It had been two weeks since the world ended.

I settled into a new routine in my tree fort as I mentally called it. I built a full set of walls connected to my platform with a fairly solid roof. It wasn’t leak proof but it was dry season for the forest and it had only rained once, for one long miserable night. The framework apparently was pleased by my building skills and granted me a new title.

Unorthodox 1 - Creation of an unorthodox shelter - Grants unorthodox crafting skill

Unorthodox - Using abnormal tools for abnormal situations grants crafting bonuses.

It was now level 3, I had leveled to 10 after killing a few more of the beasts in the area during my hunting trips. When I leveled to 10 I got a notification that I could choose my new class, but only the wildcard class was unlocked. The message stated I needed to satisfy hidden criteria to unlock the other two options.

There were so many references to guides in the framework information, I was missing so much by not being near a population center. I tried to find the edge of the forest again to survey the plain where the 3rd army had been camped but I couldn’t find it. I was lost and risked losing my treefort if I ranged too far. I had my compass and a rough idea of the direction of Etes but I dared not risk it. There was still so much I did not understand.

I pulled up my character interface and surveyed the results. I started performing my Kata every day as well as performing what limited strength training I could around the clearing. I was hoping that the exercise would raise my physical stats if I got stronger and faster. It seemed that they were already raised beyond the point that I could address it with exercise. At least with my body weight exercises. I used the tree branches as a climbing obstacle course and dashed between the high branches, my agility increased by 2 over the week, proving that I was at least partially correct about increasing my stats. I gained 1 wisdom and 1 agility from leveling to 10.

Sylar Till

Age

17

Race

Human

Class

Wildcard

Level

10

Strength

10

Stamina

22

Agility

15

Intelligence

14

Wisdom

27

Charisma

0

Luck

3

I felt strong and fast in ways I had never before. My Reaction speed had increased, my accuracy with my bow, my ability to skin beasts without ruining the pelts. It was like I was going through the academy again with how rapid my body and skills were increasing. My crafting levels in skinning and rigging had increased to 3 each. Identify had plateaued at level 5 and I now got quite a bit of information from using it. I looked over at one of the berries resting in a pile on the floor of the fort

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Pyrus Berry - Small tasty berry, attracts beast with its smell once crushed.

I found a small grove of the tasty berries not far from the stream I was using for water. I had a few water skins I filled up every night and had a small stock pile of dried meat in one of my bags. I was getting restless about leaving the clearing and doing something, to keep moving forward. There was a small cave I discovered a few miles from my treefort, I wanted to explore it. So far I had chickened out from coming too close in fear of what beast may live inside of it. I checked over my bag to get a feel of my current supplies

Inventory

Trippers

1

Poppers

4

Throwing Knife

2

Manglers

3

Banger

4

Smokers

2

Arrows

20

I had discovered that the framework considered anything inside of my primary pack that I wore of my shoulders as my Inventory. It automatically calculated what was inside and allowed me to filter out things to make it easy to read. It was both creepy and incredibly useful. I was running low on everything since I had trapped the area around my fort so heavily. I would have to start fashioning new weapons if I wasn’t able to find more supplies soon. I had been practicing with my bow and while I was much more accurate I didn’t get a skill for it, I wasn’t sure why.

I gathered my pack, the full water containers and all the dried meat I could reasonably carry. I intended to return to this spot after exploring the cave but it was difficult to know what would happen, nothing had been going to plan for the last two weeks. The cave was approximately 20 miles from my treefort. 20 miles would have been two days of long marching before, now it took me about 2 hours to run it at a jog even with all my supplies.

I slowed as I approached the large hole , it was centered on the narrow side of a large mound. The entrance to the cave was probably 10 feet tall and 20 feet wide, giving a lot of opening to cover. The light from the forest canopy did not penetrate the depths of the cave. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up as I surveyed it, a sixth sense warning me of danger. I saw a notification pop up and dismissed it immediately, this was not a time to get distracted. I decided to scope out the area around the cave before attempting to enter it. I spent a few hours exploring the area and found evidence of many beasts in this area. Trampled bushes, marked trees, rotting carcasses and old dried out bones littered the area.

I returned to the entrance of the cave, hiding in the thick brush just off to the side. I knew I needed to be smart about this, I had experimented with the health system and it wasn’t as complicated as I initially feared. My health would drop a consistent amount due to injuries that were minor and non life threatening. I hadn’t gotten as low again since the snake caught me by surprise in that tree, but I healed from that completely. It took about an hour to regenerate one health point once I lost it. I instinctively knew that if that bar reached empty then it was all over. The nihilistic side of me wondered what a banger point blank would do to my health.

I began by using my last tripper to wire the opening of the cave from one end to the other, I only had 4 of the banger boxes left so I needed to be careful with them, knowing that the resulting explosion was fairly unpredictable. I decided to use two, one at each end and connected them to the trip wire. I had 2 smokers left so my plan was simple, I would throw the smoker in first, followed by a popper. Hoping to distract and confuse whatever was hiding inside, it would run out to get out of the smoke which would trigger the tripper and the explosion would kill it.

I knew that it would ruin my chance of skinning the beast but I had to do what I could with what I had. I hid my pack behind some trees and strung an arrow, found a good place to view from a safe distance and prepared to throw the smoker. Thanks to my new physical strength I could lob the smoker a few hundred feet with decent accuracy and I had a pretty big target for the cave opening.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and tried to center myself. This was a turning point for me, going from the hunted and scared to the aggressor. I could feel my personality changing from the person I used to be to the person I needed to be to survive in this new world. I opened my eyes and without hesitation lobbed the smoker through the opening of the cave. Two poppers followed creating the tell tale popping sound and hopefully startling the beast awake. I heard a loud roar that felt like it shook the world and immediately felt a sense of panic.

I turned and began to sprint away, dropping my bow. The sense of panic faded quickly and I shook my head to clear it. I ran back to my hiding spot and grabbed my bow just in time to see the largest beast I had ever laid eyes on standing at the mouth of the cave. I tried to trigger Identify and was rewarded, my heart dropped to my gut when I read the description