"Bones, I need to meditate to heal, guard me!"

Bones gives me a nod and starts walking around me looking in all directions. I lay back and clear my mind and drop into my meditation, focusing on stopping the bleeding first. When I finally come out of meditation I am not sure how much time has passed, but a quick check shows my HP is back to full.

Standing up comes easily and a few stretches show that I am back to full strength. When I check myself over the only remaining sign of the fight is the gaping slash across the chest of the armor and a lot of dried blood. The blood is easily taken care of using the cleaning stone but the armor is not something I am going to be able to repair.

'Oh man, Walter is going to be pissed when he sees the armor!'

After making my way back to the clearing I stand looking at the body of the rex for a few minutes. Even dead it looks terrifying, enough that I almost wish I could take the body back intact and have it stuffed and mounted somewhere. Since that isn't possible I start looking for Blitz, I find it wedged deep in the mouth so it did actually hit the rex.

Blitz didn't do much damage from the looks of the mouth, the majority of the damage is to the neck, so this is Bones' kill. Although, I am happy that during the fight our teamwork and coordination improved quite a bit. As I kneel down and start the long process of skinning the rex I replay the battle in my mind looking for ways I could have done better.

*DING*

Congratulations! Skill Skinning has progressed to level 6!

Skinning

Level 6

Agi +6

You can skin well enough to preserve the hide.

For once I ignore the skill notification window as I continue going through the battle step by step in my mind. My worst mistake was getting caught off guard and almost eaten, other than that I mainly lack flexibility. A sword is probably the worst weapon for a fight like that, but I am limited to swords by the choices I have made.

The main problem with a sword is the lack of reach, Blitz is a long sword but I still could only attack the rex's legs. A ranged weapon would have worked much better, but even something with more reach would have made the fight much easier. Now that I think of it, I wonder if a naginata would count as a type of sword, after all it is a sword blade just on a pole.

When I get back I will have to have one made and see if I can use it, if so that would give me the reach I need for this type of fight. Although, I really hope I do not have to get into another fight like this anytime soon. What I really wish is that there was a way I could get my magic back, having spells would have made this fight easy.

Once I am finished removing the hide I scrape it clean and store it in my pouch, then I start butchering the rex. When I find the heart it is almost as big as I am, it is going to take days to eat all of it. Since I am fairly hungry I take a bite, and while it is chewy it is also fairly tasty so I keep eating as I work.

By how hungry I am I am guessing I was meditating for over a day, which isn't too surprising considering the amount of damage I took. The fact that meditating is my only way to heal is also a weakness I should work on. I need to find either healing potions or something like the first aid skill often found in games.

The best cuts of meat and the most useful bones go into my pouch first, and as I had feared the pouch is soon full. I really should talk to Roddick about getting more bags of holding made if it is even possible. For now I take a few of the smaller bones out of the pouch to make a little room for more Armatite.

The bones I pull out and those that wouldn't fit, I give all of them to Bones, he certainly earned it. As soon as I give him the okay he happily starts munching his way through the pile. Even though it might attract another predator I take out the pickaxe and start mining Armatite again.

Once the pouch is completely full I stop, I have gathered around two hundred pounds of Armatite by this point. There is still more but I am nervous about attracting another rex so I decide to not be greedy and just head back with what I have. Before heading back I decide to climb the tallest tree I can find and get a better look at the cavern.

While I was higher than this when the rex threw me I didn't exactly have the time for a good look around. I have come about fifteen miles from the tunnel and at this point the cavern looks to be about ten miles wide. Even from here I cannot see the far end of the cavern and as it stretches away from me it continues to get wider.

The thing that bothers me the most is I don't see any pillars anywhere, so to me it seems impossible for a cavern this large not to collapse. I am far from being a geologist or an engineer though, maybe someone with better knowledge could explain it to me. Thinking of that I should grab a sample of the crystal before I leave, maybe Roddick can tell me more about it.

To do that I am going to have to climb one of the cavern walls, and it would be a waste just to go back the same way I came. With that in mind I focus on the cavern walls and look for something to indicate which one would be better to explore. What I spot that intrigues me isn't on the wall but between me and the wall, I spot a long continuous break in the foliage.

If I haven't gotten completely turned around it is between me and the south wall, and a break like that should indicate a river. Or at least that is what I am hoping for, although I am curious where it goes since I didn't see or cross a river on my way here. So with that decided I climb back down and head south while munching on chunks of rex heart.

After about an hour of walking I find out I am right that it is a river, and it is flowing towards the west where I came into the cavern. When I bend down to wash off the blood on my hands from eating the heart I am surprised to find that the water is warm. Out of curiosity I take a mouthful and find that it has a very strong mineral taste before I spit it out.

If I had a vial or bottle that I could seal I would take back a sample for Roddick to analyze. It turns out that I am very ill equipped for this kind of exploration, but since I was hunting beasts that isn't a surprise. Maybe, if I end up coming back down here I will bring the proper tools and equipment to study this place properly.