Tonight… We Hunt! Walkthrough: Getting a Deer Pelt for Permafrost’s General Trader

TONIGHT… WE HUNT! is the quest the General Trader in Horizon hands you the moment you ask him for help. He wants a single deer hide, and you finish it either with a pelt from a nearby crate or by killing and skinning a Red Deer just outside the settlement gate. The steps are short once you know where the trader stands and how skinning works.

Quick answer: Talk to the General Trader in Horizon, pick “I need help.” to start the quest, get one Deer Pelt (from the kitchen crate on Story or by hunting a Red Deer), then return and choose “I have your hide.” followed by “Here you go.”

Start the quest in Horizon

The General Trader is behind the bars in the structure marked by a yellow dollar sign, positioned on the right side of Robyn’s cabin. Approach until the prompt displays “General Trader” and “Press F Talk”.

His first menu offers three choices: “Let’s trade.”, “I need help.” and “Not this time”. Selecting “I need help.” prompts a request for a deer hide and launches TONIGHT… WE HUNT!, with “Hunt a Deer” as the objective. NEW CONNECTIONS also completes then; its only instruction is to speak with the trader.

Player in a dim cage-walled room faces a masked trader, with a dialogue prompt, quest tracker and flashlight tip on screen. — A trader asks “Here to buy anything?” with the options “Let’s trade.” and “Not this time.” while the Horizon’s Kitchen and Tonight… We Hunt! quests are tracked.

If you already have a Deer Pelt in your backpack, the quest opens straight at “Return to the trader with the Deer Pelt”, so you can skip the hunt entirely.

Keep your Crude Bow rather than selling it to the trader immediately before requesting help; you need it for the hunt that comes next.

A pelt without hunting: the kitchen crate

Before setting off to hunt, check the Wooden crate beside the palisade near Horizon’s kitchen. The kitchen has a pot sign and sits to the left of the gate. The crate did not hold the same things on the two difficulties.

Difficulty	Crate contents
Story	Deer Pelt ×1, Stone ×3
Survival	Boar Pelt, Stone ×2

On Story, that single Deer Pelt is all you need, so grab it and go straight to the hand-in. On Survival the crate gives a Boar Pelt instead, and a Boar Pelt was not tried at the hand-in, so plan on hunting a deer.

Hunt a Red Deer outside the gate

Take your Crude Bow, Wooden Arrows and a knife such as the Stone Shiv as you leave through the gate. Red Deer congregate around tree stumps west of the gate, while another herd is just outside the first cave’s exit. They aren’t hostile: the deer trot a few metres away, then pause, and won’t fight back.

Snowy clearing with tree stumps and deer, a building tutorial panel on screen — The snowy clearing west of Horizon where Red Deer gather among the cut tree stumps.

Craft arrows if you are short. Wooden Arrow comes three at a time for 1 Wood in the inventory crafting list, and the HUD counter shows arrows loaded over arrows carried.

Close the distance. Walk up as near as the deer let you. On Story, one arrow from about 4 metres dropped a doe, while shots from 7 to 30 metres killed nothing.

Fire. Hold the right mouse button to aim, hold the left button to draw the bow, and release it to loose the arrow. Press R to reload.

Skin the carcass for the Deer Pelt

A dead deer offers no prompt when you’re several steps away, a common sticking point. Stand directly beside the body, hold a knife and look down at it.

Put the Stone Shiv in your hand, stand against the carcass, and look down until the prompt reads “Carcass” and “Hold F to skin”.

Deer carcass with the Hold F to skin prompt and knife equipped — Standing against the carcass with the Stone Shiv equipped brings up the “Hold F to skin” prompt.

Hold F for roughly three seconds. The screen reads “CARCASS, Knife used to skin” and you receive “+1 Deer Pelt”. This is a hold, not a tap, so a quick press does nothing.

The prompt then changes to “Dead red deer” and “Press F Open”. Open it and press R to take everything.

Container panel showing bones, meat and fat with the R Take all button — The carcass container, with “R Take all” collecting the bones, meat and animal fat.

Alongside the pelt, the carcass gave:

Bones ×4
Meat ×2
Animal Fat ×3

Cook the Meat at a Campfire into a Dish before you eat it. Eating it raw gave Parasites on Survival.

Return the hide to the General Trader

Head back to the General Trader and talk to him again. This time choose “I have your hide.” Two answers follow: “Here you go.” and “Now: ‘I will pay double.’”

Trader dialogue with Here you go and I'll pay double options shown — The hand-in dialogue, with “Here you go.” and “Now: ‘I will pay double.’” as the other response.

Picking “Here you go.” is the straightforward hand-in. It removes one Deer Pelt from your inventory, shown as “-1 Deer Pelt”, and the trader tells you to get all the cold protection you can and to pray if you are the praying sort.

How to know it worked and what you keep

The quest leaves your list as soon as the trader gives his travel line, which confirms the hand-in. No item or Bucks come back with “Here you go.” The deer hide is simply spent on the trader’s request.

For reference, a Deer Pelt carries a value of 15 and sells for around 9 Bucks at traders, so handing it over here costs you that small sale price and nothing more.

Inventory with the Deer Pelt tooltip showing VALUE 15 — The Deer Pelt in the backpack: VALUE 15.

Mistakes that waste your time

You won’t get a skinning prompt if you press F while a couple of steps from the carcass; having the bow equipped also prevents it.
Tapping F does nothing; skinning is a hold of about three seconds.
Shooting from far off wastes arrows. On Story, only a close shot around 4 metres landed a kill.
Selling the Crude Bow to the trader right before asking for help leaves you with no way to hunt.