Futuristic ARK: Survival of the Fittest (Closed)

[Darkling0096]

"Hopefully," Jack agreed, "There's also some fiber clothes, in there, save some carry weight."

"Cool," Anna smiled and took her set of equipment, switching the hide for the lighter cloth in her inventory, "You guys ready to go?"

 

[Silverwings]

Vera, doing thw same as Anna, changed in her inventory to the cloth set, "I think im ready."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Alright," Jack set a box down for the other stuff by the door for a short inventory dump. Food, his clothes, water skin, and pike were all he had in his inventory, with just some meat in Janus's so she could recover stamina. "Hold down the fort, Roan!", he called back to the man fiddling with the bird saddles before they set off.

"Alright," Anna smirked and put a bolt in her crossbow as the moved. Everyone knew the drill. Stay together until they saw beacons, don't grab anything that's heavy, but if you find anything like a blueprint, a recipe, or an item they couldn't get otherwise, grab it. Don't fight unless you had to, they weren't equipped for battle, their weapons were for emergencies. Once they had their medallions, head back to the fort and wait for the others, but if you saw a flare get moving to help.

Heading upriver, it didn't take long for the beacons to begin appearing in their field of view. They were always dropping, it was just an issue of where were they and could they open them? They found they couldn't open yellow or red crates, which probably meant there was even better stuff in there once they could open them.

 

[Silverwings]

"Hey, just an idea," Vera said as they moved along, "Do we really have to split up? I mean.. it doesn't really affect our odds of finding a medallion, does it?"

 

[Darkling0096]

"Well," Anna looked around, "We know they appear in purple drops. If we split, we'll be able to check more at once. The chances are greater if we search in bulk, and we might get it done faster." Searching one crate at a time, they could only search one at a time, which wasn't guaranteed to have what they wanted inside. But searching multiple crates at once, and the chance of finding what they were after increased by virtue of more boxes being opened. "If I hold up three waterskins and say the entire can only drink from one, and you don't know which one has water in it, you've only got a one-in-three shot at getting the water. But if everyone in the group can drink from one each, the odds are guaranteed that you'll find it eventually."

"She's got a point, though, remember the rex?", Jack said, siding with Vera, "Safety in numbers." They might be able to open only one crate at a time, but with the three of them together they'd have an easier time of defending themselves. Three raptors against one person was a death sentence, but three raptors against three people with two of them focused exclusively on defending against them was a pretty good chance of survival.

 

[Silverwings]

"We don't really know whats out there. If we get attacked while we are alone, one of us could be dead before any help comes," Vera added, "So really we're choosing defense over.. odds?"

 

[Darkling0096]

"We're choosing speed over being able to fight things we're supposed to run away from," Anna countered.

"Look," jack shook his head, "Either way, we're going to be doing this for a while, and it's not going to be the last time we chase loot drops. I wanted this to be quick too, but look over there," he pointed at where they could see a purple drop in the distance, and the outline of a rex harvesting the corpse of a diplo. "And that's just the first one I spotted."

"Of course you'd side with her," Anna rolled her eyes, "If you two wanna go be lovey-dovey instead of hunting the thing to keep us alive, fine. I'll go." She turned Occisor to look around for another beacon and went off towards it, grumbling, "Occisor's fasting than you two anyway."

 

[Silverwings]

Vera rolled her eyes, "That wasn't the point being made.."

She looked at Jack, "Well, what do you want to do? Split up or stick together?"

 

[Darkling0096]

Jack sighed as Anna ran off. "Do we really have a choice?" He looked at Vera and shrugged, "I'll take defense while you check the crates. Hopefully we'll find medallions before it gets too dark."

 

[Silverwings]

Vera nodded, "Hopefully she doesn't get hurt.."

Vere lead the way to a drop away from the rex, not really wanting to deal with it. Taking a look inside, there wasn't much worth taking.

 

[Darkling0096]

Roan must have gotten very, very lucky to get the medallion when he did, because by the time the sun started to go down, more than a dozen crates and several scuffles with small predators later, they had a lot of blueprints, of varying quality, but only one respawn medallion between them. "Are you kidding me!", Jack groaned when they opened yet another crate and found yet more blueprints for metal pipes and crop plots.

 

[Silverwings]

"I wonder how it went for Anna," Vera said as they made their way back, "I didnt see a flare so I assume she's ok."

 

[Darkling0096]

"I guess we'll find out," Jack sighed, "We're gonna need a box for blueprints, aren't we?" At least these were items they wouldn't need the engrams for. Jack wasn't sure what the difference was between primitive and journeyman was, but maybe that meant a better tool? They had a blueprint for a mastercraft wooden bow, what did that do? He looked over at Vera, "You should keep the medallion, you leave the base more than I do."

Already waiting back at camp, and looking very smug with herself, was Anna, sitting atop the wall in a chair with her her arms crossed behind her head. "Did you two run into trouble?", she asked with a grin.

"Can I smack her?"

 

[Silverwings]

Vera glared up at Anna. There was something about the smug look on her face that filled Vera's bones with fire that made her want to Anna just what it would be like to be on the receiving end of the raptors' bites.

 

[Darkling0096]

Once the gate was closed, and Jack and Anna were letting Janus and Cherry loose to go cool off from the day's adventure, Anna was coming down to take a look at their haul. "So what did you- OOF" SMACK! The back of Jack's hand connected with the back of Anna's head.

"Do you see this?", Jack rolled up his sleeve to show the bites and claw marks he and Vera had received, "If you hadn't run off we wouldn't be this torn up!" Strength in numbers, Vera was right, and the two of them had problems because Anna refused to cooperate.

 

[Silverwings]

"Good job getting your stupid medallion, " Vera grumbled, "I see you didn't have a hard time at all."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Ow," Anna rubbed the back of her head, "What? You came back fine!" As far as she was concerned, she was right. Occisor was faster than Janus and Cherry, and by herself she could just check a crate, look just long enough to see what was inside and run if she didn't like what she saw. She wouldn't have been able to be that efficient about it if she had to go with Jack and Vera.

"Anna, just..." jack threw up his hands, "Go be smug with Roan." He shook his head and walked over to the line of storage crates to stash away their blueprints, "It's getting dark, if you're gonna be an ass, make dinner."

 

[Silverwings]

Vera put a hand on Jack's arm, "can you get started on thst storage? I'll look at some of these recipes and see what we can make for dinner."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Of course," Jack smiled handed Vera a strip of cloth for her scrapes, "You're not hurt too bad, are you?" He could get some crates going to organize the blueprints. Weapons, clothing, equipment, and so on, ideally organized by the quality therein.

Anna took her bruised pride to go see if Roan needed any help with the saddle harnesses for the birds. "How's the harnesses coming along?"

 

[Silverwings]

"No worse than you," She answered, giving him a smile while she looked through the recipes, "Whats a cake?"

Roan looked over at Anna and wiped sweat from his brow, "Well, I've fallen several times but its coming along. Note: fibers will snap if you fall."

 

[Darkling0096]

"What do you.." Jack frowned and leaned over, "Maybe it's like a casserole?" The grainy picture on the paper sure looked like a tall casserole, or maybe a food brick. "Make it and see." It could be delicious.

Anna choked back a chuckle at the image of Roan trying to take off, and fiber ropes snapping mid-take off. "Have you tried hide?"

 

[Silverwings]

Vera nodded and got to work, "Sure. Maybe it'll be good."

Roan lifted up what looked like a messed up jumble of hide straps, "Thats what I'm working on. And don't you laugh, I landed on my back the one time. It knocked the wind out of me."

He laughed a bit, "It was scary. I thought I was gonna die."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Hmm," Anna looked at the mess and frowned, "Maybe," she looked around and stood up a piece of palm tree about as thick as Roan's leg. "Maybe it'll be easier to keep track of if you've got something to represent a leg?"

 

[Silverwings]

"That might be easier. I've been using myself as a model," Roan nodded, "Hard to see my back half."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Hmm," Anna took a look, it did seem like it would be difficult to shape leather to your butt if you couldn't see what you were doing, "You want some help?" Anna needed something to do right now anyway.