleneck between a big tree and some rocks, as the location for my traps. Spoiler: Spoiler Since I was looking to kill for exp, I naturally set the bigger aurochs as my target. The only problem was: ¡°I am not confident in directly killing any of them and if I only wound one, it is very likely, that I will not be able to finish the job. If its dies fast there would be no problem, since I would still get the full credit for the kill. But if it keeps surviving for a couple of days it very likely, that either another predator will come and take the easy prey or it will recover in the protection of the herd.¡± I would of course get some of the exp for the assist, if a predator kills the already wounded auroch, but I needed more than that. Even if I managed to get the full exp, I would still need one or two more aurochs to get to the level I wanted. To take them on in an open fight was suicide. With a lot of running around and dodging, I was maybe able to fight a cow. With a bit of luck my fireball could also take out a bull, but that would not matter. I estimated the herd to consist of one or two bulls, between six and eight cows and at least one calf. I could definitely damage them, but would pay for it with my life. The only option left was to wound as many of them with traps, as possible and to hope they died of their wounds. With this plan in mind, I went to work. I dug holes in the path, just large enough for a hoof, sharpened sticks and put them in the walls of the traps. Afterwards I covered the holes with some small sticks and leaves. Spoiler: Spoiler The herd would avoid the path, after the first animal got wounded, so I only got one chance. Accordingly, I dug a total of fourteen holes in the path behind the bottleneck to prevent them from just pushing through and littered both sides of it in similar fashion. Since I did not care that much about the meat, I coated the sharp sticks in some of the auroch feces I found on the trail and the belladonna ointment some villagers insisted on buying from me. I hoped the two measures to strengthen the lethality of my traps. It took me most of the remaining daylight to complete half of my planned pit traps. To prevent any animal from prematurely activating them, I dragged big branches on the path to keep them of using it. I made camp a couple hundred meter away and continued working the next day. In the early afternoon, the holes were finished and since it was most likely, the herd would come to drink in the evening or early morning, I got some time on my hands and started to use my sturdiest rope to make big slings on their approximated head height. With a bit of luck some would get caught in them and ditched by the rest of the herd, so I could finish them off. In the evening, I completed my preparations, dragged the branches off the path and prepared myself for a long wait. My activities hardly went by unnoticed and the area would be probably avoided by animals for a couple of days With that in mind I climbed the already prepared tree and sat down in a tree fork, behind a screen of branches I bound together in front of my hideout. The tree was located close to the path, in one of the escape routes the agitated herd would most likely take. I pulled out the book I carried with me and started to read, while waiting for my prey.