Hello! I'm brand new to The Forest (only have played it for the last three days), so I'm completely clueless to a lot of aspects of the game. I've tried Googling some things, but a lot of the content that comes up is outdated, so I'm not sure if it's reliable. I ran through the pages here, and learned some things, but not 100% sure on my specific topic. I'm going to crit you with a wall of text for reference. Tl;dr at the bottom.

I'm about 45 in game days into the game, and I dun goofed. For starters, I have built my main fortress around what appears to be one of their prayer trees? Had no idea they worshiped these things. I'm also near two of their villages, a cave, and two patrol routes. It's literally the worst. But it's pretty, and I have a 3 level high stone wall surrounding the premises. Also, until today, I had been relatively left alone.

I've mostly been building the camp up, but I also stream, so I try to reserve more entertaining activities like exploring caves and the rest of the island for that. Today, the chat wanted me to go cave diving, so I left first thing in the morning and decided to take the rope down the nearest cave to me (VERY DEEP BTW) and see what I could find.

I encountered two sleeping cannibals (snoring very loudly), and snuck past them to one end of the cave and found a few supplies. Came back around and saw another path, so I decided to axe them. Easily dispatched them in one hit while they were asleep - and killing one didn't seem to wake the other, thankfully. Also learned: Apparently cannibals actually sleep.

Traveling down the new path, just a short ways, lo and behold: I encountered an Armsy (affectionately titled: ohshitbeast). It was just patting around in a circle around the cavern. I was encouraged to try and take it down, as much as I wanted to turn tail and head back to my safe camp.

I tried throwing a molotov at it, but I wasn't able to light the thing (someone said you can't in caves? Idk, holding the lighter button wouldn't light the cloth. Maybe a glitch?). I accidentally threw it unlit (I'm still practicing with this weapon), and hit it in the rear. It turned around and slashed around wildly, but couldn't seem to find me. It just kept rampaging around and swiping the air, but never actually located me until I kept hitting it with my ax, where it eventually dispatched me.

I was dragged and hung up Luke Skywalker style and cut myself down. I climbed out of the cave and hauled butt back to my camp, and all was happy...for a time.

The next morning - the attack came. I was outside collecting lizard skins to beef up my armor when I heard the shriek of a slop baby (idk what it's actually called). Eyes wide, I looked around to find the location, but couldn't see it. After a few seconds...the sound of thumping and a horrific roar broke out across the land. The f'n Armsy was LOOKING FOR ME. I ran inside to hide, and it slammed around my walls a bit, and eventually left. The next day, it came back.

I was actually able to easily dispatch it, the three babies, and the three normies it brought with it by use of my bow and arrow and a platform I had built inside the stone walls. The walls were only two layers high at the time, and only one of them were able to jump over- none of them could break it otherwise (after that, I built it three layers high, nope).

Every day since that attack, an Armsy has returned with a small raiding party. I killed them about three times before I decided..maybe I should leave the camp for a bit. I'm not 100% sure how the AI is yet in this game.

So I retreated to my plane treehouse base. Someone told me the treehouse was 100% safe (LIARS), so I figured at best - I could stock up on supplies from the plane, spend a few nights in the treehouse, and then come back to the main base and see how things went. I had only spent one night in the treehouse so far, so I figured maybe it wasn't as obvious that it was one of my bases to the cannibals.

The very next morning after the attack, I got to the plane and rummaged around the area, then went up to my base to save. I climbed back down the rope, and went to examine the back section of the plane where I saw some pitched tents (wtf, thought there weren't any survivors), when suddenly, a horrific roar and the stomping feet again. WTF. I high tailed it back to my treehouse and hid inside, but they already knew I was inside. The Armsy knocked my tree down effortlessly, and I hit the ground. Luckily I didn't seem to take any fall damage, and I just ran nonstop (thank you, soda) to my main base (at least that's safe), and slammed the door. Maybe three minutes later - he was at my wall.

So my question is this - am I screwed? It doesn't seem I can go anywhere without him showing up. I would make an entirely new base, but I'm worried I won't be able to build it before the attack comes (it was barely a few minutes into the morning each time he attacks). I would like to resolve this without having to use any codes, if possible. I would just stay camped at my main base, since it seems pretty safe, but after reading this Reddit, I discovered there is a fourth mutant I haven't seen yet (cowman) which can apparently bust through my seemingly safe stone walls. I don't want that to happen, if they decide the single Armsy isn't enough lol.

Other things that may or may not be important:

• Haven't really killed THAT many cannibals - usually just whenever they attack me

• Did kill some in their village once by accident, because they showed up while I was looking around

• Have only knocked down a handful of their effigies in their villages

• Have only been in caves twice (I know, I'm a wuss). The first time I heard, but didn't see an Armsy, the second time, I attacked it on a dare

• After the first cave attempt, I saw an Armsy with a large tail of pale cannibals and a spidernope patting through the trails, but they didn't notice me

• The cannibals have been increasing in difficultly. I noticed that at first, they were timid, or small - they've slowly grown to be incredibly aggressive, and far larger in number (on more than one occasion, I've encountered patrol parties of 7-8 of the fast, aggressive ones). I assume this means the game is ramping up the difficulty because I've survived for a while, but I'm just wondering if it gets to the point where you basically have to start over. That would suck.

Side note: I am really enjoying this game a lot so far :) Thank you for any replies!

Tl;dr: I smacked an Armsy in the face with my ax and now it's attacking me every morning without fail no matter where I am on the map, or how many times I kill it..am I screwed?

Edit: formatting