Paul's moccasin-covered feet beat a quick rhythm on the tunnel floor as he dashed through the tunnels. Despite his [Long Distance Running], he panted as he hastened back up the steep winding passageways toward the tunnel where he had awoken after every one of his many deaths.

He chastised himself with each breath, muttering insults and invectives between gasps for air.

How could I have not noticed this? How stupid have I been? God, Paul, it's a mystery how you've survived this long being this fucking dumb.

He thought he heard a reproachful chirrup from Seymore and smacked the side of his head.

Dumb and going fucking insane. A perfect combination.

The interruption to his self-recrimination did remind him that he had decided to stop feeling sorry for himself, so he concentrated on un-tensing his shoulders as he ran, letting the negative feelings escape with each exhalation.

What's done is done; you can only move forward.

He raced upwards because the mental map he held in his brain with [Pathfinding] had reminded him of a pattern in the stone of the room where Paul seemed destined to wake up every time he died. He had thought it was just a seam in the rock, a whorling vein of darker material in the jumbled granite.

But I never really examined it, did I?

Paul had spent plenty of time in that tunnel - in his first few terrifying days in the caves, he had spent hours there just building the courage to continue. His [Darkvision] gave him a decent understanding of its geography, and once Paul learned to harness light, he could eke out more detail. Still, even then, he had never stopped to investigate whether the particular tunnel he appeared in had any importance.

Now, he had reason to believe that it held vital information he had overlooked since he had arrived in the caverns. And while he knew there was no real reason to hurry, he had to know what that was.

Paul's frenzied run finally brought him to the tunnel, and he skidded to a stop, the soles of his moccasins growing warm with the friction as they slid across the stone floor. Now that he was at his destination, he hesitated, afraid that he had been mistaken. He stood in front of the tunnel wall, the spiral pattern in the rock barely discernable in front of him.

Maybe it is only a natural pattern in the granite. Only one way to find out.

Paul guided an orb of light above his shoulder, then pumped it with intent. In a moment, the sphere glowed flashlight-bright. Paul squinted, eyes stinging from the unaccustomed brightness, then inhaled sharply as his pupils adjusted and the white light revealed a map carved into the wall.

The mental images of the caverns from [Pathfinding] were immediately recognizable, matching the chiseled stone. The map was expansive, and Paul had to take a step back to take it all in, the representation of the labyrinthian caverns he now called home stretching a dozen meters over the cave wall.

It wasn't to scale and was missing most of the twisting caverns, but a few key landmarks stood out. A strange symbol reminiscent of the script in the portal room marked the tunnel where Paul now stood. Further on, a stylized waterfall denoted Paul's home cavern. Other drawings indicated other sources of fresh water - some of which Paul had found and others in caves that Paul had yet to explore. A few times, the map showed passageways now blocked by rockslides or cave-ins.

Not all of the map had been carved into the rock. Instead, some of it seemed painted with red or white pigment, while other tunnel systems and symbols were drawn in what appeared to be charcoal.

How many others have come this way before, adding their own details to this map?

Following the myriad paths up across the cave wall, Paul found a drawing of a stylized triangular head with two sets of eyes - one set large and the other small - that he deduced must refer to the Mantis trolls. The Mantis-Head drawing sat squarely in the middle of a representation of an enormous cavern that dwarfed anything that Paul had encountered in his explorations.

Was this where they lived?

Paul's breath caught as his eyes caught a passageway on the map leading from the Mantis Troll cavern, which terminated in what looked like a tunnel entrance to his eyes. Excitement welled up in his chest.

I finally have a way out - and it's been in front of me all along.

---

Paul spent another hour studying the carvings and drawings, committing their details to memory, leaning on [An Eye for Detail] to populate his mental map. Now that Paul's light orb fully illuminated the room, there were other details he had missed on his previous visits, more signs that others had come before him. Stone worn smooth, leading off in the direction of the archway. Words - maybe names? - written in what looked to be a dozen different languages and scripts. Paul tried to discern some meaning from them but ultimately concluded that the scribblings were graffiti written in a hundred different hands.

The thought that others had once traveled the same caves as he did now was comforting and worrisome to Paul. On the one hand, it felt a little less alone knowing that others once tread these same grounds. But, on the other, Paul wondered if the others who had braved these tunnels before him would have been friendly or, like the aliens on Trappist, they would have killed all they encountered.

Regardless, he now had a destination in mind. Focusing on the pictogram of the cave's exit, Paul felt excitement bubbling up inside his chest.

It's time to get out of these caves.

----

Paul forced himself to be methodical in his preparations for all his excitement.

Bit by bit, he broke down his home. Tanning fluids were transported to the nearest deep crevasse and dumped. Hides, wool, and the makings of arrows and javelins were buried and hidden if incomplete, while those that would only take a few days of work were finished.

Dismantling his home and finishing all the projects he could took nearly a week's work. It was bittersweet for Paul, and he found himself reminiscing as each piece of equipment was taken apart and stowed away, but the promise of an escape from the caves kept his progress steady.

Some of his infrastructure - the sturdier bits that would not fall into uselessness at the first gnawing of a death-rat - he left standing. His kiln and firepit, along with his most successful pots, the makeshift coldbox, and other camping supplies he left neatly organized. He even stowed some extra bedding and other stores under a cairn of rocks. Paul felt that whoever found the cavern next should have an easier first few nights than he did.

He could have gone faster, but Paul had resolved not to return and did not know what resources would be available outside the caves or what biome he would find himself in. As a result, he packed everything he thought he might need and then a bit more.

Into his bone-frame bag went pemmican, salted meat, and the little bits of civilization he could eke out of the caves. Two precious pots of soap, scented by a type of moss he found that reminded him of mint when crushed, and one of oil. A thick spindle of spun Cave Musk-Ox Qiviut. A clay cup, bowl, and carefully whittled spoon, packed in thick furs so as not to break. Extra buckskins and sleeping furs were piled on top of the bag. A large bladder of water made from the stomach of the largest Cave Musk-Ox he had found, along with several water skins, dangled from the back.

On the sides hung his un-strung bow, extra strings inside the pack, and two braces of javelins. Arrows bristled from a hip quiver, and his vest and pants held loops and pockets for a small arsenal of bone-shivs, claw-knifes, and knapped obsidian blades. Two extra spear shafts he strapped diagonally across his pack, several spare leaf-shaped obsidian spearheads wrapped carefully in leather in his pack if he needed replacements. Finally, Paul's everpresent jawbone warclubs strapped to his belt completed his load.

Paul knew he probably cut a comical figure, pack bursting with gear and weapons strapped, sheathed, or hung from every part of his body, but he shouldered the pack easily. Just a few short months ago, he knew he would have struggled to lift it, but now it felt substantial but easy enough to manage, especially when strapped tightly across his hips and chest.

Paul strode to the cavern exit that would take him to the warren of tunnels eventually leading up toward the Mantis Trolls and, he hoped, his escape. He turned back, one last time, to look at his home for these past few months.

It was still as beautiful to him as when he first saw it, the soft glow of the shelf fungus reflecting off the pool, the soothing musical splash of water on rocks from the spring - the same sound that had drawn him to here in the first place, a rainbow of different minerals stirated in the cavern walls like a rainbow that melted and rehardened. Yet, as glad as he was to leave this place, he found himself wiping his eyes.

Sighing, he turned to the exit and took one step but froze before he took a second.

Above the gurgle of the running water, he heard voices.