Danube had to find her Code piece and meditate to resonate with it, and she barely knew what a Code piece was. But, somehow, she stood before hers, in a damp cave in the wall of a gorge lining a river valley. How she'd managed to find specifically this cave out of all of the likely hundreds if not thousands, she had no idea. But when she had focused on coming here, this is where she had found herself.

It was serendipitous, really. She could not have asked for better luck.

The gorge was steep and treacherous. Danube had not relished the idea of trying to get down to the level ground to start her search. Sure, the Code had given them each a way to find their pieces, but Danube had not seen any buildings when she arrived. She had not been looking forward to not only climbing down to level ground, but walking for god only knew how long before finding traces of civilization. After all, that had to be where the Code piece was located, right?

Apparently not. Instead of being in a house or something somewhere, Danube had turned around in place to find that her piece was in a hole in the wall of some rocks. It seemed hardly appropriate to something so important, but she did suppose it was very well protected, if only by virtue of being a massive pain in the a** to get to. So now she stared at it, wondering if it was okay to touch.

Well, how else was she going to bond with it?

Danube reached out and picked it up, turning it over gently in her hands. Okay, now she just had to focus on it. Meditate on it. She closed her eyes accordingly, took a deep breath, and focused.

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The arrow sang as she let it loose, finding its mark in the deer she'd spent the last hour stalking. The creature bellowed and bolted off into the brush, but the trail of blood and noise made tracking him easier than before. It was hardly another ten minutes before she caught up to him. He took off running again, and again she followed. This continued until at last she found him laying panting on the ground. He tried, but failed, to raise his head as she approached, though his ears swiveled unerringly in her direction.

Red froth was visible at the creature's mouth and nose, and she made a noise of sympathy as she crouched near his head. "Poor thing. Poor, poor thing." She knelt down, pulling the deer's head up. He tried to bellow again, to toss his head and gore her with his antlers in defense, but he was too weak. She was able to push his head back into the position she needed. She pulled a knife from her boot and, in a flash of metal, the deer's struggle was over.

Now the race against scavengers and predators began.

She dragged the deer to a nearby tree, grunting with the effort of hauling the carcass of a fully grown stag by the legs. She pulled rope from her side pouch, tying it around the deer's back feet and using the leverage of the rope thrown over a sturdy branch to haul the carcass into the air. It was from there that she got to work dressing him. Experienced hands made quick work of it, but it still took an hour to have the skin, meat, and useful offal waiting in waxen sacks for hauling back to the hunting camp. Antlers were tied to the top of her pack, and she surveilled the carcass as she cut it loose. She could harvest the bones, but there was only one of her and a considerable amount of meat to bring back.

So she left the bones and the rest of the carcass behind, a gift to the scavengers she knew were no doubt waiting for their chance to dart in and take from the leavings.

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Danube felt a little green when she came back to herself. Of all the possible things for the Code piece to show her, it showed her... hunting and dressing a deer? She took a deep breath, relieved that nothing smelled like dead deer, and turned back to the entry of the cave. She knew the piece couldn't stay in the random cave she'd been lucky enough to find it in. One, who knew if she'd find the cave again. Two, it was a b***h and a half to get to.

And so began the arduous task of climbing down the gorge without dying or dropping the Code piece.

She was sweating when she made it and had no shortage of scrapes, bruises, and cuts by the time that happened. Of course, now she was faced with the question of what to do with the Code piece. She could no more leave it in a random hole in the valley floor than she could have left it where she found it. She hadn't seen any sign of animals or anything, but she didn't want to chance something happening to it. There was still weather, at the very least, if there was nothing else. Where could she put it where it wouldn't get washed away in a rainstorm?

Danube was saved from a mounting sense of anxiety about the subject by spotting a small cave nearby at ground level. "Sorry," she apologised to no one, "but this is just going to have to do for now. It'll keep you dry, at least." The Code piece just remained silent in her hands. "Yeah, thanks for your input." In the cave it went, but high and dry and clean, even if it meant she had to chase a couple spiders out of their hidey holes to do it.

As she turned from it to focus on heading home and processing what she'd seen, "I'll bring you some doilies or a cushion or next time, promise."