The drill dug in, its bits shattering the hard ore and sinking in further with only a small amount of force. After it was fully buried though, I found that I could not push the drill in further, but it continued to spin and more ore continued to speed around its grooves. I stared more intensely with my erg sight and saw, to my surprise, that the deposit was slowly decreasing in size as I continued to dig.

I pulled back, withdrawing the drill and a system message immediately appeared.

Mining 1 1->12

I think I knew where my answers would be, and I pulled up the help menu for the Mining 1 skill.

SKILL: MINING 1

Allows the mining of surface level deposits no greater than Tier 2 in quality. Rate of mining increases based on quality of mining tools and level of mining skill. Ergonic materials mined are delivered directly into user’s Inventory.

Tiers up into Mining 2 at level 100.

leaving this note in record of my achievement of cracking into this database entry; find me sparrows, if you dare

I was starting to get a bit blase towards these weird notes, though I couldn’t help but try to parse the meaning behind this one. Ultimately, though, there was nothing to draw out except for pure conjecture, as seemed to be the case far too often. Perhaps, eventually, the little pieces would start to make sense, start to coalesce into a greater whole.

For now, though, I had work to do.

Inventory.

INVENTORY

Tier 1 Battle Harness (equipped)

Tier 1 War Drill (equipped)

Tier 1 Ore x12

Focus Crystal x1

I considered my options. First, I could continue working this deposit for as long as I could. This would take quite a while judging from the rate of extraction so far and the amount remaining, I probably could mine it for days at my current rate, especially since it seems that the mining skill pulled material from the bottom rather than from the top. If I had to build an actual mine, this whole process would take an awful lot longer.

Second, I could go and try to finish my quest. I had enough materials to build the condenser now, and getting access to another facility would prove quite illuminating. Still, leaving all of these resources untapped left me with a sense of anxiety over what might happen while I was away.

Third, I could go exploring. There had to be more nodes like this around, and I could even start some logging, maybe even search out some basic seeds to start up a farm. I discarded this idea fairly quickly, I had no idea what sort of monsters had spawned into that forest, and I didn’t have a pressing need for any of those resources.

Except for that gnawing hole in my stomach, but I could ignore that for the time being. Hopefully.

I would need to find water sooner rather than later, though. I could go without food for a while, but water was much more important and much more pressing. Suddenly, I remembered my belongings that I had left in my car. They would prove invaluable for the process of survival, and also for helping to keep my hygiene up. Yet, I couldn’t quite remember which direction my car was in, and I didn’t have any way to carry lots of supplies at once.

I added finding a source of fresh water to my to-do list when it came to exploring, along with “find my car.” These additions did raise option three a bit higher, but ultimately I decided that there was only one real option available.

I returned to the lobby of the factory and found a seat on the floor, back against a wall. My instincts told me that I’d probably be busy with this for a while, even as they whispered what I needed to do to begin. All I needed to do was figure out the magic word.

Internal processor.

My brain fuzzed as the command failed to achieve an effect. I frowned for a moment, considering my options before realizing that I was going too complex.

Crafting.

Recipe Materials Facility Refinement T1 Metal Ingot T1 Ore x2 Smelter or IP T1 Planks T1 Lumber x2 Sawmill or IP Farming Seeds [Vegetable] x2 IP Joiners Hinge Joiner Metal Ingot x1 Forge or IP Pipe Joiner Metal Ingot x1 Forge or IP Screw Joiner Metal Ingot x1 Forge or IP Foundational Facilities Wall x10 Metal Ingot x1, Screw Joiner x1 Assembler or IP Floor x10 Metal Ingot x1, Pipe Joiner x1 Assembler or IP Farm Plot Plank x1, Seeds x1 IP Lounge Plank x5, Metal Ingot x5, Pipe Joiner x2, Screw Joiner x2, Hinge Joiner x2 Assembler or IP Smelter Metal Ingot x8, Pipe Joiner x6, Screw Joiner x2 Assembler or IP Sawmill Plank x8, Metal Ingot x2, Pipe Joiner x2, Screw Joiner x2, Hinge Joiner x8 Assembler or IP Forge Plank x2, Metal Ingot x8, Pipe Joiner x2, Screw Joiner x6, Hinge Joiner x2 Assembler or IP Assembler Plank x6, Metal Ingot x10, Pipe Joiner x8, Screw Joiner x4, Hinge Joiner x8 Assembler or IP Ergon Condenser Metal Ingot x2, Pipe Joiner x4, Focus Crystal x1 Assembler or IP Filters Show Only Have Skill Level Y Show Only Have Material N

I concentrated for a moment on the filter by skill level and turned it off. The list of potential craftable items expanded beyond my ability to parse them all, causing me to shut my eyes firmly. I sent out a firm thought to restore the filter and felt a pressure escape from my forehead, allowing me to breath out a sigh of relief.

First things first, I need to make some ingots. I scrolled back to that option and gave it a mental click, followed by another five, causing a queue to appear off in another screen to the side, showing the progress. A timer also joined that queue, showing that it would take approximately five minutes per ingot, which gave me half an hour to go and get some more ore. While I had just enough to make the ergon condenser, being able to make some walls would be incredibly useful.

If I could secure even just the crater itself, I’d be able to create an area where I could safely gather from that ore deposit until it dried up, as well as set up a farming area. I’d still need to worry about getting water, but I could theoretically set up an irrigation channel from whatever water source I could find in the surroundings, making a little fort for me to test and develop my abilities, and create what I needed to be able to expand properly.

I shifted the queue screen off to the side, so that I could glance at it out of the corner of my eye without it dominating my view and headed back to the ore deposit. While I knew that I would need some wood eventually, that was a lower priority in my mind, even below finding my car. That said, I was very curious what a lounge was like.

My attention was soon diverted when I spotted the corpse of the beast. I had tried to keep the thing out of sight and out of mind, but it was there on my path back to the deposit, but it was not alone. A small flock of massive corvids crouched over it, pecking at the flesh and snapping up bits. The birds were at least three feet tall, with dark feathers, black with shades of purple. One of them turned to look in my direction, revealing that it had a series of eyes running backwards and upwards along its skull. It let out a warning caw, then returned to its meal.

Content to leave them to it, I took a wide circle to avoid their feast while continuing my route forward. Eventually, I returned to the ore deposit and set to work while watching the queue tick down. As more ore entered my inventory, I set more of it into the queue, losing myself into the process of mining. The work was simple enough that it didn’t require my active thinking, allowing my thoughts to drift, heading towards things that I hadn’t wanted to consider before.

The system had been around for multiple previous iterations. That there had been chosen in a previous iteration following paths created by people in an iteration before that proved that notion. Yet there was no sign of any of these previous iterations being intact. The Drake equation suggested that the galaxy should have enough intelligent life that we’d have seen some sign of them by now, but if they had been killed off at some point, an idea known as the Great Filter, then that would explain their absence.

What if the system was the Great Filter? What if every iteration of the system led to extinction? It would make some of the more depressed notes make sense, though the process of that extinction remained obfuscated. The notes related to my path seemed to point towards some kind of plan, and perhaps that plan was merely some kind of recording, or some way of extending life in the face of this great death that was coming, but it felt more significant than that. I’d have to proceed further to know for sure, but I felt that what I had been chosen for was larger than I could fully grasp.

That notion terrified me. I was not a strong person, I was not someone who could lift this weight. They should have chosen someone better, someone smarter, someone with a better work ethic, someone who hadn’t crumbled under the first sign of pressure at every opportunity in the past. Sam would be laughing now, I knew it, looking at me in this position, knowing that I shouldn’t be here, that I was going to doom us all.

I could barely even kill a simple beast, and I absolutely couldn’t bear to look at the horrible wound that I had inflicted. I was so weak, so pathetic. Maybe if I wasn’t around any more, the path would pass onto someone else.

No.

There wasn’t any proof or indication of that. I had to bear this burden because no one else could, even if I failed at every step, all I could do was keep going forward.

I gritted my teeth and pulled away from the work of the mining, checking my inventory once again.

INVENTORY

Tier 1 Battle Harness (equipped)

Tier 1 War Drill (equipped)

Tier 1 Ore x40

Tier 1 Metal Ingot x10

Focus Crystal x1

Mining 1 12->30

Okay, maybe I had been working for longer than I had planned.