It took almost the entire day to make it back to the area of the cave. There were many points along the way I felt like just laying down and giving up, I had to push myself both mentally and physically well past the point of exhaustion just to keep going. I had only my new stamina of 32 to thank when I arrived at the cave just before nightfall. I was sure that although I felt like I was crawling towards the cave, I was probably moving faster than I ever had pre-framework.

Pre-framework was a phrase rolling around in my head during the walk. I had started to categorize my life in two phases, the pre-framework and the now. It helped me to relax and go with the flow of things when I thought of it that way. I had lived a good life before, happy with a good family, friends, hobbies, and now I was a killer. I was Sylar the wildcard, stryker in training before, now I was Sylar the survivor, as my new title stated.

When I crested the final hill leading to the cave I found my pack spilled out against the tree where I had left it. My food supplies had been raided by some crafty beast however everything else was intact. I didn’t have much left but the pack gave me a convenient method of carrying things, the leather workers and equipment teams in camp took great pride in their sturdy field packs.

Walking over to the cave entrance I found the corpse of the first cave bear, it had been picked at by scavengers in the night. I briefly thought about moving it away from the camp but decided I was still in too bad of shape. My health pool was back up to around 50 but I didn’t feel much better. There was definitely a carry over effect of exhaustion that stamina and health points couldn’t fix.

I looked in through the entrance of the cave and tried to make out a back wall, I wasn’t able to see all the way to the back, the shadows were too strong and the light from the canopy was too little. I was out of smokers to try to smoke out any beasts remaining, I only had my knife and bow, I wasn’t sure I was even strong enough to string an arrow and fire it if I needed to.

Deciding to start a new camp at the mouth of the cave I made a large fire that would hopefully scare off the predators that were feeding on the corpse of the bear at night. The smell was horrendous, I would have to move it farther away tomorrow when my energy recovered. I only had one tripper left and it wouldn’t cover the cave entrance alone nor would it cover a meaningful amount of the forest. I decided to string it between two trees and connect my last two poppers to it and faced the opposite direction with my back to the wall.

This gave me roughly 360 degrees of protection and would at least give me a fighting chance. It took every last bit of my energy to make the fire big enough and gather enough firewood to keep it burning through the night. I fell asleep with my bow propped across my lap and my last knife at my side.

I woke to the sound of a harsh shriek and then a pained cry from too close for comfort. I started and stood up, knocking an arrow. It was still dark and I couldn’t see far. I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep but I felt much stronger, my health was back up to 96, implying it had been at least 5 hours. I stared out into the dark forest and tried to see what had cried out, likely a predator attracted to the cave bear corpse. I saw a gray shape dive out from one of the trees and bounce off a shadow that I now realized was moving. I stared at the shadow and triggered identify

Forest Hyena - Beast - Level 7 - Health 19/20 - Non native beast to Eter, aggressive in packs, often diseased.

I immediately worried about the pack part of the identification, I wasn’t as worried about one of these but a large group would be a disaster. The small gray blur dashed through the air again and attacked the hyena. I wasn’t sure what kind of bird fought hyenas but I was happy for any distractions. I sighted my arrow and waited for the hyena to still, it turned to track the bird and I shot it right through the throat. Instead of dying immediately it turned and barreled towards me, I dodged out of the way, thanks to my increased agility, and grabbed my knife to close to melee range.

It proved unnecessary as the hyena collapsed against the cave wall and I confirmed with Identify that it was dead. I turned to scan the forest line and could see eyes reflecting the fire. I stoked it with a large branch and put more branches on to increase the flame size in the hope of scaring the rest away. After a tense few minutes, the pack backed away and the clearing in front of the cave was quiet once more. There was no sign of the bird, I had a sneaking suspicion it was the falcon I had saved the day before but had no way to confirm it.

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Morning came while I watched the forest for more predators. I felt renewed, my new stamina level letting me get away with far less sleep than previously. My first act of business was to drag the bear carcass far away from the entrance to the cave. Just to be petty I took down the tripper and wired it to my last remaining banger and left it rigged near the bear's corpse. Hoping more death would drive the intelligent beasts away, unintelligent beasts would do as nature did.

Checking over my supplies showed I still had 4 water containers in my pack and that would hopefully last me the day, leaving water as a priority for the next day. I didn’t have any food on me so finding something I could eat needed to be a priority. I took a large branch from the fire that was burning brightly and started towards the back of the cave, knife in hand. With nothing coming out during the night I was fairly certain there was nothing left inside. I walked for about 50 feet before coming to the wall, I turned to follow it and found a well maintained tunnel.

Following the short tunnel I kept walking for a few dozen more feet and found a large rectangular structure, like a narrow table with a round orb on top of it. It didn’t look like anything I had ever seen before, I felt a strong pull to it like I did when the framework was trying to suggest something with the interface. I put my hand on the orb and felt a strange sensation flow through my hand and through my body, I tried to pull my hand back but it was stuck.

Congratulations! You have discovered - Old Mining Camp - This abandoned mine used to house a population of 500, due to this it was granted a town interface and guide. Old Mining Camp is currently unclaimed, would you like to claim it?

I gave a mental yes and my hand was released, I ripped my hand away cradling it to my body as notifications began to roll in.

Old Mining Camp is now active! You now have access to Town Interface! You have now access to Guide! Please see interface for instructions.

The interface began to glow a soft blue. I didn’t get a title for this, probably because everyone else had been in and around towns for the initialization, there were probably dozens of towns across Eter that had interfaces and guides. I placed my hand back on the interface and began to look through the menus that popped up. It felt like I had done some of this before, this was the influence of the framework, such a process should have been alien to me.

The mining camp was broken down to 5 rooms on the first level, there was a large holographic map that showed when I thought about it. There appeared to be many levels to the mine, everything below level 1 was barred by a door at the very end of the hall and marked as dangerous. The first level contained the entrance, a common room, foremans quarters, mess hall and crafting room. As excited as I was to read about the mess hall and crafting room I knew that this camp would have been abandoned for decades, no supplies were likely left.

I continued digging through the menus and found out the mine had a currency system that mainly used gold that could be used to buy upgrades to the mine. I currently had a stockpile of 500 gold, granted to me as a starting bonus for founding the camp. There were no upgrades listed, a message displayed saying that the mine needed to hit certain criteria to be upgraded. I saw a tab listed as focus and mentally brought it to the front.

You can now select a focus.

Focus’ Available:

-Forward base (Offensive oriented base camp) - Grants offensive perks

-Defensive bunker (Defensive oriented base camp) - Grants defensive perks

-Crafting hall (Crafting oriented town) - Grants crafting bonuses

-Trading hall (Trading oriented town) - Grants trading bonuses

I looked over the four choices, it seemed as if these could be upgraded as well in the future. Forward base didn’t sound appealing, I needed safety and supplies. Defensive bunker sounded nice as it would likely allow me to shore up the entrance and make it easier to defend. I was tempted to pick this and I desperately needed some safe shelter. Crafting hall sounded good as well, I needed supplies and I already had three crafting skills. Trading hall would have been nice if I had seen a single other human in weeks, with no one to trade with. What good would a trade hall be? I made the decision to go with the crafting hall, I figured I could craft defensive items and supplies, making it the best choice.

Focus selected - Crafting hall - Grants crafting bonuses, see crafting room for further details.

I wanted to keep digging through the town interface, I was fascinated by the options available, but I knew I needed to focus on finding food and water. I begrudgingly turned and walked back to the entrance of the cave, taking one last look at the town interface.

Town interface

Name - Level - Focus

Old Mining Camp

1

Crafting