Chapter 3: Cicuro
I wake up to the feeling of something licking my face. Instinctly, I sit up and pull out a spear to face the creature near me. I look around only to see a medium sized, bipedal dinosaur standing in front of me. The creature doesn't seem to be very hostile, as it only watches my movements for a second. I wipe my face to get a better look at the large reptilian.
The dino is standing on its two hind legs, with a pair of small arms, but not small enough to be useless. It had a very long face with something that resembled a large fin on top of it's head, with what appeared to be a flap of solid skin on it. It also had a decently long tail with small bumps going all the way from the tip of the tail up to its head. If I had to assume, it was a female due to it's rather bland coloration. I look at the creature for a second and am suddenly hit with a realization. This dino was a Parasaur! I remember it from those stupid old movies. What were they called?... The Land Before Time, that's right! Those were terrible. And kind of boring now that I'm technically living in a dinosaur filled land.
"Hey there girl," I greet the Parasaur. "What're you doing, licking my face?"
I laugh as the dinosaur starts to walk away a little. I look around and decide where I could start a very rudementary shelter. A home base. A center of control. Holy shit, I'm going crazy. I walk around for a few minutes and come across a fairly flat area, basically begging to have a base on it. I go to the center of the area and plan a small blueprint in my head. For what I have planned, I will need a lot of materials, mostly wood and fiber. Well, nobody said survival was easy. Or that I'd have to survive on an island covered in prehistoric creatures.
I look around and go to the nearest tree I find and equip my ax. I hack away at the tree until it's gone and I have a fair amount of wood and thatch. Now for the fun part. I go to a bush and begin pulling at the branches, giving myself fiber along with an assortment of berries, including two new colors; yellow and purple. I go into my inventory to examine these new fruit and notice that I have gained another level, most likely while I was asleep. I look over my attributes and put a point into my stamina. If what I think is true, I should be able to run and do things for a longer amount of time.
After I upgrade myself, I look over into my inventory. I now have two stacks of new berries.
Amarberry (x8) A yellow berry that grows majorly on the Island's beaches. Tasty, though sour, it can be used to make yellow dye.
Mejoberry (x6) This wild berry grows mostly on mountains. While not a tasty snach on its own, its juices improve almost every meal. A berry that is very enjoyed by wild herbivores and is often used in herbivorous taming.
Taming? As in, with these berries, I could actually tame something that eats plants? Well, ain't that news to me! I may have to try this out somehow... But, first, I should be doing the most imprortant thing. I have to stop getting so off track. I return to the flat area and set out my building materials and get to work. And at this moment I realize I don't any idea what I'm doing. Well, doing is the best way of learning.
In the western woods of the Island, Alessandra hides in the bushes, currently under suit of a small group of Phiomias. She looks to the right at her lead Dire Wolf, Lupo, and nods. Almost instantly, Lupo pounces at the fattest of the pig-like creatures. As this happens, the other three wolves run out and gang up on the remaining Phiomias, killing two of them quickly. Alassandra soon runs out of her shrubery and jabs the remaining mammal in its head with a pike, killing it upon impact.
"Good job, pack," she announces to the group, "another easy hunt." Alessandra looks over the collection of corpses and her wolf pack, before smiling and knocking her head towards the bodies. The Dire Wolves let out howls and goes into tearing the Phiomias, bringing large quantities of both meat and hide into their collective inventories. After the wolves finish the bloody remainders, the lady hops onto the back of Lupo and begin her trek back to her base.
After a long run, the hunting pack finds themselves at the base of a large, almost behemoth sized gateway. Alessandra opens the doors and they all run inside in a single file line. The survivor enters and closes the gate before anyone could find thier way inside, which was impossible considering there were only four living humans on the Island. Well, four plus the new meat. New survivors. Just the thought of it angers Alessandra to a point of almost screaming. She hates competition, and the idea of a living person on this God forsaken rock automatically puts the thought of someone dethrowning her into her mind.
The other group in the North has already accepted her as the surperior of the survivors, and will even refer to her as the Queen of the Island, so Alessandra has no reason to fear them. But this newcomer knows nothing of her, and she knows nothing of their intentions. So, obviously, the best thing to do in these situations is to eliminate the threat before it can harm her.
When the group reaches the giant stone house, Alessandra goes to each of the wolves and takes the collected hide from their inventory. She enters the building and goes to her table of crafting, the smithy. She enters the smithy inventory and moves the hide into it. With the new amount of resources Alessandra begins putting together a new saddle, for her brand new monstrous companion. Once she finishes, she exits through the backdoor and goes to her behemoth of a creature. She does the process that is so familiar to her, enters the dinosaurs inventory, moves the saddle to the correct place, and steps back. Alessandra stares in awe her now ridable Tyrannosaurus Rex. A living weapon of mass destruction.
After nearly two hours, I finally have a very rushed, very primitive wooden base set up, with windows and everything. They may be a bit of a waste of resources, but presentation matters, even in a life or death situation. Now that I have this properly set up, I need to think of what to do next. While I think, I turn around and notice another Dodo Bird wandering around aimlessly. Seeing the thing reminds me of the definition given to the purple berries. Perhaps I could use this fat bird as a test subject?
I equip the wooden club I obtained from the falling object the night before and walk up to the Dodo. I'm not one hundred percent sure on how I'm meant to do this, so I do the first thing that comes to mind. I strike the bird hard on the head. The bird reacts by only flapping it's small, useless wings and running away. Very slowly. I walk behind the bird and strike it again, and again. Soon, the Dodo passes out and I can start the taming process. At this moment I realized I have no idea what the taming process is.
I squat down next to the unconsious creature and look it over. It's slightly bloody from the amount of times I hit it but it remains breathing, so it's still somewhat alive. I reach down to touch it and as I do so, my Implant begins to glow again. I open up the screen to find another grid right next to mine. Beside the grid was the word Dodo. It looks like everything on this island works with a similar interface when activated with the strange stone in my arm. I look below the word Dodo to see some more, minor information. It had a level, similar to mine, of only twelve. I'm unsure how to take that an extict bird is apparently a higher level than me, but I just blow it over. Below that it has it's gender, female, followed by the exact same attributes that I possess. At the both of the list, the torpor number is very high, though it is dropping rather quickly. At this I remember the black berries that I have, the ones that supposedly make you tired. I think and after a few seconds the berries are moved into the Dodo's inventory. After this, I think about the purple berries that herbivores enjoy, and they are moved into it's inventory.
I close the screen and step back. After several seconds the bird lifts it's head and appears to eat something, though nothing being currently in it's mouth. When this happens, I am met with a bar hovering over the bird. Two bars, acctually, one purple and one tan. The tan one has the word 'Taming' across it, while the purple has 'Unconscous.' The taming one must show how much longer I have until the creature is tamed to me, and the unconscious was is kind of self explanitory. I wait a few more seconds and the Dodo eats again. Now the tan bar is at the 'E' on the progression status, but the purple bar has gotten fairly low.
I reopen the birds inventory and focus on the Narcoberries. I try to think of the bird eating one and, just as I thought, it eats two of them and the torpor raises almost back to full. Although the bird clearly eats the sleep-inducing berries, it's hunger bar doesn't seem to go up at all. It appears that Narcoberries don't have any form of impact on taming or food.
I wait about four or five more minutes for the bird to finish. After it eats the last Mejo, the Dodo stands up and appears to yawn. I'm surprise by this concidering the last time I checked, it's torpor was near half full. I look at the now awake bird and am startled when a series of words begin to float above it.
Dodo Bird - Level 16: Owner - Greggory: Following - Greggory
I guess this is a way to tell my dinos from the wild ones. That's... interesting, to say the least. Whatever this place is, it obviously is run by some type of computer system that gives everything some type of visible light system. Or something. I have a headache now. Although, if everything is ran off a computer, than that would make those giant pillars... antennas, maybe?
"You know anything about those," I ask at my new pet. She simple looks at me and makes it's strange bark-caw sound. "Yeah, I didn't think so. Hey, now that I think about it, you need a name." The bird tilts her head as though it somehow knew what that meant. I look down and think for a few moments before coming up with a name. "How about Patches? That good enough for you?"
As soon as I say this, the words above the birds head change, switching the word 'Dodo' with the name 'Patches.' Everything remains the same and the bird simply pumps up and down twice. I'm taking that as a sign that Patches likes her new name.
I start walking back to my makeshift home with Patches right behind me. I step onto the raised foundation I made enter the, honestly, shitty made door. Once both me and the bird enter, I turn to the bird and tell her to stop following. Even though I do this three times, the words above it still has the words 'following' shown. Unsure of how to stop the bird from following me, I simply lean against a wall to think of a solution. While I think, I begin to whistle. I hit a high note I was previously unknown of being able to do, and suddenly the word 'following' was no longer over the birds head.
"So," I inquire, "you respond to whistling, huh? That's neat."
I head to the door to go outside before I hear a very familiar hissing sound. I stick my head out and see a certain pair of Dilos, one red and one green. And they look pissed. For a good whole minute, all three of us were just staring at each other before the green female hissed at me. At this, the male opens the flaps on the side of his head and spits at me. I was smart enough to already be inside by the time the saliva hit, marking the door with a large burn mark. I figure the smartest thing to do here is close everything, so I do just that. I quickly slam the door in and go to the windows. I barely dodge a large claw when I force the window close, catching the Dilos arm inside.
I panic and arm myself. The idea of any part of this creature in my home is one I am not going to stand for. Without thinking, I swing my ax down on the reptile, completely severing the body part from the rest of it. There's a loud thump when the appendage falls and a very pain filled hissing outside the wall. I crack the window to see the duo running away, the male bleeding profusely as they escape.
In all honesty, I feel kind of bad for that. This spot was probably their nest or something, and here I come just putting up a weird building. And now I just chopped off one of their arms. They need that arm! I can't just go around committing... is there a name for chopping off arms? Screw it, I'm calling it arm-choppy. Even though their just animals, and they were trying to kill me, I feel I could receive some type of punishment. Oh well, too late now. I guess I should think of something to do, at least until I know for sure the coast is clear.
A tall French man stands over the body of a defeated Woolly Mammoth and looks over his small tribe of survivors.
"Good hunt everyone," the man exclaims, "Took ze bastard out vith only zree shots! New record."
The man and woman next to the beast high-five, taking in the glory of victory. The woman than takes out an ax made of perfectly refined metal and starts hacking away at the hide of the dead creature.
"Ha! Damn bloke didn't even know what hit 'em," the English lady laughs. "Right 'tween the eyes and BAM! The wankers all bloody... bloody!"
"Yes, ve know Kaitlyn," the Russian responded, annoyed, "ve vere there. I vas vone who shot it."
"I know! I just still love anything you do with those things!" Kaitlyn looks up after finishing the Mammoth. "You don't how weird it is to use those after never even seeing one when I'm from. You got a World War! You know what I got? The bloody Black Plague!"
"It been two months, you are used to it now. Not to mention you brought that stupid disease with you and infecting the stupid Leeches."
"But it's still really bloody nice! Just let me have this, you annoying blond wanker."
"Both of you," the French interrupted, "just... Ugh, just shut up. You've had zis argument twenty-four times already. I know because I've been keeping count. It's pointless and honestly just idiotic."
"Apologies, André," they duo say simultaneously.
"Good. We have much to do if ze newcomer is to have a proper welcoming."
"Given he even survives," the Russian added.
It was true the man said. Ever since Alessandra had elected herself queen, no one ever lives past a day, two if they're lucky. But André had hope. There's always the chance the new survivor can hide out until the three day period. Until then, the three should at least prepare for the chance that they can live.
"Alright tribe," the leader said, "back to base."
The two nodded and returned to their Argentavis' and took off. Birds. Birds are defiantly the way to travel on the Island.