Wazup y'all!
Welcome back to chapter 3, our biggest chapter yet!
Please enjoy and review!
(Omni's perspective)
After watching Neptune sail away, I turned to Mika.
"Hey Mika, I need help with the Chemistry bench," I said, cautious of her mood.
"You fueled it?" she asked.
"Yeah, it's got gas," I answered.
"Does it have a generator?" she asked.
"Ummm no?" I replied.
"That's your problem. It needs both gasoline and electricity to function," she explained.
"Oh ok, I'll go set that up then," I said hurriedly before I left.
Walking into the cabin I went upstairs to the Fabricator and quickly made the parts to build a generator. Moving into the corner behind the staircase, I began to piece together the generator.
Soon I had a generator made with an outlet in its side, using the Fabricator to make wires, I connected the Chem bench to the Generator by following the wall, that way there weren't cable littering the floor.
Powering up both the Generator and the Chem bench, I began to make bug repellant, using the recipe in the book the writer found that while wearing it 'the insect inhabitants of the island ignore you unless you bother them.'
They also realized that Ghillie armor had the opposite effect on Arthro's as it does on most other animals. 'Instead of concealing yourself from them it actually attracts Arthro's, this may be due to the fact that plants may have been part of their diet, but when they reside in the caves they do not get very many plants in their diet.'
I took the bug spray, grabbed some plants, and disgustingly a bunch of spoiled meat that was left in the feeding trough for too long.
It was really disgusting so I decided to grab some Riot gloves to carry it with. Bringing some shocking darts to knock it out faster so there's less chance for it to ruin my armor. I hopped atop Judge and flew towards where me and Care started, according to the map in the book there was a cave near there. Once I landed I left Judge outside the cave and entered it. I walked in slowly as I was constantly checking the walls and the ceiling for giant insects. I encountered a Scorpion but I silently killed it with my pike.
Turning around there was an Arthro standing over me towering up so it stood on the lower portion of its body.
It shrieked and lunged at me. I dodged to the side and pulled out the maggot-filled meat in my bag. It lunged again; ignoring the peace offering. After that, I jumped over the lunge and shot it in the face with the shocks mid-air. Once I landed it became irritated and spat at me. I moved away just in time and reloaded my gun. It went for me again with its acid spit as I jumped out of the way and shot it again. As it rose and was about to lunge at me again, it collapsed with a groan. I attempted to feed it the meat but it wasn't working. I opened its mouth but it just would not swallow, it wouldn't even chew even though I physically forced it to. After a while it woke up without having taken even a nibble, it reared up and shot its spit at me again, this time it hit. The acid burned away my chest plate, so I ran knowing I had no chance with the Arthro in pursuit.
I got far enough away that it lost interest and stopped following. I exited the cave and knelt down to catch my breath.
After I could breathe I hopped onto Judge and flew home.
When I returned there was another large orange gorilla throwing a small ball with Kong.
I landed and they both looked at me; Kong excitedly, the orange one confused.
Kong waddled over while grunting in the process. I petted him in return.
The other orange one followed skeptically, I reached out and petted him as well.
"Well hello!" Care greeted from ahead of me, "I see you've met King Louie."
"King Louie? Who's that?" I asked.
"I honestly don't know, I've been getting fuzzy memories from my past which included some names from what I assume is from some sort of entertainment."
"Huh, weird." I thought aloud, "I haven't recovered any memories." I admitted.
"I wonder if Mika, or Thug, or anyone else has recovered fragments of their memory." He mused.
"I see no Arthro, I take it the tame attempt failed?" he asked.
"Yeah, it fell asleep fairly quickly, but it wouldn't eat while it was asleep, I even grabbed its jaws and made a biting motion. I'll have to try and figure out what went wrong." I replied.
"Well what were you doing?" he asked to help me figure it out.
"Umm… I was wearing bug spray..."
"I can tell," he muttered as he stepped backward.
"...I wasn't wearing Ghillie…"
"...and I was holding spoiled meat to feed it."
"Yeah… I can tell that as well," he muttered as he took several more steps back.
"Well I don't know, maybe it just wasn't hungry?"
"I mean maybe, but there isn't a creature in the book or otherwise that will refuse food because 'it's not hungry', I mean no one would refuse free food."
"Could the Bugspray have not worked?"
"I mean I snuck up and killed a Scorpion just before encountering the Arthro, so I don't think so."
"Dude… obviously when it saw you murder a scorpion right next to it, it's gonna know you're a threat." he sighed.
"I guess, although in my defense it was a quick, clean, silent kill and I didn't see the Arthro."
"Next time you try, you may wanna avoid killing giant bugs next to the giant bug you intend to tame," he advised a tad bit condescendingly.
"But that wouldn't affect its lack of an appetite while it's drugged?" he asked.
"I guess, maybe it was something else?" he suggested
"What could it be though? I had meat, I had bug spray, I killed a scorpion before drugging it. None of those should interfere with it while it's asleep." I listed off
"You said you knocked it out?" he asked after a moment.
"Yeah, why?"
"When I tamed the Gorilla's you don't have to knock them out, you simply have to get close enough to feed them."
"'Simply' he says…" I mutter.
"You could always give up on this Arthro Obsession," he suggested.
"No! Judge, get ready we're gonna try again."
...
We then flew back to the cave, getting off I hopped down and put on more bug spray, I walked in with the meat in my hand and approached the chilling Arthro. However, once I got into its field of view it screeched and attacked again. Fleeing I returned to Judge and hovered above the cave entrance.
It's not the meat since this is what they enjoy, it's not the spray because I used the same batch and it worked on the scorpion before and the Arthro now, it was only when I got in its line of sight…
"Is it something I'm wearing?" I wondered aloud to myself.
I flew home and went inside.
What could I wear that would camouflage me, but wouldn't make the Arthro's want to eat me?
Ghillie was a no-go, because of the second requirement, flak was shiny, Riot was heavy and loud, Cloth was smelly, and not strong enough, hide is the same… what other material could I make armor out of?
I sat at the desk for about an hour before I looked outside and saw Kong and Louie wrestling.
They kept distracting me from thinking of wearable materials that would solve my problem.
I was about to get up and yell at them to quiet down when I saw Kong was wearing a helmet.
It was rough and brown colored. I stepped outside and asked him for it for a moment.
After a little convincing he handed it over where I realized it was made of the shells of the insects.
Maybe I could use this! My 'inventory' as people had taken to calling the blue box called it 'chitin'. I handed it back to Kong and headed back inside to craft myself the rest of a set, since I had the chest from Care and Mika's raid, I was actually wearing it currently since my flak one was dissolved.
Making a helmet, gloves, boots, and pants I hopped on Survivor this time since he hadn't stretched his wings in a while and Judge is probably straining his wings with how much flying I've been doing. We then flew towards the cave.
I decided to head to a different cave since the Arthro at the first one would probably remember me forever now after how many times I've bothered it.
As we flew, Survivor took this opportunity to do barrel rolls and flips. He looked back at me and I could see the joy in his eyes.
As we flew I opened the inventory of Survivor, finding that I had wasted a few of my spoiled meat, I took what had been left in his inventory.
As I was taking the meat something wrapped around Survivors wings and we crashed into the small hillside below us.
A tribe of ten members rushed us and quickly had me in a wooden cage and Survivor in a larger metal one.
We were lifted up onto the back of what I recognized to be a Paraceriutherium from the book. We were taken hostage to a base across the river in the redwoods.
We were then dropped off in a base with large metal walls and several more tribemates wearing high-tier armor like flak and riot. Everyone had swords and shields but only a select few had guns. They took my weapons, but they left me with my armor saying "it's worthless." and left me with the spoiled meat and the bug spray stating that I'll "sooner starve to death..."
Other than that everything was taken from me after they had knocked me unconscious.
I awoke with the items they didn't bother taking and with a splitting headache from the club.
The only thing they took that I was kind of annoyed about was my flare pistol since it had no Blueprint and no one showed me how to make it; I made it myself simply by tinkering.
They put my stuff in some kind of vault building. I'm guessing the higher-ups in the tribe were the only ones allowed access.
By our cages were two guards, a female in front of Survivor and a male guarding me.
From their conversations, I learned the name of the male was Penny, and the female was Crystal.
Both wore Flak with Assault Rifles. Since I had nothing to do, I examined the base. It seemed to be octagonal in shape, at each corner was a tower, however, one seemed to be unfinished. The vault was in the very center of the base with all the other sleep quarters, crafting zone, and breeding/hatching pens all along the outskirts.
There was only one gate to get in but they had defenses that surrounded the entire base, majority of them were on the walls, however, the odd few were on top of the vault building.
Me and Survivor were caged on the side of the Vault building, so I wasn't able to see everything but I did count at least 25 tribe members.
I saw two Paraceriatheriums, one strange giant bird with a similar platform on its back, three Rexes, and multiple Trikes and Stego's.
I saw seven turrets; one in each tower minus the unfinished tower, I saw another four on the corners of the vault building, and another eight in between the towers, on the straight edges of the walls.
Crystal seemed to actually care about the animals they captured since she tried to soothe Survivor and she fed him enough to keep him from going hungry, Penny on the other hand shouted at me, and barely fed me anything. I didn't mind too much, I was just waiting for an opportunity to escape.
Later that night, the ten tribesmen who captured me went out to possibly capture someone else.
"Hey, do you have a plan to get out?" someone whispered behind me.
I turned and saw another cage, with another female, she had been so quiet during the day I hadn't even noticed her.
"Ummm… not at the moment." I shrugged
A weird whining sound drew my attention to a cage beside her, a small dire bear, like a small version of Ursa Major.
"Is that yours?"
"Yeah, Maria is my little baby bear. I met her, separated from her mother when I had first woken up."
"Are we the only ones here?" I asked.
"Yes, they want me to find my base, and you for your resources. I guess they got what they wanted." She mused sadly.
We sat in silence as I thought of how to escape, through the gaps in the sticks I could almost squeeze through, about half my body could fit-out. Trying it got me a smack to the head with the club… but at least I knew I could almost get out that way.
It was still fairly dark out, and Penny seemed to be nodding off, I guess no one deemed it necessary to give someone else the night shift. As soon as his head listed to the side I stood up and examined the cage, and what I had on me. Looking at my armor I found that the edges were sharp, using the edge of my helmet I began to cut through the ropes tying the sticks together, after about the third rope the whole cage collapsed around me.
Penny stirred at the sound.
Crystal saw me but pretended she didn't and turned to tend to my bird.
The person in the cage behind me woke up and the people guarding her and the bear turned to me.
I hoped up and raced for the gate, where I found it locked. I instead climbed the ladder and found myself on the top of the unfinished tower. I jumped down and began to slowly climb my way down using the unfinished gaps as hand and footholds.
I made it to the bottom just as the gate beside me opened and the two guards came rushing out to catch me.
I ran in whatever direction I was facing. As I run I put my helmet back on in case they started shooting and just kept running.
After a while of running, I could still hear them behind me, and I had no idea where I was headed.
Risking a glance at my map I found I was on my way to the cave; my original destination before being captured. I continued running and now had a destination. I crossed the river and made it to the other side, the two guards were behind me, riding raptors now. They must have had horrible aim, didn't know how to shoot a gun, or just didn't want to hit me. Somehow I outran their raptors… actually wait, I do 'aerodynamics' and all that. I climbed the hill and jumped down the small cliff. I turned and went into the cave I had just jumped in front of.
I heard the raptors land behind me, but I didn't hear them come in. they must have been too afraid.
I walked into the main part of the cave after putting on bug spray, making sure I was wearing Chitin and holding out some Spoiled meat.
Walking forward I found a pile of insects, there were at least ten Arthro's and another fifteen Araneo's. I couldn't get close with the amount of them so I just threw a bunch of the 'food' into the mass, instantly everything went berserk trying to be the first to get to it so they could have it all to themselves, these things must be starving because after a couple more tosses one of the Arthro's broke away from the pile and stood by me, as I tossed more and more meat I realized that each Arthro and Araneo only ate about 3-4 slabs before it trusted me enough to stand by me.
By the point that I had one soggy slab left, I had 4 Arthro's and 10 Araneo's.
One Arthro came up to me, still horking down its last slab with maggots crawling out of its mouth.
"Ok… now I understand Care's reservations… eh what's done is done," I said to no one in particular.
I turned since I had no more meat and my bug spray was bound to run out soon. So I returned to the cave entrance with the bugs following.
We walk toward the guards still there waiting for me. All of the Arthro's and Araneo's rushed them at full speed as I saw the fear in their eyes.
…
I walked toward the octagonal base from the cave.
I walked over to the base entrance in plain view, not even trying to sneak up on them.
I stood in front of the door as the scouts aimed their crossbows at me.
"Leave. Now." I demand.
"What did you say?" One of them scoffed.
"Leave now, and don't come back."
"And what are you gonna do if we don't?"
"Oh, I won't do anything…" I replied menacingly.
One of the guards lifted a Sniper rifle. I stood in the same spot not moving, suddenly a green ball shot out of the bushes and splashed against him, his armor just disappeared. The hit also knocked him on his back.
"What was that!?" he asked.
"I don't know?" his companion replied worriedly.
The first soldier lifted his rifle to take a second shot but found that it was dripping apart.
He threw his rifle down in rage before hurling a bola at me. I wasn't expecting them to use bolas so I actually did get caught in it.
The other soldier smirked and lifted his Assault Rifle. He took aim and I couldn't move, out of the bushes burst one of my Arthro's. It leaped in front of me and curled around me with its back facing the onslaught of bullets. The soldier emptied all his ammo before stopping to check if he'd killed me.
Instead, he found an army of Arthro's and Araneo's rushing the gate. The one that saved me turned stiffly and spat at the wall below them. It dissolved nearly instantly and they fell into the swarm that trampled over them and killed them. The Arthro's melted everything in the base, the vault, the cages, the turrets, the walls nearly everything was a black and green smoldering mass before long.
The Araneo's trapped and caged most of the enemies, those that they missed were either killed by the Araneo's themselves or destroyed by the Arthro's. I watched as small green explosions splashed across the ground and the walls. Webs blocked most of the passages in and out of the base, but there were still some that escaped. I walked into the center of the base with no trouble. The one Arthro that stuck by me the whole time drizzled a small amount of its acid onto the cages releasing the other lady with the bear, and Survivor.
The cage melted as they avoided the dissolving portion and stepped out once it stopped dripping.
"Thank you." She said as she whistled to her Dire Bear and dashed into the night.
I called all the creatures to me, after the battle only 5 Araneo's and 2 Arthro's survived.
I decided to go back to the cave for Care and the others to find me.
I made a campfire so they could see me.
After about an hour, I heard the sound of Argy's cawing.
Then two Argy's dove in and landed ahead of me.
Kong dismounted and ran to me.
"Hey, buddy," I said as I petted him.
"Where were you? You've been gone for almost a day!" Care exclaimed.
"Sorry, I got held up."
"What does that mean?" Mika asked, worried.
"I was captured," I said bluntly. "I managed to escape with what I had and tamed a few Arthro's and Araneo's and took them down. There was also another prisoner there that I freed."
"Are you ok?" Care asked with a hand on my shoulder.
"Am I ok? I'm fantastic! I tamed so many Arthro's!"
"Good for you. Now let's go home ok?" Care sighed.
"Not without my tames," I smirked.
…
We flew through the skies on our mounts, I was on Survivor holding one of the Arthro's in his claws and two Araneos clinging onto the saddle behind me. Care flew behind me with Kong behind him while Blackbolt held the other Arthro. And finally, Mika flew in the back on Hawks, with the other three Araneo's.
Once we landed in the base Mika jumped off her Argy and rolled in the grass.
"You ok?" I asked.
"I hate bugs. It feels like they're crawling all over me."
"And that's why I'm glad I brought Kong, there wasn't any room for them." Care laughed triumphantly.
"Well if it weren't for them I'd be dead several times over." I retorted.
"Yeah, yeah, that's great just keep them away from me ok?" Mika said with a shiver.
"Fine, fine just don't come crying to me when you want to raid a metal base." I chided.
King Louie rushed over from the monkey hut and greeted Kong by hooting and grunting at him.
"So, I'm gonna go think of names for all my new tames… unless you guys need me for something?"
"As long as you take your bugs with you. Away from us." Care said.
"Whatever you say," I muttered as I walked off.
I organized them so the Arthro's were to my right and the Araneos to my left.
"You will be… Weaver, you will be…"
It continued like this for about 5 minutes until I named all of them.
All of the Araneo's are named Weaver, Silky, Venom, Creepy Crawly, and Arachnia. The Arthro's are named Caustic and Corrosion.
I approached Mika after making sure the bugs weren't following me.
"Hey, Mika. How do I make paint?"
She turned and looked over my shoulder for bugs.
"You're gonna need a Cooking pot or the Industrial cooker."
She replied as she led me to her base.
"You'll need different combinations of berries to make the paint. Tinto Berries make red, Mejo's make purple, Narco's make Black and so on."
"Well… there's no green berry?"
"Yeah for that you need to mix Amar and Azulberries, and depending what shade possibly some Narcos or Stims" she answered.
"Ok. Thanks" I said.
"You may also have to add gunpowder, spark powder, or charcoal. Honestly, experimentation is the best way to get the perfect color," she added.
"Alright, thanks," I said as she left to do something.
I turned on her industrial cooker and started to throw Amar Berries and Azul Berries into the cooker and I chucked some spark powder in. it ended up making cyan, not something I wanted but still a good color none the less. Next, I put in charcoal, which created a lime green, not quite the shade I was looking for but I'm sure I'd find a use for it somewhere. Eventually, I made the perfect green with Gunpowder and applied it to my armor.
Suddenly, Care rushed in on Blackbolt and called us over.
"I found a really big bird, I think it's a Quetzal." He informed us.
"Where?" I asked seriously.
"Not far, bring crossbows and rifles. I have the meat and bio-toxin." He stated.
We both did so and got on our selective Argy's. Care led the way to the river beside the Redwoods.
We flew around a bit to look for it. Eventually, we saw a large fluorescent purple Quetzal ahead of us.
Care signaled to me to fly ahead of it and Mika to fly over it.
We did so and Care flew at the back.
Care then yelled, "FIRE!" And we all shot a shocking dart at it.
It got spooked and dashed to the left, over some forestry.
Our Argy's took control toward the Quetzal as we reloaded.
Once we did, We all fired at the same time behind it which made the Quetzal dive dazedly into a small meadow.
We all dove with it and landed beside it.
I tossed everyone some meat and bio-toxin.
Mike immediately fed it her bio and let us do the rest.
Care fed it meat while I gave it bio-toxin.
The Quetzal didn't like the bio because every time I fed it, it twitched and made a gurgling noise, but it ate it anyway.
After a while, it finally tamed and we went back to base with it following.
Once we landed we all admired this giant creature.
"What are we gonna name him?" Mika asked while feeling his folded wing.
Care looked intently at the wrinkles in his face and his eyes.
"His face reminds me of a… whale." He observed, "We can name him Skywhale!"
Mika and myself looked at each other confused, but we couldn't think of any other names so we went with it.
I made a platform saddle for Skywhale and equipped it for him.
"Now we can transport Omni's bugs easier." Care joked.
"Now we can transport anything easier," I added.
"What is the biggest thing Skywhale can carry?" Mika asked.
"I'll get Drago." Care stated as he ran off.
Care used the roof of the sabin as a ramp for Drago and walked onto Skywhale.
Sky strained a little from the weight but was able to carry him.
I even tested it by making Skywalk around a bit.
"Wow… that's pretty impressive," Mika said.
"Managing to tame on is the impressive thing." someone said from behind us, the voice was familiar but I couldn't place it.
We jumped and whirled around.
There behind us was a glowing Arge, on its back sat the girl and the baby bear from before.
"What is that?" Care asked in awe.
"This is Borealis." the girl said.
"Why is he...she? Glowing?" I asked
"She is an Eerie creature, to my knowledge every single creature has an Eerie variant. It's just they are an extremely rare mutation," she answered.
"I want one…" Mika said.
"They aren't any stronger than normal ones, the only difference is visual." the woman replied.
"Are you the person from the base?" I asked.
"Yes, I must thank you for returning to free me and my baby," she answered.
"No problem, I also got Arthro's out of it… so it was well worth it," I answered.
"And yet I see that in returning to rescue me, you lost some." she noted as she glanced towards where I had 'parked' them.
"Yeah… I'll have to try and get some more," I said sadly.
"I've heard their tribe split after that. So you will have some time before they try and attack," she mentioned.
"What's your name?" Mika asked.
The woman turned her attention to her now.
"Mary."
"K that bird is giving off a really ominous glow, are you sure you're not a phantom or something?" Care asked.
"I assure you I am very real," she replied.
"Do you have protection in case they do band together again?" I asked.
"Yes, I've got a base. And several dinosaurs to protect it."
"To be honest your base would be fairly easy to raid, if I wanted to and planned it out, that is," she replied with a smirk.
"But you won't do that will you?" I asked.
"No, we have a truce," she replied.
"So an alliance of sorts?" Mika asked.
"Sure."
"So you said every creature has an Eerie type..." I asked.
"To my knowledge, yes," Mary replied.
"Dude… stop… I know where you're going with this, and you need to chill." Care said.
"I'm getting eerie Arthro's and there's nothing you can do to stop me," I said bluntly.
"Please, don't… your normal Arthro's are hard enough to avoid, I don't want bright glowing rainbow ones." Mika groaned.
"I could always live in the cave, but still be allied," I suggested.
"Oh you don't have to do that, just keep them away from me." she backpedaled.
"And me too!" Care exclaimed.
"Fine, although living in the cave wouldn't be that bad." I mused to myself.
"So what does an alliance entail, does it allow us to trade amongst each other?" Care asked.
"We can trade amongst everyone, as long as both parties are willing to. So more like resource assistance, building advice, taming help. War support… basically anything." she clarified.
"Glad to hear it," I replied.
"With my Thanks out of the way, I'll be taking my leave," Mary said as she rose up and flew away.
"Well, she was nice. Now let's go exploring!" Care said with a little too much enthusiasm.
"Where do you suggest?" I asked.
"I don't know, maybe somewhere in the Redwoods, I might find a new monkey."
"Or a cave." I mused.
"Or new creatures." Mika butted in.
"So? Are we agreed?" Care asked with a considerable large smile.
"Sure," Mika said to him.
…
We flew over to the cave on our respective Argy's, and as per usual, Care had brought his Giganto's and I brought Caustic and Weaver as well.
We landed in the middle of the forestry area and dismounted.
"Protect." Care said to Kong and King Louie, they both grunted in unison.
As we walked around with our Argy's, Kong and King Louie killed countless amounts of aggressive creatures, from Ants to Rex's.
As we walk on we come across a small pond filled with Kapro's and Sarco's and two Carno's.
Only the Carno's saw us and charged, Kong and King Louie absolutely destroyed them.
There was a small rock ledge on the far side of the pond that led to higher ground.
We walked up the side of it to see another rock ledge behind the first one with a cave entrance.
"Ooh! A cave!" I exclaimed.
"Alright fine, you can tame Arthro's." Care sighed.
"Yay!"
I rushed toward the cave but stopped right at the entrance.
"Hey Care," I started with a smirk on my face, "why don't you go in first."
"Ugh fine," He sighed, "but if I die from a giant death spider, it's your fault."
Care walked in with his shotgun out, he looked around a bit and called to us from his position.
"It seems ok from here, *cough* I can hear the bugs down below though. *cough* I think if we bring the Giganto's *cough* we'll be fine."
Then as he came into view in the entrance, his eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out.
Suddenly, his body shown with the same white light that Blue did when we killed him, and then he disappeared.
The only thing that remained was his armor and his shotgun.
The obelisks beams shot into the sky, then the same beams struck the ground not very far from my position.
Care then stomped over and ripped the armor from my grasp and simply said, "Your fault."
"What exactly killed you?" I asked.
"The air is poison, I didn't realize it until just before I passed out." He explained as he put his armor on.
"So… how do we go in without dying then?" Mika asked.
"I'll make a smithy and Fabricator here to search all of our crafting options, there might be something we can make that can help us," I suggested.
I still had some crystal and oil from when Thug first showed me the Fabricator, so after I placed the smithy I also crafted a fabricator.
I scrolled through the crafting interface in the smithy, nothing useful to our situation.
I then looked through the Fabricator crafting options and almost immediately, I saw that I could make a gas mask.
"Would a gas mask work?" I asked rhetorically.
"What do you need to craft it?" Mika asked.
"Polymer, crystal, and something called Absorbent Substrate."
"How do you make that?" Care asked.
"It's not in the crafting menu of the smithy or the Fabricator, it must be crafted in the chemistry bench. I don't have enough resources to make a generator and gas and all the electrical stuff. We have to refine more metal and make gas."
It took a while but we eventually got all the resources we needed to create the needed structures for the Chemistry bench, including the bench itself.
I turned the generator and bench on and looked at the crafting options.
"I need sap and black pearls."
"Black pearls? Didn't you get some from earlier?" Care asked.
"Yes, and I still have it on me," I said as I lifted five pool ball size pearls onto the bench.
"Where do we get sap now?" Care asked exhaustedly.
"I assume from tree sap maybe?" I suggest.
"Ok, but how do we collect it?" Mika asked.
There's a tree sap tap listed in the Smithy crafting menu." I said as I started to craft it.
After about five minutes I fully crafted it and tossed it to Mika.
She caught it, turned, and slammed it into the Redwood tree beside her.
Almost immediately tree sap started to drip from it.
With the sap and the black pearls we had, I created enough substrate for five masks.
I then created those masks and tossed four to the others.
We all equipped ourselves with the masks, and Care put the extra two on Kong and King Louie.
Care then cocked his shotgun and said, "Let's kill some bugs."
I walked ahead since I had the most experience with bugs, Mika was behind me with an assault rifle, and Care was in the back with his hulking monkeys behind him. Caustic and Weaver were in the far back in case something sneaks up on us.
Once we got through the entrance, there was a sort of winded dismount in the terrain that led to a small opening that led deeper into the cave. As soon as I started to walk down the dismount, we heard increasingly loud chittering.
Suddenly at least five Araneo's and Scorpions rushed forth from the opening, charging us.
Kong and King Louie jumped off the ledge and smashed most of them upon impact. The rest they tore in half and through at the others.
"Now do you understand why I love these things?" Care joked in a muffled tone.
"You should see my Arthro's in action." I quipped as Caustic chittered from the entrance.
We walked through the opening to meet at least 30 bugs of every kind except Arthro's.
Kong, King Louie, and my bugs couldn't take them all at once so we did have to deal with some of them.
Mika's rapid-fire gun sprayed all over the ones charging us.
Care was having considerable trouble with three Araneo's chasing him.
'Why do these things even exist? What is their purpose in nature? Get aWAY FROM ME!" He screamed as he shot one off of him.
We continued blasting ahead of us as we kept pushing forward.
"Let Weaver go up the front," I told them.
They parted and he scuttled to the front and began to web everything in our path, then it was a quick few shots to the restrained evil bugs and the cave was cleared for the most part.
"No Arthro's so far…" I muttered to myself.
As we walked on we came to a point in the cave where there were large batches of spherical objects on the walls that looked like… eggs.
There were Araneo's and Scorpions crawling everywhere.
I then mounted Caustic 'bareback' and started to snipe the bugs on the walls.
That got their attention as every creature rushed us.
Kong, King Louie, Weaver, and Caustic lunged at the front liners as I dismounted.
Care and Mika shot down the ones on the walls and ceiling.
Eventually, we took down all the bugs with the result of King Louie getting poisoned.
"Is he gonna be ok?" Mika asked in a worried tone.
A lone Araneo appeared behind Mika and Care as King Louie punched its face into the wall.
"I think he'll be alright," I observed.
We walked on through another opening to an open area filled with giant mushrooms.
This time there are even more bugs.
"How are we gonna take that on?" Care asked, dumbfounded.
Caustic jumped forward and sprayed a wide shot of acid over the crowd on bugs, dissolving most of them. The others that rushed us were basically steamrolled by him as he curled up and rolled everywhere.
Kong didn't even need to help except for the few Araneo's that snuck up behind us.
"Ok wow… I know you said they were good, but I didn't think they'd clear an entire cave single-handedly." Care said.
"Regardless of their use I won't want to be any nearer than I need to be," Mika replied as she shivered in disgust.
We walked on to a fork in the road at the end of the opening. The left one was large and wide, while the other was small and cramped.
"Well, the right way is the right way as I always say." Care mused as he walked up the cramped tunnel.
We all followed with Caustic guarding the entrance to the small opening behind us.
As we walked up the winding terrain, There was a small opening at the end of the tunnel that had a glowing triangular box.
It had two triangular prisms on the top and bottom with a small white beacon levitating the upper prism.
I walked up to it, and as I did so, the two prisms opened at the tips pointing to the beacon, expanding the beacon to reveal a spherical red and dark-colored object, levitating within the light.
I took the object and examined it.
"The Immune artifact." I read aloud.
"It looks like a robotic egg…" Care mused.
"It certainly looks foreign, if not alien." Mika surmised.
"You think there are aliens here?" Care asked.
"To be fair we did just see a Froot Loops bird and a giant athletic centipede," I interjected.
"Froot Loops?" Mika asked.
"Ya know, the cereal mascot… Toucan Sam?"
Care and Mika stared at me in confusion.
"I'm not crazy, it must be the memory thing."
We started to walk down the winding terrain as I continued to examine the artifact.
"It's certainly valuable, or unique or something." Care said.
"Maybe Thug will know, or one of the other book writers, what did he say their names were?" I wondered.
"He said, Autumn and Mary," Mika responded.
"Wait, that was Mary?! Like the Mary that adds to the book? No wonder she knew so much about Eeries!" I exclaimed.
"Let's get out of here before more bugs rush in." Care suggested in haste.
Eventually, we ran out of the entrance and ripped off our gas masks.
I breathed in a big breath of clean air.
"Ah, that's refreshing." I mused aloud.
By this time King Louie and the other Dino's had recovered fully which was surprising.
"What do we do with this thing?" I asked as I continued to examine the 'artifact'
"I don't know, it looks similar to the Obelisks though," Mika commented.
"Maybe it's like a missing piece of the Obelisk like it's supposed to go in the middle of the 'eye'" I muttered.
"What do you mean 'the eye'?" Care asked.
"The big diamond in the top of the Obelisk. If you look closely it has a gap in the middle where the white resurrection laser comes out. Maybe this is supposed to fit in there and something happens?" I explained.
"We have the birds, we could go try it," Mika suggested.
We flew over to the green Obelisk which was closer to base.
I flew up to the diamond with the artifact in hand.
I examined the gap trying to figure out how to do this.
"It doesn't look like a perfect fit," I observed.
"Then what do we do with it?" Care asked.
"I don't know, we can bring it home I guess."
We flew into the base and dismounted.
I looked through my crafting options for some sort of container for artifacts.
I did find something called an Artifact Pedestal in the Smithy's inventory.
It needed obsidian though.
"Hey Care," I started, "Can you come with me to get obsidian? I need a lot and I won't be able to carry it on my own."
"What for?" he asked.
"It's used for an Artifact Pedestal… and Arthro saddles…" I replied sheepishly.
"Fine… just don't bring your bugs."
"I wasn't planning to, they'd just weigh Judge down even more."
"Good," he answered.
"There's some obsidian on the volcano," Mika said.
"Then that's our destination," I stated.
…
Once we landed in the volcano, we dismounted and got right to mining the shiny black rocks that we assumed were the obsidian. Breaking one we found that it was indeed the obsidian we required.
Turning to another rock of obsidian, I was surprised to find a massive Metallic door, it had a strange shine to it, similar to the artifact in my inventory and the Obelisks towering over the island. It didn't seem to react no matter what we did, I even shoved the artifact at it, however, it did nothing with it. With nothing else to try, we returned to gathering obsidian. Once we each had about 40 pounds each, there was a strange mass that appeared from the cracks of the door. It looked metallic but moved like the air. Once the entire cloud moved through the cracks, they materialized in front of the door into a humanoid shape.
The metal fluttered almost like calm waves on the sea until it compacted into a solid metallic humanoid.
There was a hexagonal pattern all across its body that looked kind of like scales. Then a blank blue visor appeared under the metal.
"What are your intentions here?" The booming voice demanded.
"Just gathering resources…" I answered.
"I sense a disturbance from you… Do you hold an artifact?"
"What's that?" I asked, hiding the glowing object in my bag.
"The Artifact of the Immune found within the Swamp cave, Artifact of the Green Guardian." it boomed.
"What is it?" I retorted.
"The Artifact of the Immune found within the…" It started again.
"What is it for?" I reiterated as I sheltered the bag behind my back.
"What does it matter what it is used for? You will return it to me," he answered dangerously.
"Why would we return it to you? You just appeared, we are gonna return it to its proper place." Care asked.
"And do you know where it should be?" it asked.
"No, but we'll figure it out." I retorted.
"It should be given to me." It replied, ignoring my previous statement.
"Is it supposed to be given to the Obelisks?" I inquired.
"..." the humanoid remained silent.
"Is it in that cave behind you?" I pressured.
"..." the thing once again avoided answering.
"I think we'll be going now." Care said as he mounted Blackbolt.
"I agree," I said as I mounted Judge.
...
We then flew back to our base, we made the pedestal and placed it in a hidden room in our base.
"Hey Caustic, wanna come here?" I called as I stood by the door.
He began to slither over and I went into the house to use the smithy.
Care walked downstairs and headed for the door.
"Uh, Care…" I started but he didn't hear me.
He opened the door and jumped back in shock as a giant Arthro shoved its face through the doorway. The little spikes on its side got caught, however.
"JEEZ! A little warning would have been nice!" Care snapped at me.
"I tried but you didn't hear me."
"Whatever, I'm gonna go tame a Bigfoot."
"A what?"
"Memory thing." Care said bluntly.
After a while, I made two Arthro saddles and five Araneo saddles.
I had just begun to make some changes to the Arthro's saddles design; making it longer, and more smooth. This would allow me to lie down parallel with his back.
By this time Care came back with a brown-colored Monkey.
I walked outside to greet the newcomer.
She didn't seem to care about anything going on around her. She just hopped off the Argy and walked over to some bushes, picking at them.
"That's Bigfoot, she is… kind of in her own world."
"I can see that," I observed.
Then Bigfoot perked up and sniffed the air, she shot her gaze behind us at the wall and growled lowly.
The other monkeys were doing the same.
I followed their eyes to the top of the battlement.
Suddenly, the same metal cloud from the person before crept over the wall.
It slowly flowed down into the grassy plain to reveal the person.
"Give me the artifact. Now." He demanded.
"Or what?" I asked confidently.
Suddenly there was loud stomping behind the wall.
The wall bust open and a large metallic Rex came through, roaring in the process.
The roar was so loud, it made me dizzy, and my mind went blank for a moment.
"As I said, now."
"What… is that?" I asked weakly.
"This is a Tek Rex. A very powerful creature. Able to stun any creature with its powerful roar."
"Who are you?"
"I am the Overseer's enforcer. I protect the Overseer and his Ark. Now, hand over the Artifact. Immediately."
"And what if we say no?"
Then the Rex growled and looked at me.
Caustic and Corrosion then came to my sides and propped themselves up on the lower portions of their long spindly bodies in an intimidating position.
The enforcer turned to a fighting position as soon as the Arthro's came into view.
Then the Araneo's hidden around the Rex webbed him and the Arthro's rushed forward.
The Arthro's sprayed its body randomly with their acid while Care and the monkeys detained the enforcer.
I realized that the acid melted right through the Rex's metal body, which made it roar in pain.
I then whistled to the Arthro's to get their attention. They both looked at me at the exact same time from atop the Rex.
I made a circular motion with my hands to direct them.
They immediately coated the Rex's neck with acid and crawled around its neck, squeezing.
I then made an aggressive straight motion with my hands in closed fists.
The Arthro's then squeezed its neck so hard it actually decapitated the Tek beast.
The enforcer stopped fighting to watch the head fall to the ground, he simply sighed and turned to me.
"Well played, survivor. Well played."
Then he dispersed into his cloud-like form and disappeared behind our destroyed wall.
Care then walked up to me and said, "I just want to say I apologize in advance for every time I may have offended you for trashing your beloved creatures I know and now love."
"It's not me you have to apologize to…" I started as the two centipedes came up behind me.
"You have to shake hands with every single one of their legs."
"Ok, I don't love them that much." He said as he backed away.
"Suit yourself," I said jokingly as I knelt down to pet my glorious creatures.
Mika flew in the base from her scouting mission to see the broken-down wall and the decapitated Tek Rex laying in the middle of the base.
"What… happened here?"
"I think it speaks for itself." I mused.
She examined the severed head to see some of the acids still melting through the metal.
She looked back at me, then the acid again.
"If I wasn't so completely grossed out by those things, I would have 10 of them." She admitted.
"I'm planning on getting 48 more." I mused.
"Alright, where are the handcuffs!" Care yelled.
"Oh c'mon! Is it a crime to be ambitious?!"
"When it comes to pursuing giant creepy crawly acid-spitting death machines, yes." Care replied as he dug through a storage box.
"As if that was so bad!" I exclaimed.
"Omni, you are addicted to Arthro's." Care said plainly.
"Alright fine…" I said as I slowly walked away, "I'll only get 20 more then."
Care started to chase me around the base as soon as I said that.
…
After Care had finally convinced me to not tame more than five Arthro's (I'd totally break that promise), we then got to rebuilding the massive hole in the wall and building defenses for when other attackers may come about. As we were building Thug showed up on his Argy.
"Wow… are your Arthro's that out of control?" he whistled.
"Hey! My Arthro's were the only thing that saved us from Molten Slagasaurus over there!" I retorted as I gestured at the molten heap of the Tek Rex.
"Whoa… you mind if I take a look?"
"No not at all, go ahead," I replied.
He then went off to poke around at the sparking molten carcass of the Robot dinosaur.
I turned to the Caustic who had my adjusted saddle on his back. Behind him sat a pile of large square stones. I sat on the saddle and he adjusted to the weight slightly. I then guided him to the pile so I could grab one of the stone blocks. Carrying that over to the wall he began to climb up vertically while I held the rock. Getting to the top of the unfinished part of the wall I then placed the stone atop the others, we continued doing this until the wall was fully repaired.
"Do you mind if I take the Tek carcass off your hands before it completely dissolves?" Thug asked.
"Sure." I accepted.
"I'd be willing to trade for just the main body, I can even make you something with the head. Unless you want to mount it on a trophy mount?"
"Could you make something for us with the head?" I asked sheepishly.
"I could make you lots of things with the head." Thug chuckled.
"Like what?"
"Swords, guns, shields, spears, basically any weaponry has a Tek variant."
"Ok, how about three guns for all of us."
"Tek railguns or tek rifles?"
"What's the difference?"
"The Tek railgun is basically a sniper, able to see and shoot through thin walls and is able to activate an infra-red mode, and the rifle is like an assault rifle, the bullets also cause a small splash effect." He explained.
"Two rifles, one railgun please."
"You got it." He said as he was walking out.
"Oh! What do I trade you for the body?" He asked before he left.
"I'll get back to you on that, you can take the body now if you want," I replied.
"Thanks."
He left on his Argy but came back with two Quetzals later to bring the body and head to his base for smelting.
Once Thug took off to his base I pulled Care and Mika over.
"Ok, so Thug wants to trade for the Rex body, do either of you guys want anything in particular?" I asked them.
"I've always wanted a wolf pack," Mika suggested.
"I want another monkey but I can do that on my own." Care mused.
"Wolf pack it is." I declared.
…
The next day Thug arrived in shining purple metallic armor atop his Argy with our guns.
We greeted him as he handed me all of them, I passed out the rifles to Mika and Care as I brandished my railgun.
"Hey! How come you get the bigger one?" Care complained.
"I'm the sniper guy, I noticed you and Mika prefer close-up combat so I got you the rifles," I explained.
"Cool…" Mika mused.
"Here's some element for ammo." Thug said dropping about ten small square glowing chips into my hand.
"Thanks," I replied.
I loaded the chip into a slot on the side of the gun and targeted a Dimorphodon in a tree.
I found it through the scope and fired.
It turned into ash instantly.
"It will heat up after every shot, you'll have to wait like 30 seconds for it to cool down." Thug explained.
"Ok." I acknowledged.
"Is that… Tek armor?" Care asked, admiring the armor.
"Fresh ain't it? It has a jetpack too."
"REALLY?!"
Then Thug lifted slightly into the air, propelled by a thruster in his back.
"That's so cool!" Care and Mika exclaim in unison.
"The boots prevent me from getting hurt if I fall from a long drop, the helmet visor gives me infrared vision, and the gloves have thrusters to punch things really hard."
"That's awesome." I mused.
"So what do I owe you for the body?" Thug asked me.
"Can we have a pack of wolves please?" Mika asked.
"Sure. What else?"
"What else? You do realize we are asking you for at least 5 wolves right?" Care asked.
"Yeah? They aren't that hard to tame and you did give me like 50 element chips worth of Tek."
"Uhhhh…" I thought aloud.
"Can we get a Giganotosaurus then?" Care asked.
"Sure! Pleasure doing business with you."
Then he flew off on his Argy.
Over the course of the next half an hour, I started to create traps, little wires that would trigger a bell to ring. A couple would instead release Narcotics in their gaseous form (I have the Chemistry bench to thank for that.) and we managed to make one auto turret, we placed it in the middle of the base so it'd be the most efficient.
The alarms rang as we all ran to the door with weapons readied.
Arriving we found Thug with a pack of six wolves, they were whining from the ringing bell. I walked over to the bell and grabbed it to stop the ringing, I quickly reset the trap as the Wolves slowly stopped whining.
Mika ran up to the pack as Thug dismounted from the pack leader, slightly larger than the others, probably from getting first dibs on the kills.
"Awww! They're so cute!" She exclaimed petting them.
Care walked up and looked at the pack leader.
"Oh cool! They have the flaming back thing like the Allo's do."
"You think that's cool?" Thug started as he whistled something over.
There was a deep growling and very loud stomping as a Giganotosaurus stomped over to the gate.
As he walked through we were able to see his grey and red coloring.
We just stood there, admiring the creature with our jaws on the floor.
"I believe this is yours as well." Thug mused.
"Join our tribe." The words just shot out of my mouth unintentionally.
"Nah, I'm solo. But I'm willing to trade with people. Here, I'm unclaiming them now."
Once we claimed them all, we thanked Thug and started to decide what to name them.
Mika wants to name her wolves Ghost, Spirit, Viserion, Drogon, Rhaega, and Shadow.
Mika and myself couldn't think of anything to name the Giganoto so we turned to Care.
"I was thinking of Doomsday." He mused.
"I like it!" Mika exclaimed.
"Let's go hunting." Care mused with a considerably wide smile on his face.
…
We trekked through the dense forest in search of meat.
I rode atop Caustic and Care rode Doomsday with Kong following.
We killed countless Stego's and Trikes.
There was one Trike ahead that seemed to be hurt. Care dashed forward to kill it, but as soon as he attacked it, he seemed to go through it.
Then the Trike's image became pixelated and slowly disappeared.
Suddenly the cloud of metal that reveals the enforcer slowly rose all around us.
"Greetings, survivors." A bodiless booming voice echoed.
The cloud materialized as large Tek walls in a hexagonal shape all around us. Each corner had a turret aimed right at us.
Then a smaller cloud materialized on the wall in front of us to reveal the enforcer.
"What do you want now?" Care asked in an annoyed tone.
"Well, in the long run, you are to be imprisoned for all of eternity, but we have a few things to clear up first." He said in a slightly mocking tone.
"Like what exactly?" I asked.
"I am going to force you to retrieve every artifact in this Ark. You seemed to do the first one easily. The Overseer requires the power of the artifacts for power. No one has ever been able to complete the Immune cave that fast with zero casualties."
"Thank you for the compliment, but we aren't going to do your master's dirty work," I stated.
"You do see the turrets aiming at you right?" The enforcer replied.
"Ok then, kill us. We will just respawn anyway. We can always tame more creatures."
Care pulled me aside and whispered to me.
"Speak for yourself! I am not losing Kong today."
"Oh, don't worry. That isn't happening today." I replied in confidence.
Once we turned back to the enforcer, he started to talk again.
"Do you know much about the Giganotosaurus?" He started.
"Please, enlighten me." I quipped.
"When it is hurt a certain amount in a short amount of time, it enters into a sort of rage state. It becomes so enraged at everything, it attacks all living creatures around it to survive. Even their owners."
Then all the turrets aimed at Doomsday and opened fire.
At first, he was roaring in pain and thrashing around, he did take down a couple of turrets but they just re-materialized in place and continued firing.
Then at one point, Doomsday stopped fighting back. As soon as this happened the turrets stopped as well.
Then Doomsday's eyes started to glow a bright yellow, as he slowly looked in our direction.
If you have any questions relating to the plot of the story, please publicly send a review for me to answer publicly in the next chapter. This way if other people have the same question, instead of doing their own review I can just give them the answer here.