Paul woke with a start, almost falling from the shelf-fungus that served as his bed.

He had let go of his rock sometime during his sleep, and snatched it back up again, adrenaline pushing away his drowsiness as he scanned the cavern for whatever had woken him up. A scuffling noise directed his attention to his right, and he froze as he saw the light from the phosphorescent grove reflect off scores of eyes emerging from the darkness of one of the tunnels that dotted the edge of the cavern.

He considered his options.

If I run to a tunnel, they'll see me. Or at least I think they will; I don't know how good death-rat vision is. If I try to hide in the burrow to mask my scent, same scenario. If there were just one or two, I'd probably try to fight them off here, but there have to be twenty of those fuckers.

He decided that none of his options were good. He was about to settle for the least bad one, which he determined was "running for his life", when the creatures emerged from the tunnel. Paul blinked. They were still too far away for him to get a good look at them, but he was almost certain that they weren't the death-rats that made his life so unpleasant thus far.

They looked shaggier, with a dark brown coat that seemed to brush the cavern floor rather than the short, bristly black fur that the rats presented. Their gait was shambling and deliberate, instead of the slinking gait of the rats. They also moved in a tight group, all of them trundling across the cavern in a large mass of bodies.

They move in a group; it's probably just a herd of herbivores.

Paul let himself relax for a moment.

Wait. Some predators move in groups too. Wolves.Mongoose. Lions. Killer Whales. You’re an idiot.

Still, they didn't look like predators. As moved closer to the pool, Paul noticed what appeared to be blunted snouts and large curled horns that wrapped around their heads. In fact, they looked a little like Earth Muskox to him.

Well, they would if Muskox had four eyes. And if their feet were twice as large. And if they had long, hairless tails. And if they... Paul shrugged. Close enough. Cave Muskox it is.

Paul remained quiet and still on the shelf as they drew closer to the mushroom grove, still gripping his rock. As they drew near, he noticed what looked like smaller Cave Muskox in the middle of the herd, protected by adults on the outside.

The closer they got, the more Paul was convinced that these weren't predators. They were still big though, with the most massive adults standing as tall as Paul at the shoulder. Reaching the edge of the mushroom and lichen grove, the Cave Muskox spread out, stopping to take occasional bites of mushroom and moss before ambling on toward the pool.

He tensed up again as the herd approached the pool. Sitting on top of the shelf-fungus, Paul was perched around 15 feet above the surface of the water, and some of the Cave Muskox passed directly beneath him.

Paul prepared to run when one of the adults noticed him, looking straight at him and producing a loud braying call. Several other adults turned and looked at him as well, echoing the sound. After a staring contest of about a minute, however, the first adult shook its shaggy head and turned its attention back to the pool. The rest of the Cave Muskox followed suit.

Paul allowed himself to relax for the first time since waking, only to find that he really, really hurt as the adrenaline wore off. His back ached after crouching over the rat carcass for hours, and his fingers blistered where he had gripped the rat claw that he had used as a knife. There was a twinge in his shoulder as well, probably from bashing a rock down on the rat’s head repeatedly. After dying four times, however, he could deal with some aches and pains. He stretched his aching muscles as he continued to watch the lumbering beasts beneath him.

They approached the pool in pairs, one of the creatures splashing its enormous cloven hoof into edge the pond to attract the flesh-hungry fish, while the second took a hasty sip. They would then reverse this process, trading roles until they drank their fill. Some of the fish latched onto the hooves but soon detached, probably finding that keratin wasn't very tasty.

Paul kept observing them for an hour, mentally noting which types of mushrooms they ate, and which they avoided. One of the species of fungi that several were gnawing on was the same one that Paul noticed the small vole eating earlier, and he resolved that it would be the first type that he would try to eat once his rat meat ran out.

Occasionally a small group would approach a limestone outcropping at the cavern's edge, nuzzling at the rock.

Must be a salt-lick. He resolved to investigate it later.

He considered hunting them. They sported thick fur, which could come in handy, and he knew he could find a use for their prominent horns.

They probably taste a lot better than rat, too.

They traveled in groups though, and while Paul was certain he could probably kill one of the juvenile Cave Muskox, they moved as a herd, and the adults out-massed him by several times. He didn't fancy his chances facing down a charge from even one of them.

He would have been content to continue watching the herd, but he was getting antsy sitting in one place for so long and was getting thirsty as well. Plus, he needed to pee.

Dropping gently from his perch on to the shelf-fungi below, Paul slowly descended to the pool. The Cave Muskox brayed at him again, but he was on the other side of the pond from where the herd was drinking, and after a few tense moments they went back to ignoring him. Paul drank deeply from the stream, then set off to relieve himself. He didn't go far before ducking behind a stalagmite.

What, you're suddenly shy now? Can't take a piss in front of some hairy cave cows?

Paul laughed at himself. It's not like the Cave Muskox were going to arrest him for indecent exposure.

Well, they might. They may be prudish Cave Muskox.

Having the herd in the cavern made Paul feel safer than he had since he woke up in the cave system for the first time. The fact that they seemed to survive the dangers of the caves meant that they could probably protect themselves from the Death Rats, so Paul planned to lead any would-be predator that he found to the Cave Muskox.

He was still afraid to approach the other tunnel entrances, but noticed as he walked a circuit of the cavern that some of the tunnels had their own light sources, with the same soft glow as the shelf-fungus around the pond. Did the phosphorescent shelf fungus grow in other areas too? He supposed that would make sense; it would be strange for them only to thrive in one place. Was the lack of water in the tunnel preventing them from growing there?

After searching for about an hour, he finally found what he was looking for. A broad, flat stone over a foot wide but only a few inches thick. Heaving it on to his shoulder, Paul returned to the pool, once again engaging in an awkward stand-off with the Cave Muskox before grabbing the jawbone and femur from the rat that he had killed and leaned back against one of shelf fungus. Sitting cross-legged, the flat stone between his legs, Paul scraped the bone across the rock, grinding away bone with every stroke. The Cave Muskox didn't seem happy with the noise, but after a few moments of annoyance, they went back to eating mushrooms.

As he sat and worked at the femur, it was time that he tried to figure out what exactly these unsettling messages meant that sometimes flashed across his consciousness.

[Night-vision] was self-explanatory, letting him see in the dark, but how did it work? Were Paul's eyes physically changed? They didn't look any different when he caught a reflection of himself in the pool. And if his eyes weren't physically changing, then what explained the ability?

The [Survival] skill was even more baffling for Paul. Not only did it allow him to skin and butcher the rat, but he also knew more about how to use different parts of the animal than he should. Not only that, but if he thought about it, he could build a fire from scratch, set simple snares and perform a half-dozen other survival-related tasks.

Where did that knowledge come from? How do I know how to do these things when I never remember learning them?

There were other skills as well, like [Silent Movement], [Pain Tolerance] and [Fear Management]. Ironically, it was one of the skills he found most useful, [Fear Management], that scared him the most. Would these skills change his personality? How deeply were they messing with his mind?

Then there were a host of combat-oriented skills. [Bash], [Hand to Hand Combat], [Kick], [Vital Strike] and [Dodge]. Did these skills over-ride his brain's instructions to his limbs on how to move, or did they change the way his brain communicated to his limbs? Maybe both?

And what caused the messages to appear? There certainly seemed to be a connection between Paul performing an action and receiving one of the skills. But what exactly triggered them, and was there a connection between them?

There were a lot of unknowns. Paul resolved to try and find an answer to some of these questions. Doing so could be his only chance of staying alive.

With a good deal of bone shaved away from the head of the femur he was grinding against the stone between his legs, Paul now focused on scraping the end to a point. Careful stroke after careful stroke.

*New Skill Gained: Tool-making - Primitive*

"Yah!" Paul shouted in surprise at the message that flashed inside his mind, dropping the femur with a clatter. The Cave Muskox backed away from him and brayed angrily before returning to their grazing.

I've been working on this thing for over an hour, why did I get the skill just then? Is it because I was paying more attention to it?

Paul thought back to all the times he had received a skill, or a rank up in one. Every time it was when he was trying to perform a specific action, concentrating on a particular outcome.

Well, it's a working theory at least.

He turned back to the femur, concentrating on his task and the desired outcome - a long bone-shiv that would allow him to stab at attackers. Having a bone to shove between a death-rats jaws sure sounded a lot better than using his arm again as well.

He noticed the impact of the new skill immediately. His strokes became more precise, he understood how finely he could work the point before it became too thin and brittle, and he could hold the picture of what he wanted to create in his mind more clearly. He worked at it for the next hour, with no gain in skill. There goes that theory. Paul sighed, and set himself back to his task. He was almost done with the femur when he received another message.

*Tool-Making - Primitive has reached level 2*

Maybe it gets harder to increase each level?

He still wasn't sure how any of this worked, but for now, he'd stick with that explanation.

He hoped he would receive some type of skill from the femur before this next project, because what he wanted to do with the jawbone was much more complicated.

While Paul had grown very fond of his rock, it was limited in its uses in defense. Great for bashing something in the head, not so for anything else. He remembered reading about ancient civilizations on earth using the jawbones of animals as a weapon, and when he first saw the hulking, oversize jawbone of the rat he had killed when he was butchering it, he knew what he wanted to make.

Making a jawbone war club was a trickier proposition than the bone shiv. Not only did the thick end of the bone that had connected to the jaw muscles need to be sharpened to a sharp striking surface, but he would need to shape the thinner part of the jaw that held the teeth into a handle. Too thick, and he wouldn’t be able to grip it securely. Too fine and the jawbone would snap when he tried to use it.

The second level in [Tool Making - Primitive] guided Paul's hands. Just two hours ago when he began grinding the femur across the stone he was hesitant and unsure of himself, now his strokes with the jawbone were confident, assured, and the war club soon took shape. He was disappointed that he didn't gain another level in the skill, but making the jaw-bone war club felt... easy. He wondered if an action needed to be a challenge for him to rank up in a skill.

He held the shiv in his left hand and the war-club in his right, making some practice swings with each weapon. He felt strong. Powerful. Unstoppable.

Well, I would be if my twig and berries weren't flopping about.

It was a hard to feel like a badass when you were naked and a little cold.

Paul reordered his mental checklist.

I need some pants.

For those having a difficult visualizing these two bone tools, here's an example of a bone knife and a jaw-bone warclub. Paul's wouldn't have the decoration, or course, and any teeth still attached would be larger and sharper.