Finding A Cave

I knew that I didn't have much time, so I grabbed the ax and sprinted after them. And although I would have certainly just thrown the ax at the puma again, since I was behind it, there was a small chance that I could be able to kill it, meaning that I would have to stop to pick up the ax and lose time that I couldn't afford to waste.

Instead, I just followed right behind, trying my best to catch up to the puma to get a clear shot for its head. Still, if I had to, I was more than willing to hit it if it would buy Fransisco sometime. As for how I could keep up with the puma in the first place, it was because Fransisco was randomly changing the direction; he was running in almost on impulse, making it so that the puma couldn't run at its full potential.

After a while, I was beginning to get tired and felt like I wouldn't be able to go on for much longer, thankfully though, the puma seemed to be feeling the same way, and before I collapsed, it beat me to it and slipped up falling to the ground giving me a perfect shot at its neck and also an adrenaline rush that gave me the strength to almost hopping its head entirely off in a single hit.

As soon as it stopped moving, both Fransisco and me just sort of collapsed with him falling on the floor while I could hold on to a tree not to fall. I had no idea how long we had been running for, but I did know that I was way more tired than I had ever been before, so it must have at the very least been a good hour or two.

And as much as I wanted just to relax and try to catch my breath, it would only be a bad thing if Fransisco ended up fainting from overexertion, so I pulled him up and then began to catch my breath, the worst thing somebody could do after running was laying down as it would basically just cause for their legs and body to just shut down.

From what I could see though, it was clear that he was really dizzy and that he wouldn't be able to make it back to the settlement, so I just made him hold on to a tree while I climbed up said tree with the little strength I had gained back to find where the river was and set off in that direction.

Once I made my way up to the tree though, the first thing I was met with was a hill that was apparently right in front of us; that wasn't what caught my eye though, as from the little that I could see of the base I was able to see what looked like gray rock and an opening.

I imminently became ecstatic as finally finding a cave meant that there was the possibility for me to turn it into a mine in the future. I still had to calm myself down though, as I still had to find the river, and after looking around, I could barely see a small strip of water in the distance that was only visible because of all of the empty space in front of it.

Finally, having secured the location of the river, I came back down slightly more energized than before to see a half-asleep Fransisco almost dozing off, holding on to the tree more like he was hugging it rather than trying to use it for support.

I knew that there was no way that he would be able to make it back to the new settlement on his own. Even if I helped give him support, he would probably just fall asleep, so I just got into the piggyback position and put him on top of me, making sure he would hold on to my neck.

And as much as I cared for his wellbeing, if I was frank the entire way back to the settlement, my back was killing me since I had to stay leaning forward the entire time. And there might have been multiple points where I considered just waking him up by force and make him walk the entire way back with me, but eventually, we made it back to the new settlement.

As soon as I arrived there though, I noticed that everyone else was gone, but the boats were still there, so I knew they had decided to look for us. So, hoping that they hadn't strayed too far off, I released the loudest shout I possibly could while saying the words 'GET BACK HERE IMMEDIATELY.'

Thankfully, it seemed that they had recognized my voice because all of them had come back in just a matter of minutes. As for Fransisco, although he was almost scared to death when my shout waked him up, he eventually calmed down when he saw that we were back at the new settlement.

Once we all gathered up, we made our way back to the settlement under the now orange sky. Although I didn't have my pocket watch on me, I was pretty sure that it was around 6:30 to 6:45-ish; regardless, I was so tired that I would probably have gone to sleep as soon as we arrived at the settlement no matter what time it was.

While we were still on the boats, I began to think back to the cave we found and became excited at the prospect of finally being able to get my hands on copper for the first time since it would pave the way for me to begin making the more important breakthroughs and finally be able to make things like furnaces and better tools.

For now though, I set my sights on establishing a mine in the cave in the first place, as long as it did truly have copper of course, as it was still possible for it to be a relatively small cave that holds none of it. Regardless it was worth the shot. Especially since a new settlement was being built so close to it.