First Permanent Settlement

Kyriaki spent only an hour searching for the right materials to build her smoking equipment. The wood was easy; many branches fit the requirements, but the vines were slightly more tedious. Kyriaki only spent ten minutes gathering the wood while it took her forty minutes to stumble upon a cluster of vines hanging from a nearby tree. Examining their thickness and durability, Kyriaki couldn't help but smile at her stroke of luck. With careful hands, she began to gather and intertwine the vines, fashioning them into a rudimentary rope.

"Now, we're getting somewhere," she muttered, with a sense of accomplishment. The makeshift rope, though not as robust as its modern counterparts, showed promise in holding her tripod and drying rack together.

When she returned to her base, she realised that her sword was getting blunt. "Shit. My sword is getting blunt. I guess hacking into wood was a little extreme. I should consider making stone tools and developing my craftsmanship skills. It should prove handy in the future." she grumbled. 

She gave her short sword a little rinse in the river to remove all impurities on the blade and once she wiped it with her lab coat, she returned it to its sheath on her waist. 

I don't know how to sharpen knives, let alone sharpen a short sword that's thirty-five centimetres long. I learned online that a large flat piece of coarse rock and water would be needed. Searching the river bank would be my best option then. 

Currently, it is around noon so there is plenty of time before dusk, but it doesn't mean that Kyriaki has all the time in the world. Around her camp, there are herds of large animals roaming the flat plateau—and that attracts predators. Luckily, the size of the plateau was limiting the arrival of extremely large herds of those animals due to the limited land and food available. 

However, predators were still present. The large animals that roam in herds supported this prediction of hers, as animals form herds to gain protection from predators, and yadda yadda yadda. You get the point. 

Thus, without a reliable weapon for the time being, Kyriaki needs to move with extra caution. Not to mention the death penalty she had to face if she died at the hands (paws) of that beast's species she faced before at her cave. 

Luckily, for the time being, all of the large herds and most likely their predators as well, are on the other side of the river. 

From what Kyriaki knows, the river that leads to the waterfall flows for a long distance (from her perspective) and it is also quite wide. She already knows the location of its thinnest and shallowest part, but for the remainder of the river, it is at least fifty metres wide (by estimates), with an unknown depth; likely more than two or three metres deep, and at its greatest extent, the width of the river might be over one hundred metres. 

She hasn't strayed too far from her current camp, so she wasn't able to determine the river's source. Nevertheless, with the river being that wide, it was (generally) going to be a real struggle for Kyriaki to cross it. And if Kyriaki would have a hard time crossing the river, then that would also apply to the animals that roam on the other side of the river. 

From her observations, the plateau's edge leads to the bottom of a valley before rising back up. It seems that the cliffs of the two sides are not too steep and allow animals to climb them without much difficulty. The terrain on the plateau on the other side is the same flat, rolling plains, with mountains in the distance. 

On her side of the river though, there wasn't much to it. The flat land was much smaller as it soon transitioned into a dense forest with a humid climate (relative to the area surrounding the forest), making travelling across it a challenge for unintelligent, bulky animals such as the ones who roam on the other side of the river. 

The lack of food for those animals was also apparent, only making her side of the river less appealing. But that works in her favour. She doesn't have to worry about the constant threat of animals or beasts attacking her base, so no protection precautions are needed either. 

However, that doesn't mean protective measures are useless. Traps like a pitfall should be effective for a lone beast, though it would take quite a bit of time in order to make. Depending on how large Kyriaki wants to make the trap, it would at least take a week to finish digging the hole. 

"Now I think about it... isn't this place one of the best possible locations I could ask for?" Kyriaki realised. 

She was right. This place was one of the best areas to create a settlement. There's a freshwater source nearby, a forest that contains all kinds of useful resources like timber, fruits, fungi and 'deer', a nice natural protective barrier (the river) for beasts and large four-legged animals or large creatures in general, all in one place. 

The climate of the area is like a savanna, not too hot, not too cold and it doesn't rain too heavily as well, meaning any makeshift hut should do the trick and be able to withstand the rain or wind. 

"But... the river might overflow once it starts raining heavily during future wet seasons. I might currently be in the dry season, and that's December to April. Alright. Once I finish up the rack for the jerky, I gotta start planning to make a hut to call home, and then I'll have to prepare for the wet season." 

Kyriaki nodded her head and sprang into action. She took the vines she had collected and cut them down to her desired length of around thirty centimetres, then tied two pieces of wood together before adding a third piece of wood, eventually forming a triangular shape. 

Her thin and nimble hands were suited to this type of craftsmanship, so there wasn't much trouble when creating the tripod for the jerky. Once Kyriaki had tested the durability of the tripod and confirmed that it was strong enough to hold on its own, she then moved onto the drying rack. 

She used the thinner and smaller pieces of wood to create the drying rack while she used the remainder of the thicker, sturdier pieces for the framework. It was a five-by-three (five sticks vertical, three horizontal) grid, with a three-centimetre square gap between each row. 

Sliding the drying rack to the base of the tripod and then raising it up until it perfectly fits, Kyriaki tied up the corners of the drying rack to the tripod with the remainder of the vines she had left. 

The drying rack tripod was finished. Now all Kyriaki had to do was gather some wet firewood for the smoke and slice the meat into thin strips. 

"It hasn't rained so I doubt there would be any wet logs in the forest, so I've to create it myself. Leaving them in the river for thirty minutes or so should be enough." she said to herself. 

Kyriaki grabbed the finished tripod and placed it over her campfire. The base of the tripod was outside of the containment ring made out of rocks so it shouldn't catch on fire anytime soon, and the rest of the tripod is at a level high enough that it also shouldn't catch on fire.